Page 68 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

The Beach Boys

GOD ONLY KNOWS

The room was aglow with tea lights, fairy lights, and all manner of other quaint things that Janet had managed to pull from her loft. There was no reason for the party – or rather, no reason that she had outright said. But I had my suspicions. Janet’s parties were most often held either to celebrate a break-up or to celebrate… And there he was, the newest of boy-toys hanging from Janet’s arm while she lingered in the corner of the living room with a champagne flute. She was wearing a floor-length black dress that was every bit too fancy for an evening hosting a party in her own home, but she looked gorgeous for it so I wouldn’t fault her. It put my light grey pantsuit to shame, I thought, although some effort had gone into choosing it. In the days of Sheila – as I’d come to think of them – my confidence had sky-rocketed enough to allow all manner of new dresses and trouser combinations to sneak into my wardrobe. Now, weeks on from what I had resigned myself to thinking of as an Actual Break-Up, I found I no longer had confidence left over for those sorts of stylings – and the pantsuit was one of the few things I’d found that hadn’t needed an iron.

I gave Janet a wave and a wink from across the room, and she retaliated by blowing a kiss back at me. ‘Where’s David?’ she mouthed, and I shrugged. It was the first time I’d had to walk into one of Janet’s parties alone – the first time I’d gone to any of our friends’ parties alone, as far back as I could remember, in fact – and the only thing that had saved me from throwing what I could only consider to be an out and out wobble about the whole thing was that I’d arrived an hour late, strategically, knowing that the party would be too busy for anyone to even notice that I was sans husband. Apart from Janet, of course…

David had told me that he was coming, but he’d be more than fashionably late.

‘Do you have a good excuse?’ I’d asked, watching him through the mirror in our own living room as he straightened his bow tie. He was vastly overdressed for the occasion, but I’d put it down to his long-standing spite against Janet. For a woman he didn’t care about impressing, he never seemed able to pass up an opportunity to do so.

‘I’m picking something up for the party,’ was all he’d said – and his smirk had been enough to put me off asking anything further.

The first people I saw, that I recognised, on stepping into the kitchen in search of booze, were Ella and Nora. I’d neglected so many friends in recent weeks, I knew, owing to the wallowing; probably more so in the weeks beforehand, too, owing to the throes of the romance. But when they saw me, they flocked my way as though no time had passed between this and our last meeting. This was one of the joys of our age, I’d discovered. None of us gave a toss enough to hold grudges.

‘My darling,’ Ella said as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders, ‘love the suit.’

‘Though it needs an iron,’ Nora added as she plucked at my sleeve.

‘Thank you.’ I leaned into Ella. ‘Sod off,’ I answered Nora.

‘Let my wife apologise for her rudeness by getting you a drink.’ Ella squeezed me closer to her. ‘There’s an offensively attractive young man at the island making cocktails.’

‘Porn star martini?’ Nora suggested and disappeared without waiting for an answer.

‘We’ve missed you, sweetheart,’ Ella said when it was just the two of us – well, just the two of us and a room full of people.

‘Patti!’

I turned at the sound of my own name and spotted Gerald, a fantastically camp man who I’d always suspected was in a similar marital situation to me and David, though he’d never confessed as such. His wife waved at me from across the room and I answered the gesture. But Gerald soon swallowed me into a hug that pinned my arms to my side.

‘How are you, dear?’

‘I’m well, Gerald, how are yo–’

‘The speed at which that man makes a drink,’ Nora interrupted. That was another joy of our age: the ability to be blissfully rude and have no one take offence. ‘Here you are, love. Gerald, don’t you love Patti’s pantsuit?’

He stepped back to survey me and narrowed his eyes.

‘Let me guess,’ I said, easing the glass away from Nora, ‘needs an iron?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said it,’ he answered.

‘Honestly, you lot…’ I sipped my drink and allowed the trio to envelop me in laughter. Stepping into the room without David may have felt strange. But stepping into the warmth of friends was the balm I hadn’t known I needed.

‘Don’t hog the woman!’ Janet bustled in for a kiss on my cheek. ‘Patti, you look–’

‘Like I need an iron?’

She hesitated. ‘I was going to say chic, but all right.’

‘Ladies, I’ve lost my wife,’ Gerald announced, though the comment wasn’t exactly fraught with concern. ‘I’ll go and seek her out and find you all later. Patti, is David coming to this thing or not?’

‘Apparently he is.’ I sipped at my drink again; it was far too easy to imagine it was only fruit juice. ‘But he said he had to pick up–’

‘A woman,’ Janet butted in and I laughed.

‘Not quite. He said–’