‘Bugger me. Really?’ Louis said, saving me the trouble.

‘Absolutely. I’ve got us tickets for the festival over at Glyndebourne.’

‘We’re really going to the opera?’ I asked.

‘You’ll love it, Ollie. I promise.’

‘What are you seeing?’ Adrienne asked her, leaning over the bar towards us.

‘Verdi’s La Traviata. I must have seen it five times.’

‘La Traviata?’ she said, clearly unimpressed. ‘It’s so fucking archaic.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Aunty Kaye argued.

‘You know what it translates as, don’t you?’

‘“The Fallen Woman”, I believe.’

Adrienne shuddered. ‘Another art form dedicated to misogyny,’ she said. ‘I doubt if it even passes the Bechdel test.’

‘Who cares about the Bechdel test?’ Aunty Kaye said. She turned to Louis and me, correctly guessing from our exchange of blank looks what our next question would be. ‘It’s a test that can be applied to films and books,’ she told us. ‘And also operas, it would now seem, to ascertain if womankind is fairly represented. To pass the test, the work has to include a conversation between two female characters, and that conversation can’t be about a male character.’

‘You’d be surprised how often it’s failed,’ Adrienne told us.

‘And it’s irrelevant actually,’ Aunty Kaye said. ‘What matters is how women are portrayed by the arts, not when and what they talk about. And you and I, Ollie, are going to see an opera where an amazing, talented woman leads the cast, occupies the stage for more time than anyone else and gets all the best music. Does that sound sexist to you?’

I looked from Aunty Kaye to Adrienne. They were both hanging on my answer. I wasn’t sure if it did or not.

‘Is that the time?’ Louis said, putting his arm round my shoulder and guiding me away from the bar. ‘We’re back on in three minutes. Get yourself over to the piano.’

‘Well played,’ I mumbled.

‘Found you a new member for Suzie and the Confessors,’ he said to the singer as she tuned up her bass.

‘Pleasure to have you, honey,’ Suzie said, kissing me on each cheek.

‘Dream on, kid,’ Louis said to me, in response to my stunned smile, as we manhandled the piano into place on the stage and arranged a couple of instrument mikes. He took off his hat and hung it on a microphone stand between the two of us.