‘Are you trying to tell me something? Is that what you’re driving at here?’ he asked. His tone was jovial but there was still a riptide in my stomach. ‘I know you and Faith are close and all—’ he dug his thumb into the heel of my left foot ‘—but are you that close?’ He winked at me. ‘Because if you are then I can get behind it for a while, you know, if—’

‘Don’t worry, babe.’ My voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘I know you’d die if that happened.’

He laughed. ‘Point taken. Come on, though, imagine being left because you’ve turned someone?’

‘But wouldn’t you just want me to be happy?’

He made the same face as before, and I could see how much brain power the question required from him. But he soon shook his head. ‘No, Edi, I think I’d just want you to be straight.’

Chapter 35

Now

The waiter took the card machine away and handed me the receipt with a flat smile. Betty had been making socially inappropriate comments in earshot all evening – ‘So, I’m having my smear test right …’ – because she had no concept of the socially inappropriate. But it had started to get to the poor chap somewhere around an hour in – ‘Only arseholes expect you to have sex without a condom these days’ – and his face, at least, hadn’t quite recovered from these separate waves of shock. I’d been so embarrassed that when the card machine asked if I wanted to leave a tip I’d sincerely considered it, until I realised a) Betty could actually talk about whatever she wanted in public with her friends and b) she was definitely right about the condom thing.

‘Thanks ever so much,’ I said, and smiled. My tip? Be less judgemental.

‘So, can we have a quick check-in before you leave?’ Molly asked.

‘About?’ I shrugged on my coat as Lily cleared her throat.

‘How the sex is with Fred.’

Cora reached across the table to backhand Lily’s upper arm. ‘That is not what we want a check-in over.’

‘Ah, actually—’ Faith raised a finger in protest ‘—I’m certainly curious.’

‘I also wouldn’t mind knowing.’ Betty spoke through a mouthful of food.

‘Perverts.’ Cora looked from one woman to the next before landing back on me. ‘They’re all bloody perverts.’

I nodded. ‘No more or less so than they always have been, though.’

‘We didn’t talk about sex this much when Edi was having sex with Rowan,’ Molly added, weighing in on Cora’s team. It was the crass versus the controlled and I laughed.

‘In their defence, though—’ I stood up ‘—maybe sex with Fred is just more interesting.’

There was a chorus of amusement and applause from one side of the table – Lily, Betty, Faith – while the opposing seats flashed wide eyes before a slow fade to a laugh.