A splotch of pink managed to push its way through her impressive layer of foundation. ‘Just be warned, this isn’t an excuse to drink wine and gossip. If you want a laugh or somefun times, try the bingo.’
No wine, gossip or laughter. I had been warned!
‘Glass of wine, Jenny?’ Sarah held up a bottle.
‘Yes, please.’
‘And don’t scarper without me telling you what happened in the café today between that bloke with the smelly dog and Kylie Jones: Hot. Gossip. With a capital H.’ She fanned her face, and winked at me. ‘Have some crisps.’
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I blamed it on being overtired. I was especially overtired of people treating me as beneath them. I held my glass up to Lucille in a toast and laughed again. ‘Cheers! Isn’t this fun?’
She tutted. One tut, from between her disconcertingly white teeth.
‘Almost as fun as the Oxford debating society.’ I grinned.
‘Oxford University?’ she asked, stiffly.
‘Yes. Did you go to university, Lucille?’ I asked, burying my face in my glass. I knew she had gone to a nearby establishment currently facing closure due to their habit of pumping out sub-standard qualifications locally derided as equal to a Cub Scout badge. I didn’t judge her for that – for goodness’ sake, I’d flunked out of enough college courses. But I couldn’t stand intellectual snobs. And fake intellectual snobs were possibly even worse.
Lucille narrowed her eyes, ignoring me and calling to Ellen, ‘Can we get started? This book can’t be adequately discussed in half an hour.’
This book, in my opinion, couldn’t be discussed adequately no matter how much time we had. But we had a jolly good go.
The book was Lucille’s choice, a novel entitledThe Wheel of Woman. I had quickly scanned Kiko’s copy earlier, which had left me none the wiser about the plot. Or the characters. Or the setting. I did know it was something to do with a woman. And some sort of wheel. Which might have been metaphorical. Or real. Or both.
It didn’t appear to be my kind of book.
Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Sarah sat back in her chair and took a big bite of Bakewell tart. ‘I didn’t get it.’
Lucille rolled her eyes. ‘No surprise there. Did you even finish it?’
‘I read the last couple of pages. Does that count?’
‘Honestly!’ Lucille bristled. ‘How are you possibly going to appreciate the—?’
‘What did you think, Kiko?’ Sarah interrupted.
‘Well. Yes.’ Kiko shuffled about on her cushion. ‘I thought some of the description was very… thought-provoking. And the lack of dialogue – an interesting technique. I’m not sure about the sexual violence. Seven pages seemed excessive to describe one incident.’
‘It was the most significant moment of the book,’ Lucille snapped. ‘Ripe with meaning. The broken lamp being a metaphor for the wolf. Genius!’
‘So, was it an actual wheel, or an imaginary one?’ This was from Ashley, the one person I hadn’t met yet. A plump woman around forty, she wore a pale purple dress with a peach Alice band and frilly yellow cardigan. She reminded me of a bag of sweets. ‘I might have liked it more if I’d understood the bit about the wheel.’
‘The bit about the wheel?’ Lucille flung out her hands in disgust. ‘The wheel was thewhole pointof the book!’
‘I thought it was about the woman.’
‘The Wheel of Woman! The clue is in the title! Surely even you can understand that much.’
‘And why didn’t the woman have a name? I mean, just “woman”. It made her a much less likeable character.’
‘Argh!’ Lucille stood up. ‘She wasn’tmeantto be likeable! This isn’t some book-by-numbers, guess-the-ending-before-you’ve-read-the-first-sentence, nausea-inducing, thought-rotting, auto-tune slush-festsaga. You might have to rummage around in your brain for the on button to read this one.’ She kicked a chair with her wedge-heel.
‘Sit down, Lucille,’ Jamie said.
‘Yes, sit down,’ Frances chipped in. ‘And stop kicking the furniture. You’re a grown woman, not a teenage boy who can’t control his hormones.’ She bent down and patted Florence, who’d come out to see what was going on.
