Our duet goes down very well. Mostly due to my famous singing partner being one of the most popular artists on the planet. When we take a bow together, the crowd cheers and I can’t help doing a special shout-out to Ged and Liam. The crowd roars. A special shout-out to my Dollz. The crowd roars again. And a special shout-out to Eddie for not being who we thought he was. The crowd roars again. They will clearly celebrate anything.
When I get back to the cabana, Matteo is there, waiting nervously. ‘Was that too much? Should I have warned you?’
‘Yes, and yes,’ I say, laughing. ‘But what a thrill! OMG. There is no way on earth I’d have done that if you’d warned me in advance. I’m about as spontaneous as a regular flat white with soy milk and no foam. Did you know he wants me to feature on his album?’
Gah! It’s like a dream.
Matteo nods, visibly relaxing.
I stare at him. ‘I can’t believe you made this happen.’
He clears his throat, embarrassed. ‘Your talent made this happen.’
How in the name of all that is sacred will I be able to match such a grand gesture?
‘If you two can stop drooling over each other for two seconds, I have an announcement to make,’ says Tash loudly.
‘Wait. Hold on. I’m not listening to a word until you tell us exactly how old Sister Kevin is,’ says Big Mand. It has become a fixation. One that we are all on board with. We gather around Sister Kevin.
He squirms. ‘I’m…’ he begins to say, when Tash bellows it out for him.
‘For fuck’s sake, he’s thirty-four!’
Sister Kevin looks surprised.
Then Tash looks surprised back. ‘Thirty-seven?’
He shakes his head.
‘Not… not forty?’ Tash says. I can’t help but notice her hand resting on her belly. It reminds me of Cherry when Cherry thought she was…Oh, my goodness.Tash is observing Sister Kevin intently. I wonder if he is inadvertently ageing himself out of the baby-daddy market.
Or is it too late for that?
‘What’s wrong with forty?’ says Liberty defensively. She gives Eddie an adoring stroke on the cheek.
‘Just let him tell us,’ says Big Mand, the frustration clearly getting to her.
Sister Kevin has a wide grin on his face. ‘I’m twenty-four.’
Tash drains of colour. ‘But you can’t be. I’m almost thirty-two. You’re still a baby.’ Her voice fades on her lips. If I thought it was bad to marry someone without knowing their full name, then I think planning to have children with someone without knowing how old they are might be a close second.
‘MILFs are all the trend these days. A huge age gap is nothing,’ Cherry says, waving it off. ‘Just look at Hugh Jackman. His wife is in her seventies now.’
‘They’re famously divorced,’ says Big Mand.
Sister Kevin swoops Tash up into his big, beefy arms. ‘Don’t worry, old woman. I’m sure I can think of plenty of ways to keep you young.’ He is laughing hard at his own joke. Tash’s eyes grow wide as she glares at him.
Oh no.
‘Tash? Tash?’ Sister Kevin is asking as he deposits her back on the ground. ‘Are you okay, babe?’
Tash has become unresponsive, like a mannequin version of herself, frozen in time.
But then, uncharacteristically, she bursts into tears, slaps Sister Kevin hard on the chest and runs away. Once again, he turns to us, baffled.
‘What did I do this time? What did I say?’ he pleads.
‘Dude,’ says Big Sue. ‘Old woman?’
