Charlotte Wood

They love each other deeply.

But they...

They're irritable.

I don't know about you or the people in this room, but one of the things I love about my oldest friends is that they just get straight to the point.

They will say, your hair looks great, those shoes are terrible, why are you wearing those shoes?

Or that sort of just directness.

It's like family.

They cut through, there's not too much sort of...

I mean, they're very loving, my friends, and none of them are like these women.

In fact, all of those women are aspects of myself that are kind of, I hope, slightly stretched and exaggerated.

They predict each other's behaviour, which often turns out to be right.

But they feel, each of them feels that if Sylvie were here, I wouldn't be feeling so annoyed with her.

Or if Sylvie were here, she wouldn't be doing that annoying thing.

Or if Sylvie were here, I could say to Sylvie, oh, Kate, you know, Anna's been, why is she doing that?

And you would say, well, that's because blah, blah, blah.

And I'd think, oh, okay.

Well, you know, cut her a bit of slack then.

You know, that sort of, Sylvie was a smoother over of waters.

And so...

They don't have her anymore, so they're kind of adrift and they're grieving.