Fiction extract - Super troupers

Three women unexpectedly bond one seventies’ summer in Aussie author Laura Bloom’s moving novel about friendship, family and freedom. Leaving their husbands, they set up a commune – an ABBA song never far away.

- Laura Bloom

For a certain kind of person, there’s only one thing less welcome than a bill – and that’s an invitation.

“Oh no,” Libby groaned, as she picked up a thick brown envelope from the pile of letters in her lap. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch in her living room, surrounded by her family.

“What is it?” asked Ben.

Neither of the children looked up as she ripped it open. “Anna Wotcek has invited us to a dinner party.” She winced. “On scented paper.”

“Who?” asked Ben.

“You know exactly who. ‘Dinner for eight at eight’, it says. I bet she’ll serve fondue, and make us talk about abstract art.” Libby groaned and looked at her husband. “She must have loads of people to invite. Why us?”

“Probably because you invited her to our house for a dinner party last week,” said Ben mildly, going back to the balsa-wood model aeroplane he was gluing together under Jasper’s intensely interested gaze.

“That wasn’t a dinner party, darling,” explained Libby kindly. “That was dinner.”

He squinted up at the ceiling as if he were about to sneeze. “The food was fancy.”

“It was chicken! With just a splash of red wine. And the only reason I invited them – at the last minute, mind you – was because Summer and Michelle have become friends. I never meant for this to happen,” she added in a whisper, glancing down at her daughter, who was lying with her back to them on the carpet, a pair of giant headphones covering her ears.