Based on Delia saying "there has to be somewhere" and my extreme want for Patsy and Betty McRae to meet somehow. Delia and Patsy have their first experience at a gay club. They met a Canadian couple and their best friend who convince Patsy to finally come out to Trixie.
"Are you sure about this? What if somebody sees us?" Patsy asked the girl who was pulling her down the darkened downtown London street.
"Will you calm down, Pats," Delia said, smiling up at her nervous girlfriend. She had been like this since they got on the bus back in Poplar. "We are too far away for any patients to see us. And even if anyone does, I think not telling is kind of the point."
"How did you even hear about this place?" Patsy asked.
"There are more people like us in Poplar than you and Tony think," Delia stated.
Patsy shuttered for a moment when Delia said his name. She had kept in contact with Tony Amos. Well, secret contact. As far as everyone knew in Poplar, he had been reformed and was the prefect father and husband. Patsy would get lunch with him about twice a month. He was the perfect father. He was trying to be the best husband to Marie he could be.
Patsy had felt an obligation to be friends with him. He figured her out quickly but didn't say anything as he took the full force of Poplar's hatred. He told her what she did to defend him was more than worthy of him keeping his mouth shut.
"Oh come off it. Relax. Anyway, The London has diversified a bit since you left to live in a convent," Delia told her again.
"Fine, fine. I'm relaxed."
"Good, because I think this is it," Delia said slowly as she veered to the left, pulling Patsy behind her.
Patsy didn't get a chance to see the name of the establishment but saw a poster beside the door that read "Special one night concert by Canadian songstress Kate Andrews." Below was a photograph of a beautiful woman with a knowing smile and curly red hair flowing around her shoulders.
Patsy yelped as Delia's quick pulling caused her to trip over the door frame into the bar. Delia helped steady her and smiled.
"Well, here we are," Delia commented.
The two of them looked around. For a moment it seemed like every club they had been to near Poplar, just with more dramatic red lighting and better music.
Once Patsy looked closer, she realized most of the tables had either two men or two women at them. A few were holding hands and one bold couple was making out in one of the booths as if no one was watching. Patsy felt a boost of confident from their bravery and shamelessness.
"Find a table, will you? I'll go order us drinks," Patsy told Delia.
"Martinis a good start?"
"Certainly," Patsy said as she walked toward the bar.
"What would you like, darling?" asked the suit-cladded woman bartender.
"Two Martinis, please," Patsy stated, digging into her purse and putting double what the price would be in Poplar on the counter.
She took the two drinks and turned to find Delia. She had selected a high table near the stage, rather close to another table occupied by a brunette and a blonde, both seemingly in their 40s.
"You got a light," the blonde was asking Delia when Patsy arrived at the table. "I lost mine at the airport."
"I don't but," Delia said, perking up when Patsy and the drinks arrived at the table, "Patsy should."
"Should what?" Patsy asked as she sat on the stool across from Delia.
"Have your lighter on you?" her girlfriend asked.
"Yes, of course," Pasty said, quickly pulling it from her bag and handing it to the blonde with a smile.
The blonde light her cigarette. "You need it before I give it back, Princess?" the blonde asked the brunette.
The brunette faux dramatically sighed and fidgeted before pulling a cigarette from her purse and letting the blonde light it.
"Thanks, red," the blonde said as she handed it back.
"Not a problem," Patsy replied, unable to control her nerves as well as she would have liked.
The blonde chuckled slightly. The brunette gave her a sympathetic smile.
"She's the nervous one," Delia stated.
"Delia!" Patsy scolded.
"What? You are," she replied.
"Oh pay it no mind, dear," the brunette said kindly to Patsy, patting her on the shoulder. "This one was in your shoes too once upon a time," she motioned across their table to the blonde. "Isn't that right, Betty?"
"Sorry," Betty said to Patsy. "I guess it's been too long."
Delia decided to take over the conversation, knowing Patsy had already shown more vulnerability than she liked to.
"Really? How long have you too been together?" Delia asked them, intrigued.
Betty chuckled again. "We ain't together."
"Then...why are you here?" Delia asked.
But before anyone could answer the record player stopped and an Italian looking man in a dark suit walked onto the stage and up to the microphone.
"Ladies and gentleman, I am very pleased to announce a special one night only performance by the fantastic, beautiful songstress who took a detour from her European tour to visit us tonight. All the way from Toronto, Canada, Miss Kate Andrews!"
Applause filled the bar. Patsy knew she had recognized the name when she past that poster, but once she saw the beautiful redhead in the white dress walk onto the stage joined by her muscular, handsome piano player, she remembered she had heard her records before. Delia had a few of them and lent them to Patsy. Every so often she as able to play them in between Trixie's utterly mainstream British records.
The blonde seemed fixated with Kate Andrews and could not look away from the stage.
The brunette leaned closer to Patsy and Delia's table. "They are together," she explained. "I'm just a friend of theirs. Gladys," she said holding out her hand.
"Patsy."
"Delia."
Gladys hopped over to the open stool at their table. Betty seemed that she would be a lost cause until Kate left the stage.
Delia still seemed astonished by the brunette. "You're friends with Kate Andrews and her girlfriend?"
Gladys nodded, taking a sip of her champagne.
"Who's the embarrassing one now?" Patsy shot at Delia, drawing a laugh from Gladys. "Sorry, she seems a bit star struck."
Gladys and Patsy looked at Delia, who seemed equally fixated by Kate Andrews and Betty.
Gladys looked at Patsy with a smile. "I have grown a bit accustom to this over the years."
"Are you a musician too?" Patsy asked her.
"Oh, no. I work for the Canadian government. I have just been friend with them for a very long time.
Actually, since we were about you guys' age," Gladys asked. "We met through work, though."
"Truly?" Patsy asked excited. She peered at how Betty was staring at Kate Andrews and hoped she and Delia would still look at each other the same way in 20 years.
Gladys nodded while lowering her glass. "Yes, at a munitions factory in Toronto during the war. You two seem like shoulder to the wheel types, what do you do?"
"Shoulder to the wheel?" Betty criticized. "We're nearly 6,000 kilometers from home, Gladys. Leave it in Canada for once, will ya?"
"Oh watch your love and leave me alone, Betts," Gladys shot back.
Betty's attention was already turned back to the stage.
"Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yes, what do you kids do?" Gladys asked Patsy again.
"We met working as nurses at The London, a hospital on the other side of town." Patsy smiled across the table at a still fixated Delia. She had forgotten how much she liked Kate Andrews. "She still works there. I'm a district nurse and midwife now, working for Nonnatus House in the East End."
Patsy finished her martini. Gladys seemed to have some sort of elite status and with a wave of her hand both of their drinks had been replaced. Patsy looked down at it reluctantly at first.
"Oh come now, just drink it," Gladys stated as she raised her glass for a toast.
Patsy half smiled and did the same. Everyone broke into applause again as Kate Andrews finished the song.
"Thank you," she said into the microphone before stepping back to her glass of water.
"By golly, she is fantastic," Delia said turning away from the stage and back toward Patsy, Gladys and her drink. She took a gulp.
Gladys nodded. "I've been listening to her sing for 20 years, since the first time she started singing on the floor of our bomb factory. I've been amazed ever since. That song was off her newest record."
"I know," Delia stated. "I took the bus to a record store near here to buy it."
"You did?" Patsy asked. "Why haven't I gotten to hear it yet?"
"Because you spend all your time in your room listening to Trixie's terrible music," Delia said, giggling.
Kate Andrews started to sing again and Delia's attention was snapped away.
"Trixie?" Gladys inquired of Patsy.
"Oh god, it is not like that. She is my roommate at Nonnatus, the convent."
Gladys had a laugh a bit. Patsy nodded in understanding. "What's her thoughts about the two of you?"
Patsy blushed and nervously sipped her drink. "She doesn't know."
"Just roommates then, not friends?" Gladys asking encouragingly.
Patsy took a moment to size up the woman before answering her question. She was a proper sounding and seeming Canadian lady, a government worker. Patsy didn't get the feeing from her that she did from Delia and Tony and most of the people in the bar.
But she was friends with Kate Andrews, the singer Delia had started liking so much because she had heard she was like them. It turned out she was and even had a girlfriend who was at her show too. As was this proper lady, Patsy found hard to understand. Well, maybe not hard to understand but hard to believe she could be real.
"No," Patsy decided to admit. "We are friends. She is my best friend, actually."
"And she does not know?" Gladys asked.
Patsy shook her head, looking down into her drink as she took a sip.
Betty looked over she shoulder. She hopped down from her stool and walked over to them. She stepped between Gladys and Patsy's stools, putting her arm around Gladys' shoulders. For the amount of confident and strength she exerted, Patsy figured she would be taller.
"You nervous about telling her, kid?" Betty asked her.
Patsy nodded. "Sometimes it seems like she already knows but other times it seems like she does not have the slightest clue. She's very..."
"Girly," Delia chimed in.
"Yes, girly. And she's engaged to a cleric. There was one time when she said she didn't have a problem but she and her fiancé agreed it was a sin." Patsy quickly stopped talking, realizing she was beginning to ramble.
"'The Bible also says to stone a man for working on Sundays'," Betty said with a smirk. "You and your roommate work on Sundays?"
"Yes, all the time," Patsy answered.
"Kate's pianist, Leon, said that to her while we were all working on a Sunday back when she thought what we felt for each was a sin," Betty stated.
"But, how does that help?" Patsy asked confused.
"If this girl is really your best friend," Gladys began, "it should not matter to her. It might be the opposite of what she expects or exactly what she expects, but if she is truly your friend it will not make a difference."
"You really think so?" Delia asked.
Gladys' statement had turned her attention away from the stage.
Betty and Gladys smiled at each other.
"Well, tell 'em the story, Princess," Betty said to Gladys.
She smiled and turned to the young couple. "We were at a bar, similar to this one, in Toronto. Leon's band was playing and he asked Kate to sing with them. I was standing beside Betty and I could just tell by the way she was looking at her and how she spoke about her. Nobody else would have picked up on it, but nobody knew her like I did."
"I told you, Pats. I think she already knows. Nobody who is that skilled at flirting can be that blind," Delia said.
"I guess you're right," Patsy told Delia.
Applause interrupted their conversation again as Kate finished her song.
"I am going to slow it down a bit for this next one," Kate Andrews said into the microphone. "This song is for anyone here forced to hide from the outside world. And to celebrate this safe place, I want to invite my special someone onto the stage."
Betty went red as Kate locked eyes with her. She staggered up to the stage and let Kate pull her up. A cheer, which started with Gladys, spread across the bar.
Kate started to sing and Delia excited jumps down from her stool.
"Waltz with me?" Delia asked as she held her hand out to Patsy.
Patsy smiled with only half her mouth and let Delia led her to small dance floor in front of the stage. They clasped hands and put the others around each others' waists.
"I told you there had to be somewhere," Delia said up to Patsy with a smile.
"I'm glad you found it."
They waltzed, slowly and happily as Kate Andrews and Betty did the same before the microphone onstage.
"I love you," Patsy whispered down to Delia after a moment or so of silence.
"I love you, too," Delia answered.
Patsy had to take a moment to remind herself where she was and that it was alright. When her racing mind was finally convinced, she bent down and kissed Delia.
Once she pulled away, Delia gazed up at her with a pleased face.
"We should start coming here regularly," she said.
"I think I would enjoy that."
Once Kate Andrews was done singing for the night, she, Betty and Gladys spent only a short amount of time at the table. Delia was too star struck to speak until the last few minutes. Betty gave them free tickets to Kate's actually concert in London that would be happening in a few weeks.
The three of them had to leave shortly after midnight to catch a train to Belfast for Kate's next show. Patsy and Delia jumped on the last bus back to Poplar.
Patsy slipped back into her room at Nonnatus shortly after 1 a.m.
"And where have you been until such a late hour?" asked Trixie, who was still awake with a drink on the nightstand and a magazine in front of her.
"Out with...Delia," Patsy answered nervously.
Trixie nodded, took a sip of her drink and seemed to turn her attention back to her magazine.
Patsy reached her bed and sat down, facing her roommate, co-worker and best friend.
"Trixie, can I tell you something?" She asked nervously.
Trixie peered at her in wonder. "Oh, this sound exciting." She closed her magazine, threw it aside and turned to face Patsy. "Well spill, Patsy?"
"It is about me and Delia," she began, not sure what to say next. "I'm...we're..."
Trixie gave her a warm smile as if she was encouraging her to continue.
"She is more than just my friend. We are together. As in dating," Patsy said.
As soon as the words left her lips, she found herself in a barely controllable panic. Surely, Trixie would hate her, call her a sinner or turn her into the police. She could end up in prison. Trixie had told her about the local woman's prison, it sounded like a horrible place. She couldn't survive there. And she would never get to see Delia again. Would there even be a point to surviving?
Trixie sighed and laughed. "Nurse Mount, Were you nervous about that? You know I have seen you and Delia together a lot. I was almost certain you loved her."
"Are we that obvious?" Patsy asked nervously.
"To the trained eyes, meaning me, yes. But to those of lesser experience, Barbara and the nuns for example, no one would have noticed," Trixie said with a smile.
Patsy gave a small laugh.
"Why tonight of all nights did you decide to tell me?" Trixie asked.
"Delia found a bar, one that is friendly to people like us in downtown London. This Canadian singer, Kate Andrews, was there. She is like us too and we conversed with her girlfriend and best friend. They sort of encouraged me to tell other people," Patsy explained shyly.
"Well I have drug the two of you to enough bars in Poplar, you should force me to this London place sometime," Trixie said.
"They actually gave us free tickets to Kate Andrews' next show in London in a few weeks. We could go before if you would like to come along and see all the action first hand."
"Oh, I would love to," Trixie said with a big smile.
Patsy got ready for bed. She was about to turn off the light when she felt Trixie gazing at her.
"What?" she asked.
"I'm so excited to meet Delia again," Trixie told her grinning.
"What do you mean again?"
"I met her as your friend, silly. Now I get to meet her as your lady. I have been waiting for the day when I could be your intimidating friend to whoever you started dating," Trixie said exciting.
"There is no need for that, Trixie," Patsy said knowing it would make a difference. "We have been dating for while now."
Patsy reached over and turned off the lamp.
"Oh you are telling me all about this in the morning," Trixie said into the darkness.