Love...Maybe: The Must-Have Eshort Collection. Julia Williams

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to a lot of people I’ve got loads to be grateful for. I mean, I could be homeless couldn’t I? Or cleaning out sewers in Calcutta for a living? Then I’d really have something to moan about.

      And then the same question that’s been playing on a loop round my mind all day. The same thing I ask myself every Valentine’s Day since the year dot.

      ‘So what’s my birthday wish? And what would I like the year ahead to bring my way?’

      And suddenly the answer hits me, as sharply as a chilli finger poked into my eye. Life, I decide as I lash on the lip-gloss, is a bit like Van Morrison’s Moondance album; all the best bits are on the first side. And so on this most momentous of nights, I wish … I wish …

      I’m rudely interrupted by a taxi horn blaring up at me from two floors down below. Amanda, my oldest and closest friend, here to give me a lift to the party and thankfully a good half-hour late, as usual. Amanda and I have been best mates through school, all the way through college and like I always say, men may come and go, blue eyeliner and the bubble perm may come and go, but true friends are, like Mac Bronzing Powder or the Hermes Birkin bag … here to stay, whether we like it or not.

      Anyway, Amanda’s dream was always to become an actress and at age twenty-one, she turned down a place at RADA to accept a tiny part in a daytime soap. She struck it lucky though, the character took off and within one season of the show she suddenly found herself a household name, with all the supermarket opening and tabloid-baiting which that entails. But although she made a shedload of cash, the show was unexpectedly axed and as she turned thirty-five work dried up literally overnight, the way it does for any actress during those death knell years.

      ’Course none of this is helped by the fact that after almost five years of virtual unemployment, Amanda’s name keeps turning up on those, ‘where are they now?’ type shows. Pisses her off no end. Plus the fact that the last proper, paying, gig she was offered was on a rip-off of those reality celebrity TV shows, where you live in the jungle for three weeks eating cockroaches and sharing the one loo, all while Ant and Dec laugh at you.

      Poor old Amanda. There are times when you really do have to feel sorry for her.

      ‘Happy birthday, Kate … and let Valentine’s night feck off with itself,’ she offers a bit half-heartedly, as I clamber into the taxi beside her. But then Amanda has to face into this awful nightmare of turning forty in just a few weeks’ time and I reckon she’s starting to feel a bit jittery too. In fact, she’s looking at me now in much the same way that miners look at canaries going down coal shafts.

      ‘So it’s the big birthday. How does it feel, hon?’ she asks worriedly.

      ‘Honestly?’

      ‘The truth and nothing but.’

      ‘Completely fabulous! Turning forty is without doubt the single best thing that’s ever happened to me. Ever. By far.’

      She shoots me this wry, sideways-on look that she only keeps for when I’m really talking through my arse.

      ‘Never go on the witness protection programme, Kate. You are without doubt the worst liar alive.’

      ‘Right then,’ I sigh. ‘In that case, today is probably the single most depressing day of my whole life to date. And I’m including my father’s funeral in there too, by the way.’

      ‘Oh come on now, it’s just another year, another milestone, with a brand new decade ahead of you to look forward to. What’s so bad?’

      ‘Amanda, as you of all people know only too well,’ I say turning to face her in the back of the taxi, ‘over the years, I’ve invested a lot of time and energy worrying about a whole lot of stuff that never even happened. Things like … would I ever be able to afford a mortgage on a home of my own? Would work take off for me and would I actually be able to support myself as a journalist? But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I’d somehow end up forty years of age and alone. On shagging Valentine’s Day. And the worst part is, it’s far too late now for me to do the slightest thing about it. I mean, if love and happiness were meant for me, wouldn’t they have happened long before now?’

      ‘Total rubbish!’ Amanda says warmly. ‘You’ve got a fabulous job that you love and that you’re completely brilliant at. And the only reason you don’t have a fella is because your career is your first, real, true love. Look at you, you’re not only the youngest, but also the first female editor they’ve ever had at the Chronicle! Besides, isn’t it far better to be on your own and independent, than with some git who’ll only mess you around? Who needs that anyway?’

      ‘Hmmm,’ I say more out of politeness than anything else, but deeply unconvinced.

      ‘Besides,’ she goes on, warming to her theme now, ‘if you really want cheering up, just take a look at me and my pathetic life. Every single birthday, I look back on the year’s work I’ve done, and you know what? This year, apart from one detergent commercial that I ended up getting cut out of, and two days on a TV game show, I’ve basically been sitting at home watching daytime telly and living off my ever-dwindling savings. While actresses years younger than me, with perky bodies and unlined faces get all the jammy jobs. Look at me, Kate, I’m nothing more than a washed-up old has been.’

      ‘That’s absolutely untrue …’ I tell her gently, but she barrels over me.

      ‘No hear me out, because I’m seriously having to face up to the fact that if I ever want to play a part within my own age group again, than I’ll have to have a full facelift. Bloody Botox! It’s only gone and raised the bar for all of us, hasn’t it? So now of course, if an actress my age is lucky enough to be offered any part, you still have to look young enough to be ID’d in bars.’

      Ageism, I should mention, is a particularly sore point with Amanda, even more so since her agent told her that the only job offers she’s likely to get this year are either panto or else third prostitute from the left type roles, in rubbishy old cop operas. If she’s incredibly lucky that is.

      ‘But on the plus side,’ I retaliate, ‘remember that you did at least make serious money on that soap you were in. You’ve got a stunning apartment to show for it and you have the gorgeous Dave on your arm tonight. You’ve actually got a long-term boyfriend whereas I’m forty years of age on Valentine’s Night and finally having to face up to the hard, cold fact that I’m a man repeller. On the one day of the year where every garish red love heart I see seems to scream to me, ‘look at you, forty and alone!’

      ‘Complete rubbish!’ Amanda fights back. ‘Ok, so maybe Mr. Right hasn’t actually shown up as of yet …’

      ‘Or maybe he did, years ago, and I was just too young and stupid to recognise him,’ I say, thoughtfully looking out the window at twinkly heart shaped helium balloons looking back at me from just about every shop window. Meanwhile countless couples weave through the traffic making their way to already overcrowded restaurants to take their place in queues stuffed with nothing but more couples. Not a single singleton in sight.

      God Almighty, I should be shot, stuffed and displayed in the Smithsonian as a wonder of the world. In a glass box that says ‘This is what forty and single looks like. Take note thirty-something women everywhere … and beware!’

      ‘Well, at least you have a proper, decent career that’s going from strength,’ Amanda interrupts my train of thought, in the ‘whose life is worst’ contest that’s now developed between us. ‘May I remind you that at aged twenty-one, like СКАЧАТЬ