by Gill Paul
She had no sense of time – how long she had been in the water, how long in the boat – but the sun had begun to lower in the skies when they heard the unmistakable sound of a ship’s horn. Gerda raised her head and looked over the edge to see a fishing boat approaching fast. Sailors were waving at them.
She bent and kissed Jack full on the mouth, whispered in his ear: ‘We’ve made it, dear. We’re safe.’
His eyelids flickered and his lips moved. She bent her head close to his mouth.
‘Tell me again. I didn’t hear.’
‘I love you, Snow Maiden,’ he murmured.
This is a fictionalised account of a real-life couple, Gerda Nielsen and Jack Welsh, who met on the ship and were married on Thursday 13th May, 1915, just six days after the sinking, in a Manchester registry office. Of the 1,959 passengers and crew on board the Lusitania, only 761 survived.
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About the Author
Gill Paul is a full-time write of both fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include Women and Children First, about a steward on the Titanic, and The Affair, which takes place in Rome in 1962 on the Cleopatra set as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor fall in love. Her new novel, No Place for a Lady, set amongst the chaos and carnage of the Crimean War, will come out in July 2015.
CLAUDIA CARROLL
Single, Forty and Fabulous
The Feel-Good One
Copyright
Avon
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015
Copyright © Claudia Carroll 2015
Claudia Carroll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008136109
Version: 2015–01–23
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Single, Forty and Fabulous
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About the Author
Single, Forty and Fabulous
Oscar Wilde once said that the tragedy of ageing isn’t that you’re older, it’s that you’re still young. And guess what? Today I’m discovering exactly what he meant.
It’s my fortieth birthday and I’m not a happy woman. Compounded with the fact that it’s also Valentine’s Day which of course ups the ante on the whole of this nightmarish day tenfold. Only people who had the misfortune to be born on either Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve will believe it, but trust me, if your birthday comes on a red letter day like this it frankly couldn’t suck any more.
Now normally I’m not a moaner or a whinger at all, I promise, but it’s my fortieth, so you’ll just have to indulge me. And yes, yes, of course I know that life is too short to dwell on every little bump in the road and that we shouldn’t measure our happiness against other people’s, but – well, it’s just on this of all days, I can’t help but feel deeply unfulfilled, stuck in a rut and don’t even get me started on my love life, which seems to have gone from a slump to an all-out strike.
Finally forty. Finally old enough to know that there’s more to life than sex and shoes and parties, but still young enough to know that they are the best bits. And that lately, I’ve been seeing damn all of any of them.
‘Oh for God’s sake, would you just listen to yourself!’ I say out loud in spite of the fact that I’m all alone, in a vague attempt to snap myself out of this pity-fest. My ‘surprise’ birthday-cum-Valentine’s night party over at the tennis club started half an hour ago and here I still am, still in my flat, still only half dressed and still bloody whingeing. I mean yes, OK, I may have reached this milestone age without a) having a husband/boyfriend/partner/any combination of the above or b) having kids and a family of my own, but I haven’t exactly been sitting around filing my nails all these years, have I?
’Course not. I’ve … erm … loads to be thankful for. Great friends for starters. And a really successful career that I absolutely love. And a wonderful family. Yes, OK, I wish my darling dad was still with us, but Mum’s still hale and hearty and well, compared 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 the roaring eejit that I was, I actually turned down a perfectly good place at RADA so I could possibly appear in the worst soap ever committed to the small screen? And if I had gone to RADA then who knows? I could be well on my way to being the next Helen Mirren by now. Or Judi Dench. I could have been a respected actress instead of thinking myself lucky to get offered guest slots on any old quiz show that’ll have me.’
‘At least you have a boyfriend, who’ll be on your arm when your turn comes to face the medieval torture of your fortieth. You’ll have someone to take you home, and help you to nurse your hangover the next day. Do you know what I just realised as you arrived to pick me up?’
‘What’s that hon?’
‘That if I ever had my time over, I would do things so differently. Re-prioritise. Not focus on work so much and really, actively go looking for my life partner.’
‘I don’t suppose all this is about James Watson again, is it?’ she asks, looking at me keenly as our taxi weaves its way through a traffic jam. ‘You know, the way his name automatically seems to crop up every single Valentine’s Night?’
‘No of course not, it’s just that … ’
OK, I’m making a pig’s ear of trying to explain myself, but what I’m really trying to say is that … I have twenty-three year olds who work for me and when they were handing over the helium birthday balloons in work earlier today, (bright red and love heart-shaped for V-Day, naturally,) I could see them all looking at me with pity in their eyes. You could almost see them thinking, ‘Yes, OK so you may have a great career, but you’re also forty and alone on Valentine’s Day and that certainly doesn’t make you any kind of role model for us.’
‘I wish I was twenty-one again, I trail off lamely. ‘That’s my birthday wish right here and now, on Valentine’s Night. Because believe me, I would do things so differently. And it’s absolutely nothing to do with James Watson, honestly.’
Although if I’m being really honest, it kind of is.
OK, I should explain, given that it’s a night when all my past failed relationships seem to flash right in front of my eyes, like the drowning single gal that I am. Because James Watson was my first boyfriend. My first proper, real, true love and I broke up with him because when I was twenty-one, I was offered my first proper job as an intern over at The Times in London. Which of course meant relocating to the UK. Yes, I could probably have kept seeing James and somehow made a go of things, but I didn’t. I went for the clean break option. Like the misguided moron that I was, I figured there had to be someone better out there for me and guess what? Turns out there wasn’t.
‘And speaking of people who wish they could be twenty-one again …’ Amanda mutters as the taxi pulls up outside the tennis club where we’re having the party.
‘What’s that?’ I ask, but instantly shut up when I see.
It’s Sophie. Our oldest and bestest mate. Or as everyone seems to refer to her behind her back these days, ‘poor Sophie.’ She’s just pulled her car in ahead of us and shoved her feet out the driver’s door to whip off trainers and put on party shoes, looking even more frazzled and exhausted than she usually does, God love her.
OK, just a few things you need to know about poor Sophie. The Sophie standing in front of us now is about as different from the Sophie we knew as teenagers as it’s possible to get. In fact to see her now, it’s almost impossible to remember a time when she was wild and mad and up for anything, devilment never far from her flashing blue eyes. Always doing something utterly ment
al, then daring to me to do exactly the same.
She used to have long red hair down to her bum and smoked from the age of about thirteen without ever once getting caught, whereas all I’d have to do would be put a single foot out of line to end up with a month’s detention. Every fella I knew fancied Sophie, they couldn’t not; she was just such fun and so completely reckless; even sitting on top of a bus with her was an adventure. I still have the school yearbook where she was voted, ‘girl most likely to do absolutely anything.’
But ‘the girl most likely to do absolutely anything,’ became pregnant aged twenty-one and the following year, gave birth to my beautiful God-daughter Ella. By twenty-two, she’d married Ella’s dad, a sound engineer called Dave Edmond and by age thirty, she had a total of four kids, all under the age of ten. Now, Sophie’s a divorced single mum, who works part time in Tesco and really struggles to make ends meet. Meanwhile her ex-husband has just begun to live with a part-time student beauty therapist, with naturally blonde hair and legs up to her armpits.
‘A student beauty therapist? Sophie had snarled at me at the time. ‘For God’s sake, what is there to study? How to rub cream into people’s faces?’
Poor Sophie. Compared with her, Amanda and I are living in Euro Disney.
‘I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life,’ Sophie sighs as Amanda and I both hug and air kiss her. ‘If you knew the jigs and reels I had to go through with babysitters just to get out the door tonight? Never, ever, ever have kids ladies. If you feel the need to reproduce, just borrow one of mine for the weekend and you’ll be cured. Pure, visual contraception, that’s what they are. Honestly, I should charge people.’
My party is being held in the same tennis club where we’ve been celebrating every significant birthday I’ve ever had on every single Valentine’s Day all courtesy of my mother, who’s been on the organising committee since the year dot. She’s just inside the door handing out vol-au-vents and looking flustered, but instantly switches to a frown when she sees me clatter in.
