Page 1 of The Start of Something Wonderful

PROLOGUE

Reasons for and against giving up the glitzy, glamorous world of flying:

Pros:

No more cleaning up other people’s sick.

No more 2 a.m. wake-up calls, jet lag, swollen feet/stomach or shrivelled-up skin.

No more tedious questions like, ‘What’s that lake/mountain down there?’ and ‘Does the mile-high clubreallyexist?’

No more serving kippers and poached eggs at4 a.m. to passengers with dog-breath and smelly socks.

No more risk of dying from deep vein thrombosis, malaria, or yellow fever.

No more battles with passengers who insist that their flat-pack gazebowillfit into the overhead locker.

No more wearing a permanent smile and a name badge.

No danger of bumping into ex-boyfriend and his latest ‘I’m-Debbie-come-fly-me’.

Cons:

No more fake Prada, Louis Vuitton, or Gucci.

No more lazing by the pool in winter.

No more ten-hour retail therapy sessions in shopping malls the size of a small island – and getting paid for it.

No more posh hotel freebies (toiletries, slippers, fluffy bathrobes etc.).

Holidays (if any) now to be taken in Costa del Cheapo, as opposed to Barbados or Bora Bora.

No more horseriding around the pyramids, imagining I’m a desert queen.

No more ice-skating in Central Park, imagining I’m Ali MacGraw inLove Story.

Having to swap my riverside apartment for a shoebox, and my Mazda convertible for a pushbike.

‘Cabin crew, ten minutes to landing. Ten minutes, please,’ comes the captain’s olive-oil-smooth voice over the intercom. This is it. No going back. I’m pastthe point of no return.

The galley curtain swishes open –it’s showtime!

I switch on my full-beam smile and enter upstage left, pushing my trolley for the very last time …

‘Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard? Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard?’

Have I taken leave of my senses? The notion of an actress living in a garret, sacrificing everything for the sake of her art, seemed so romanticwhen I gaily handed in my notice three months ago, but now I’m not so sure …

Be positive! Just think, a couple of years from now, you could be sipping coffee with Phil and Holly on theThis Morningsofa …

Yes, Phil, the rumours are true … I have been asked to appear onStrictly Come Dancing.God only knows how I’ll fit it around my filming commitments though.

Who are you kidding? Acouple of years from now, the only place you’ll be appearing is the job centre, playing Woman On Income Support.

This follow-your-dreams stuff is all very well when you’re in your twenties, or thirties even, but I’m a forty-year-old woman with no rich husband (or any husband for that matter) to bail me out if it all goes pear-shaped. Just as everyone around me is having a loft extension ora late baby, I’m downsizing my whole lifestyle to enter a profession that boasts a ninety-two per cent unemployment rate.

Why in God’s name, in this wobbly economic climate, am I putting myself through all this angst and upheaval, when I could be pushing my trolley until I’m sixty, then retiring comfortably on an ample pension and one free flight a year?