Page 60 of The Start of Something Wonderful

This is exactly how my fifteen-year-old self imagined an actress’s life to be: floating in a flower-filled bath after a hard day’s filming, reclining on a chaise longue, sipping champagne, eating fine food, sleeping in a four-poster bed, taking a dip in the privatepool, being pampered with manicures, pedicures, facials, and expensive creams.

The forty-two-year-old me is under no such illusion, but is allowing herself to relive that teenage dream for just a few more hours.

I hobble into the stone-walled dining room, bravely smiling through my pain at the other residents who bid me, ‘Good evening’.

No pity invitations tonight and fewer furtivelooks.

The moment I sit down on the carved chair, I slip off my strappy heels and wiggle my throbbing toes.

As the waiter pours me a glass of wine, I peer at the faded tapestry suspended from a black, wrought-iron, fleur-de-lis rail next to my table. He tells me an army of local women wove this by hand some four hundred years ago, and that it represents the people and the community ofthe village. On closer inspection I am able to decipher the hotel (formerly the manor house), the church, the higgledy-piggledy farmers’ cottages, surrounded by a tumult of peaks – Crinkle Crags, Bowfell, and Pike o’ Blisco – the very same ones I’ve scrambled and clawed my way up, and slipped and slithered down.

They may be responsible for my aching limbs, calloused heels, and black toenail,yet they have stirred something in my soul. I wonder if this is the same ‘something’ that motivated those local women long ago, that inspired Wordsworth to write poetry, and that has given me the appetite of a hungry hippo.

Dinner over, I wander barefoot into the garden. I pass the tiered fountain, sparkling water spouting from a chubby cherub’s mouth, on into the peaceful sanctuary of theverdant, aromatic herb garden, filled with rosemary, sage, thyme, chives, basil, and parsley. The lavender bends and sways under the weight of the droning bees. The fragrance is soothingly hypnotic. The heavily laden fruit trees, watched over by the moss-coated statue of the goddess, Pomona, cast mystical shadows on the lawn.

I spread my pashmina on the grass, sip my Irish coffee, and openmy notebook.

All at once my concentration is broken when, without warning, a low-flying Tornado jet from the nearby RAF station shoots across the rosy pink sky, leaving behind a thick, white vapour trail. I look up and there it is – the title I’ve been searching for pings into my brain …

Winging It

A Comedy in Two Acts

* * *

Thirty-six hours later, I’m walking through the irongates for the final time and down the driveway towards the main road.

I stop, turn, and give one long, last respectful look at the Langdale Pikes: strong, magisterial, graceful, and wise.

The last two days have instilled in me an inner peace and strength, which I will doubtless need to tap into as I re-enter the real world in just a few hours’ time.

I take my seat in the Quiet Coach,the doors beep shut, and we’re off, London-bound. The mauve and green hills flicker through my reflection and are then snatched away too soon.

I lean back into the headrest, close my eyes, and slip into a dreamy, cinematic state …

I’m once more at the summit of Crinkle Crags, looking out over Great Langdale, cut to Red Tarn lake, where Ifinallylearned to swim (yay!), pan over to FifthAvenue, downtown Manhattan …

CARRIE: Em, honey, what are you wearing?

SAMANTHA: You’ll never get a man looking like that.

MIRANDA: What happened to you?

CHARLOTTE: We’re taking you shopping, hon.

I awake with a jolt, painfully aware of several sets of scornful eyes upon me, theSex and The Citytheme tune blaring from the overhead rack. I leap out of my seat, grab my bag,and pull out my phone.

‘Hello,’ I whisper.

‘Lionel here. Got a casting for you, darling. It’s …’

‘Don’t tell me; it’s tomorrow.’

‘Yes, how did you know? Anyway, someone …’

‘Let me see, someone has dropped out at the last minute?’

‘Their losscouldbe your gain.’