I thought you might like a sneak peep at my first novel, published way back in 2008 and recently updated to mark ten years since I took my first steps into writing. Itâs available from bookstores and booksites everywhere.
Ten, nine, eightâŠ
Does anyone love New Yearâs Eve? If I had my way, Iâd be in bed with a good book and an enormous glass of wine. Not stuck to a threadbare carpet in a Manchester theatre function room and forced to pretend I want to spend the dying hours of the year with people I see every working day.
Seven, sixâŠ
A guy from the tech team grabs my hand and drags me to the dance-floor. He laughs in my face and tells me to cheer up. It might never happen and I play along, faking the most cheesy grin.
Might never happen? It already has.
Five, four, threeâŠ
We link arms, and anticipation grows. A new year, new hopes, new dreams. On the stroke of midnight, lives will change. All the bits about us we didnât like will vanish. Weâll lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, join a gym, hug trees and life will be good.
Two⊠oneâŠ
The room erupts as Big Ben chimes and bagpipes quail. Streamers pop and party people hug, kiss and stumble.
Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mindâŠ
I mouth the first few words, air-kiss colleagues and do my absolute best to act like someone having oodles of fun. Across the room, my flatmate mine-sweeps abandoned glasses and necks leftover wine. My boss does his compulsory tour of duty to shake hands and exchange rousing words.
Iâve worked with Brian for nine years, and although itâs never come up, Iâm sure weâre about the same age. Our cultural references tally and we share looks of dread when younger people use words like totes, bear or sick. Heâs good looking in a greying-at-the-temples football-dad way and keeps himself in shape. Brian dresses well and happens to have perfect teeth. Mam would call him a decent catch. My sisters would love him. The stumbler being, heâs my boss. And married. To Audrey. Who everyone at the Empire Theatre fears.
Because she is terrifying.
âAm I getting a kiss?â I say when my turn comes. âOr is this a handshake only deal?â
Brian looks around before leaning in to land the slightest peck.
âHappy new year, Lisa. Are you here with Andy?â
I nod and reheat my best fake smile. Obviously, Iâm with Andy. Iâm always with Andy. People tell running jokes about how we come as a pair.
Brian beams. âSomeone said you had a boyfriend, and I told them Iâm sure youâre still single.â
He means nothing by this, and would be mortified to know how much a throwaway comment hurts. Especially the word still.
I throw back my head and laugh.
âYou know me, Brian. Young, free and unattached. Only not so much of the young. Iâm all about girl power.â
I do the v-sign thing and pout like a perimenopausal Spice Girl.
âRight⊠so⊠thatâs good,â he says and takes a subtle step backwards. âI best get back to Audrey.â
Ten minutes after midnight on New Yearâs Eve is the worst time ever to give yourself a âwhere did things go wrong?â pep talk. With my left foot jammed against a graffitied toilet door, I wish myself away. Twelve months ago - to the night - I was sure the upcoming twelve months would be my year. My lifestyle shopping list was small but perfectly formed: boyfriend, promotion, fit into (what Iâm sure are wrongly labelled) jeans.
Iâm still single, still doing the same job and, on Christmas Eve, found the inner strength to stuff those jeans in a bin bag of cast-offs and dump everything in the doorway of a cat rescue shop.
Thatâs not to say Iâm unhappy. Why would I be? Who needs a boyfriend when I share my life with Andy? Weâve been best mates for close on 20 years and long ago pledged to never become sad normals. Like anyone whoâs been around the block and feared for a lonely old age, weâve drunk too much gin and agreed on a marriage pact. If single 40 ever rolls over to solo 60, weâll wave white flags and do what every other loser does. Fake a happy union to save on food costs and pool our winter fuel allowance. Until then, weâre fine single.
People still talk about us as a pair.
Invite Andy and Lisa.
Will Andy and Lisa join us?
The flat-share thing renders us socially acceptable and allows us a taste of coupledom. Without the need to find reasons not to bother with sex. I still get to watch what I want on Netflix and donât have to pretend to like his boring mates or weird hobbies. Best of all, I get to inhale a Dairy Milk without guilt.
I date. Though treat it more like an extreme sport than something that might lead to wedded bliss. My brief encounters with suitable men come courtesy of blind dates engineered by well-meaning friends. I tried Tinder once. The evening ended with me seeking legal advice to slap a restraining order on a man called Tom who sent me daily tokens of his love. Locks of his ex-wifeâs hair, shards of her wedding dress, a photo of them together with my face superglued on hers.
And he proved to be one of my more successful dates.
New Yearâs Eve is when the nagging doubts grow loud. What if the sad normals are right?
Mam insists an old shoe exists for every old sock, and a quick search online throws up photos of the much better times that everyone from school looks to be having. Dinner parties in Farrow & Ball homes, designer-frocked cocktail receptions in chi-chi bars. The girls I assumed would end up in prison pose with a Subaru, labradoodle, and scrubbed-up children.
And hereâs me, in the staff loo, alone.
Mam is right to worry. Iâm the middle child and each time I find myself ditched, she says the same thing:
âWhat did you do to scare this one off, Lisa? We were all convinced heâd be the one.â
By all, she means my two sisters, and their lovely husbands. She also means all of her neighbours, our priest, sixteen of her closest friends and anyone with time to listen in the post office. Mrs Gupta, who handles the QVC returns, considers it an absolute scandal Iâm not yet spoken for. She suggested burning herbs and lighting special candles to turn everything around.
Iâve become a strangerâs pet project.
âLisa. Donât take this the wrong way, but if you want to come out of the cupboard, thatâs fine with all of us,â Mam said when I called to check sheâd got my Christmas cards.
âI have no idea what youâre talking about.â
âYour father loved Virginia Wade and that Claire Balding is always well turned out. I considered buying myself a pair of jodhpurs.â
The penny landed with a crash.
âIâm not gay, Mam.â
âYouâre in denial.â
âA...