Fifty Is Not a Four-Letter Word (25 page)

Academically, I was up and down like a yo-yo. At nine I was so ahead of my peers that the headmistress of my primary school
put me in for my Eleven Plus, so I was sent to grammar school with kids a year older. I struggled for two years to keep up,
and by the end of the second year was almost at the bottom of my class. Because of my age, it was decided that I should repeat
my second year rather than going into the next class in a lower stream. This may have been a smart educational move, but it
played havoc with my social life. My older friends couldn’t handle being pals with a girl in the year below who still wore
ankle socks; my new peers had already formed the kind of close-knit girl gangs that were impossible to penetrate. What little
confidence I had was shattered. I’d wander round the school grounds alone at break, trying to look as though I was heading
somewhere. Round and round I went—popping back to the classroom to “fetch something,” going to the loo when I didn’t really
need to, anything to use up the time before classes would begin again. So I worked hard, caught up, and went back up again
to the top of the class. “Well, what do you expect?” the girls whispered, but loudly enough to make sure I could hear. “It
doesn’t take a genius to be top of the class when she’s already done the whole year once before. Not exactly fair for the
rest of us.”

I’m catapulted back to the present by the sound of whining. I rush to Susanna’s crate and scoop her up and out through the
conservatory to the back garden. She races around manically for a minute or two, then circles on the spot a few times before
squatting to relieve herself.

“Good girl,” I say. “Good girl, Susanna. I hope you’re going to be happy in your new home.”

• • •

When Olly gets in, he finds me and Susanna enjoying a game of tug-of-war with a short rope I’ve selected from her green plastic
toy box, the very same toy box that many years ago belonged to Olly.

“Come and meet your little sister, Olly,” I say.

“What a beautiful girl.” He grins, his face alight with pleasure. In the next instant, Olly’s down on the floor with us, Susanna
is licking Olly’s face, and I’m thinking this feels like a proper family. I do wish Jack could see us now.

• • •

That night, while Susanna sleeps in her crate, I sleep on the sofa in the conservatory next to her. Apparently, this arrangement
will accelerate the bonding process and ensure that Susanna gets to know who’s leader of the pack while she adjusts to separation
from her doggie family. When Susanna wakes in the middle of the night and cries, rousing myself isn’t a problem. I am already
wide awake, staring through the glass roof to the stars, and trying to work out why I so deliberately sabotaged my job prospects
at Jackson’s. I put on the dressing gown and rubber shoes I’ve left by the back door and stumble back outside with Susanna.
It’s two a.m., and I’m fifty years old and standing in the garden in a dressing gown and blue rubber shoes and haven’t a clue
where my life is going. But one thing is certain. Little Susanna is going to have a happy home life, even if the rest of her
housemates are more like something out of
Big Brother
than
Little House on the Prairie
.

T
here are two new e-mails in my inbox. The first is from Creative Talent Search. I double-click on “interview” in the subject
box. As I read, I can feel all the little thread veins in my cheeks rising to the surface.

Dear Hope,

Thank you so much for your interest in the position of editor of the new launch at Jackson International.

Your track record is one of the best we’ve come across, but after a great deal of consideration and having seen all the other
potential candidates, we have decided not to proceed to second-interview stage.

Annelise and I wish you luck in finding a position to suit your considerable talents in the near future.

With all good wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Sharp

The little creep. The lousy little creep and his weaselly accomplice who is so unversed in basic etiquette that she didn’t
even have the manners to introduce herself when we met. They can’t get away with rejecting
me
. I rejected
them,
for heaven’s sake. Didn’t I tell them they could stuff their
Celebrity Diets
launch? Didn’t I make it absolutely clear that I didn’t want their lousy job? Is this how headhunters justify their existence?
By demonstrating that they’ve turned down sufficient candidates to make the ones left on their short list look as though they
got there through a process of exhaustive inquiry? Even my nose is hot. Since I turned fifty, whenever I get cross, my nose
goes red. I look like a lush. I could certainly do with a drink, but it’s nine-thirty in the morning, and I really don’t want
to go down that route.

Supposing this gets back to Jackson’s boss, Craig. Although Craig Anderson knows exactly my capabilities—over the last decade
we’ve lunched at least once a year, and he’s always hinted at wanting to lure me from Global if the right job came up—he’ll
still be infected by the revelation that I didn’t sufficiently impress his new star publisher to get through to the second
round (though what it says about Craig that Ms. Annelise got to be his new star publisher is a worry in itself). And then
no one, no one at all, will ever again be interested in giving me a proper job. “No, not Hope,” they’ll say automatically
whenever my name comes up, “she’s a bit over-the-hill, don’t you think, a bit
erratic
.”

I could be gracious and let this go. Write it off to their inexperience. But there’s something nagging at me, something bothering
me that has nothing to do with Harry’s undeniably crass and inappropriate e-mail. It’s the feeling that even if I’d wanted
the job—a job I could do with both hands tied behind my back—they would have turned me down. That they’d want someone younger.
That by taking myself out of the running before they had the chance to do it for me, I was subconsciously eliminating the
possibility of rejection. Except that my safety net seems to have failed, and they’ve rejected me anyway.

I press the reply button:

Dear Harry,

I would like to put it on record that I withdrew my candidacy for the job at the interview. I made it absolutely clear that
I was not interested in editing a magazine about celebrity diets.

It is unprofessional and potentially slanderous to reject me for a job for which I am not even applying.

I will be contacting Craig Anderson personally to make quite sure he is fully aware of the situation.

Yours sincerely,

Hope Lyndhurst

I still remember the number for Jackson International. The switchboard puts me through to Craig’s assistant, who, when I tell
her who I am, puts me straight on to Craig.

“Good to hear from you, Hope. How are you doing? I was thrilled to hear you’ve had another baby.”

“Yes, I’m great, thanks,” I say, hoping I sound convincing. “Big misunderstanding about the baby, though. Your headhunter
and your publisher thought I was referring to a baby, but I was actually referring to a dog.”

Craig lets out a great guffaw. I can picture his considerable jowls juddering appreciatively. “Priceless, Hope, absolutely
priceless.”

“Believe me,” I say, “the way my life’s going at the moment, it would have to be immaculate conception for me to have another
baby.”

Craig guffaws again. “You know, I love it when you talk dirty. We really should do lunch, you and I.”

“Lunch would be lovely, but I’d like to put the record straight now. You must know I would be the worst possible choice as
editor of
Celebrity Diets
. I’m just so not into that kind of thing. I made it absolutely clear to Annelise and the lad from the recruitment agency
that I didn’t want the job, but this morning I received an e-mail that was effectively a rejection letter.”

“You’re really cheering me up today,” says Craig, hooting with laughter again. “I’ve known you long enough, Hope, to know
that you wouldn’t be remotely interested in
Celebrity Diets
. You never should have been contacted by my people in the first place. I gave them some names to call, and you weren’t even
on my list. If you had been, I’d have called you direct, you should know that. Bring me the head of the headhunter, I say.
Honestly, I don’t know why I bother with them.”

“At least you can rest assured that without me at the helm,
Celebrity Diets
will be your next big hit.”

Everything I say seems to make Craig laugh.

“Look, Hope, I’d love to catch up, I really would, but I’m away for the last two weeks of August with the family, and then
I’m traveling throughout September. And I know I don’t have anything for you in the immediate pipeline. But let’s fix something
for October, by which time I may have some interesting little projects to talk about. And even if I don’t, it would still
be a pleasure to buy you lunch.”

“I shall look forward to it.”

“By the way, I hear
Jasmine
’s going swiftly down the pan. Not one of Simon’s finest moments.”

Simon, my old boss, and Craig are deadly rivals, and the two are always equally gleeful in their aggressive put-downs of each
other. Each respects the other a great deal, but neither would admit it publicly. Their spats are great fodder for the trade
journals, but I know for a fact that they dine together regularly. Craig would say
Jasmine
was going down the pan even if its circulation had tripled. But the thought cheers me anyway.

“Have a good summer, Craig, and I look forward to seeing you in the autumn.”

“You, too, Hope.”

• • •

Susanna is trying to jump on my lap.

“Hang on, sweetie, just one more e-mail to look at, then we’ll go for our walk.”

It’s quite a momentous day for me and Susanna. She’s had her twelve-week vaccinations, and it’s safe to take her to the park.
The dog bible says I need to get her used to socializing with other dogs. But how will I get along with the other mothers?
Will I need to have them back for tea?

I neither recognize the name nor know what the message may be about from the words “Grand Hotel” written in the subject area.
Junk or virus, I suspect, about to hit the delete key. But something stops me. Daniel Drake. There
is
something familiar about the name. Daniel. Dan. Could it possibly . . . ? I never even knew his surname. My stomach does
a little flip. In taking the chance of it being him, I risk the virus corrupting my computer.
Sod the virus,
I think as I double-click, my finger trembling slightly as it hovers above the mouse.

Hi Hope,

That was one helluva sudden departure back in May . . . If I’d known where you were staying, no way would you have gotten
away without saying goodbye.

Now for a
Once in a Lifetime
(Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, bet you got it right away) opportunity of making up for your disappearing act.

We’re having a last-minute summer vacation in the UK, doing a house swap with a high-rolling Bostonian couple who moved to
England ten years ago, and ended up buying some down-on-his-luck lord’s ancestral pile in Dorset. Wife plus kids, we’ll be
doing the whole Hardy hog for a two-week stretch. Trouble is, I go stir-crazy after about forty-eight hours in Arcadia.

I’ve been reading your British critics on the Net about the new production of
Grand Hotel
at the Donmar in Covent Garden, and they’re raving about it. The pitch is this: You come as my guest to the show and dinner
afterward, and I leave the theater booking and restaurant reservation to you.

I don’t wish to be presumptuous, as you Brits are so fond of saying, but if, as we Yanks are so fond of saying, this idea
floats your boat, then I’ll be one happy guy. I have a hotel booking from the twenty-third through the twenty-sixth and hope
you’re going to be in town.

Say I can see you again. But if not . . . I guess we’ll always have Paris.

Dan

We’ll always have Paris! How corny you are, Mr. Dan Drake. Pure schmaltz. Methinks you’ve maybe seen one movie and several
hundred musicals too many. But you’re a lot more cute than you are corny. A “helluva” lot more. This needs some serious thought.

Seeing Dan on home territory would be madness, especially while I’m trying to get Jack back. But supposing Jack won’t come
back and I miss out on my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
We’ll always have Paris
. We could always have Paris again.

“Come on, Susanna, we need some fresh air. Let’s go for a walk and talk this over.”

• • •

I’ve bought a special extra-long training lead for our first few outings. I’m not convinced that my leadership skills are
sufficiently intact for Susanna to obey my every command off-lead. Before I got a dog, I barely noticed other people’s, unless
one happened to crash into my legs during an overexuberant play session with another pooch. Now it seems that almost everyone
has a dog. And because mine is still at the adorable puppy stage, we are stopped every five seconds so she can be oohed, aahed,
and fawned over. Not even real babies have this effect on the British. I’ve made about ten new friends in as many minutes.

Although Susanna and I would love to walk for an hour or two, I’m under strict instructions to restrict the length of our
outings until her bones have grown stronger. This means I won’t be able to take her on my training walks for the trek; I’ll
have to leave her at home and then take her out for her own play session later. Jack was certainly right about a dog taking
over your life. But at the moment I like having my life taken over, even though I know The Future has to be faced. Sooner
rather than later.

Apart from her toilet training, which is not quite as advanced as I would like it to be, Susanna has been beneficial in all
sorts of unexpected ways. My mother is in love with her. In fact, she has expressed more affection for Susanna in the last
couple of weeks than she has for me in fifty years. She allows Susanna to jump on her precious white sofas, and the two of
them snuggle up and take a nap together. Despite my mother’s increasing frailty—and my father’s concern that Susanna might
be harboring germs—my mother insists on allowing Susanna to lick her face, her neck, her hands, and any other exposed body
part. My mother talks to her—her voice is now a hoarse whisper—in the manner of a doting grandmother, exclaiming constantly
at Susanna’s beauty and brilliance. I can’t help making comparisons with her lack of interest in Olly. In truth, it sickens
me. But it also lets me off the hook. With Susanna in her role of peace ambassador, there is a secure buffer zone between
me and my mother. My visits have increased from three times a week to almost every day, and it’s the presence of Susanna that
has made them bearable.