ONE YEAR AFTER YOU

  SHARI LOW

  CONTENTS

  On This Day We Meet…

  Prologue

  Friday 9 February 2024

  8 A.M. – 10 A.M.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  10 A.M. – Noon

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Noon – 2 P.M.

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  2 P.M. – 4 P.M.

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  4 P.M. – 6 P.M.

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  6 P.M. – 8 P.M.

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  8 P.M. – 10 P.M.

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  10 P.M. – Midnight

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Midnight – 8 A.M.

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  More from Shari Low

  About the Author

  Also By Shari Low

  About Boldwood Books

  ON THIS DAY WE MEET…

  Odette Devine, 69 – Grand dame and star of the Scottish TV show The Clydeside for over forty years. Married four times, now single.

  Calvin Fraser, 58 – Odette’s ever-patient manager and friend. Most of the time. Has been known to claim that working for Odette is like handling bees but without the natty white overalls.

  Carl Newman, 38 – Director of The Clydeside.

  Elliot Banks, 40 – Documentary producer/director shooting a chronicle of Odette’s life.

  Mitchum Royce, 56 – Former Edinburgh banker, gambling addict, Odette’s fourth and final husband.

  Tress Walker, 43 – Widowed one year ago when her husband, Max, died in a car crash, she’s now single mum to their child, Buddy, aged one. Recently took up a position as set designer on The Clydeside.

  Rex Marino, 34 – Ruthlessly ambitious, way-too-handsome actor who plays Odette’s son on The Clydeside.

  Nancy Jenkins, 67 – Tress’s next-door neighbour, happily engaged to Johnny Roberts, her late husband’s childhood friend, whom she met again a year ago at a school reunion. Retired school dinner lady, head of Neighbourhood Watch, force of nature.

  Val Murray, 67 – Nancy’s friend since they met at Weirbridge Primary School a million years ago. Married to Don, the love of her life, and heartbroken that her wonderful man has Alzheimer’s disease.

  Noah Clark, 36 – Paediatrician at Glasgow Central Hospital, divorced from ex-wife, Anya, after the car crash that killed his best mate, Max, also exposed his wife’s affair with his friend. Now he’s helping Tress raise Buddy, while dating…

  Dr Cheska Ayton, 36 – Head of A&E at Glasgow Central Hospital and Noah’s girlfriend of the last few months.

  Keli Clark, 29 – Noah’s sister, a nurse on the elderly ward at Glasgow Central Hospital.

  Yvie Danton, 34 – Keli’s friend and a nurse on the same ward.

  Gilda Clark, 64 – Noah and Keli’s straight talking, ever-loving, no-nonsense mother.

  PROLOGUE

  Odette

  I’m very aware that life can change in a heartbeat. In a minute. In an hour. In a day.

  Forty years ago, I was working in a school canteen in a village on the outskirts of Glasgow, despairing that my dream of becoming an actress would amount to nothing more than another clichéd story of failed ambition and grudging obscurity. Then a twist of fate presented the opportunity to get everything I ever wanted, but I had to do the unforgivable to claim it. Now, the fame, the fortune and the glory are being stripped away from me and I’m going to be left with nothing and no-one. And I can’t help wondering if I’m paying the price for the sins of my past.

  Tress

  I’m very aware that life can change in a heartbeat. In a minute. In an hour. In a day.

  One year ago today, I was heavily pregnant, only three weeks before my due date, when I waved my husband, Max, goodbye and told him I’d miss him, even though his business trip would only take him away from me for one day. At least, that’s what I thought. I had no idea that he’d be dead by nightfall. A car accident. And it came with a devastating twist. He wasn’t alone. He was in the car with his mistress, my friend, Anya. It was a betrayal that was so close to home, so brutal, so calculated, that I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it. How will I ever teach our son how to trust someone with his heart, when I don’t think I’ll have the courage to let anyone into mine again?

  Noah

  I’m very aware that life can change in a heartbeat. In a minute. In an hour. In a day.

  A year ago, I had a lifelong mate who was closer than a brother. I didn’t know that Max was sleeping with my wife, Anya, until I found their car overturned in a ditch, both of them close to death. I switched into doctor mode, and tried desperately to help them, but I couldn’t save Max. Anya survived, but the wounds of her infidelity with my best friend were fatal to our marriage. It flatlined. Since then, I’ve forced myself to love again. Now I’m at the precipice of a new life – but am I brave enough to jump?

  Keli

  I’m very aware that life can change in a heartbeat. In a minute. In an hour. In a day.

  I used to be proud of who I was. Honest. Hard-working. Head screwed on and big plans for my future. But that was before I met him. Before I slept with him. Before I got caught by the oldest lie in the book – I’m yours. Turns out he didn’t even love me for a second. And yet, despite that, I’ve honoured my promise to him that I would never tell anyone about our relationship. Not a soul. So what do I do? Do I expose his lies and spill his secrets? Do I save my dignity and walk away? Or will a blue line on a pregnancy stick make that decision for me?

  FRIDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2024

  8 A.M. – 10 A.M.

  1

  ODETTE DEVINE

  February in Glasgow. There was frost on the streets outside, so, of course, someone in the maintenance department at The Clydeside studios had overcompensated by turning the heating up too high and now Odette could feel tiny beads of sweat pop from the pores of her freshly made-up face. Damned incompetents. It had been set in stone for the last forty years that her dressing room be kept at a steady sixty-two degrees. Fahrenheit. None of this centigrade nonsense.

  Odette considered explaining this to the production runner who’d just popped into her dressing room with a fresh vanilla cappuccino, but the girl looked about twelve and she had the thumbs of someone who spent way too much time scrolling on her phone, so there was always the worry that any perceived slight, criticism or display of divadom would result in a disparaging post going viral by lunchtime. Odette had already discovered how quickly that kind of thing changed public perception. Until her last day on earth, she would believe that the viral clip of her disdainfully binning her lunch after some hopeless assistant had brought her the wrong order for the third day in a row had been the first brick taken out of the wall of her career. A wall that was getting its final kicking and crumbling to rubble today.

  She subtly blew some air up onto her lip, hoping that the camera that was only three feet away (again, none of that metres nonsense) wouldn’t pick it up. The documentary crew had been following her last month as one of the stars – some, including her, would argue the biggest star – on the set of The Clydeside, the thrice-weekly Scottish soap that was as much part of the cultural identity of her generation as bagpipes and Billy Connelly. The show aired every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and pulled in over a million viewers a week – although, granted, that was down from three million in its heyday. The TV network had pitched this fly-on-the-wall film to her as being a tribute to her life’s work, the chronicle of the swansong of a Scottish acting icon, but Odette knew the truth of it. Nothing was more dramatic than witnessing a demise, a goodbye, the end of an era, and they were hoping that she’d give them a meltdown or controversy that would make it must-see, car-crash TV. Well, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. She was going to glide out with elegance and grace, because that was all she had left.

  ‘That is the face of a star who is thinking evil thoughts,’ Calvin chided her playfully, as he glanced up from his laptop. He’d been her manager since the early nineties, and friend too, and she was all too aware that he could read her like a well-worn, ancient old book. And that went both ways. She knew that in his head he had one raised eyebrow of disapproval, even if he couldn’t show it, thanks to his last round of Botox. He’d had it topped up because he knew he was going to get screen time on the documentary. She also realised that he was giving her a subtle heads-up that she wasn’t giving her best face to the camera, so she immediately turned on her famous, mega-watt cheeky grin. In the old days, that smile had been pure gorgeousness. Now it looked like she was advertising denture cream. Which was probably the only option open to her now that the curtain was coming down on her acting career.

  ‘Och, not at all, Calvin,’ she chided him jokingly, hoping that she was giving ‘relaxed and relatable’ to the camera, as opposed to the ‘bloody furious, irritated and devastated’ that she was feeling on th
e inside. This was a more strenuous test of her acting skills than the episode where she found out that her screen husband was having an affair with the postwoman. Or even the scene where it was revealed that her long-term nemesis was the sister she didn’t know she had. It was probably up there on a par with when eco-terrorists stormed the town hall meeting and held the townsfolk hostage in protest against… Actually, she couldn’t even remember why. It had been such a ridiculous storyline that she’d made sure the writer who came up with that nonsense only lasted one series. That was when she’d had power. Now her opinions meant nothing. ‘I’m just thinking about all the wonderful writers I’ve worked with over the years, and all the drama that it’s been a gift to put on screen,’ she warbled on, face to camera. ‘I just hope I’ve done it all justice.’ Humble. Grateful. Calm. Talking down the Clydeside eco-terrorists had been a breeze compared to this.

  The director of the documentary, Elliot, was in his late thirties, handsome and obliging, in a Hugh Grant Notting Hill era way. He would never have been her type. Odette had always had a penchant for men with a hard edge, a touch of arrogance, the ones that had a presence when they walked into a room. The same men who inevitably turned out to be chronic arses, who swaggered out of her life, taking her heart and her bank balance with them. She knew the type so well because she’d married four of them. Four husbands. Four splits. No children. The last one had robbed her blind. Taken every single penny she had. But she would be six feet in the ground before she’d admit that to anyone. She hadn’t even told Calvin the extent of it, so she sure wouldn’t be flashing her dirty laundry to the probing camera of this wannabe Scorsese here.

  Elliot took that moment to throw in a question. ‘So, Odette, it’s your last day on set after four decades of playing Agnes McGlinchy on The Clydeside. Tell us how you’re feeling.’

  How was she feeling? Bloody furious. Enraged. Lost.

  One last day. This was it. She had a final scene to shoot, and then a lame lunch soirée with the cast and crew, dinner with her manager, Calvin, tonight and then…

  She had no idea what would happen after that.

  She would wake up tomorrow morning and what? Stare at a wall? Watch old recordings from a time when she mattered?

  Odette didn’t miss a beat. ‘Just ever so thankful. How many actresses get to spend four decades playing the same part? Agnes McGlinchy and The Clydeside have been my whole life and I’ve adored every day of my career.’

  If she had been linked up to a lie detector, the needle would have fired across the paper like a serial killer denying he had anything to do with the bodies in his freezer. Her declaration of love for her life on the show was perhaps true of her first three and a half decades, but the last five years had been a battle. Diminishing screen time. Ever-changing writers. Directors who thought they knew better. The buggers had got her now though. A new team of producers, directors and writers had come in a few months before and they’d told her six weeks ago that they were ‘going in a different direction’. And their new direction was sending her to Destination Unemployment.

  ‘The people that really matter, though, are the fans. I hope that all my lovely Devine Believers…’ Yes, she had a fan club, and yes, that’s what they called themselves. People really had to get out more. ‘…will look back on these years with love and keep me in their hearts, even when I’m no longer on their screens.’

  Cheesy nonsense. Her toes were curling inside her Louboutin stilettos (her own – wardrobe was too cheap to go designer and Agnes McGlinchy rarely wore anything other than slippers these days). But Calvin’s subtle smile and nod told her that was the right answer.

  Elliot wasn’t done. ‘And how will you spend your days now, Odette? Do you have plans for your retirement?’

  Good question. And one that made her stomach flip.

  For the last forty-odd years, her days had been structured, giving her whole bloody life to this show. Five, sometimes six days a week, she’d grafted long hours, leaving her too exhausted to do anything more in her time off than marry losers, sleep and binge-watch the other soaps. EastEnders. Coronation Street. River City. Emmerdale. Throw in the odd true crime show, and sleepless nights spent glued to the overnight TV shopping channels, and before she knew it, it was Monday morning and time to do it all over again.

  If she didn’t have her work, then what did she have?

  Sure, she had friends. Kind of. Perhaps they were more acquaintances. Colleagues. Fans. Although, she would bet her last pound that they would scatter when she was no longer the celebrated actress and star of the small screen. Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith might still be landing roles in their eighties, but Odette was irrevocably typecast. To the TV-viewing world, she was Agnes McGlinchy. And Agnes wasn’t about to give up her role as the serial busybody on The Clydeside and start doling out missions to James Bond, or swap her Glasgow brogue for a cut-glass accent and spend her twilight years firing off words of sarcastic disapproval in an aristocratic country estate in 1921. Nope, she was doomed. Over. Finished. Maybe only a life insurance or a stairlift advert between her and the crematorium. In fact, that might be another opportunity. A crematorium advert in return for a free funeral. That was the level of her career expectations right now.

  ‘There are so many things I plan to do now. Of course, the most important is to spend time with the people I love.’ Odette didn’t mention that they were in short supply. Her most consistent relationship was with the delivery guy who brought the packages she’d ordered from her late-night TV shopping habit. ‘And then I want to travel, perhaps to Asia, to America. I’ve been thinking of renting a convertible and driving across Route 66. Maybe spend some time in Los Angeles. I’ve had some very interesting calls from that side of the pond, and I might just dive into some other opportunities.’

  The imaginary lie detector just started beeping like a reversing bin truck. Hollywood wouldn’t know her number if someone spray-painted it on the Walk Of Fame. And if she was going to go travelling, she’d need to use her Government-issued, over 60s, free bus pass because she was broke. Skint. Cleaned out. Her last husband, Mitchum Royce, had been a former Edinburgh banker (with a ‘w’), who had schmoozed her until she’d married him on holiday in Vegas in 2015. The reality of who he was couldn’t have been clearer if it had been plastered on a flashing billboard on The Strip, playing ‘Viva Las Vegas’ on a repetitive loop, but she’d been too blinded by love or lust or loneliness to see it.

  Gambling addict. Compulsive liar. Not a faithful bone in his body. She found out later that just days before their wedding he’d agreed to quietly resign from the bank after they found out he’d been misappropriating client funds (a move kept confidential to save the bank’s image). Their marriage had lasted two years, before he’d taken off with a cocktail waitress half his age that he’d met on yet another trip with his cronies to Sin City. Only afterwards did Odette discover that before he’d left, he’d systematically drained her bank accounts of over two hundred grand, every penny she’d saved since her previous divorce, while racking up tens of thousands of pounds of debt in her name. She’d been paying it off ever since, keeping it secret from the world, because she hadn’t wanted to look like the sad fool she’d become.

  Now all she had was her re-mortgaged home, her shoes and her name, because, thankfully, she’d been smart enough to keep it through four marriages, realising that when it came right down to it, it was all she had. And it wasn’t even real. She’d become Odette Devine when she’d landed her big break, saying goodbye to Olive Docherty, her moniker for the first twenty-nine years of her life. Another secret. And yet another one that she wasn’t giving away to anyone, including the documentary director who was like a wasp buzzing beside her ear. One she wanted to swat.