Carol and Carly took over, the camera back on just the two of them as they wrapped up the broadcast. I felt another wave of gratitude for them both and as they spoke, I squeezed the ring on the chain around my neck, closed my eyes for just a second to thank the others that I knew had a hand in this today.

  My silent thoughts went upwards.

  Josie, I can hear yer cackling laugh from here, ma darling. Yer the best pal a woman could ever have and I hope you’re raising hell up there. Dee, sweetheart, I love you and I’ll never stop being grateful that you were mine, even if I didn’t get to keep you forever. And Don… oh my big darling Don. Give our girl a hug from me and hold her tight until I get there. You know I’ll love you in this life and in every life to come. But aye… next time I’ll leave my rings in the house.

  AND FINALLY…

  THE BIT WHERE I TELL THE REST OF MY OWN STORY

  Me again! This note is the continuation of my tale of woes and lost rings from the start of this book, so if you skimmed that, apologies. Now might be the time to pop back or the rest of this chapter won’t make sense.

  So I left off as I rushed to the waiting taxi. Fast-forward to sixteen hours later, after flying Glasgow–London, switching from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, then soaring through the skies until I landed in LA, finally snatching a few hours’ sleep somewhere over the Atlantic. That’s when I flipped up the flap on my overstuffed handbag to grab my hairbrush and realised the little black pouch containing my most treasured possessions was no longer there. It took a few seconds for a horrible blanket of fear to descend. I frantically searched the bag, emptied it, turned it upside down, but they were gone.

  In the devastating hours afterwards, I would arrive at my best guess, that, as in Val’s story, the bristles of my brush had become entangled with the strings of my little jewellery pouch, and when it had fallen out of my bag, it had taken my rings with it. And nope, no barrage of recriminations, criticisms or words of wise hindsight could make me feel as awful, as idiotic, as heartbroken as I did at that moment, or in the stomach-churning hours, days and weeks afterwards as I made dozens of calls, filed endless reports and wrote countless emails and even some social media posts, trying desperately to track them down.

  The search for them consumed me, as did the guilt, the self-recrimination, and – it gets worse – the realisation that I’d vaguely noticed my handbag’s magnetic catch popping open a couple of times during the journey, but in my distracted rush, I hadn’t even considered that anything could have fallen out.

  So did I find my rings? The answer is… drum roll… No. I didn’t. I spent the next month absolutely heartbroken, while emailing and calling every lost property office between Glasgow and London, berating myself for losing them. There were three of them that stung the most. The smoky quartz was the only physical thing I possessed that connected me to my beloved gran, Betty Murphy. I adored her, not least because she was a truly wonderful woman who loved fiercely, laughed uproariously and revelled in the delights of a Sunday carvery, but also because she was never slow to say what she thought – I can almost hear the bollocking I’d be getting for being careless.

  The other loss that hit hard was my engagement and wedding rings, bought about five years ago to replace the original ring my husband of thirty years gave me when we decided to get married, exactly one week after we met. I know. It’s a whole other book. Back then, we were skint but oh so happy and I didn’t need diamonds to show it. In 1993, I picked the ring, and he bought it – for a whole £54. Thankfully, that original one is still in my jewellery box, on its own velvet cushion, and it’ll always be my very favourite thing I own. However, I adored the replacements almost as much, because of what they signified: our marriage, our family and the lives that we’ve had together.

  I don’t think there’s any chance my little black pouch of gems will show up now, so, like Val, I’m trying to look for some kind of meaning in what happened. I’ve settled on this – I lost my rings, but I found this story, because, as always, my feelings consumed my writing too.

  It gave me an opportunity to bring back Carly Cooper, the very first character I wrote back in 1999 when I sat down with an idea in my head about a woman who went around the world trying to track down her ex-fiancés. That novel, What If?, launched my career and it’ll always be the book that I’m most grateful for.

  This story also allowed me to hang out with my darling Val, who has been with me, popping up regularly in my novels, for over a decade. If you’ve ever heard me talking about her, you’ll know that she was inspired by both my grandmothers, Betty Murphy and Sadie Hill, and a few other utterly spectacular women of that generation and the next.

  This year, I needed Val’s presence more than ever, because in July, the irreplaceable Sadie Hill passed away at the age of ninety-eight. She was a piece of my heart, and she is missed beyond words.

  So this book is dedicated to Sadie, to Betty and all the other Vals in this world. Unapologetic forces of nature who love, laugh and show the rest of us how it’s done.

  With all my love, Shari xx

  MORE FROM SHARI LOW

  We hope you enjoyed reading One Long Weekend. If you did, please leave a review. If you’d like to gift a copy, this book is available to purchase in paperback, hardback, large print and audio.

  One Year After You, another wonderfully uplifting story from Shari Low, is available to buy now by clicking on the image below. Or read on for an exclusive extract…

  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?

  Chapter One

  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 the 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.’