Love...Maybe: The Must-Have Eshort Collection. Julia Williams

that you’re older, it’s that you’re still young. And guess what? Today I’m discovering exactly what he meant.

      It’s my fortieth birthday and I’m not a happy woman. Compounded with the fact that it’s also Valentine’s Day which of course ups the ante on the whole of this nightmarish day tenfold. Only people who had the misfortune to be born on either Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve will believe it, but trust me, if your birthday comes on a red letter day like this it frankly couldn’t suck any more.

      Now normally I’m not a moaner or a whinger at all, I promise, but it’s my fortieth, so you’ll just have to indulge me. And yes, yes, of course I know that life is too short to dwell on every little bump in the road and that we shouldn’t measure our happiness against other people’s, but – well, it’s just on this of all days, I can’t help but feel deeply unfulfilled, stuck in a rut and don’t even get me started on my love life, which seems to have gone from a slump to an all-out strike.

      Finally forty. Finally old enough to know that there’s more to life than sex and shoes and parties, but still young enough to know that they are the best bits. And that lately, I’ve been seeing damn all of any of them.

      ‘Oh for God’s sake, would you just listen to yourself!’ I say out loud in spite of the fact that I’m all alone, in a vague attempt to snap myself out of this pity-fest. My ‘surprise’ birthday-cum-Valentine’s night party over at the tennis club started half an hour ago and here I still am, still in my flat, still only half dressed and still bloody whingeing. I mean yes, OK, I may have reached this milestone age without a) having a husband/boyfriend/partner/any combination of the above or b) having kids and a family of my own, but I haven’t exactly been sitting around filing my nails all these years, have I?

      ’Course not. I’ve … erm … loads to be thankful for. Great friends for starters. And a really successful career that I absolutely love. And a wonderful family. Yes, OK, I wish my darling dad was still with us, but Mum’s still hale and hearty and well, compared to a lot of people I’ve got loads to be grateful for. I mean, I could be homeless couldn’t I? Or cleaning out sewers in Calcutta for a living? Then I’d really have something to moan about.

      And then the same question that’s been playing on a loop round my mind all day. The same thing I ask myself every Valentine’s Day since the year dot.

      ‘So what’s my birthday wish? And what would I like the year ahead to bring my way?’

      And suddenly the answer hits me, as sharply as a chilli finger poked into my eye. Life, I decide as I lash on the lip-gloss, is a bit like Van Morrison’s Moondance album; all the best bits are on the first side. And so on this most momentous of nights, I wish … I wish …

      I’m rudely interrupted by a taxi horn blaring up at me from two floors down below. Amanda, my oldest and closest friend, here to give me a lift to the party and thankfully a good half-hour late, as usual. Amanda and I have been best mates through school, all the way through college and like I always say, men may come and go, blue eyeliner and the bubble perm may come and go, but true friends are, like Mac Bronzing Powder or the Hermes Birkin bag … here to stay, whether we like it or not.

      Anyway, Amanda’s dream was always to become an actress and at age twenty-one, she turned down a place at RADA to accept a tiny part in a daytime soap. She struck it lucky though, the character took off and within one season of the show she suddenly found herself a household name, with all the supermarket opening and tabloid-baiting which that entails. But although she made a shedload of cash, the show was unexpectedly axed and as she turned thirty-five work dried up literally overnight, the way it does for any actress during those death knell years.

      ’Course none of this is helped by the fact that after almost five years of virtual unemployment, Amanda’s name keeps turning up on those, ‘where are they now?’ type shows. Pisses her off no end. Plus the fact that the last proper, paying, gig she was offered was on a rip-off of those reality celebrity TV shows, where you live in the jungle for three weeks eating cockroaches and sharing the one loo, all while Ant and Dec laugh at you.

      Poor old Amanda. There are times when you really do have to feel sorry for her.

      ‘Happy birthday, Kate … and let Valentine’s night feck off with itself,’ she offers a bit half-heartedly, as I clamber into the taxi beside her. But then Amanda has to face into this awful nightmare of turning forty in just a few weeks’ time and I reckon she’s starting to feel a bit jittery too. In fact, she’s looking at me now in much the same way that miners look at canaries going down coal shafts.

      ‘So it’s the big birthday. How does it feel, hon?’ she asks worriedly.

      ‘Honestly?’

      ‘The truth and nothing but.’

      ‘Completely fabulous! Turning forty is without doubt the single best thing that’s ever happened to me. Ever. By far.’

      She shoots me this wry, sideways-on look that she only keeps for when I’m really talking through my arse.

      ‘Never go on the witness protection programme, Kate. You are without doubt the worst liar alive.’

      ‘Right then,’ I sigh. ‘In that case, today is probably the single most depressing day of my whole life to date. And I’m including my father’s funeral in there too, by the way.’

      ‘Oh come on now, it’s just another year, another milestone, with a brand new decade ahead of you to look forward to. What’s so bad?’

      ‘Amanda, as you of all people know only too well,’ I say turning to face her in the back of the taxi, ‘over the years, I’ve invested a lot of time and energy worrying about a whole lot of stuff that never even happened. Things like … would I ever be able to afford a mortgage on a home of my own? Would work take off for me and would I actually be able to support myself as a journalist? But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I’d somehow end up forty years of age and alone. On shagging Valentine’s Day. And the worst part is, it’s far too late now for me to do the slightest thing about it. I mean, if love and happiness were meant for me, wouldn’t they have happened long before now?’

      ‘Total rubbish!’ Amanda says warmly. ‘You’ve got a fabulous job that you love and that you’re completely brilliant at. And the only reason you don’t have a fella is because your career is your first, real, true love. Look at you, you’re not only the youngest, but also the first female editor they’ve ever had at the Chronicle! Besides, isn’t it far better to be on your own and independent, than with some git who’ll only mess you around? Who needs that anyway?’

      ‘Hmmm,’ I say more out of politeness than anything else, but deeply unconvinced.

      ‘Besides,’ she goes on, warming to her theme now, ‘if you really want cheering up, just take a look at me and my pathetic life. Every single birthday, I look back on the year’s work I’ve done, and you know what? This year, apart from one detergent commercial that I ended up getting cut out of, and two days on a TV game show, I’ve basically been sitting at home watching daytime telly and living off my ever-dwindling savings. While actresses years younger than me, with perky bodies and unlined faces get all the jammy jobs. Look at me, Kate, I’m nothing more than a washed-up old has been.’

      ‘That’s absolutely untrue …’ I tell her gently, but she barrels over me.

      ‘No hear me out, because I’m seriously having to face up to the fact that if I ever want to play a part within my own age group again, than I’ll have to have a full facelift. Bloody Botox! It’s only gone and raised the bar for all of us, hasn’t it? So now of course, if an actress my age is lucky enough to be offered any part, you still have to look young enough to be ID’d in bars.’

      Ageism, I should mention, is a particularly sore point with Amanda, even more so since her agent told her that the only job offers she’s likely to get this year are either panto or else third prostitute from the left type roles, in rubbishy old cop operas. If she’s incredibly lucky that is.

      ‘But on the plus side,’