LIZ FIELDING

THE SECRET LIFE OF LADY GABRIELLA

A protest from Ellie March....

Well there it is. There’s no hiding it now. Everyone will know exactly what I did, but honestly, Liz, that title is just so unfair!

Go on, just read the book and tell me – no, tell her – just how unfair it is!

That title will make everyone believe that I did it deliberately. That I set out to live a double life when it was all just a great big ... accident.

No, really!

If it hadn’t been for the howls of mirth at my Writers’ Circle at the very idea of me writing a column for Milady magazine it would never have happened. Okay. If it hadn’t been for that particularly pitying look from Diana Sutton, the Hon Sec, it would never have happened. I was getting really tired of being pitied.

All right. I admit that I should have stopped when I had that letter from the editor inviting me to go and see her. I’d proved my point. But, honestly, when would I ever get another chance like that? And who knew that I was exactly what Milady were looking for? Well, not me, obviously. They don’t take on cleaners as columnists at Milady magazine. That’s why I called it “Lady Gabriella’s Diary”. Ladies-who-lunch weren’t likely to be interested in anything written by plain old Ellie March, cleaner, waitress, house-sitter now, were they?

I still can’t believe I got away with it. That I have a contract...

But now, of course, I can’t tell anyone in case that scary editor finds out I’m a complete fraud. Not even my Mum, who’d tell her best friend, which would be like taking out an ad in the Courier. So Diana Sutton is still giving me pitying looks. And my Dad still gives me the regular lecture about going back to teaching so that I’ll get a pension.

A pension!

Life is too short, too fragile to waste on being careful; planning for a future that may never happen. You have to grab your chances when they come and always, always take the balloon ride...