This Is Your Life by John O'Farrell Read Free Book Online

aerial?’
    â€˜No, no – it’s all here,’ Nicholas continued, suppressing his own mirth. ‘“Instead, you should get a smart but unpretentious car like Uncle Kenneth’s Austin Princess, perhaps, and then just give your money away – not all of it, obviously, just a bit, like a thousand pounds or something, to carefully chosen charities that don’t spend too much of their money on administration.”’
    For some reason this last detail triggered another huge explosion of laughter. Norman convulsed so much that he fell off his stool, while I merely smiled and nodded and attempted a long-suffering tut at my own adolescent foolishness. For a second I had hoped that Norman’s drunken backwards lunge might deflect the attention away from myself, but this pack of hyenas had already selected their victim and were shrieking and howling for more blood.
    â€˜â€œHowever, it might be advisable to have tinted windows fitted to the Austin Princess in order that you are not repeatedly recognized off the television as you try to go about your everyday business without being constantly mobbed by your fans.”’
    The laughter was out of control now; it had tipped over into frenzied hysteria.
    â€˜â€œThe important thing is not to look down upon ordinary unfamous people just because they seem to have such dull and uninteresting lives. Many of them, especially vets and people like that, do good and important work, and though it may notseem very glamorous to you, if it wasn’t for all of them being so ordinary, it would be impossible for you to be so special.”’
    â€˜Don’t look so miserable, Jimmy,’ said Nancy. ‘You’re not a bit like that now.’
    â€˜What, millionaire superstar?’ said Nicholas. ‘You can say that again!’
    It was then that a terrible thought struck me. It wasn’t what I’d written that embarrassed me, it was the obvious and enormous gulf between what I’d hoped to become and who I now was that made me feel so humiliated. The letters included the imagined script for my appearance on
This Is Your Life.
But with all the details of a showbiz success story that was not to be, these predictions were more like my own personal ‘This Isn’t Your Life’.
    Further lines were read, but I was no longer listening; instead I was staring at the scene of myself surrounded by friends and family all shrieking and banging the table and drunkenly braying for more. Pretending that it was still all in good fun, I eventually managed to snatch the remaining letter off Nicholas and quickly placed it inside the box. I answered a few serious questions about whether I remembered writing them and what I was going to do with them now. Perhaps Carol could see from the expression on my face that her husband had gone too far in front of all my cackling friends and so she rather belatedly attempted to come to the rescue.
    â€˜Well, you never know, this time next year he might be famous. He is writing a screenplay, aren’t you, Jimmy?’
    â€˜Are you really?’ said Nancy. ‘What about?’
    â€˜Oh, it’s early days at the moment. I’d rather not say.’
    â€˜Come on, Jimmy, you can tell us,’ pleaded Norman.
    â€˜You’ll only take the piss.’
    â€˜No we won’t, go on, what’s it about?”
    â€˜Umm, no, really, I don’t want to risk somebody else stealing my idea.’
    â€˜We won’t tell anyone, honestly,’ whispered Nancy.
    â€˜You’ve got to practise telling the story, Jimmy – pitching your idea is one of the basic skills of the screenwriter,’ said my brother.
    Nicholas was right, and having been made to feel such a failure, now I was desperate to do anything to restore my pride. The glass slipper had been produced – once they all saw how well it fitted I’d be the one who was laughing.
    â€˜OK. It’s just that the