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'It's the same small world; it just depends who you are and how you see it'
Birthday Girls is Annabel Giles' sparklingly compulsive debut. Set on six different birthdays, and dealing with six different women who are all connected to each other, though they don't all realise it, the story opens with Scarlett, on her 10th birthday, and closes with Constance, on her 60th birthday.
Funny, tragic and engrossing, Birthday Girls is a must-read book from a major new voice in women's fiction.
“Mu-um – I think I’m going to be sick again …” “Oh golly Scarlett, can’t you hang on a little bit longer? We’re nearly there now …” Sophie was driving like they do in films, only without the squealy screechy tyres going round the corners bit. So it was very lurchy. “Oh look just get out of the way will you!” her mother yelled to a very dirty car which had stopped right in front of them without using its indicators or anything, typical. A Datsun Cherry it was – Scarlett and her dad played the Wotcaristhat Game all the time, he said she was quite good at it now. “Mu-um …” She wasn’t going to be able to keep it in, she felt really hot as well, and freezing. She didn’t want to, but she started to cry. As she beep-beeped the horn, Sophie turned to look at her baby girl. “Oh darling, please please don’t be sick in the car if you can help it – Dad’ll be furious and I’ll never get the smell out. Move your bloody arse!” she yelled and beeped to the other car. Scarlett was a bit scared – she’d never heard her mum swear before. Maybe she was iller than she thought. Oh no, it was all coming up now, she could tell … “Oh sweetheart – look, use this” said her mother, reaching down onto the passenger floor as she tried to keep the other hand on the wheel and two eyes on the road. “Oh than god, I can get past him now, it’s just down here I think – " Too late. Scarlett was sick into her mother’s handbag. When she woke up, all she could see was a curtain with some really bad drawings of teddies on it who were sposed to be playing with some abc bricks. “Mum?” “She’s gone to telephone your father,” said somebody who was fiddling around at the bottom of the bed. “But don’t you worry,” the kind-sounding lady said, “you’re most likely a bit sleepy still aren’t you?” Scarlett tried to sit up a bit in the bed, but couldn’t. It hurt. She burst into tears. “I don’t feel very well,” she sobbed. The nurse came and sat on the side of the bed and took Scarlett’s little pink hand in her big squashy black one. “Of course you don’t,” she said, “you’re in hospital and we only have people who don’t feel very well here. As soon as they start to feel good we send them home.” She laughed even though it wasn’t very funny, and her whole face went into a really enormous smile. “Can you remember what happened to you?” “Well I woke up this morning with a bad tummy ache and then it just got worse and worse and then I was sick, so Mummy took my tenjebra and it was really high and so she phoned Dr Eager and he said I had to go to hospital and so Mummy drove me and it took ages and it really hurt and then she carried me in cos I couldn’t stand up proply and then I was sick again all down her back and in her hair.” “Oh dear me, said the nice nurse, “was she cross?” “No, my mum doesn’t get cross about stuff like that.” Scarlett thought about it. “She doesn’t really get cross about anything actually. Except sometimes." But she wasn’t supposed to know about that. “Well you’re a lucky girl, aren’t you?” I used to scream at my kids all the time when they were little – still do in actual fact.” Her face split into a what-are-they-like face. “My youngest, Michael, now he’s really bad – " “What’s wrong with me?” asked Scarlett, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer before her mum came back. “You had something called appendicitis” replied the nurse, who was so fat she looked as if she was going to burst out of her uniform any minute now. “I’m not going to die am I?” Scarlett had seen lots of sad films with people in hospital in them on the sofa with her mum, like Beaches. “No,” the nurse’s eyes got really big, “you are not.” And she laughed her head off and that big smile was all over her face again and it was quite scary if you weren’t expecting it. “Scarlett?” Her mum’s voice came from behind the curtain. She was punching it, trying to find a way in. Scarlett tried to laugh but she couldn’t, it hurt her tummy. The nice big nurse stood up and pulled the curtain open right around the bed. “She’s awake now and very chirpy, all things considered. Proper little chatterbox, isn’t she? I’ll leave you to it – just come and find me if you need anything, my name’s Ellen.” And she walked off, making a swishing sound as she went. “How’re you feeling, darling?” Sophie smoothed back her little girl’s fringe. “Gosh, you gave me a fright. I’ve just been trying to get hold of Dad – his mobile’s off, I’ve left lots of messages on it though. Where on earth could he be?” Scarlett patted her fringe back down again and tried to think. She was used to keeping track of her parents for each other. “I think he said he was going out to buy more stuff for the party bags, and then he was going to pick up the cake – oh no! Mum! What about the party? I can’t go now, can I?” “Well not really, no. I’ve just tried to ring the bowling alley, but I couldn’t get through and I haven’t got any school mum’s phone numbers with me to tell them not to go there – I just hope your father got the note I left him on the kitchen table. Where on earth can he be? He shouldn’t be out shopping anyway, he’s supposed to be at home pumping balloons! Oh I wish he was here …” Oh no, thought Scarlett, looks like she’s going to cry, she’s fiddling with her sleeve, looking for her hankie. Better say something, or she’d go into one of her spins, as Dad called it. And Scarlett really hated seeing her Mum cry – which she did, a lot. It made her feel scared, like everything was going to go wrong, but then Dad always made it better. Scarlett wished he was here too. Oh help. Change the subject? “Will I have another party, later?” (Jade was going to be furious with her, she’d never hear the end of this thing.) “Yes, yes of course.” It worked! Sophie put on a bright smile and took a deep breath. “Now let’s see if we can get you some ice cream – or is that tonsils?” The other children on the ward looked much more worst than Scarlett, but the woman in the next door bed seemed absolutely fine. She had been sitting up, silently playing with her Game Boy (which is probably why she’s in with us kids, thought Scarlett) but as soon as Sophie left to make some more phone calls, she started talking. Without taking her eyes off the game once, which Scarlett had been told was rude but anyway. “What’s the matter with you then?” “I had to have an emergency operation on my tummy” Scarlett said dramatically, her mum having explained everything earlier. “I was Great Pain. What about you?” “Tried to kill myself.” “Oh.” Scarlett couldn’t think of anything to say. “Did you?” “No, my mum found me just in time which was really boring of her. And anyway, of course I didn’t or I wouldn’t be here now, would I?” She made a ‘duh’ face into her Game Boy and carried on twiddling her thumbs into it. As Scarlett watched her, she noticed that the other girl’s hair was two different colours. It came out of her head black, but then it went bright yellow. If it came out yellow again she’d look like a bumble bee, thought Scarlett. Her own hair was the same colour all the way down, ‘glorious mouse’ Constance called it. Anyway. “What’s your name?” “Becca. You?” “Scarlett.” “What kind of wanker name is that?” Scarlett knew this was a swear word of course, Jade had told them all to everyone at Lunch when they were about six, but she couldn’t remember most of them now and anyway, she was proud of her name and this girl, even though she was older than her but not a lady like she first thought, just shouldn’t be so rude. “Well actually, I was called after Scarlett O’Hara who was in my mum’s favourite film which is called Gone With The Wind which you probly haven’t seen because it’s very old, you can only get it on video. Unless you get TNT or TMC. Which we do. It’s on there sometimes. Actually.” Becca wasn’t saying anything. Scarlett carried on regardless, being a Proper Little Chatterbox. “And my middle name is Viola, because she was the only woman in Shakespeare with any spunk.” “Bet you don’t even know what spunk is.” Becca actually managed to look up for a split second. “I do, actually” said Scarlett, who didn’t – she had just heard her father saying this lots of times before. Becca pressed pause. “What is it then?” But really luckily, before Scarlett had to say anything, she spotted her father at the door of the ward, looking round for her, worried. “Daddy!” Becca imitated Scarlett silently in a horrible babyish way into her Game Boy and went back to what she’d been doing. “Scarlett!” Simon rushed over to her bed and tried to do his usual bearhug with her but it was a bit difficult as she couldn’t sit up prply. “Hello you poor old thing, how’re you feeling?” He gave her such a smile as he plonked himself down on the bed, it made her want to cry but she didn’t want to look a kind of a wanker in front of Becca so she gave him a bit of a wobbly one back, a bit blinky. Thank goodness he’d come, it was all going to be alright now. “My tummy really really hurts” said Scarlett, relieved to be able to tell the truth now that her mum wasn’t there. “I bet it does” he said. “And it probably will for some time. Still, let’s think about the good side – you won’t have to go to school on Monday, you’ll be spoilt rotten and – um – you’ve given Mummy something proper to worry and fuss about at last, she must be really pleased!” He grinned. “Don’t be funny, I can’t laugh” said Scarlett a bit grumpily, she didn’t like it when he said things against Mum. “Does she know you’re here?” “No, where is she?” “She’s on the phone, trying to get hold of You actually.” “Well I came as soon as I got the four hundred messages she left on my mobile.” He got up and moved over to the armchair by Scarlett’s bed. “Did you see the note?” she asked. “What note?” “At home.” “Oh, no, I came straight here.” He smiled over at Becca as he sat down. She pretended not to notice. “So you haven’t cancelled the party?” “Oh – well no, I thought she would – oh god, Scarlett, I – well never mind, I – " He did look like he felt bad about it. “Simon – where’ve you been?” Sophie arrived, a bit red in the face, a bit cryey. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages, I’ve rung everybody I could think of, even Mum and Jessica.” “I’m really sorry Soph, the phone must have been out of range or something – honestly, they’re more trouble than they’re worth sometimes … what’s that terrible smell?” “Oh dear, it’s me, “ said Sophie, trying to run her fingers through her long blonde hair, “poor old Scarlett was sick all over me when I was carrying her in. I must really pong, sorry.” “He hasn’t cancelled the party!” said Scarlett, who didn’t normally like to land her dad in it but this was very important – what would people say when they turned up and she wasn’t there? Eventually they agreed that Sophie would go home to change and try to phone everyone before they left, and Simon would be at the bowling alley in case some people didn’t get the message in time. Of course there was a lot of “will you be alright here on your own darling” from Mum in her best trying-not-to-worry voice, and Dad kept saying things like “of course she will she’s in good hands” in his best make-it-all-better voice. But then Dad’s mobile rang which made Ellen bustle over and tell him off because it could make all the machines go wrong and people could die and so eventually they left together, promising to be back first thing in the morning even though Mum wanted to stay the night. So Dad just took her by the arm and led her out of the ward, looking back at Scarlett and grinning that way they did when Mum was being a bit too mad. To tell the truth, she felt better when they’d gone anyway because now she could get on with the business of Being In Hospital, sure that she was going to have to write a composition on it for Miss McFarland when she went back to school. Even though she was absolutely starving, Ellen had said she couldn’t eat anything proper yet until things had settled down whatever that meant and so Scarlett had had to make do with a plastic beaker of Ribena Toothkind while everyone else got nuggets and beans from some ladies with a trolley. Then Becca had pretended to be asleep when her parents had come to visit her, but Ellen had made her wake up and now they were sitting one either side of her bed holding a hand each. She can’t play her Game Boy now, can she. They were talking to her very quietly so that Scarlett couldn’t quite hear what they were saying which was annoying, not that she wanted to be nosey or anything. But it looked like Becca was pretending she couldn’t hear them either as she wasn’t talking back, just staring up at the ceiling and doing really loud sighs every now and then. Why is she so mean to her parents, wondered Scarlett, who was a bit wishing hers were still there as everyone else seemed to have visitors no and she only had a very old copy of Princess to read. Grown-ups were sometimes so silly about children, they thought that just because you were smaller than them you wouldn’t be interested in anything except Disney stuff. She’d asked for a magazine – like her grandmother did at the hairdressers – and they’d given her a comic. Ellen was going round all the beds now, telling the parents to go home because it was half past six and the children had to get ready for bed. Half past six?! Bed?! That’s far too early, she was ten now, double figures and Becca was probably about twenty five or something. And anyway, if she was at home now and it wasn’t her birthday, she and her mum would be doing their usual Girls Night In thing, which meant pizza and a video and loads of chocolate in the sitting room with all the lights turned off just like a cinema, snuggled up just them and Brando together on the sofa under the Cosyblanket. And if it wasn’t a school night she didn’t have to go t bed until sometimes eleven o’clock, or until Dad came home, whichever happened first. They’d listen out for his car which they knew the sound of, and if it was him Scarlett would run upstairs and pretend to be asleep and Sophie would gather up all the sweet wrappers and ice-cream cartons and all the other rubbish and rush into the kitchen and bung them in the bin before he got in. She loved their Saturday nights in. And even if Dad was home, it was just as cosy only they didn’t pig out so much and she wasn’t allowed to stay up so late. She’d sit on the sofa between them and they’d watch an old black-and-white movie, from Dad’s collection. He’d always pick exactly the right one to watch, her and Mum just didn’t know how he did it. They hadn’t done that for ages now though, she must remind them. Scarlett began to feel a tiny bit on her own even though she wasn’t and sad and just wanted to go home actually. Annabel Giles, TV and radio personality and comedy writer, talks to penguin.co.uk about writing her first novel, painful birthday memories, and the trouble with reading. Birthday Girls is your first novel, what inspired you to write it? I wanted to write a book that I would like to read because I don't get much time to read. I'm a very busy single parent of a teenager and a toddler, which means my life is a living nightmare. If I am going to read a book I want it to be quick and good, and to be a little bit cheeky in places and quite sad in others. I want to put it down and go 'ahh, that was a good read' and then get on with something else. You're a well-known TV and radio personality, how have you found the switch from TV and radio to writing? Well I prefer doing this than doing TV and radio because you don't have to look nice during the day. I wear a really nasty old tracksuit and thick glasses, because I'm very, very short- sighted in real life, and I work in a shed at the bottom of my garden. I prefer it because you can be yourself and you don't always have to be smiling and sparkling, you can just be normal and quite nice. Birthday Girls is very funny as well as touching. Did your experience in TV and radio help you to write this novel? I would never say I was a comedian by any stretch of the imagination, or a comedy writer, or anything other than quite amusing sometimes, witty on a really good day with a comedy wind behind me. I think women are funny when they are doing something else, as opposed to doing stand-up comedy, or whatever. To me that is where the comedy comes from, the situation that the people we know and love are in, rather than standing up and telling a joke, so yes and no to that question. Can you briefly introduce us to the six women in Birthday Girls? There are six women in Birthday Girls and we start off with Scarlet who is ten and on the way to have her appendix out. She's just finding out that the world isn't quite as sweet and lovely as she thought it was. Then there's a twenty-year-old who's a hairdresser, lives in Ladbroke Grove, and is very 'street and happening' as my mother would say. Then there's Sophie who's thirty, who's the mother of Scarlet, are you keeping up? She's very dreamy and a bit hopeless and cries all the time because she lost a baby and can't quite get over it. Then there's Jessica, who's forty and based on a sort of has-been TV presenter with dark hair and quite a straight nose, I don't know where I got that character from. Then the fifty-year-old is a lady who is by chance the mother of the twenty-year-old hairdresser and from a very peaceful Caribbean island. She comes to London where everything's got a beep and a code number so she's quite disillusioned. Finally there's the sixty-year-old who is the grandmother of the ten-year-old and the mother of the thirty-year-old and the forty-year-old and she has just discovered a terrible, terrible thing that connects all these woman together. The characterisation in Birthday Girls is very varied - where did you get your inspiration for such a range of characters? Sometimes when I read a book I get fed up with the main character, if you get bored with the main character or you don't like them the book becomes less interesting. I didn't think I had the confidence to maintain a whole book with one person, so I rather sneakily put in this format, which means that each girl tells her story from her point of view in that chapter. I love the idea of everyone harbouring secrets and not being quite what you think. I also think women these days do so many things at one time and have to be all things to all people, so I wanted to write about six different types of women who were all linked by something. Did you know how Birthday Girls would end when you started? I did but I couldn't believe that I would actually go through with it and sadly I did go through with it. I like to know what the beginning and the end is, the fascinating bit to write is the middle. The best bit is sitting there thinking 'oh, I wonder what they're going to do today'. For example, in Birthday Girls Jessica knocks on her mother's front door. Her mother lives in a huge house in Holland Park and I thought, she's not going to open her own front door, if she's got a house like that she's going to have staff and I just made up this character who opens the door who then becomes completely instrumental to everything. Where do you escape to do your writing? I've got a shed in the bottom of my garden and it's great because in the house I've got a teenager who's fourteen and goes 'huh' all the time and a screaming three-year-old who's just discovered tantrums, all the doors are off their hinges and there's mess everywhere. There is very little self-discipline involved, it's more of an escape for me. It's great fun to have your own space where they're not allowed in! What is your favourite birthday memory? I have to admit I have not had very many good birthdays. I think that one of the last birthdays I arranged was paint balling. I thought right, we're all going to go paint balling and it's going to be fun. It was great except that we were walking up to the place and someone was right behind me and their gun went off by accident, point blank range right onto my bum. I have never experienced anything so painful in that area before. So that's my abiding birthday memory, being shot in the arse at point blank range by someone with a paint-balling gun. What type of fiction do you like to read and do you have any favourite authors? I have a huge reading confession to make, which appals everybody including my editor at Penguin. I never ever, ever, read books. I just don't get the time; I've read about five books in the last two years and one of them I had to read because I was meeting the author on a Penguin road show. You have to put time aside for book reading, I've got a pile beside my bed and I love going into bookshops and buying books but reading them is another thing entirely. What's next for Annabel Giles? Well I'm writing book two. My view in my writing shed for the last six months has been Birthday Girls and I've put up a new view, which is of my new book. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say much yet, but it's about being on holiday. I'm half way through working it all out now and I'm just beginning to get a little bit fired up by it, you know when you get that, 'Oh it's actually quite good', because I thought I can't do anything else, that's it, but as we know I haven't got a short-winded bone in my body and there's about ninety books in me. I'm going to be the second Barbara Cartland. I'm just loving it and I hope I can keep it up and fingers crossed that people like this one and will like the next one too.
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