Prologue
MOIRA
Rose Cottage
Weirbridge
Scotland
1 April 2025
Dear Lisa and Carina,
I’m sending this letter to both of you, so that we’re all on the same page – quite literally. And yes, I thought about sending an email, but since I’ve been asking Lisa for an email address for the last ten years without success (seriously, Miss Technophobe – come join us in the 21st century), I’ll stick to snail-mail for now.
How are you doing, ma darlins? It’s been a while. Hope you’re both loving life and surviving all this middle age rubbish that no bugger warned us about. My body seems to have entered its landslide era. I’m now considering putting flashlights on my nips so that they illuminate my feet when I’m walking down dark paths at night.
Anyway, enough of my woes. Since we’re apparently the only people on earth who still communicate via letters, I send this missive with glad tidings – after sixteen years, I’ve finally hung up my sea legs. Yes, I’ve left the world of the cruise line cabarets and returned to Glasgow to take up a post teaching music and theatre to aspiring teenage stars as part of a new project to give kids from deprived areas access to training in song, dance and drama. My Ollie is one of the driving forces behind it and I couldn’t be prouder. I’m already working there, getting everything ready for the grand opening which should be early Autumn.
Which brings me to my second reason for writing…
Chums, do you realise that this summer, it will be exactly thirty-five years since we met in Hong Kong? July 1990. Oh my, what a time to be alive that was. And it did get me thinking… Aye, brace yourselves for this one. Now that I’m no longer constrained by my sea schedule and have developed a ‘f*** it, life’s too short’ attitude (that came with the landslide situation, the menopause and the arrival of a new credit card), I’m going to take a trip back to Hong Kong. I want to explore it again, I want the nostalgia, the memories, and I want to see if the twenty-three-year-old me is still there, because lord knows, I lost her somewhere along the years.
Here’s the crunch part. I’d love some travel buddies, but there’s no one I’d want to do this with other than the two friends for life I met there. So how about a wee trip down memory lane, ladies? Hong Kong, the three of us, for one week in July. I know at first glance, that seems crazy, but why not? It’s been over three decades since I saw your faces in real life, so surely it’s time for an encore? Let’s do it. Let’s just bloody do it. Lisa, I don’t want to hear all the reasons it’s not a good idea. And Carina, I couldn’t care less if you already have glamorous plans with far more important people. The twenty-something us deserve this. And the fifty-something us deserve this even more.
I’ve already looked into it, and here’s my plan… The Harbour Lights Hotel. Arriving 1 July. Let’s not go back and forwards on this because, well, I don’t want to pressure you or guilt you into coming along. I’m going anyway – whether you join me is your decision. All I’ll add is that thirty-five years ago the fates made our paths cross and I’m just going to trust (and hope) that they’ll do it again.
So, ma darlins, I’ll sign off now. Sending you all my love as always. Hope you’re happy and healthy and kicking life’s arse. And hope I’ll see you both soon.
Love you until the band stops playing,
Moira xxx