The Ultimate Secret

A plump and placid Blackpool teenager, Christine Walker quits her lowly civil service job when she is publicly humiliated by a colleague who she has a crush on. She uses her freedom from work to: reread her cherished Harry Potter novels; fantasise about various celebrities and write sexually charged fan letters to them; experiment with vodka; ignore her twenty-seven diet books; ride her beloved rollercoasters in Blackpool Pleasure Beach; then finally lose her Catholic faith. Christine falls out with her mum and dad, Janet and Peter, when they implement a ‘tough love’ policy against her; they withdraw their love. The family becomes dysfunctional and a war of attrition begins. Christine’s seething anger, conscious and unconscious, with her parents and the outside world in general turns against herself. She feels hopeless, useless, isolated, bored, angry, and depressed. All these apparently minor factors combine to create a despair that leads to her suicidal thoughts. During a supernatural epiphany, Christine tells a little girl on the beach about her suicidal intent. The girl reveals that a man can save Christine from herself but she brushes aside the information. So, Christine prepares to go to London, lose her virginity, and jump in front of a Tube train. As a cover story, she tells her parents that she is going for a holiday in the Lake District. In an attempt to go out with a small bang, Christine checks into the plush Dorchester hotel in central London for a few days. She visits: the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park; Buckingham Palace for lunch with the Queen; a bustling and vibrant Leicester Square in the West End; the Harry Potter gift shop in King’s Cross Station with its famous Potter inspired Platform 9¾ wall complete with the embedded luggage trolley; and, thus killing two birds with one stone, she searches for a Tube station in which to kill herself. Later that day, she loses her virginity to a bisexual sex worker, Justin Avery who wants to try and save Christine from an early death. Justin is intent on giving her a reason to live but even his declaration of love fails to stop her suicidal impulse. Christine reads him her suicide note which she will be posting to her parents who, back in Blackpool, have been fretting over her disappearance. After deflowering Christine, Justin awakens her blossoming sexuality and, in the subsequent days, they start to enthusiastically make love. Justin introduces her to his small and motley group of close friends. They take Christine to a comedy club where she heckles one of the amateur comedians. Justin is an amateur musician who writes a song for Christine. Justin then introduces her to his favourite London cultural venues such as the Tate Modern Gallery, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Downing Street. Two days later Christine posts her suicide note to her parents and prepares to take her own life at the Angel Tube station. With Cristine on the very edge of the station platform and a Tube train bearing down on her in the tunnel, the mysterious little girl reappears on the station platform and reconnects with Christine by revealing some crucial and shocking information. But will it be enough to stop Christine from completing her suicide?