Turning Thirty

by Mike Gayle

  I’m sorry to hear about the situation Ginny has got into. You remember Melissa, my friend from college? You always said there was something weird about her and I said it’s because she over-plucks her eyebrows and you said that’s why she always looks so surprised. Well, anyway, she was seeing this guy Danny, and he was married too. He completely broke her heart as expected. But the thing about it was that she did it all over again a few years later and that ended badly too. Eventually her mom paid for a therapist for her because she said it would be cheaper than all the long-distance calls she had to make every time Melissa fell apart. Anyway, to cut a long story into a snappy soundbite, the therapist told her she was addicted to bad relationships. When she told me I pretty much agreed straight away because in college she was like a magnet for every loser in town. Knowing this hasn’t done her any good, though. I talked to her only last week. She’s living with a guy who has cheated on her twice and she’s forgiven him both times. I’m not saying it’s her fault. But it is sad. On a lighter note, you’ll be pleased to know I got a tattoo of the Japanese symbol for love done at the top of my ass. Don’t ask me why because I couldn’t tell you. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

  Take it easy,

  Elaine xxx

  PS This thing with your friend. I know you want to fix it because that’s the kind of guy you are. But you can’t fix everything. So just try being there for her. If she’s half the person you say she is she’ll sort it out herself.

  seventy-two

  To:

  crazedelaine@hotpr.com

  From:

  mattb@c-tec.national.com

  Subject:

  Tattooed ladies

  Dear Elaine

  You scare me sometimes. I take it for granted that you have the scattiest brain on the planet and then you come out with Oprah-sized nuggets of wisdom like that. Ginny said that when you’ve got your mates shouting for you in your corner anything’s possible. She might’ve been a bit optimistic about what the power of friends can do – needless to say Ian’s still in the picture – but she’s right to assume that at least friends do have a power of some description. The time I’ve spent with Ginny and Gershwin since I’ve been back home has been the best thing in the world for me. I don’t mean that as a slur against you – I’m just trying to say that these people are my history. So I’m going to take your advice – I’m not going to fix!!! But I am going to sort out a surprise for Ginny. Just to let her know that . . . well . . . I’m on her side.

  Love

  Matt xxx

  PS I always tried to fix things with you. Didn’t I?

  To:

  mattb@c-tec.national.com

  From:

  crazedelaine@hotpr.com

  Subject:

  You

  Dear Matt

  A surprise is always a great idea. She’ll love it.

  love

  Elaine xxx

  PS Yes you did try to fix things but always for the right reasons.

  Month Three

  Date: March 1st

  Days left until thirtieth birthday: 31

  State of mind: Reasonably okay.

  (All things considered)

  seventy-three

  It was a quarter to nine on the following Friday evening, and Ginny and I were standing in her living room discussing her clothing. She had been travelling to and from her room, showing me various combinations of her wardrobe for over half an hour.

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ she asked.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I said, encouragingly, of a long-sleeved black top and black trousers.

  ‘Better or worse than the last one?’

  I couldn’t remember the last one. ‘Better,’ I pronounced shamelessly.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Ginny thoughtfully. ‘So it’s a casual place that we’re going to?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  She looked me up and down. I was wearing my dark blue combat trousers, a dark blue hooded top and black trainers. ‘You’re dressed casually.’

  ‘Am I?’ I said, unhelpfully.

  ‘You know you are,’ she said, squinting at me menacingly. She looked me up and down once again. ‘I think this’ll be okay,’ she mused, ‘if where we’re going is casual.’

  ‘Fine, then. That’s sorted. We’re ready to go.’

  ‘I’ll just be a minute,’ she said, then disappeared back upstairs to her bedroom only to reappear at the living-room door five minutes later wearing a sheer black shirt and a pair of jeans. ‘What about this?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve changed again.’

  She ignored me. ‘Better or worse than the one before?’

  ‘Better,’ I enthused.

  She looked down at her naked feet. ‘Trainers or shoes?’

  ‘Shoes,’ I replied. She flashed me an immediate look of disdain. ‘No, trainers definitely.’

  She disappeared once more and, as I expected, returned minutes later wearing another different outfit: a long-sleeved white cotton top, oatmeal-coloured (never let it be said I hadn’t learnt anything of the female colour spectrum from Elaine) wide-legged trousers and her Birkenstocks.

  ‘Good choice,’ I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, which by now wasn’t much.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Now all I’ve got to work out is whether I need a jacket.’ She twirled around in front of me. ‘Jacket or no jacket?’

  ‘Jacket,’ I replied.

  ‘But we’re getting a taxi, aren’t we, so I could go without the jacket? That is, unless where we’re going is outside.’

  ‘It’s inside,’ I said patiently. ‘So no jacket.’

  Ginny’s forehead was creased with concentration. I could see that she was wavering. ‘You’re right, I don’t need a jacket.’

  ‘Great! Now we’re all done.’

  ‘But don’t you think the jacket goes with the Birkenstocks? I think the Birkenstocks need the jacket.’ She said it as though her footwear was going to suffer from severe depression without the jacket.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you’re right. Has anyone ever told you that you’d make a good woman?’

  ‘Not this week.’

  ‘Well, they should’ve,’ she said, as she walked back into the hallway. ‘Every woman should have one of you.’

  seventy-four

  The plan for the evening had been quite straightforward until Ginny got involved. All I had to do was get her to an Indian restaurant in nearby Sparkbrook called King of the Baltis for nine thirty. The only problem was that by the time we arrived, having had to rush back to her house when she decided that she wanted her jacket after all, it was a quarter to ten and we were late.

  ‘So this is where we’re going,’ said Ginny, as the taxi dropped us off at the door to the restaurant. ‘For a curry. Why the secrecy for a simple curry?’

  I opened the door for her. ‘You’ll see.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re really enjoying keeping me in the dark, aren’t you? You think it makes you appear mysterious, like you’re some sort of James Bond figure. Well—’ She stopped mid-sentence as the table reserved for ‘the Beckford party of six’, which so far seated Bev, Pete, Katrina, Gershwin, stood and cheered at our entrance.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said, beaming. ‘This is so fantastic, Matt. It’s been so long since we’ve all been back together like this – it’s amazing. Bev, Pete and Katrina all here. And you organised it.’

  I shrugged dismissively. ‘It’s like you said,’ I began, as I recalled the words of our conversation little over a week ago. ‘“When you’ve got your mates shouting for you in your corner, anything’s possible.” I just wanted you to know that you don’t need someone like Ian, not when you’ve got people around you who . . .’ I was overwhelmed by self-consciousness. It all sounded far too cheesy.

  ‘People who what?’ she prompted, when it became clear I wasn’t going to finish my sentence.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘N
othing?’ She studied me thoughtfully, then standing on tiptoe she whispered in my ear, ‘Liar,’ and kissed me. Unlike our previous kiss this had little to do with curiosity or comfort and more to do with passion. Most importantly, it was a kiss of the moment, so when the moment passed, and we noticed that everyone at the table was looking at us, the kiss passed with it and all that was left was the pleasant feeling that it might happen again soon. Then two waiters brought over a couple of bottles of champagne, popped them open and began pouring.

  Ginny nudged me. ‘Go on, Matt, say something – make a toast.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m crap at that sort of thing. Why don’t you? It’s your night, after all.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I’m crap at these things too. But it would mean a lot if you did.’

  ‘Come on,’ yelled Gershwin. ‘One of you make a toast before this stuff goes flat, will you?’

  ‘To absent friends,’ I said, raising my glass. ‘And for old friends right here, right now.’

  The next hour sped by as we caught up with each other’s news. I chatted to Bev for ages. It was weird seeing her in person after having spoken to her on the phone. When I’d pictured her at the other end of the line I’d imagined her still in the Goth-style clothes of her teenage years, but her old black uniform had metamorphosed into a beaded, tie-dyed hippie style. Like most of us she, too, had put on a little weight, but she was still pretty and still wore her trademark sardonic smile. Best of all, her manner was unchanged: in a world in which everyone I knew of around thirty was giving up everything that was bad for them, it was heartening to watch her chain-smoke Silk Cut Ultras as if her life depended on it. Katrina, on the other hand, had changed immensely: in our youth she had been attractive but now she was stunning, so much so that Pete had barely taken his eyes off her all evening. Somehow, in the intervening years, her dark brown eyes had become even more beguiling, her manner more flirtatious and self-deprecating, and her dress sense more sophisticated. Of us all she seemed the most adult, the one who had grown best into her new thirtysomething skin.

  During my conversation with Katrina, I disappeared to the toilet, and when I returned she was talking to Pete. I looked round at the rest of the table: Ginny was talking with Gershwin and Bev, so I was out of the conversational loop. Here were six people, who, up to a few months ago, had all but forgotten each other. And now we were together again. Well, nearly. Although no one had talked about Elliot’s death directly it was clear to me that we all felt his absence. That there were only six of us made the familiar seem unfamiliar, unbalanced.

  However, the evening went extremely well. I knew it was going to be a good one because usually when I was in a restaurant I always saw other tables who seemed to be having a better time than anyone else. For the first time in my life the ‘good-time table’ was the one that I was at. I had worried that maybe the whole weekend would be a disaster. What if we didn’t like each other? What if we’d never really liked each other? What if we ran out of things to say? But it was clear from the way everyone acted that we were still comfortable in each other’s company. The stories from way back confirmed that the good times had always been good times. And, like I said, the fact that we were the loudest table in the place proved that we still had plenty to talk about.

  seventy-five

  It was now a quarter past eleven. We’d all eaten, had drunk several bottles of wine between us and we were in that shouty confident mood that large groups get into at that time of the night. I was listening to Bev who was telling me how she had met her husband when Katrina yelled, ‘Matt!’

  ‘What?’ I bellowed back.

  ‘Pete and I want to do the big Where-are-they-now conversation.’

  We used to have the where-are-they-now conversation every Christmas Eve in the Kings Arms back in the days when everyone came home for the festive season. It was just the seven of us, sitting round the table pooling news about people we knew from school.

  ‘Oh, do we have to do this?’ said Ginny, in a whiny voice. She looked over at me as if I was the leader of this disjointed rabble. ‘I always think it’s tempting fate somehow,’ she continued. ‘Like, it means that somewhere in the world there’s a different group of ex-King’s Heath Comprehensive people sitting round the table saying, “Oooh, you know who my mum saw recently? Ginny Pascoe! Dresses like a bag-lady, teaches at our old school and has Matt Beckford stashed away in a spare room!” It’s too horrible for words. I don’t want the world knowing I’m a loser. I’d much prefer to keep that sort of information to myself.’

  ‘Ginny’s got a point,’ I admitted. ‘I’d hate it if someone out there was saying, “Oh, I spotted Matt Beckford in Safeway buying tampons.”’ Everyone turned to get a better look at me. ‘It’s a long story,’ I explained. ‘My suggestion is that if we’re going to do this, let’s just keep to the unusual – the I-never-thought-they’d-be-doing-that-in-a-million-years ones.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Katrina. ‘I’ll go first because I’ve got a brilliant one. I was at a club in East London about a year and a half ago with an ex of mine and guess who was working the door as a bouncer?’

  ‘Angela Murphy!’ screamed Bev, dementedly. Back in our schooldays Angela Murphy was probably the girl most likely to end up as a bouncer, a wrestler or a shot-putter.

  ‘Colin Birch!’ said Katrina. Colin Birch was probably the weediest kid at our school. It was Andrew Sasky’s (then, our year’s obligatory bully/psychopath) favourite game to remove Colin’s trousers and hide them. While some of us had felt sorry for Colin, I suspect that the majority were glad he existed: he kept Andrew Sasky entertained so prevented him from torturing the rest of us.

  ‘He was absolutely huge,’ continued Katrina. ‘A bit sexy too.’

  ‘Colin Birch, sexy?’ said Pete disbelievingly.

  ‘I must admit,’ said Ginny, ‘I find that a little hard to believe.’

  ‘He was,’ protested Katrina. ‘Really strong-looking broad shoulders.’

  ‘Did you say hello?’ asked Gershwin, in a way that made me think he was fishing for something.

  ‘Nah,’ said Katrina, running her fingers through her hair. ‘He looked like he was too busy . . .’

  Gershwin burst out laughing. ‘You lie,’ he said, pointing at Katrina. ‘I reckon you asked him out or flirted with him or something, and he blew you out!’

  ‘Oh, the shame of it,’ said Katrina, laughing. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘After all these years, Kat,’ said Gershwin, ‘you still play with your hair when you lie!’

  ‘I’ve got a better one than Colin Birch,’ said Pete. ‘I’m on the train going down to my mum’s with my ex and my little boy for the weekend when I look up and guess who’s sitting in the seat across from us?’

  ‘Where did they get on?’ asked Gershwin.

  ‘What do you mean where did they get on?’ said Pete. ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘It might be a clue,’ said Gershwin.

  ‘Right,’ said Pete. ‘This person got on at Wolverhampton.’

  I couldn’t think of anyone we went to school with who had a Wolverhampton connection. ‘Dunno,’ I said eventually, on behalf of all the bemused faces around the table.

  ‘David Coote!’ said Katrina.

  David Coote was the poshest kid at our school (his dad owned Coote Wine cabins – a chain of high-street off-licences) and the person least likely to have heard of Wolverhampton, let alone to have been there.

  ‘I’ve always wondered what happened to him,’ said Bev. ‘I got off with him at Ruth Hennassey’s sixteenth. He was quite dishy as I remember.’

  ‘Dishy?’ said Ginny indignantly.’David Coote? Never! Didn’t you hear the rumour about him? The one about his third nipple?’

  ‘David Coote did not have a third nipple,’ I protested.

  ‘And do you know that for a fact?’ asked Ginny.

  ‘Bev, help me out here,’ I said, in exasperation. ‘David Coote didn’t have a third ni
pple, did he?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said Bev. ‘I only snogged him for about ten minutes, during which time he attempted to give me a love-bite and then was violently sick. Before you say anything, it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the bottle of Coke he brought with him.’

  ‘Coke made him throw up?’ asked Katrina, puzzled.

  ‘The Coke didn’t make him throw up,’ replied Bev, smirking. ‘But the half bottle of his dad’s whisky might’ve had something to do with it.’

  ‘Er . . . hello?’ called Pete. ‘I think you’ll find that I was talking. Anyway as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there I am on the train and opposite me is . . . Faye Chambers!’

  There was a long silence as we all looked at one another trying to recall the name.

  ‘Short girl with blonde hair?’ suggested Katrina. ‘Used to hang about with Liz Maher?’

  ‘You’re thinking of Annette Roloson,’ said Bev. ‘Incidentally, I bumped into Nick Hall – red-faced kid who used to eat his sandwiches in class – at a petrol station just outside Sheffield. Anyway, his sister went to university with Annette and she’s apparently a nurse or a doctor – or a doctor’s receptionist. Something to do with sick people . . . or animals.’ She paused, embarrassed to have everyone’s attention for such a terrible story. ‘Over to you, Pete.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said tersely. ‘Faye Chambers was the girl in our year who was really good at maths – remember she won the maths prize three years in a row?’

  ‘I thought that was Jamie Manning,’ I said, deliberately trying to wind him up.

  ‘Watch yourself, Beckford,’ warned Pete. ‘Remember I’ve got a black belt in wedgies.’

  At the mere mention of ‘wedgies’ all the men around the table winced as we recalled Pete’s schoolboy knack of grabbing the elasticated waistband of your underpants then yanking them up so sharply that you’d be guaranteed to be picking Y-front out of your bum crack for anything up to an hour afterwards.