Turning Forty

by Mike Gayle

  Later I get a text from Rosa asking what time I’ll be back. I text her straight away and tell her that I’m coming down with a bug. She offers to come over and look after me. As lovely as this idea is I’m simply not in the mood, so I tell her that I’m going to attempt to sleep my way through my illness. I promise to text her in the morning and then I turn off my phone.

  The following morning I make myself get up and go into work even though all I want to do is stay in bed. I arrive just after ten and try my best to be upbeat but within five minutes of my arrival Gerry picks up on my mood.

  ‘Girl problems is it?’ he calls from the biography section.

  ‘Parent problems,’ I reply, thankful that the shop is empty apart from the two of us.

  ‘What’s up?’

  I tell him everything. He is visibly shocked. ‘What are you going to do? Go with them?’

  ‘They’re moving to a retirement bungalow! I can’t be living in a retirement bungalow at forty!’

  ‘So what then?’ he asks. ‘Are you going back to London?’

  ‘And live with my online-dating estranged wife? I can’t imagine there’d be any problem there, can you?’

  ‘Well I suppose you could stay here, couldn’t you?’

  ‘And live where? I’m broke. Of course, I suppose there is one other alternative . . .’

  Gerry looks alarmed. ‘You know I’d love to but I can’t, mate.’

  ‘Why not? You’re always telling me how big your place is . . . it’d be a laugh. And it’s not like I’d need a bedroom. I’d kip on the sofa and it’d only be until the house in London gets sold. It’s been getting loads of viewings recently, I only need one of them to turn into an offer and I’ll be out of your hair for good.’

  ‘I can’t mate – sorry. Kara’s round at mine all the time these days and she’s always walking about the place half naked – I think it’s some kind of Dutch thing – I can’t do anything to make her put on clothes. You don’t want to be around that, it’d be embarrassing for all of us. Haven’t you got any other mates you could ask?’

  The image of Ginny and Gershwin holding hands outside Sainsbury’s flashes up in my head and immediately turns my mood black. ‘No,’ I say, ‘not any more.’

  Gerry pats me on the back. ‘Listen mate, if I was you I wouldn’t panic. Something will turn up, I’m sure of it. Something always comes up for people like me and you.’

  The rest of the day goes by in a blur. I put some of the top-quality stock on eBay where it will get a better price, rummage through donations, discourage two of the world’s most hopeless shoplifters from helping themselves to CDs, field multiple texts from Rosa, get into an argument with a guy demanding a refund for the two Jim Carrey DVDs that he bought at the weekend because he allegedly hadn’t realised that they both starred Jim Carrey, enter into a very weird conversation with Odd Owen about a book he’s reading about Stalingrad, get told off by Anne for not keeping the classical section in order while she’s been away on holiday, tell off Steve the Student after discovering him attempting to circumvent the firewall I’d put in place so he could update his status on Facebook, and spend three hours manning the till.

  By the end of the day I’m exhausted, and all I want to do is go home, go to bed and not think about anything but just as we’re about to shut up shop, the bell jangles and I look up from the till to see Rosa walk in.

  ‘Hey you,’ I say once I’ve packed the last customer off with two Lee Childs and a Dan Brown. ‘How are you doing?’

  Rosa’s smile fades. ‘I was going to ask you the same question. Is there any chance we could have a quick chat?’

  ‘Yeah of course.’ I nod to Odd Owen to take over the till while I head to the office to find Gerry.

  ‘Do you mind if I get off a bit early?’ I ask. ‘It’s just that Rosa’s here and she looks pretty annoyed.’

  ‘Maybe she’s come to tell you she’s pregnant,’ says Gerry, chuckling to himself. ‘I’ve heard it’s the sort of thing that can get even the most placid of women worked up.’

  I look at him incredulously. ‘Why would you even joke about such a thing when you know my life is falling apart around my ears?’

  ‘Mate,’ he says emphatically, ‘if I don’t pull your plonker who will?’

  I head back into the shop to collect Rosa and take her across the road to the Fighting Cocks because I’m desperate for a pint.

  ‘So,’ I say once we’re firmly ensconced at a table, ‘what’s on your mind?’

  ‘You,’ she says. ‘I don’t like playing games, Matt. If you’re not into this any more I wish you’d just be a man and say rather than stringing me along.’

  ‘What’ve I done?’

  ‘You’ve been distant ever since you left on Sunday morning. I text you and I only get a single line back, I call you and you barely say a word. Is it something to do with your ex, are you getting back with her?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘So what then? Is it me? Is it the age thing?’

  ‘Of course it’s not you. You’re the best thing in my life right now. It’s just that I’ve got some stuff going on with my parents and it’s freaking me out a bit.’

  ‘They’re OK aren’t they? They’re not ill or anything?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that I finally found out why my mum has been trying so hard to get hold of me: she and my dad have sold their house and bought a place in Worcester near to my sister. They move in a few weeks and they want me to go with them.’

  ‘To Worcester?’

  ‘Exactly. I can’t be doing that. It’s a retirement bungalow. I’ll be the youngest person there by about thirty years. I’ve asked Gerry if I can stay at his but he’s got stuff going on with his girlfriend and there’s no way I can afford a place on my own without a job so—’

  ‘Move in with me,’ says Rosa firmly.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I said, move in with me.’

  ‘You?’

  Rosa laughs. ‘You know how to make a girl feel wanted, don’t you?’

  ‘We’ll it’s just that, you know, we haven’t exactly been together all that long.’

  ‘What does that matter? You’ve just told me I’m the best thing in your life right now and I think you’re fabulous, you need a place to stay and I’ve got a one-bedroom flat that feels empty without you in it. I think this is what’s called in the trade “synchronicity”. So what do you say?’

  I think it’s the absolute worst idea I’ve ever heard. What we have works precisely because there are no plans for the future. There’s only now. Moving in together, even on an allegedly temporary basis, would change everything, and she needs to know this. I clear my throat and look into her eyes ready to tell her the truth but she looks so genuinely happy, so utterly thrilled that I might even be considering it, that I just can’t bring myself to do it.

  ‘I think that sounds great,’ I tell her. ‘I can’t think of anything that I’d want more.’

  The following morning, I get out of bed once she’s gone to work and while the kettle boils for my morning coffee I open up her laptop and start looking up IT recruitment firms. Given what I’d told her last night it feels like a real betrayal but I have no choice because if I’ve learned anything during my thirty-nine years on earth it’s this: moving in with Rosa will be a mistake. Living together so soon when things are going so well is asking for trouble. My life has been so up in the air and my head is so all over the place that I’m bound to make a mess of things. No, I need to get some cash, and fast, so that I can get a place of my own and the only way I can do that is by returning to the job that I promised myself I’d never do again. I search out the number of a recruitment firm that I used when I was at my old company. If anyone will be able to get me work at short notice they will.

  I ring their top sales guy and he picks up straight away: ‘Forward IT Recruiting. Damon Hunter speaking.’

  My heart starts to race like it did that day in the
car park at Heathrow.

  ‘Forward IT Recruiting. Damon Hunter speaking. How can I help today?’

  My palms begin to sweat like they did in the car park at Heathrow.

  ‘Hello, Forward IT Recruiting. Damon Hunter speaking. Can you hear me, caller?’

  I finish the call before I end up like I did in the car park at Heathrow.

  That night when Rosa comes home I present her with a plate full of luminous cup cakes from the baker’s on the high street each with a letter on top so it spells out: i love you.

  My cake message makes her cry and she tells me this is the happiest she’s ever been but all I can think is: I am so terrified of going back to work that I’m prepared to risk the only good thing in my life right now just to avoid it for a little while longer.

  35

  They say that the three most stressful things in life are bereavement, changing jobs and moving house, and while I am in agreement with this I can’t help but feel that the last category (for reasons of accuracy) needs a hierarchy of its own. Moving house is indeed a highly traumatic activity (I should know, having moved both houses and entire continents in recent years) but helping your parents to move out of the house in which they’ve both lived and raised a family for over forty years is the stuff of nightmares.

  ‘And what do you need a book on ornithology for right now?’ barks Mum, frantically scrubbing the inside of the kitchen cupboards as I come in from clearing out the shed. ‘We’re moving house today. Can’t you do something useful for once?’

  ‘I said I’d lend it to George at number seventy-three before we left,’ says Dad as though this sentence makes perfect sense in the current circumstances. ‘He’s got this dark-brown bird with a white head that keeps coming into his garden and he wants to know what it is.’

  ‘Can’t he just take a picture and be done with it? Anyone would think that you don’t want to move the way you’ve been messing about all morning. The removal men said that they would be needing to leave by eleven if they were going to get the job done and at this rate we’ll be here until midnight.’

  ‘Is there any need to exaggerate?’ asks Dad. ‘It’s just one box and they’ve cleared virtually everything from upstairs, so I can’t imagine it’s going to take them more than an hour to clear the back room of boxes once the sofas are out. I know it’s in one of the boxes in the living room, I just want to know which one.’

  ‘Have you tried the one marked ‘‘books’’!’ exclaims Mum. ‘Or is that too much for you?’

  Dad departs muttering under his breath, leaving me to ask Mum what it is she’s doing.

  ‘I’m washing down the cupboards,’ she explains. ‘You should have seen the state of some of them. I really ought to have done a spring clean much earlier than this.’

  ‘But what’s the point, Mum? You know the developers are going to rip them all out. You told me yourself they’re going to refurbish the whole place.’

  ‘I can’t have them thinking that I don’t care about dirty cupboards!’ she says, scandalised. ‘I’ve always done things properly and I’m not about to change now.’

  There is no point in attempting to counter my mother’s argument because she does not allow things like logic to penetrate her world and so instead I take myself back outside to finish the shed and think about how in just a few hours I’ll officially be living with a woman other than my wife.

  Having had the past few weeks to get my head round the idea of Rosa and me living together I have to say that I’ve started to warm to it. So far as both a flatmate and a partner she’s been pretty easy-going and I can’t see any reason to see why things shouldn’t continue this way once the move happens. The only problem that I can envision is what Lauren might have to say if or when she finds out but for the moment at least I have decided to simply shove my head in the sand and carry on as normal.

  It’s ten thirty on the dot when the foreman of the removal company pops his head round the door in the kitchen. I’m boxing the last of the cleaning equipment to put in Yvonne’s car so that when she takes them over to the bungalow Mum and Dad can immediately commence Operation Clean-up Part 2. The removal guy informs me that everything is in the back of the removal van and that they’re ready to go when we are and so I give him the nod and tell him that I’ll let my parents know.

  As I walk through the empty rooms I feel like the bearer of momentous news. The beginning of the end is about to commence, great change is afoot. Nothing will ever be the same again.

  I spot Dad in the garden with Yvonne and walk down to them.

  ‘I was just reminding your sister about the time she climbed on the roof of the shed and couldn’t get down again,’ chuckles Dad as I reach them. ‘She bawled her eyes out. I thought the tears would never stop.’

  Yvonne rolls her eyes in exasperation. ‘Only because Tony and Ed kept telling me that the roof was rotten and that I’d fall through it and break my neck. That pair could be really evil.’

  ‘You could be just as mean though,’ I add, pointing to the Bramley apple tree we used to climb as kids. ‘Do you remember when Ed climbed up to the top of this using Dad’s old ladder and while he was up there you took the ladder away and left him stranded?’

  ‘Do I ever?’ laughs Yvonne. ‘Once Mum rescued him she chased me round the house with a slipper yelling, “You’d better run because if I catch you you’ll be seeing stars!” ’ Yvonne pats the rough bark of the ancient tree.

  Yvonne and Dad head back into the house and while they load up the car I go upstairs to my parents’ bedroom where Mum is busy hoovering the grey swirly carpet that is over twenty years past its prime and which will certainly be dumped the second the developer walks through the door.

  ‘So that’s it then, Mum,’ I say, as she turns off the vacuum. ‘The removal guys are all done and Dad and Yvonne are waiting for you in the car.’

  ‘But there is still so much to do.’

  It’s apparent that her desire to clean has less to do with wanting to impress the developer and more with wanting to keep her mind occupied. ‘Not any more there isn’t.’

  She unplugs the hoover and I can see she has tears in her eyes.

  ‘I know it’s tough, Mum,’ I say, putting my arm round her, ‘but you’re doing the right thing. Just think, you’ll be able to see Yvonne and the grandkids whenever you want, take long walks in the countryside with Dad and get plenty of exercise, make tons of friends and maybe start a few new hobbies. You’ll be living the dream.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, wiping her eyes, ‘but I won’t have this place any more, will I? Not the bedrooms where you kids slept, or the living room where we spent so many Christmases or the kitchen where I’ve made so many dinners.’

  ‘But you’ll still have the memories, won’t you?’ I reassure her. ‘Leaving somewhere doesn’t change that.’

  We go downstairs and head outside. I load the vacuum cleaner into the back of the car while Mum climbs in.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right, Matthew?’ asks Mum as I poke my head through the open window to give her a kiss. ‘You know you don’t have to stay with this friend of yours, it’s not too late for you to come with us.’

  ‘I’m good thanks. All my stuff’s in the front room ready for when Rosa arrives to pick me up. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘And you won’t forget to drop off the keys at the solicitor’s?’

  ‘No Mum.’

  ‘Or to shut the front door properly and lock the back gate?’

  ‘I’ll do everything on the list.’ I pull out the sheet of A4 she had handed me first thing this morning. ‘Now, are you sure you don’t want me to come and help at the other end?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’ve told you a million times the removal men will do all the unpacking. You need to sort out yourself.’

  ‘Fine,’ I reply, ‘you have a good journey and I’ll call you tonight and see how you’re settling in.’

  Yvonne starts up the car and as they pull away I re
turn their waves before disappearing back into the house to attend to Mum’s list.

  Closing the windows takes the longest as some of them have long since stopped working properly and having been opened for the express purpose of giving the house a ‘good airing’ now refuse to close. While I’m struggling with the most troublesome of these the doorbell rings and when I peer out of the window I see Rosa looking up at me.

  ‘Are you going to let me in?’

  She’s wearing jeans and a black jacket and her hair is tied back in a loose ponytail. She looks beautiful and I tell her so.

  ‘Why thank you,’ she says, planting a kiss on my lips. ‘So how’s it been?’

  ‘Tougher than I thought. Mum got a bit upset just before she left.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It must have been a real wrench for them and for you.’

  I give her a guided tour of my empty family home, covering the front room that was only ever used for best, the back room where we watched TV, the kitchen where I calculate with the aid of my phone that Mum probably made the best part of forty thousand meals, my parents’ bedroom where I used to sleep if I got scared in the night, my sister’s bedroom that she would never let me or my brothers into because she said we made it smell, the bedroom I shared with my brothers and finally the garden where I and my siblings spent thousands of hours during the long summer holidays making our own entertainment and nearly killing ourselves in the process.

  ‘I wish I could have seen it before all the life was taken out of it,’ says Rosa. ‘You make it sound like it was the best place in the world.’

  ‘It was.’ I search in my coat for the front-door keys. ‘It was the absolute best.’

  There’s no reason to stay and so I get Rosa to open her car and I start loading my stuff into the back. It doesn’t take long although I’m surprised how much stuff there is: all my old vinyl records from the loft, a cardboard box full of my school exercise books, carrier bags filled with comics and old music magazines and a framed picture of me, Ginny, Gershwin and the rest of the gang taken outside the school front gates on the last day of our A levels.