Turning Forty Read online

  ‘Enough for me to say yes when he proposed.’

  ‘You were engaged? What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story, but it’s like I said, we both wanted different things and neither of us was prepared to compromise.’

  ‘And do you miss him?’

  ‘Every second of every day.’ Ginny wipes her eyes. I hadn’t noticed her tears until now. I wish we’d never ventured into this terrain.

  ‘Look at us, we’re a right mess. What we need is to bring the mood back up. You used to go out with a wedding DJ – what would he play right now to liven up the room?’

  Ginny drains the last of her wine and stands up suddenly. ‘I’ve got just the thing,’ she declares and leaves the room only to return a few minutes later clutching a paint-splattered portable stereo, a framed photo and what looks like a cassette tape.

  ‘What’s going on here then?’

  ‘Prepare to journey back through the mists of time,’ says Ginny, tossing the cassette into my lap. I pick it up and read the label. Written in biro in my own barely legible scrawl are the words: Party Toons!!!! I recognise it immediately.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve still got this!’

  ‘Funnily enough neither can I. I only came across it recently when I was redecorating the spare room. It was in a plastic bag with a whole bunch of other stuff from my student days. It really put a smile on my face.’

  I was eighteen when I put together this tape for one of Ginny’s legendary house parties and it was wheeled out at every opportunity thereafter. I can remember the care I’d taken over it, selecting the tracks, balancing the commercial with the obscure and attempting to show off the depth of my musical knowledge gleaned from years of reading the NME. I try to remember exactly what I’d put on there: Public Enemy, New Order, The Wonderstuff, James Brown, Madonna, Bowie and if I’m not mistaken, a bit of Elvis too.

  I gesture to the portable stereo. ‘Does that thing work then?’

  ‘Listen mate, this was state of the art when I got it and it’s lasted way longer than the last iPod I bought I’ll have you know.’

  I throw the tape to her and she pops it into the machine, bends down, plugs it in and presses play. It’s Elvis singing ‘Kentucky Rain’.

  ‘I haven’t heard this in years! Do you remember how we used to sing this on our way home from the King’s Arms? Your neighbours must have loved us.’

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t mind that much. We were young.’

  ‘And stupid.’

  ‘And tone deaf.’

  She hands me the framed photo. ‘Remember this?’

  It’s a picture of the old gang: me, Ginny, Gershwin, Pete, Bev, Katrina and Elliot taken at school on the day we got our A level results. We all look so young, so innocent of what the world had in store for us which was no bad thing given that Elliot was taken from us so soon afterwards.

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘In the same bag as the tape. I had it blown up at a shop on the high street. Can you believe this is us? We look like babies and yet we felt so grown up, like we knew it all.’ Ginny laughs. ‘We didn’t know anything.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. There are some things I’m pretty sure we knew even then.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I take the photo from her hands and set it carefully down on the coffee table in front of us and as ‘Kentucky Rain’ fades out I lean across and kiss her. And for the first time since leaving London I finally feel like I’m home.

  16

  It’s just after eleven the following morning and I’m curled up in bed next to Ginny. We’ve been awake for a while and after chatting about nothing in particular have now entered some way into what I believe will be a protracted period of comfortable silence.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  As I look at her lying in the crook of my arm I’m desperate to absorb everything I see: her sleepy eyes, bed hair, make-up-free face. She looks completely and utterly beautiful.

  ‘Are you really asking me this? Or are you just winding me up?’

  Ginny laughs and rolls on to her side until her naked thigh is pressed right up against my own. ‘You’ll never know now will you? So just spill the beans and tell me what you’re trying to hide.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Ginny gives me her hardest stare which, if truth be told, verges on the adorable. ‘You’re lying, Beckford. And do you know how I know you’re lying? I know because I can see it in your eyes. You do a bit of a squinty thing when you’re lying. You always have done and you’re doing it now.’

  ‘I do not do any kind of “squinty” thing,’ I reply scowling even though I know it’s true, ‘and I reject the allegation that I do.’

  ‘Fine,’ says Ginny, staring right into my eyes in a manner so playful that I want to rewind time so that I can kiss her for the first time in a decade all over again. ‘If you’re not lying why don’t you just tell me what it was you were thinking and we can move on to talking about something else?’

  ‘You don’t really want to know what I’m thinking do you?’ I tell her. ‘Asking blokes what they’re thinking is just one of those questions women ask men when they’re in an awkward situation and don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Ginny. ‘Is that what you think this is? An awkward situation?’

  I refuse to take the bait. ‘Now I know for sure you’re just trying to wind me up.’

  ‘For the last time, I’m not trying to wind you up, that’s just an added bonus. I want to know what you were thinking when I asked the question and I want to know now!’

  She’s not going to let this go.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, ‘the truth is: I was thinking about a beach.’

  ‘A beach?’

  ‘Ned’s Beach on Lord Howe Island to be exact. I went there for a long weekend with a couple of mates back when I was in Oz. Honestly Ginny, it’s got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. The sea’s gin-and-tonic clear, you can hand-feed the kingfish that live there, the whole place is just amazing. You’d love it.’

  ‘It sounds fantastic. What made you think of that?’

  ‘No reason.’

  Ginny laughs. ‘There you are with the lies again, Beckford. You’re as bad as some of the kids I teach. Come on, spill the beans.’

  ‘Nothing . . . it’s stupid . . . can we just drop it?’

  Ginny sits up, pulling the duvet around her, her face determined. ‘No we can’t just drop it, actually. I want to know.’

  ‘Are you really going to have an argument with me about this? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you more like? Why won’t you tell me? I mean, is it really that big a deal?’ She reaches down to the floor, picks up her top and pulls it on over her head.

  I look at her, bewildered. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? Getting dressed.’

  ‘And you’re doing this because I won’t tell you what I’m thinking.’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I’m doing this because I’m sick and tired of the way men always have to keep every tiny thing bottled up. This was a mistake, and I’d like it if you’d leave.’

  ‘Fine, you want to know why I was thinking about that beach? Well here goes: I was thinking about how much I’d like to go there with you one day.’

  Ginny stops dressing and looks at me. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just say that?’

  ‘Because it would have been weird.’

  Ginny shakes her head. ‘No it wouldn’t.’ She takes my hand in hers. ‘Where else would you like to show me?’

  ‘New York. You’ve never been, have you?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘You’d love it. It’s got parks, museums, culture, the lot. And I’d love to show you China too. The Great Wall at Mutianyu, the Forbidden City, the Jiuzhaigou Valley nature reserve, the list is—’

  ‘Let’s do it.’<
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  I look at Ginny blankly. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Go travelling. You want to show me these places, and believe me I want to see them. We should do it, Matt. I’m absolutely serious. What’s really stopping us? I’m not massively in love with my job and you haven’t got one, neither of us has got kids or ties keeping us here and, let’s face it, we could both do with a break. We should do it. Take a grown-up gap year and see the world.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ I say. ‘It’s just not going to happen.’

  ‘Why not? Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t book a round-the-world ticket right now? Just think of the adventures we’d have—’

  ‘Are you joking? I can think of half a dozen without trying!’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The fact that I’m broke.’

  ‘Problem solved: I’ll loan you the money.’

  ‘And if we’re really talking about problems, what about all this?’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘You, me, and last night . . . well, we haven’t really discussed it have we?’

  ‘What’s to discuss?’

  ‘The fact that I’m still married.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The fact that until last night I hadn’t seen you in six years.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you doing this to wind me up? There don’t need to be any more “ands”, those are enough!’

  ‘I’m not sure they are,’ says Ginny. ‘You want to do this but you’re just scared to admit it. If you can look me in the eyes and tell me that those two things are genuinely stopping you from going travelling with me I promise you I won’t mention it again.’

  ‘And you won’t be weird about it either?’

  ‘Not even slightly.’

  ‘Let’s do this.’ I sit up and position myself so that I can look into Ginny’s eyes. ‘I, Matthew Beckford, do solemnly declare that . . .’ I stop. It’s like something out of a film. I can’t get the words out. I try again. ‘I, Matthew Beckford, do solemnly declare that . . .’ I stop again. This is ridiculous. I can’t really be considering this, can I? I know I had this big plan to get back together with Ginny but even at my most deluded I never thought it would happen. Thinking about Ginny was just a way to get myself out of a rut and give me something to focus on. I didn’t really love her. How could I after all this time apart? We’re not the same people we were back when we were seventeen, not even close! How could anything we started up now be other than a major disaster? I steel myself for one last try.

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’

  Ginny laughs. ‘I think it means that you need to kiss me right now.’

  Like two giddy teenagers in love Ginny and I spend the rest of the morning reeling off names of yet more places we’d like to see, ordering Rough Guide travel books off the internet and drawing up an itinerary. It’s like a dream. I can hardly believe it. Yesterday I had nothing positive on my horizon and today I’m looking forward to going round the world with a woman who up until yesterday I thought was married. But even though it feels wild and unpredictable, at the same time it feels real. Solid even. After all, Ginny and I are standing on the foundations of two decades’ worth of friendship.

  Later that morning we get dressed and go for breakfast at a café on York Road buying a couple of newspapers on the way. Ginny has a veggie burger thing and I have the full English breakfast and a pot of tea and all we do is talk about the trip, leaving our papers on the table unread beside us. When we finish our meal I find myself looking around at the other couples in the café, most of who appear to be a good decade younger than us. How many of them have known the person they slept with last night for over half a lifetime? How many of them could claim to really know the person sitting opposite them right now as well as I know Ginny?

  Meal over, we take a stroll along the high street, neither of us wanting this time to end, but once we’ve had our fill of window-shopping a decision needs to be made.

  ‘We could always go back to yours,’ I say, yawning.

  ‘Bad idea. I have a ton of work to catch up on and I won’t get any of it done with you there to distract me.’

  ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour, I promise.’

  Ginny shakes her head.

  I know she’s right. Why would I waste time sleeping when I could be awake with her instead? ‘Well, I want to see you tomorrow then. We’ll do lunch or something.’

  ‘It’s a date.’

  On the corner we kiss like a couple of teenagers and say our goodbyes.

  ‘I’ll text you,’ she says and gives me a final kiss.

  I begin walking away but then I turn round and run after her, catching up with her outside a tiny second-hand record shop. ‘This is real isn’t it?’ I ask her over the booming bass of a dub reggae track coming through the open door. ‘It’s not just in my head, is it?’

  Ginny shakes her head and I feel reassured. ‘It’s not just in yours, Matt, it’s in mine too.’

  Three things occur to me as I root around in my pockets for the keys to my parents’ house. First, I am still wearing last night’s clothes (making me the very definition of a dirty stopout) second, that I couldn’t care less about this and third that I left my parents’ sandwich stuff in Ginny’s kitchen. Still, not even misplaced shopping can dampen my spirits. I feel like doing cartwheels down the street and high-fiving complete strangers. I feel good. So good in fact that I want to call up Gershwin (the only person in the world who will appreciate the magnitude of my news) and tell him (without going into detail of course) all about my reunion with Ginny. I don’t, because if I have noticed anything about men of my generation of late (myself included) it’s that while we’re quite happy to spout forth about the demise of a relationship, when it comes to new relationships we are (without exception) hopelessly coy about the subject of sex as though it’s some kind of Edwardian ‘bad form’ once you get past the age of thirty-five. Still, after a year that has seen all kinds of trouble come my way, I sort of miss being able to brag about my success. And it isn’t just that Ginny and I spent the whole night making each other laugh with stupid jokes, or that we spent as much time in bed as we did out of it, or even our mad jaunt around the world; no, what really makes it so amazing is that I can 100 per cent picture this thing going all the way. I’m talking a joint mortgage, kids and maybe (once I’d got my decree absolute) marriage too. All that matters is that finally there’s light at the end of the tunnel and I’m convinced that this time at least it’s not a train coming the other way.

  Mum calls out to me as I close the front door behind me. I find her in the kitchen wearing her sternest of faces. I know exactly what she’s going to say.

  ‘I know, I know,’ I tell her, ‘you’re right, I should’ve called.’

  ‘So why didn’t you? Would it have killed you to give me or your father a ring? You could’ve been lying dead in a ditch!’

  I think about pointing out that a) I had been nowhere near a ditch and b) I was off to Ginny’s for dinner but I stop myself on the grounds that this wasn’t the point she is making. The point is that I have been inconsiderate and given my massively good mood I have no qualms in admitting that I am in the wrong.

  I apologise. ‘You’re absolutely right. I have no excuse and I promise it won’t happen again.’

  She eyes me warily. I normally don’t give in this easily ‘And where have you been all this time?’

  ‘At Gershwin’s.’ Now is not the time to start oversharing with my parents about my private life. ‘I bumped into him when I was with Ginny and we all went out and didn’t get back until early this morning . . . and so we crashed at Gershwin’s.’

  Mum shakes her head in bemusement. What I have just said makes no sense to her whatsoever.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you,’ she says. ‘A man your age shouldn’t be out all hours. You’re not twenty-one any more!’

/>   There’s a certain irony in Mum of all people reminding me of this fact but I hold up my hands in submission. ‘Absolutely right. No more late nights for me unless I call first.’ I give her a kiss on the cheek because that’s how good I’m feeling right now. ‘Consider me suitably chastised.’

  Sensing there’s something wrong but not quite sure what it might be Mum reluctantly disappears into the garden. My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Ginny: Hey you, just wanted to thank you for a lovely night and a cracking afternoon xxx G. And I reply: Had a great time too. Can’t wait to see you again. M x. I think that might be it but as I’m heading upstairs my phone buzzes once more. I know you’ve probably got a lot going on in your head right now but I want to give you written proof that I mean what I say and so here goes: THIS IS REAL. And don’t you forget it. G xxx.

  17

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ says our travel expert, Jean, with an overdramatic flourish, ‘that’s the last of the boring paperwork out of the way. Now all you need to do is tell me how you’ll be paying today and we’ll be done.’

  I look nervously at Ginny. There are no words to describe how great this past week has been. I’ve spent pretty much every night at Ginny’s and I’m completely convinced by what we have together but even so I still can’t quite believe that I’m about to buy a ticket that will see me visiting India, Vietnam, Thailand, Bali, China, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the USA with Ginny. Doing something this reckless when I am this happy feels like I am giving my luck one shove too far.

  ‘Can we have a minute?’ I say to Jean as Ginny reaches in her purse for her credit card.

  ‘Not a problem,’ says Jean, though her face says otherwise, and as I rise from the chair positioned in front of her desk Ginny laughs and shakes her head apologetically as though I am to be pitied rather than admonished.

  ‘You’re freaking out again, aren’t you?’ says Ginny, joining me in a far corner of the shop next to the window showing all the best flight deals.

  ‘No . . . I’m not,’ I reply too quickly. ‘OK, yeah I am just a bit but you’ve got to remember this is a big deal, Gin, a really big deal. These tickets are non-refundable. Which means you’re going to have to follow through with everything we’ve planned from giving up the job you’ve done for the last twelve years to renting out your house for at least a year—’