Turning Forty (25 page)

Mum nods her approval eagerly. ‘You should see them, Matthew, they’re only two-bed bungalows but they’re so lovely. Fully double-glazed, a spacious kitchen-diner, a living room large enough to fit the whole family at Christmas, a purpose-built utility room, a master bedroom with an en-suite plus a decent-sized family bathroom, a double garage for your father and a garden which while not exactly finished to our tastes will be sorted out in no time.’

‘And don’t forget the views,’ adds Dad.

‘Oh, the views,’ says Mum. ‘Matthew you should see them. Just trees and fields for as far as the eye can see.’

‘So anyway,’ continues Dad, ‘after we’d looked around the sales lady asked us about our situation. We told her and straightaway she said that she thought part-exchange would be the way forward. Their valuer came a few days later, we got a chap in a few days after that and it’s been with the solicitor ever since.’

‘And they think it’s going to be done in three weeks.’

Dad nods, his face the picture of guilt. ‘We signed the papers yesterday, son, the date’s set and the removal men booked for the first Friday in March.’

‘We can go over this afternoon if you like,’ says Dad. ‘We might not be able to see the actual bungalow if they’re too busy in the sales department but there’s a show bungalow that you can look around to get a feel for the place. And I promise you, your room has got one of the best views of the whole house.’

‘My room?’

‘Well, you’ll be coming with us won’t you? I mean, it’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to live.’

I don’t reply. I can’t. My brain absolutely refuses to process the information.

‘We didn’t do this lightly,’ says Mum. ‘I know this place has got a lot of memories for you, it has for all of us, but it’s like I said to your father only yesterday: You can’t keep living in the past. You have to look to the future.’

34

I don’t go out for the rest of the day. I spend what’s left of it on the phone to my siblings venting about the crazy nature of my parents’ plan. Even though I put my case as even-handedly as I can (given the circumstances), pointing out that none of us has looked over the contract, investigated how much they’ve paid to secure the house or indeed (with the exception of Yvonne) even seen the bungalow, all of them think that this is the single best thing Mum and Dad could have done and I am insane for believing otherwise. ‘If you’d seen how happy Mum looked when she saw the views from the kitchen,’ said Yvonne, ‘you wouldn’t doubt that they’ve made the right decision.’ My brother Tony was equally effusive: ‘Bruv, they are going to be so happy in the place,’ and finally in his typical diplomatic style my brother Ed observed: ‘This isn’t about them, it’s about you and the hard time you’re having with everything that’s going on in your life. I get it, it’s tough, but if you took the time to look beyond your world for a minute or two you’d see how right this move is for them.’ I didn’t think much of Yvonne’s and Tony’s comments or even Ed’s half-baked pop psychology, and I left them with the most important issue at hand: ‘Once the house is sold that’s going to be it, a whole chapter of our lives closed for good, with no chance of it ever being reopened. If you’re going to make a decision like that you have to think it through, you have to be sure, because if you’re not the moment might come when you’ll regret it and by then it will be too late.’

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.’