Turning Forty (9 page)

My dad nods but I can see that he’s not convinced.

For the next few days not a great deal happens. I eat, sleep, catch a cold and watch a lot of needlessly gory US police procedurals with my parents but without Ginny to think about, life has no focus. Just as I’m feeling at my lowest however I get some post forwarded by Lauren, and although most of it is useless junk mail there’s one that brightens my day immensely.

‘You look like you’ve won the lottery,’ says Mum, as she passes me in the hallway. ‘Good news?’

‘Great news. It’s a cheque for five hundred and eighty-six pounds. Apparently I overpaid on my tax last year and this is the amount plus interest.’

My mum peers at the cheque. ‘You should spend it,’ she says, ‘before they tell you it was a mistake and try and take it back off you!’

I hand her the cheque. ‘You take it and we’ll call it rent money.’

‘I’ll do no such thing!’ she says, affronted. ‘I don’t want your money, thank you very much.’ She shoves the cheque back in my hand. ‘If you want to make me happy, burn those tracksuit bottoms you’ve been living in these past few days, go into town, buy yourself some new clothes and smarten yourself up. You’re nearly forty, Matthew, and you need to start dressing like it!’

12

Heading towards the architectural wonder that is Selfridges in the Bullring, admiring its bulging bug-like compound-eye exterior, I marvel once again how much the city I love has changed. All the landmarks I once used to get my bearings have been moved, revamped or bulldozed. The old rundown grade-two listed Moor Street Station has been renovated to look like the location for a cosy BBC Sunday night Agatha Christie adaptation, the Rotunda has been transformed from a tatty office block to a designer apartment building, and the old fruit and veg market down where Don Christie’s record shop used to be is now a huge space-age shopping centre. Is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that people, like cities, are in need of an overhaul from time to time if they are going to keep pace with the modern age? Could a sartorial revamp be the first step in turning me from a tired rundown thirtysomething into a gleaming example of twenty-first-century manliness?

Despite my mother’s input, clothes have in fact been on my mind for some time. Now that I am turning forty there are some items of clothing in my wardrobe that I will no longer be able to pull off. Take for example my T-shirt collection. I have jokey ones (e.g. a drawing of a huge thumb gesturing to the left of me with the words: Who’s this jerk? above it), I have designer ones with fashionable logos on the front that make me feel like a walking advert and I have a few cool ones with abstract images that used to look quite good underneath a suit jacket, not to mention the obligatory band T-shirts from my twenties that I haven’t the heart to throw away.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with these. In fact I’m sure that at least one of my brothers might leap at the chance to own a few of them. But this is the end of the road for me because one of the rules of turning forty is that the logoed T-shirt is the T-shirt of youth. It says: Look at me being needlessly casual, look at what the words and images on my clothing say about me. And while that might be fine if you’re twenty-one with a body as lithe as a snake’s, when you’re forty and daily fighting the effects of decades of beer and bad eating habits, drawing attention to the fact with an image on your T-shirt is a sign to all the world that you don’t own a floor-length mirror. No, from forty onwards if you’re over-warm and wish to get some air to your lower arms it’s either a shirt with the sleeves rolled up or a plain T-shirt (preferably in black, grey, or white although blue is just about acceptable).

And that’s just the beginning.

Don’t get me started on jeans (can’t do too baggy or too tight or too Marks and Spencer), shirts (no bright colours or daft ‘fashion’ collars, footwear (no trainers for non-exercising purposes), headwear (that’s a definite no to the baseball cap) and as for trousers the whole leg width thing gives me a headache just thinking about it.

As I wander into Selfridges debating whether to head straight up the escalators to the Paul Smith concession or stay on the first floor dominated by casual clothing for the needlessly young, out of the corner of my eye I spot Gerry Hammond from The Pinfolds again; but he’s not alone. This time he’s got a gorgeous girl on his arm who – dressed in a black tailored jacket over a Led Zeppelin T-shirt teamed with an incredibly short frayed denim skirt – looks like a young Anita Pallenberg.

The girl stops to look at the T-shirts on the table in front of me and I stare at Gerry. He’s wearing a black leather jacket, white jeans and expensive-looking shoes. He seems to have got this growing older but staying cool thing down to a fine art. I want to ask his advice not just about clothes but about life too.

I nod in his direction in the hope that he might remember me from the shop but there’s no recognition on his face and he simply carries on browsing. Lingering ironically next to a table of T-shirts that I know I’m never going to buy (I can’t really see me pulling off any item of clothing that declares to the world: I am your homeboy), I watch him for a good few minutes before realising that I’m in danger of stalking him and so I make my way upstairs to continue shopping.

Sitting empty-handed on the bus some hours later feeling somewhat dispirited (there had been an OK jumper in Paul Smith but it would have wiped out my little bonus in one swipe of my credit card) I plan to cheer myself up with a trip to the cinema but my phone rings and from the screen I see that it’s my mother. My gut instinct tells me to ignore it. But plain old-fashioned guilt makes me answer the call.

‘Matthew, it’s your mother here,’ she says as though there was any doubt in my mind. ‘Your father and I went to the Teals’ for lunch and ever since we’ve got home he’s been going on about how good Mrs Teal’s ham sandwiches were so I was just wondering if you wouldn’t mind picking me up a few slices from the supermarket.’

‘Can’t it wait?’ I reply. ‘Dad’s not going to eat a ham sandwich now, it’s teatime.’

‘I’m sorry if it’s putting you out to get your dad some ham but tough luck, young man, you’re getting it!’

Even at the best of times there’s little point in arguing with my mum but on the top deck of the bus packed with people on their way home from work I have little choice but to agree to her demands as a list that was supposed to begin and end with ham grows to include corned beef, Cheddar cheese and sausage rolls.

My reluctance to pick up the odds and ends that my mum wants is less to do with laziness than a desire not to bump into anyone I know. Given my current circumstances I have little or nothing to crow about and the thought of having to listen to others’ success stories depresses me greatly. As it was, I’d already had to make a quick exit from the HSBC on the high street to avoid Darren Hemmings (then, the boy most likely to make a career as a football coach; now, head of customer liaison at HSBC); and had to leap behind a Jamie Oliver book display in WHSmith to avoid talking to Faye ‘wild child’ Wiederman (then, the girl most likely to lift up her shirt and show you her bra for no reason; now, harassed mother of four) all because I didn’t want to tell anyone about the current state of my life. Given the sheer volume of people supermarkets attract every day, entering the Kings Heath branch of Sainsbury’s would be tantamount to walking into an oversubscribed school reunion.

True to form I’ve barely stepped into the shop when from behind me I hear a voice boom: ‘Boffin!’ just as two huge hands come down on the backs of my shoulders. I turn round to see a tall bloke in a fur-trimmed parka laughing hysterically. I recognise him straight away.

‘Jason Cleveland!’ I say, my voice chock-full of fake bonhomie. ‘How are you, mate?’

Jason Cleveland was the supercool kid of my secondary school. He was the guy who wore the best clothes, got invited to the best parties and dated the best girls. Being what Cleveland labelled a ‘boffin’ meant that I hadn’t had much to do with him. And having witnessed first-hand his ability to destroy anyone who made the mistake of crossing his path wearing the wrong trainers or brand of designer clothing I was mightily relieved. The sickening thing about Jason is that he pretty much looked exactly the same as he had done in school. He was still ridiculously tall, and still ridiculously good-looking and judging from his multi-coloured Day-Glo trainers still had a thing for designer footwear.

‘I knew it was you the second I saw you walking in!’ he says. ‘How are you, mate?’

‘Couldn’t be better. You?’

‘Excellent. Just come from work. I’m shattered.’

‘So what are you doing back in town?’ he asks. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be something flash in the Smoke? Something to do with banks wasn’t it?

‘I work in IT.’

‘That’s it. How’s that treating you?’

‘Couldn’t be better, mate.’

‘I knew you’d do well, Boff! You were always good at that sort of thing. Not that I haven’t done well myself, like.’

I rack my brains.

‘That’s right . . .’ I begin, ‘you work in . . .’

He pulls out his wallet, removes a card and thrusts it into my hand: Cleveland Double Glazing.

‘Best business ever, mate, I am rolling in it! You should see my new Beemer, fully kitted out, all the works, it’ll blow your mind! In fact why don’t we go for a spin now? We could have a few beers afterwards and a proper catch up.’

‘I’d love to, mate,’ I say, ‘but I’ve got something on tonight. Maybe another time?’

‘Another time it is!’ he says, and I hope that he’s going to leave it there but of course he demands my mobile number and I have no choice but to give it. ‘I’ll text you in the week, Boff!’ he says as a parting shot, ‘I’ll sort out something legendary for us to do.’

I leave Jason buying lottery tickets from the kiosk, pick up a basket and head inside the supermarket where it takes me all of five seconds to spot Andrea Bell (then, girl most likely to tattoo her boyfriend’s name on her arm using a compass and a bottle of Quink; now, partner to a long-haired rocker type currently weighing loose peppers). Heading towards the chilled meats fridges I spot Toby Emmanuel from the year above me at school (then, boy most likely to become a professional actor; now, it appears, a manager in Sainsbury’s) talking to a woman unpacking a box containing packets of cheese. After giving him a wide berth and picking up the ham I set my sights on the corned beef but then I see the older sister of Ruth Burrows (then, girl most likely to get pregnant before her seventeenth birthday, now, the mother of a twenty-four-year-old son) and I’m so desperate to avoid her that I walk straight into a woman pushing a trolley coming the other way.

I apologise without even registering my target. ‘My fault entirely,’ I say and it’s only when she doesn’t move that I raise my head and see Ginny.

13

Ginny doesn’t say a word and neither do I. All we do is stand and stare at each other as though waiting for something to happen. It’s only after several seconds of this that it occurs to me that just as I am expecting her new husband to appear from the tinned goods aisle at any moment she’s probably waiting for Lauren to do the same. In the end, with neither of our spouses apparent, it’s Ginny who speaks first.

‘Matt.’

‘Ginny.’

‘How weird to see you in here of all places. That’s why I didn’t say anything at first. I kept thinking, who’s this guy who really looks like Matt? What are you doing here?’

‘My folks are in the market for sandwich-making material and yours truly was nominated to get it,’ I say, noticing how great she looks. Older, yes, but no less attractive. I try and get a look at her wedding ring but of course she’s wearing gloves.

‘How long have you been back?’

‘About a week. I was going to call but you know how it is. You have to do the rounds with all the family and then everything else gets tagged on later.’

‘Of course. How long has it been anyway? Five? Six years?’

‘Six,’ I reply a little too quickly. It sounds as if I’ve been marking off the days on the walls of my prison cell.

Ginny winces. ‘Where did the time go? It feels like five minutes.’

‘I think when you get to our age everything feels like five minutes ago until you get the calendar out.’

Laughing, Ginny narrows her eyes as though sizing me up. ‘Have you been working out? You’re looking pretty buff for a computer nerd.’

‘I wish,’ I reply instinctively sucking in my stomach. ‘I run but that’s about it. What about you, though? You’re looking good.’

‘For a forty-year-old! Can you believe we’re forty?’

‘First off, some of us are still thirty-nine, thank you very much, and second, I’m pretty sure there are thirty-year-olds who would kill to look like you!’

Ginny rolls her eyes. ‘I bet you say that to all the middle-aged women you meet! I forgot your birthday isn’t until the end of March. Have you got any plans or are you in denial?’

‘I’m keeping my head in the sand just a little longer.’

‘Message received. So how’s work? Are you still doing the software thing?’

I’d like to say that I seriously considered telling her the truth, in the middle of Sainsbury’s, but I didn’t. Not for a second.

‘Yes, still doing the software thing.’