Turning Thirty (18 page)

‘I remember this one,' said Gershwin.

‘So Elliot said, “Right, that's it,” and he got a fifty-pence piece, put it on the desk, picked it up with a pair of tongs and heated it up in a Bunsen burner flame until it glowed orange and then he dropped it on the floor next to Philip Jones's bench and pretended that he'd lost some money. Jones, being the idiot that he was, yelled, “I'm having that,” pushed Elliot away and picked it up. You could smell the singed skin for days afterwards. He was away from school for a week after that. Mind you, he beat the living daylights out of Elliot when he came back.'

‘Elliot and I once got
Gremlins II
out on video,' said Gershwin, ‘and we both thought it was the best thing ever. For days afterwards we'd just quote bits to each other in class and crack up in hysterics.'

‘D'you remember the time we all stayed in my mum's caravan in Wales for the weekend?' said Ginny. ‘The first night there you all went off to the woods in the middle of the night to try to scare yourselves witless. Elliot didn't go because he said it was too cold and I didn't go because I thought Mum would find out that boys were staying in the caravan with us. Elliot and I hadn't really talked very much before that but I remember that after we'd drunk half a bottle each of Thunderbird we warmed to each other. I remember at one point we were talking about what we were going to do with the rest of our lives. I told him I was going to go travelling and end up living in Australia with a Mel Gibson lookalike called Brad. And he told me how he was going to be head of an international company and I said something like, “That's so dull,” and he didn't say anything, he just looked really hurt. Then he said that if he didn't get to be head of an international company he'd like to be a wing-walker.'

‘A
what
?' I asked.

‘One of those people who strap themselves to the wings of biplanes that you see at aeronautical events. He said he saw one once when he was a kid and it looked really good fun. And then I looked at him and he looked at me, and then he just burst out laughing and said that he didn't want to be the head of an international company or a wing-walker. He said, and I quote, “To be truthful, Gin, I'll be happy if I'm still me.”'

It was just coming up to three o'clock in the afternoon when we decided to leave the comfort of the Kings Arms and venture outside again.

‘I'll give you a ring during the week,' said Gershwin to me, as the three of us hovered on the pavement outside the entrance. He turned to Ginny. ‘And I'll see you . . . whenever, I suppose.'

Ginny gave an awkward half-smile in response and stretched out her arms to give him a hug. ‘Look after yourself,' she said, squeezing him tightly.

‘You too,' he said, and kissed her cheek lightly.

With that he gave me a short wave and headed off down Moseley high street, leaving Ginny and me standing, wrapped in our own thoughts, for what felt like ages.

‘What are you doing now?' asked Ginny, as it began to rain.

‘Nothing. What are you up to? Seeing Ian?'

She looked up at me and stared right into my eyes, her face devoid of expression. ‘No. I'm doing nothing too.'

‘Fancy doing nothing together?' I asked carefully. Even though our moods were sombre I wanted to make it clear that this wasn't a come-on.

‘Yeah,' she replied, nodding as if to acknowledge that this was about friendship, nothing more. She even took my arm, which she wouldn't have done if anything else had been on the agenda. ‘Right now, Matt, that sounds like the best idea in the world.'

Doing nothing ended up as doing something because Ginny recalled that she hadn't done a weekly shop for over a month due to pressure of work and that the hour left before Safeway closed would be her only opportunity to get some food in for the next few days. Watching her armed with a trolley reminded me of Elaine. They both had the same inefficient shopping habits, like going up and down the same aisle three times, buying frozen items at the start of the trip instead of at the end and throwing things into the trolley because they liked the sound of them. (In this case Ginny bought a bottle of rose water because she thought it sounded nice and those edible silver balls you put on cakes and biscuits even though she said she didn't bake.)

Inevitably during the forty-two minutes we were there we bumped into two former schoolmates: David Kimble (then, the shortest boy in our year at school; now, no doubt the shortest lorry driver in the country) and Elizabeth Cowan (then, the girl most likely to be travel-sick for the rest of her life; now, a stewardess for Aer Lingus). Both were surprised to see me and Ginny together after all this time and, needless to say, both jumped to the wrong conclusion. Ginny and I made such clumsy attempts to deny it that it seemed as though we were still lying about our entanglement after all these years. Later, laden with shopping-bags, we made our way back to Ginny's, and while she did some preparation for school the following day, I rustled up some pasta for us. After that we cracked open a bottle of wine, sat on her back doorstep and looked out into the garden, drinking and talking. We talked about old times, and then we talked about what we'd wanted to do with our lives back then, and we talked about what we were doing right now. Finally we talked about Elliot's death and how it made us feel. It was an honest, frequently blunt conversation, the kind that could only have occurred between two people like us, old friends, former lovers: we had a long, entwined history that stretched so far into the past it seemed to have had no beginning – it just was. The mood now was less sombre, but more intimate, more reflective – exactly the kind of atmosphere in which anything could happen, but I knew nothing would. This wasn't like the old days. Now every action had a consequence, and we knew it.

I turned to Ginny and smiled. ‘This is weird, isn't it?' She half smiled. ‘You and me, sitting here in your mum's old house, on the doorstep. How many times have we done this in the past?'

‘Who knows,' said Ginny. She set her wine-glass on the ground next to her feet and shifted her gaze towards the end of the garden. ‘I miss my mum, you know,' she said, after a few moments of silence.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘It's only natural.'

‘Yeah, I know. It's just that, well, I'm not even sure “miss” is the right word, Matt. Without her I feel like something's missing. That part of me has gone.' She picked up her glass again. ‘I try to talk to her sometimes. I know it's only in my head but even that's better than nothing. I imagine us sitting at the kitchen table and me telling her about what's going on in my life – about school, about Ian, about how I feel about the world, and she listens. And just the thought of her listening makes me feel better. It's strange, that, isn't it? How just being listened to can make you feel better. Mum was a really good listener. No matter what I was rambling on about, she'd always make me feel like it was the most important thing in the world. And now she's gone I feel like all the good she worked in my life has gone too.' She sighed. ‘Sorry,' she said, turning to me. ‘I'm getting a bit depressing, aren't I?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Far from it. I'm just glad you can talk about it with me, that's all.'

Ginny smiled. ‘Of course I can talk about it with you.' She looked at me curiously. ‘I can see you want to ask me something. Go ahead.'

I laughed. ‘You're right. It's not so much a question as . . . I don't know. It's just that, until this week, no one I've known – at least, been really close to – has died. My grandparents died when I was really young and that's just about it, apart from the odd distant family member. When I saw you in the Kings Arms that night, and you told me your mum had died, I had no idea what you must have been through.'

‘I know what you mean. Before Mum became ill I would've had no concept of it either. For my entire life it's just been me and her. I've never met my dad and never wanted to either. So, you know, it was just me and Mum against the world, and that would never end – how could it? To me Mum was indestructible, she'd be around for ever – we'd be with each other for ever. So when she told me she was ill, it was a huge shock. At the age of twenty-eight I found out that Mum wasn't indestructible, after all, that the two of us weren't going to go on for ever . . .' Ginny stopped as her voice broke.

‘It's okay,' I said. ‘Look, I don't want you to get upset.'

‘No,' said Ginny, breathing deeply. ‘It's okay, Matt.' She smiled. ‘You shouldn't be afraid of people getting upset. It's natural. You can't run away or not do something just because it makes you upset.' She laughed. ‘You always used to hate it when I cried on you, didn't you?'

‘Just a little bit,' I replied quietly. ‘Only because I didn't know what to do to make it stop.'

‘That's the thing,' she replied. ‘Sometimes you just don't want it to stop. Sometimes all you want in the world is someone to share it with.'

‘I don't know what I'd do if either of my parents died,' I said. ‘I know I go on about them being annoying, the bane of my life and all that, but if they weren't around I'd miss them for the rest of my life.'

‘You should tell them that,' said Ginny. ‘It's one of the few good things that came out of this thing with Mum – the fact that I could tell her how much I loved her, and that I knew when the time came that she would know how much she meant to me.'

‘I've thought about this, y'know,' I began. ‘You might not think so but I have. I've tried to imagine telling my parents that I love them and all that but I dunno . . . I don't think they'd understand. I think it's great that you had that with your mum but my folks haven't got the faintest clue what to do with emotions. Yeah, we love each other and all that, but would we ever say it? I don't know . . . I think that at least for us there's a certain security to be had in the things that aren't said. I mean, if you're that kind of person it's cool, but if you're not then it's . . .'

Ginny smiled. ‘I know what you're saying. You can't just magic up that kind of communication out of nowhere and I suppose with it always being just me and Mum we were a lot closer than many mothers and daughters.'

‘There are times when I think that I've not had a real conversation with Dad since I was small. At least, at that age I remember wanting to talk, and when he wasn't busy at work or in the garden we
would
talk. But mostly what I remember are the companionable silences, where he'd walk with his usual long strides and I would try desperately to keep up with him. Even though it used to wear me out I could see in his eyes that he was pleased I tried.'

‘Your dad loves you, you know,' said Ginny.

I nodded.

‘And your mum,' she added.

I nodded again.

‘You're trying to work out why I'm telling you all this.' I nodded yet again. ‘I'm telling you this for one reason and one reason only: no matter how sure you are of someone's love, it's always nice to hear it.'

We stopped talking for a while, enjoying the confined space of the doorstep together. I wondered for the first time what it would be like to kiss Ginny again. I thought about Elliot and how I still couldn't comprehend quite what his death meant. And, finally, I thought about my mum and dad and tried to imagine life without them. A lot of what Ginny had said to me made sense. There is a great deal of comfort to be taken from imagining that your parents are a permanent fixture in your life who will be there for ever. Maybe, I thought, I should look at the world as it is, rather than how I want it to be. But no matter how hard I tried to imagine it without them, no matter how I tried to guess what it would feel like to have a parent-shaped hole in my life, I couldn't imagine a world without my mum and dad.

It was ten past eight when I eventually announced to Ginny that it was time I went home. I helped her clear away the plates, dishes and the rest of the mess I'd made while cooking then made my way to the hall to collect my jacket. ‘Right, then,' I said, opening the front door. ‘I'd better be off.'

‘Okay,' said Ginny. She stepped forward and kissed my cheek. ‘Thanks for today, Matt. It was a weird reason for us to get together again but nice all the same.'

I smiled and stepped outside, then headed down the short path to the front gate. When I reached the gate, though, I stopped, turned round and walked back to Ginny.

‘I was hoping you'd do that,' she said.

‘Then why didn't you say anything?' I asked.

‘Insecurity, fear, a smidgen of self-loathing – the usual suspects. I felt it the last time we said goodbye. I should've said something then, but you know how it is. You just don't want to look stupid, do you? But shall I say it now and save you the trouble?' I laughed. ‘Matt, I would love it if, for however long you're back home, you consider our friendship resurrected. Feel free to call me for a drink, a moan or just to hang out.'

‘Of course I'd be pleased for us to be friends again.'

‘I'm not just saying this, Matt,' said Ginny, a distinct edge of seriousness entering her voice. ‘I mean it. Proper mates. And not just you, but Gershwin as well.' She put her arms around me and gave me a hug. ‘We all should've known better than to just drift apart.' Her voice was unsteady.'We should've known better.'