by Mike Gayle
‘You look really young,’ says Rosa, taking the picture from my hands as I finish loading the rest of the stuff into the car. ‘Very young and very handsome. Who are these guys with you?’
‘Just some friends.’
‘Do you see any of them?’
‘Not in years,’ I reply, ‘that’s what happens when you get older. People move on.’
She stares hard at the picture and points to Ginny. ‘Why does she look familiar?’
‘Because you met her,’ I reply. ‘We bumped into her and this guy,’ I say, pointing out Gershwin, ‘a little while ago in Moseley.’
‘You were friends even then?’ she asks and I can see her replaying the moment she and Ginny came face to face.
‘Yeah.’
I brace myself for further questions but they don’t come. Relieved, I put the last box into the car and then ask Rosa to wait while I do one final lap around the house as per my mother’s instructions. Everything’s fine of course, all the windows are closed and doors locked, so there’s nothing left but to leave. As I shut the front door for the last time I have to choke back tears before getting into the car. I’m going to miss this place, the bricks and the mortar, the wood and the glass, but more than anything the life it once contained.
Days left until I turn forty: 29
36
‘No one really wants to do nothing on their birthday,’ says Rosa matter-of-factly as she opens the oven to take a closer look at the dish currently bubbling away inside. She pokes the cheesy cornbread topping of her chilli con carne with a sharp knife, pulls it out and examines it carefully before turning off the oven with something of a jubilatory flourish. ‘It’s just the kind of thing you say when you secretly want people like me to organise a big party and are just too proud or stubborn to come out with it.’
‘Is that so?’ I set down the glass of wine in my hand on the kitchen counter and begin laying the table.
She pulls a large bag of salad out of the fridge and calls for the salad bowl from the sideboard. ‘You know it is,’ she says, ‘so let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? Your birthday is in two weeks and there is no way I’m going to let it pass without some kind of celebration so the choice is this: you leave it up to me and just turn up on the right day at the right time and look surprised or you tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen. But that’s the only choice you’re getting, and just so you know, Mr Beckford: this “I’m not really all that into birthdays” shtick that you keep peddling my way is getting really old, so just put it away and be happy.’
I’m about to defend myself when the front-door buzzer goes. Relief makes me generous. ‘I’ll finish up here, you go and welcome our guests.’
Having braced myself for the worst, the past few weeks with Rosa in her tiny flat have been the happiest since coming back to Birmingham. I had predicted conflict at every turn and problems round every corner but instead there had been unexpected harmony and joy, to the extent that I almost wished I’d moved in sooner. When I’m with Rosa I forget about everything that might bring me down – my employment status, Lauren, my lack of direction and looming birthday – and all I can think about is: if I can keep this going for another forty years then I’ll die a happy man. Even so, I have been dreading tonight because while dating a twentysomething has turned out to be easier than I imagined, hanging out with her mates will undoubtedly be harder.
Rosa’s friends Josh, a housing officer at the university, and Victoria (Tory), an arts administrator, are nice enough people and even though it’s apparent in minutes that we’re never going to be the best of friends (Josh seems intimidated by me while Tory is one of those people who isn’t happy unless they’re sharing their opinion on everything) for Rosa’s sake I try to make the best of the evening, which means allowing Tory to dominate the post-dinner chat in the living room and not asking Josh too many questions when the women excuse themselves under the guise of making coffee to talk about us in the kitchen.
Just after midnight, when most guests my age would be calling a minicab, they get out the Sambuca and I find myself in the kitchen searching for a notepad and paper for some drinking game that Rosa and Josh are desperate to play when in walks Tory.
‘Rosa says forget the pad because she’s forgotten the rules of the game and anyhow she and Josh have plugged his phone into the music player so it’ll be just like uni: those two screeching away all night while everyone else looks on. Still, it will give me the chance to have a proper chat with you.’
I look around nervously. ‘Why would you want to talk to me?’
Tory laughs. ‘Calm down, dear, I’m not after your body. I just wanted a chat.’
‘About what?’
‘About my sweet, sweet, Rosa,’ she replies. ‘You know all she talks about these days is what an amazing guy you are.’
‘That’s nice to hear.’
‘I haven’t seen her this happy since she and Jonny split up.’
It’s the hint of smugness in Tory’s voice that alerts me to the fact that I’m being tested. She knows something I don’t and wants to be the one to tell me. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near so obvious a trap but it’s late, I’m tired and a little too drunk to even think about not taking the bait.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll bite: who’s Jonny?’
‘You don’t know?’
I shake my head.
‘I know you don’t because she told me that she didn’t tell you.’
‘So why are you telling me?’
‘Because I know Rosa better than anyone, and if she hasn’t told you it’s because she wants you to think that she’s as tough as she is funny and daring, when the truth is she’s anything but. She’s human, she’s been hurt before, badly let down by someone who should have known better, and I think that you should know so you can make sure you never do the same.’
The story isn’t anything new if you’ve had your heart broken before. This guy Jonny was her first love. They met as teenagers, did the long-distance thing throughout university and when their respective courses were over he talked her into moving back to Birmingham where he’d landed a job as a runner for a local TV production company when she wanted to move to London to begin the next chapter of her life. They got a room together in a shared house, kept each other sane when times were tough by making plans to go travelling and then one day she finds out that he’s been seeing someone else. She confronts him with the truth and moves out the following day. Five years down the drain; a virtual lifetime of happy memories permanently tainted; a wound that feels like it will never heal.
‘Where was the shared house?’ I ask. ‘Balsall Heath?
Tory nods, surprised. ‘How did you know?’
‘And the guy who cheated on her? I’m guessing he’s still there?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Do you know him?’
‘No,’ I reply, carefully retrieving from my memory banks the image of the idiot in the trilby at the party where Rosa and I first kissed. ‘Not quite.’
The following morning I text Gerry to see if they can do without me in the shop and once Rosa has gone to work I do a little research on the internet before heading into town on the bus and making my way over to the Mailbox.
For the uninitiated, the Mailbox is a large shopping and restaurant complex housed on the site of what used to be the central sorting office for Birmingham. Like other historic locations around the city it has been transformed by fancy architects and truckfuls of money into the new home of all manner of designer stores, shops, galleries and eateries. I haven’t been near the place during my stay in Birmingham so far but today I make an exception on Rosa’s behalf.
‘How much is it to get your haircut by the man himself?’ I ask the girl behind the desk in the reception of the Nicky Clarke Hair Salon.
‘You want your hair cut by Nicky Clarke?’ she asks, looking at my closely cropped locks.
‘It’s not for me,’ I explain, stunned that she might
even think for a second that I would spend more than a fiver on a haircut, ‘it’s for my girlfriend. I think she’d really like it.’
‘Oh, I see. I’ll need to go and check, just a moment.’
The idea had come to me after mulling over what Tory had said about Rosa’s ex-boyfriend. I wasn’t going to bring up the subject with her, but I felt I needed to do something in order to show Rosa just how unlike her ex I was. I started off thinking that I’d take her for an expensive meal or even for a posh weekend away but as I was taking a shower this morning I thought that if I was going to put myself into a huge amount of debt it ought to be for something a little less predictable and that’s when I noticed the rows of hair products lined up in Rosa’s shower.
Rosa took her hair very seriously indeed. Her regularity at the hairdresser’s (‘I go the first Saturday in the month without fail’), her armoury of products (‘You might mock but a good serum is worth its weight in gold,’) and the copies of Hairstyle Monthly nestled in amongst issues of Frieze and Art Monthly attested to this. So, as I saw Nicky Clarke’s name looking back at me from the side of his own-brand hair products, a lightbulb lit up in my head. If my girlfriend enjoys using this guy’s products, went my interior logic, how much more would she enjoy having the man himself cut her hair?
The receptionist returns with one of the senior stylists in tow who explains that although Nicky does occasionally cut hair in Birmingham there’s a three-month waiting list for his services. The real bombshell is the price. While I hadn’t expected it to be cheap neither had I expected it to be quite so expensive and, while Rosa was worth the money, my credit card would spontaneously combust if I handed it over to pay for it.
‘That’s certainly food for thought,’ I say, taking the card and leaflet I’ve been offered and trying not to look horrified. ‘I’ll be certain to let you know as soon as possible.’ With what little that remains of my dignity I exit the salon and walk straight into Ginny.
37
‘You can just carry on walking if you want, pretend you didn’t see me.’
I’ll grant you this is a pretty mean-spirited way to greet a woman who you used to believe might approximate to the somewhat hackneyed soubriquet of ‘soulmate’ but I don’t care any more. I’m done with being nice for the sake of it, I’m done with pretending that everything’s fine when it’s anything but, and I’m certainly done with making small talk with someone that I have absolutely no respect for. Right now I could not be more over it.
‘You really hate me, don’t you?’ Ginny looks like I’ve just slapped her in the face. I see that she has tears in her eyes.
‘Yes. There’s no point in us going over old ground again, is there? Let’s just go our separate ways. Have a nice life.’
‘After all we’ve been through that’s the way you want to leave things?’
‘Yes, it is.’
She starts walking towards the escalators that lead to the upper levels of the shopping complex. I am determined not to follow her because I am 99 per cent sure that I am in the right and she is 110 per cent in the wrong but at the last moment I feel my resolve slip away. I never could stand to see her upset. I call out her name but it’s only when I catch up with her and put my body between her and the escalator that she finally stops and after a moment of resistance allows me to comfort her.
‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? I shouldn’t have said I hate you.’
‘But you meant it, didn’t you?’
‘I honestly don’t know what I’m going on about half the time. Only last week I was trying to tell a mate of mine about this Stephen King book I was reading, only I kept referring to Stephen King as Clive Barker because there was a Clive Barker book right in my eyeline. What’s next? Am I going to end up only being able to hold conversations about stuff that’s right in front of me?’
Ginny smiles weakly. It’s a relief not to be responsible for her tears. She scans my face with all the prowess of an expert poker player looking for a tell and says: ‘When you say “mate” I take it you actually mean “girlfriend”?’
‘No, when I say “mate” I actually mean “mate”.’
Her brow furrows; I’ve intrigued her. ‘Who are you hanging out with now?’ she asks. ‘I thought you barely knew anyone here?’
‘Come and have a coffee and I’ll tell you,’ I say by way of a peace offering. ‘You’ll never guess in a million years.’
We go to a café opposite Nicky Clarke’s, one of those trendy café/deli affairs that would totally confuse my parents, all posh cheeses and designer coffee.
‘So come on then,’ she says as we sit down at a table near the window, ‘who’s this new friend of yours?’
‘Guess.’
Ginny pulls a face. ‘OK, it’s got to be someone really unlikely but equally someone we both know so I’m going to say . . . Jason Cleveland, or failing that one of those two Neanderthals he used to hang out with at school, what were their names again . . . that’s it! Aaron Baker and Nick D’Souza.’
‘You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?’
Ginny’s eyes widen. ‘Don’t tell me you’re really hanging out with those guys. I saw that sleazebag Cleveland in the Cross a while back with some girl barely out of her teens! It turns my stomach just thinking about that muscle-bound idiot strutting around like he’s irresistible to womankind!’
‘Easy now,’ I say, holding my hands up in defence, ‘I said you were good, I didn’t say that you were right.’
‘So who is it then?’
‘Gerry Hammond.’
Ginny’s face takes on a look of confusion, like she’s trying to convert inches into centimetres and back again. ‘Gerry Hammond from The Pinfolds?’
‘The one and only! He manages a charity shop on Moseley high street, not for the money, because he’s minted, but you know, I guess he wants to give back if you know what I mean. I went in there a while ago and we got talking and then I bumped into him – and here’s an irony for you – when I was out with Jason Cleveland and his cohorts. Gerry sort of took me under his wing and we’ve been hanging out ever since.’
Ginny looks properly stunned. ‘He must be in his fifties at least now. Does he still look the same?’ She sighs comically like a lovelorn schoolgirl. ‘I can’t tell you how much I used to fancy him. I had a whole wall of my bedroom covered in pictures and interviews with him from the music mags.’
I take out my phone and show her a picture of me and Gerry drunkenly leering into the camera lens while trying to perfect our Elvis sneer.
‘That’s him,’ she screams, ‘that’s Gerry Hammond and that’s you! I can’t believe you’re mates. Is he nice, is he fun to be around? Don’t you feel weird being mates knowing how much of a super fan you used to be?’
This is good, this is exactly what I have been missing all the time Ginny and I haven’t been speaking. We are old hands, veterans, survivors of the battles of our teens, twenties and thirties. It has always seemed wrong giving up on so much shared history when so few know our full stories, almost like I was setting fire to the only other copy in the world of The History of Me and as I’m already set to lose my last six years with Lauren, can I really afford to get rid of any more?
‘So come on then,’ says Ginny as our drinks arrive, ‘what else has been going on that I might have missed?’
‘Other than my parents moving to Worcester?’
‘You’re kidding me! When are they going?’
‘They’ve gone. They got a part-ex on their place and that was it, they were off.’
‘So you’re living in Worcester now?’
I shake my head. I know I have no reason to feel guilty about telling her that I’m living with Rosa but the last thing I need is her trying not to look all judgemental when she hears the news. No one in their right mind would think I was doing the right thing here. I just want to keep this light and fun. She can drag the truth out of me some other time.
‘I’m crashing with Gerry at the moment.’
> ‘The fun never ends, does it?’ she laughs. ‘The eighteen-year-old you would absolutely die if he knew that one day he’d be sofa-surfing with one of his all-time heroes. What’s his place like?’
Despite dropping regular hints to Gerry that he should invite me and Rosa around to his flat I have yet to set a single toe in Gerry’s bachelor pad, so the only description I can give Ginny is the one he always gives me: ‘Think twenty-first-century shag-pad meets Moore-era Bond-villain lair with a touch of IKEA.’
‘Sounds exactly the kind of place a guy like Gerry would choose to live in. I’m green with envy. Promise me that you’ll get me his autograph.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply. ‘If you’re lucky.’
The rest of the hour we spend together goes more smoothly than I could have hoped. I tell her about working in the charity shop, update her on the sale of the house in London, and even let her in on my total lack of plans for life after I’ve turned forty. When we prepare to say our goodbyes outside the café it feels like we’re back to being friends again and it’s only when she puts her arms round me I realise that neither of us has made a mention of our respective partners.
I wonder if I should feel guilty. After all, Ginny had originally been the reason that I’d come back to Birmingham and given our complicated history was it really a wise move spending an hour with her now that I had a girlfriend? But it wasn’t as if I’d planned our meeting was it? And it wasn’t as if I’d welcomed our meeting (at least not initially). And while yes, the fact that I had lied to her about where I was living probably did signal that I wasn’t being totally honest it also showed sensitivity to her feelings. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about Rosa.
It’ll probably all come out the next time I see her if that ever happens. For now it is good that we no longer hate each other.
When Rosa comes home just after seven I present her with a bouquet of flowers in lieu of her celebrity hairdresser haircut and she’s overjoyed. It’s a really sweet moment, a girlfriend reduced to tears by an unexpected gift from her adoring boyfriend, and should have been the beginning of a great night; but as she’s arranging the flowers and talking to me about her day, she asks me what I’ve been up to and, compelled by the spirit of what, I don’t know, I tell her about my coffee with Ginny and immediately wish that I had kept my big mouth shut.