Turning Thirty (23 page)

‘What is it, Hatstand?'

‘The patient's going into anaphylactic shock! Get me two teaspoons full of O-neg, an ECG, a DTP, a CBC, a Chem 7, a BBC1, a BBC2 and maybe even an ITV – oh, and get me the big thing that gives electric shocks too, otherwise this cat is on a one-way trip through that great cat-flap in the sky!'

‘But, Dr Hatstand, shouldn't we just intubate? Or perform a cricothyroidoctomy? Or a cordotomy? Or even a lobotomy?'

‘Dammit, Dr Buttie!' yelled Ginny, really getting into her role. ‘Who's the senior surgeon round here? Me or you, dammit?'

Larry was tired of two humans shouting nonsense over his head: she rolled on to her feet, stretched and wandered off to the kitchen.

‘Come back, Larry!' said Ginny, rolling about on the floor with mirth. ‘We promise we'll cure you!'

‘Ungrateful patient,' I called after him. I crawled back on to the sofa. ‘I'm shattered,' I said. ‘Who'd want to work in a real
ER
? Computers are far easier to handle.'

Ginny laughed. ‘Never mind computers. Let's open a bottle of wine or three, relax and have a good old talk.'

‘You miss her, don't you?' said Ginny, handing me what would be the first of several glasses of wine.

‘Who?' I said, feigning ignorance.

‘Elaine.'

I attempted to work backwards through our conversation to see how she'd gone from computing to Elaine.

‘I've been meaning to talk to you about her for a while. When we finished playing
ER live !
you looked so sad – as though you were thinking about her,' Ginny said. ‘Maybe you weren't. Maybe you were thinking about next week's
ER.
'

Ginny was right. I had been thinking about Elaine, but only fleetingly. I was thinking about how when we played
ER live!
she'd always go on about a character who neither of us played called Dr Salami. It was the kind of rude, throwaway gag that in the normal world isn't that funny. But it was our joke and nobody else's, and that made it hilarious.

‘You're right,' I said. ‘I do miss her . . . a lot. It's just the stupid stuff, really. As well as playing
ER
we used to play a game called “Name That Vegetable”. We'd take it in turns to hide a vegetable underneath a towel and try to guess what it was.'

‘Mmm-hmm,' said Ginny, raising her eyebrows. ‘That sounds like very odd behaviour indeed.'

‘I know,' I said, laughing. ‘But that's not the really stupid thing. The really stupid thing was that it was always a potato.'

‘So, are you going to tell me what went wrong with you two? I've been dying to ask you about her for ages and it's only now that I'm trying to get you drunk that I feel able to. All you've said about your relationship with her so far is that it didn't work out.' Ginny pulled a face. ‘I mean, you haven't even told me where you two met – and we're supposed to be friends!'

‘Are you sure you want to talk about all this?' I asked. ‘I mean, it's a bit gloomy, isn't it?'

‘No, no, no,' said Ginny keenly. ‘Talking about relationships isn't gloomy – it's therapy.'

‘Okay.' I took a sip of my wine. ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Once upon a time there was a handsome financial software designer called Matt. He'd been living in London for five years, was doing well in his job and was going out with a rather smashing girl called Monica Aspel who worked in management consultancy. Now, Matt was proud of his relationship with Monica because at the age of twenty-seven it was the first he'd ever had in which both parties referred to each other as my boy/girlfriend without the use of two-fingered ironical quotation marks. He even thought it would break the twelve-month relationship barrier that he had yet to experience. Unfortunately a month before their one-year anniversary he made the mistake of coming home to their top floor Muswell Hill flat early to discover that his darling management-consultant girlfriend had brought some work home with her and was consulting rather too closely with a manager on their bed . . .'

‘Oh, no!' exclaimed Ginny.

‘Don't worry,' I replied. ‘Matt was okay – in the end. He moved out straight away and made a new home on a workmate's sofa. Anyway, that was when – he – oh, sod it, I can't keep this up. This was when I heard about an internal job opportunity for a software team leader, a step up the ladder and, best of all, the job was in New York. I had a massive interview, got the job and went over for the first time to meet my new bosses. Before I knew it I was in possession of a green card and on a Virgin Atlantic flight to JFK.'

‘All this sounds really exciting,' said Ginny, encouragingly.

‘It was, although I was a bit overwhelmed by it all at first. I had all these plans. I was going to buy a Ford Gran Torino, like the one Starsky and Hutch had, I was going to go on long road trips during my vacations and I was going to join a gym and get myself some biceps – I was going to do everything. Instead, during my first week in New York, two days after I'd found my new apartment I went to a party in Greenwich Village and that was where I met Elaine. We got on well. We dated for all of two weeks before she fell out with her room-mates and moved into my apartment on a temporary basis while she looked for somewhere else and, well, she never moved out.'

‘Move in together in haste, sleep on the sofa at leisure,' said Ginny sagely.

‘That's pretty much it,' I continued. ‘It worked for quite a long time, given my relationship track record, and then it suddenly stopped working. We didn't row. In fact we always got on really, really well. We were – in fact, we still are – good friends. I've got my lap-top with me and I e-mail her almost every other day. I could talk to Elaine about anything, but I suppose when I got to asking myself the big question, Can I see myself with this woman in five years from now?, the answer always came back no, and if you'd asked Elaine she'd have said the same thing.' I looked over at Ginny, unsure if I should confess. ‘When we split, everything was fine. Neither of us made a big deal out of it. It was over and we were both happy and then . . .'

‘What?'

‘I changed my mind at the last minute.'

‘But that's good, isn't it?'

‘No,' I replied. ‘It was bad. Everything was only all right when it was the two of us wanting the split. When one wants in and the other wants out it's just, well, desperate.'

‘What made you change your mind?'

I looked at Ginny again, checking to see if I could trust the face sitting opposite me. ‘Turning thirty,' I replied. ‘I know it's sad. I know it's just another birthday. But in that one moment I just thought, I'm tired of this move-in move-out thing. I'm tired of meeting new people, persuading them to like me, spending time with them then realising I'm just wasting my time again. I don't know, I just felt like she was my last chance. Nota terribly dynamic way of seeing the world, but then again I'm not that dynamic.'

Ginny nodded, as if musing on something. ‘You were missing that thing.'

‘What thing?'

‘You and Elaine were missing that thing. The thing you're supposed to have with the person you're in love with – the flash of lightning, the clap of thunder, whatever it is that makes you think you can't carry on another second with out this person by your side.'

‘I think you're right. We probably even had it once but didn't know it was there. And now, well, I think we've kind of missed it.' I paused for a moment. ‘How about you and Ian?'

‘What?' said Ginny, pointing to herself in mock innocence. ‘Have I got That Thing with Ian? I don't know. Sometimes I think we've got it and then other times I think I couldn't be further from him if he was half a world away. All I know is that I'm a bit like you, I think half the disappointment in my life comes from the fact that when I imagined myself at thirty, this just wasn't what I had in mind.'

I knew exactly what she meant.

‘What did you have in mind?' I asked.

Ginny thought. ‘When I was about fourteen, I always thought I'd be a lawyer because I used to watch
LA Law
every Thursday night. I even decided I was going to practise criminal law and defend women who had no one else to turn to. I was also going to drive a black BMW convertible, wear sunglasses in my hair, irrespective of the weather, and have a smart, square-jawed boyfriend with strong muscular thighs. He and I would get married and have two children – a boy and a girl – and I'd look after them half the week and spend the other half convicting nasty men. Now look at the reality. I'm a thirty-year-old art teacher, in a reasonably okay school, with a boyfriend who's sometimes wonderful and who's sometimes an arse, but neither of us has any plans to make the relationship more permanent. I own my own house but I can't put up wallpaper. I have two cats, who, without a doubt, are surrogate children and an ex boyfriend/not ex-boyfriend in my spare room. On top of all of that, I'm an orphan.' She smiled sadly. ‘Now, how's that for things turning out just the way you planned them?'

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘What about you, Matt? How did you think things would be for you when you turned thirty?'

‘Careerwise, I think things have turned out pretty much the way I always thought they would. As for that partner-for-life thing, who knows? I used to have a thing for Madonna when I was a kid. I suspect she's taken.'

‘Who else did you have in mind?'

I thought very hard about the answer to this question and then said, ‘You.'

‘Is this a good idea, Matt?'

‘You're not sure?'

‘No,' said Ginny. ‘I'm not sure.'

‘What aren't you sure about?'

‘About you. Me. Here on this sofa. Your . . . left hand up my cardigan.' I withdrew it. ‘Do I need to spell it out?'

‘No,' I sighed. ‘Spelling it out will only drag on this painful interlude. You had to go and wake up your conscience and rouse mine at the same time. Don't you want to do this?'

‘Do you?' asked Ginny, running her fingers through her hair in an agitated fashion.

‘Yes,' I replied but my voice lacked conviction.

‘Are you sure sure? Or are you just sure?'

‘I'm sure! I'm sure! In fact I don't think in the history of mankind – and I do mean
man
kind – that any man has ever been more sure of what I want to do as I am right now.'

Ginny laughed, and we resumed kissing only to stop seconds later.

‘What now?' I snapped.

‘Now that's a nice tone of voice to use in this context.'

I laughed. ‘Sorry.'

‘Good. Now, say we did do this thing we're about to do, how will we be afterwards? What I mean to say – and I know this is forward planning of the most extreme kind and not at all passionate but I don't want us to get all . . . y'know.'

I exhaled heavily and folded my arms defensively. ‘Okay, let's not do it.'

‘Hang on,' said Ginny, surprised. ‘Let's not be hasty. I'm just looking out for our friendship, that's all. I would've thought that's a good thing, surely?' I nodded. She did have a point. ‘Now, stop sulking and let's discuss this like the adults we are. Okay? Let's agree right now that we're not going to get all weird about this.'

‘Agreed. Anything else?'

Ginny thought for a moment. ‘No.'

‘Good.'

We resumed kissing until once again she stopped mid snog.

‘What about if one of us changes our mind?'

‘Are you going to change your mind?' I said shifting positions on the sofa. Ginny's leg was currently resting on mine and sending it to sleep.

‘Not necessarily,' she said, ‘but you might.'

‘Believe me, Ginny, I strongly doubt that I'm going to change my mind . . .'

‘So we're agreed?'

‘Totally. Anything else?'

‘No.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.'

‘Well there is . . . ‘

‘What?'

‘Nothing. Just ignore me.'

‘What?'

‘It's nothing. Honestly. Come on.' She kissed my neck in an attempt to encourage me but it was too late. Her ‘nothing' was ‘something'and despite my best attempts my conscience wouldn't let me carry on while there was a ‘nothing' that was ‘something' lingering in the air.

‘What is it?' I pleaded.

Ginny laughed. ‘I'm sorry, Matt, I am. This is the last thing, I promise, okay? I just want to make sure that if we do actually do what we're about to do we should make sure this is a one off. As in never again. As in not to be repeated in this or any other lifetime.'

‘Why?'

‘Other than the fact that I'm in a relationship with Ian and you're getting over your ex-girlfriend and moving to Australia quite soon?'

‘Yeah,' I replied. ‘Other than that.'

‘Well for one thing, it could result in an extended period of repeated procedures which you know would lead to trouble. Because you know what the other word for repeated procedures is, don't you?'

‘A nightmare?'

‘Bingo,' replied Ginny. ‘And, well . . . we're not seventeen any more.'

‘Actions do have consequences,' I added.

‘Exactly. So maybe we should leave it after all.'

‘Yeah,' I said, uncoiling myself from her arms sadly. ‘Perhaps we should.' I sighed and kissed her on the cheek. ‘No harm done, eh?'