Turning Thirty (27 page)

‘People who what?' she prompted, when it became clear I wasn't going to finish my sentence.

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing?' She studied me thoughtfully, then standing on tiptoe she whispered in my ear, ‘Liar,' and kissed me. Unlike our previous kiss this had little to do with curiosity or comfort and more to do with passion. Most importantly, it was a kiss of the moment, so when the moment passed, and we noticed that everyone at the table was looking at us, the kiss passed with it and all that was left was the pleasant feeling that it might happen again soon. Then two waiters brought over a couple of bottles of champagne, popped them open and began pouring.

Ginny nudged me. ‘Go on, Matt, say something – make a toast.'

‘No, thanks,' I said. ‘I'm crap at that sort of thing. Why don't you? It's your night, after all.'

‘I couldn't,' she said. ‘I'm crap at these things too. But it would mean a lot if you did.'

‘Come on,' yelled Gershwin. ‘One of you make a toast before this stuff goes flat, will you?'

‘To absent friends,' I said, raising my glass. ‘And for old friends right here, right now.'

The next hour sped by as we caught up with each other's news. I chatted to Bev for ages. It was weird seeing her in person after having spoken to her on the phone. When I'd pictured her at the other end of the line I'd imagined her still in the Goth-style clothes of her teenage years, but her old black uniform had metamorphosed into a beaded, tie-dyed hippie style. Like most of us she, too, had put on a little weight, but she was still pretty and still wore her trademark sardonic smile. Best of all, her manner was unchanged: in a world in which everyone I knew of around thirty was giving up everything that was bad for them, it was heartening to watch her chain-smoke Silk Cut Ultras as if her life depended on it. Katrina, on the other hand, had changed immensely: in our youth she had been attractive but now she was stunning, so much so that Pete had barely taken his eyes off her all evening. Somehow, in the intervening years, her dark brown eyes had become even more beguiling, her manner more flirtatious and self-deprecating, and her dress sense more sophisticated. Of us all she seemed the most adult, the one who had grown best into her new thirtysomething skin.

During my conversation with Katrina, I disappeared to the toilet, and when I returned she was talking to Pete. I looked round at the rest of the table: Ginny was talking with Gershwin and Bev, so I was out of the conversational loop. Here were six people, who, up to a few months ago, had all but forgotten each other. And now we were together again. Well, nearly. Although no one had talked about Elliot's death directly it was clear to me that we all felt his absence. That there were only six of us made the familiar seem unfamiliar, unbalanced.

However, the evening went extremely well. I knew it was going to be a good one because usually when I was in a restaurant I always saw other tables who seemed to be having a better time than anyone else. For the first time in my life the ‘good-time table' was the one that I was at. I had worried that maybe the whole weekend would be a disaster. What if we didn't like each other? What if we'd never really liked each other? What if we ran out of things to say? But it was clear from the way everyone acted that we were still comfortable in each other's company. The stories from way back confirmed that the good times had always been good times. And, like I said, the fact that we were the loudest table in the place proved that we still had plenty to talk about.

It was now a quarter past eleven. We'd all eaten, had drunk several bottles of wine between us and we were in that shouty confident mood that large groups get into at that time of the night. I was listening to Bev who was telling me how she had met her husband when Katrina yelled, ‘Matt!'

‘What?' I bellowed back.

‘Pete and I want to do the big Where-are-they-now conversation.'

We used to have the where-are-they-now conversation every Christmas Eve in the Kings Arms back in the days when everyone came home for the festive season. It was just the seven of us, sitting round the table pooling news about people we knew from school.

‘Oh, do we have to do this?' said Ginny, in a whiny voice. She looked over at me as if I was the leader of this disjointed rabble. ‘I always think it's tempting fate somehow,' she continued. ‘Like, it means that somewhere in the world there's a different group of ex-King's Heath Comprehensive people sitting round the table saying, “Oooh, you know who my mum saw recently? Ginny Pascoe! Dresses like a bag-lady, teaches at our old school and has Matt Beckford stashed away in a spare room!” It's too horrible for words. I don't want the world knowing I'm a loser. I'd much prefer to keep that sort of information to myself.'

‘Ginny's got a point,' I admitted. ‘I'd hate it if someone out there was saying, “Oh, I spotted Matt Beckford in Safeway buying tampons.”' Everyone turned to get a better look at me. ‘It's a long story,' I explained. ‘My suggestion is that if we're going to do this, let's just keep to the unusual – the I-never-thought-
they
'd-be-doing-that-in-a-million-years ones.'

‘Okay,' said Katrina. ‘I'll go first because I've got a brilliant one. I was at a club in East London about a year and a half ago with an ex of mine and guess who was working the door as a bouncer?'

‘Angela Murphy!' screamed Bev, dementedly. Back in our schooldays Angela Murphy was probably
the
girl most likely to end up as a bouncer, a wrestler or a shot-putter.

‘Colin Birch!' said Katrina. Colin Birch was probably the weediest kid at our school. It was Andrew Sasky's (then, our year's obligatory bully/psychopath) favourite game to remove Colin's trousers and hide them. While some of us had felt sorry for Colin, I suspect that the majority were glad he existed: he kept Andrew Sasky entertained so prevented him from torturing the rest of us.

‘He was absolutely huge,' continued Katrina. ‘A bit sexy too.'

‘Colin Birch, sexy?' said Pete disbelievingly.

‘I must admit,' said Ginny, ‘I find that a little hard to believe.'

‘He was,' protested Katrina. ‘Really strong-looking broad shoulders.'

‘Did you say hello?' asked Gershwin, in a way that made me think he was fishing for something.

‘Nah,' said Katrina, running her fingers through her hair. ‘He looked like he was too busy . . .'

Gershwin burst out laughing. ‘You lie,' he said, pointing at Katrina. ‘I reckon you asked him out or flirted with him or something, and he blew you out!'

‘Oh, the shame of it,' said Katrina, laughing. ‘How did you know?'

‘After all these years, Kat,' said Gershwin, ‘you still play with your hair when you lie!'

‘I've got a better one than Colin Birch,' said Pete. ‘I'm on the train going down to my mum's with my ex and my little boy for the weekend when I look up and guess who's sitting in the seat across from us?'

‘Where did they get on?' asked Gershwin.

‘What do you mean where did they get on?' said Pete. ‘What does that matter?'

‘It might be a clue,' said Gershwin.

‘Right,' said Pete. ‘This
person
got on at Wolverhampton.'

I couldn't think of anyone we went to school with who had a Wolverhampton connection. ‘Dunno,' I said eventually, on behalf of all the bemused faces around the table.

‘David Coote!' said Katrina.

David Coote was the poshest kid at our school (his dad owned Coote Wine cabins – a chain of high-street off-licences) and the person least likely to have
heard
of Wolverhampton, let alone to have been there.

‘I've always wondered what happened to him,' said Bev. ‘I got off with him at Ruth Hennassey's sixteenth. He was quite dishy as I remember.'

‘Dishy?' said Ginny indignantly.'David Coote?
Never!
Didn't you hear the rumour about him? The one about his third nipple?'

‘David Coote did not have a third nipple,' I protested.

‘And do you know that for a fact?' asked Ginny.

‘Bev, help me out here,' I said, in exasperation. ‘David Coote didn't have a third nipple, did he?'

‘How should I know?' said Bev. ‘I only snogged him for about ten minutes, during which time he attempted to give me a love-bite and then was violently sick. Before you say anything, it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the bottle of Coke he brought with him.'

‘Coke made him throw up?' asked Katrina, puzzled.

‘The Coke didn't make him throw up,' replied Bev, smirking. ‘But the half bottle of his dad's whisky might've had something to do with it.'

‘Er . . . hello?' called Pete. ‘I think you'll find that I was talking. Anyway as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there I am on the train and opposite me is . . . Faye Chambers!'

There was a long silence as we all looked at one another trying to recall the name.

‘Short girl with blonde hair?' suggested Katrina. ‘Used to hang about with Liz Maher?'

‘You're thinking of Annette Roloson,' said Bev. ‘Incidentally, I bumped into Nick Hall – red-faced kid who used to eat his sandwiches in class – at a petrol station just outside Sheffield. Anyway, his sister went to university with Annette and she's apparently a nurse or a doctor – or a doctor's receptionist. Something to do with sick people . . . or animals.' She paused, embarrassed to have everyone's attention for such a terrible story. ‘Over to you, Pete.'

‘Thanks,' he said tersely. ‘Faye Chambers was the girl in our year who was really good at maths – remember she won the maths prize three years in a row?'

‘I thought that was Jamie Manning,' I said, deliberately trying to wind him up.

‘Watch yourself, Beckford,' warned Pete. ‘Remember I've got a black belt in wedgies.'

At the mere mention of ‘wedgies' all the men around the table winced as we recalled Pete's schoolboy knack of grabbing the elasticated waistband of your underpants then yanking them up so sharply that you'd be guaranteed to be picking Y-front out of your bum crack for anything up to an hour afterwards.

‘You have my total attention, Pete,' I said, laughing.

Pete recommenced his tale. ‘Faye had dark brown hair, was painfully skinny and didn't really have any friends.'

‘No-mate-stick girl!' said Ginny, Katrina and Bev, in unison.

‘It's chilling how cruel prepubescent girls can be,' commented Gershwin.

‘We didn't call her that,' said Ginny, in the girls' defence. ‘Shelley Heath did.'

‘Shelley Heath,' said Katrina. ‘Now she really was an evil piece of work . . . Do you know that she once bit my arm because—'

‘Tell us your story, Pete,' interrupted Ginny, ‘before you blow a fuse or something. What's Faye doing now, then?'

‘
Glamour
modelling,' said Pete smugly.

‘No!' said Bev.

‘Never!‘ said Ginny.

‘Get
out
of here!' said Katrina.

‘You're joking!' said Gershwin.

When it came to my turn to let out an exclamation I couldn't because I was lost for words.

‘I asked her what she was up to,' continued Pete, ‘and she told me just like that. Not even the faintest hint of embarrassment.'

‘Is she pretty?' asked Bev.

‘
Very
,' acknowledged Pete.

‘Is that just your opinion as a bloke?' asked Katrina. ‘What did your ex think?'

‘Amy thought she was stunning too.'

The game didn't have the same sort of fizz after that revelation as everyone left knew that their own what-are-they-up-to-now? wouldn't be anywhere near as good as Pete's. Katrina, however, revealed that her old flatmate's brother used to go out with Douglas Burton (then, the boy most likely to be on Prozac; now, a radio journalist in Cardiff). Gershwin said that he'd bumped into some guys in a pub in town who used to be in the year below us at school and they'd told him about Adrian Shearer from our year (then, the boy most likely to rob a post-office with a sawn-off shot-gun; now, doing a ten-year stretch for armed robbery in HMP Strangeways). Ginny revealed that she'd been parking her car at the UCI cinema in town when she'd seen Stephanie Tucker (then, the girl most likely to be average for ever) drive past in a Mercedes convertible. Finally, I divulged that Lara Reid (then, the girl most likely to have a hundred notches on her bedpost before her sixteenth birthday) was now managing a Christian bookshop in King's Heath.

‘Who'd have thought it?' said Pete quietly. ‘Who'd have thought any of it in a million years?'

It was now one o'clock in the morning and we were all sitting in Ginny's living room. Ginny was screaming, ‘Nooooooooo!' at the top of her voice, while the rest of us laughed so hard we were on the verge of being sick. Katrina and Pete were lodged on the sofa; Bev was draped across the armchair next to the hi-fi (we allowed her to act as official DJ as long as she promised not to play any of that Goth nonsense); Gershwin was lying in front of the TV with the remote control in his hand and the sound turned right down, Ginny was next to him on the floor and I was lounging next to her.

What had started out as a few beers before going to bed was now a more rowdy affair with us poring over a load of old photographs that Bev had brought up with her from Sheffield. The one that was causing Ginny so much consternation was an incredibly out-of-focus picture of herself running along a beach in a swimming costume. It looked innocuous at a glance but then you saw that her left breast was on show.