Turning Forty (18 page)

24

‘You need to get out of bed this instant,’ says Mum, storming into my room and wrenching open the curtains. ‘Anyone would think this place is a dosshouse the way you’ve been carrying on of late!’

As I lie squinting back the daylight from underneath my duvet it occurs to me that Mum might have a point given the time (nearly midday), the state of the room (think church jumble sale) and the smell (think men’s changing room). Nothing has seemed right since my night out with Gerry over a week ago. It’s as if having had a glimpse of how cool my life might have been I’ve faced up to the fact that I have no mates, no job, no wife and therefore no reason to get out of bed.

I turn over and look at the ceiling and in so doing get a whiff of my armpits. How long has it been since I showered? ‘Leave it with me,’ I tell Mum. ‘I’ll get up in a bit, OK?’

‘You’ll get up now!’ she says, and gives me a look that means business. ‘We’ve got guests coming and I need you showered, shaved and downstairs pronto.’

‘Guests? What guests?’

‘Never you mind,’ snaps Mum. ‘Just make sure you’re ready!’

Mum is in the living room needlessly rearranging the decorations on the Christmas tree for what seems like the millionth time since she put it up last week, when the doorbell rings and she calls out: ‘They’re here,’ in her loudest voice.

‘Looks like it’s show time,’ says Dad, heaving himself out of his armchair. ‘Won’t get any rest until they’ve gone.’

‘Until who’s gone?’ I ask Dad, but Mum overhears and scowls in Dad’s direction and he shuts his lips so tight that even under duress I doubt he would’ve even given me his name, rank and number.

Curiosity piqued, I follow Mum into the hallway because I’m half convinced that my parents are about to spring an intervention on me. Mum’s TV viewing habits include the kind of American talk shows where that sort of thing happens and I wouldn’t put it past her to try her hand at creating her own version. But when she opens the door all I can see is a plump-looking woman about Mum’s age and a freakishly tall man in a snow-wash denim jacket, and an Iron Maiden T-shirt.

‘Look who it is,’ says Mum with a flourish, ‘it’s Mrs Baxter and your old friend Mark!’

Judith Baxter was a friend of Mum’s from way back in my nursery schools days. She and Mum had bonded because they were both nurses and had worked at the same hospital at different times and so knew people in common but mostly because her youngest son and I were in the same class. Mark was a bit of an oddball – his favourite trick in nursery used to be pulling down his shorts in the middle of story time and shouting: ‘It’s just like an elephant!’ at the top of his voice. I hadn’t seen Mrs Baxter or her son since the day I left junior school so why they were here in my parents’ house was a mystery to me.

‘Mrs Baxter,’ I say, shaking her hand, ‘lovely to see you.’

‘You too,’ she replies. ‘And my, haven’t you grown? Seems like yesterday you and Mark were playing on the swings together. When I bumped into your mother the other day and she very kindly invited us to tea I just couldn’t resist the opportunity for a catch up.’ Mrs Baxter nudges Mark with her elbow. ‘Isn’t that right, Mark? Say hello to Matthew, why don’t you?’

Mark, reaches up with his left hand, tucks some stray strands of long, greasy shoulder-length hair behind his ear, nods in my direction, and utters a barely audible: ‘All right?’

‘Great, thanks,’ I reply, as my mum smiles expectantly. ‘You?’

Mark shrugs. ‘I’m OK.’

I look at my mother in confusion as she ushers everyone into the living room but she refuses to make eye contact. I know something’s going on but I can’t think for the life of me what it might be.

‘So Matthew,’ says Mrs Baxter, as my mother leaves the room for the kitchen to make everyone’s drink, ‘your mum was telling me that you used to work in computers?’

‘Sort of.’ I notice Mark is reinserting the earphones of his iPod into his ears. Granted, as weird behaviour goes it’s not quite up there with taking out your tackle during story time but all the same it’s a pretty odd thing for a forty-year-old man to do. ‘I was director of software development for a firm in London.’

‘Oooh,’ she says eagerly, ‘that sounds very high flying. Was it?’

‘I suppose so.’

Mrs Baxter spots the earphones and angrily mouths, ‘Take those out now!’ in Mark’s direction before continuing, ‘Our Mark likes computers, don’t you Mark?’

‘They’re all right.’ His voice is completely flat, devoid of emotion, colour or interest, a bit like a robot only without the warmth.

‘You’ve got two of the things!’

‘Yeah, but one’s a laptop.’

‘Don’t laptops count then?’

He looks at her blankly.

Mrs Baxter and Dad make festive related small talk and when that runs out Mrs Baxter questions me in greater detail about my former career until Mum arrives with the refreshments. As Mum pours the tea and hands out coffees, I notice her hand Mark an empty glass.

Mrs Baxter catches me looking.

‘Mark only drinks energy drinks, don’t you Mark?’ she explains, reaching into her bag to hand Mark a can of Red Bull. In one swift motion, he opens the can, takes a sip, and pours the rest into the glass.

‘The drink of gods,’ he says triumphantly.

I can’t help myself. My curiosity is piqued. ‘You only ever drink energy drinks?’

Mark nods proudly. ‘No other liquid passes my lips.’

Dad and I exchange concerned glances. ‘So . . . you’re telling me you don’t drink any other liquid? Not water, not beer, not even milk?’

‘I did drink the insides of a coconut a couple of years back as an experiment,’ he relents, ‘but it didn’t agree with me.’

I look to Mrs Baxter for further explanation but Mum intercepts her.

‘Oh Judith,’ she says standing up, ‘let me give you that mince pie recipe you asked about the other day.’

Picking up her tea, Mrs Baxter quickly follows my mother out of the room. A moment later Dad stands and says: ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered I’ve got to do that thing,’ and before I can respond he too has left the room. The moment Mark and I are alone all the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together: my mother’s insistence that I get out of bed, her refusal to tell me who was coming for tea, and her sharp exit from the room with Mrs Baxter followed by my father . . .

I stand up. ‘Back in a sec, Mark, just need to check something with my mum,’ and I practically run to the kitchen where I find Mum, Dad, and Mrs Baxter sitting round the kitchen table whispering with each other conspiratorially.

‘What were you thinking?

‘What do you mean?’ replies Mum, clearly acting the innocent.

I look at Mrs Baxter. Not even her presence can restrain my annoyance. ‘I’ll tell you what I mean! You’ve just set me up on a playdate like I’m a toddler with no social skills.’

‘I thought it would help!’ protests Mum. ‘All you’ve done for the past few days is mope in that bedroom of yours. You don’t see Gershwin, you don’t see Ginny either. It’s not good for a man of your age to spend so much time on his own!’

‘So you thought you’d set me up with Mark Baxter?’

‘Well, he hasn’t got any friends either and he likes computers.’

‘Just for the record,’ pipes up Dad, ‘I did tell her it was a terrible idea from the start.’

‘Oh be quiet will you!’ snaps Mum, ‘I’m sure you’d be quite happy for our eldest son to spend all day every day festering in bed. Well I for one have had enough: Matthew Timothy Beckford, consider this your formal warning: either you sort your life out this very second or I will!’

‘Fine,’ I reply, through clenched teeth, and then I look over at Dad. ‘Can I borrow the car?’

Dad hands me the keys without a word.

Heading outside without saying goodbye I start up the engine, head in the direction of the high street and within ten minutes I’m striding purposefully into the charity shop in Moseley where I first met Gerry.

‘Look who it is!’ says Gerry from behind the counter, ‘I was thinking about you only the other day. How’s that head of yours? Mine was awful for days afterwards! Are you here to shop? We’ve had some great new stock come in the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure but there might even be some Pinfolds stuff amongst it.’

‘I’m not here to buy anything,’ I reply. ‘I want a job.’

‘Here?’

‘Yeah, if you’ll have me.’

‘You know we don’t pay?’

‘Will you give me enough hours so that I don’t have to spend all day, every day with my parents?’

Gerry laughs. ‘The olds driving you up the wall are they?’

‘Up and over.’

Gerry holds out his hand for me to shake. ‘Looks like you’ve got yourself a job, mate: Welcome aboard.’

Days left until I turn
forty:
113

25

Although it’s only been three weeks since I started working in the shop, even I can see the change it has wrought in my personality. It’s not just the hopefulness and the promise of a fresh start that a new year brings that lifts my spirits, rather it’s that every morning I wake up feeling positive about the day ahead and every night I go to bed exhausted (mainly because I’ve been out to the pub almost every night during the festive season with Gerry for ‘just the one’ only to reach home at two o’clock in the morning). I’d been dreading Christmas but actually ended up enjoying it, thanks to Gerry. There are no longer whole days spent in bed, playdates with forty-year-old Red Bull addicts and no reason to allow myself to regress back to childhood just because I’m living with my parents. And while the work isn’t the most exciting in the world (it’s mostly cataloguing stock, sorting through donations, restocking shelves and putting the good stuff we get on eBay) it is oddly fulfilling, even more so when it registers that I’m doing my bit to raise money for a charity that helps people who can’t help themselves. Altruistic causes aside, what makes it one of the best jobs I’ve ever had is the fact that I get to spend all day, every day, hanging out with Gerry, talking about music and books with Gerry and hearing Gerry’s take on life, the universe and everything in between. No matter whether the shop’s full or empty, we always have a laugh even if we’re just talking about our all time favourite ‘B’ sides or alternative uses for the fifty-odd dog-eared copies of the
Da Vinci Code
stacked up in the corner of the stockroom.

‘What exactly are you going to do with these?’ I ask Gerry as I add to the pile from the latest batch of donations.

‘That,’ says Gerry, ‘is a good question my friend. I only started it a couple of weeks ago because Jean, one of our Saturday volunteers, bet I couldn’t get a stack higher than my desk within a week. Once I won I kept on going just because I could. I’ve thought about starting a breakaway branch purely to get rid of them but I’m not sure it would go down well with the regional manager. Chances are I’ll bag ’em up and drop them outside the Cancer Research shop up the road. Maybe some hippy types will get hold of them and make themselves a nice eco home.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Time for lunch. Where do you fancy?’

‘I’m in the mood for a touch of fine dining,’ I say, thinking back to my old life and some of the top-notch meals I used to enjoy on expenses. ‘Maybe sautéed calves’ liver on a bed of braised fennel followed by dressed crab, tortellini of lobster, caramelised scallop with a scallop velouté washed down with a nice chilled bottle of Viognier.’

‘So that’ll be two cheese and ham toasties and a pot of tea from Annabel’s as usual will it?’ says Gerry.

‘Yeah, I mean if it ain’t broke why fix it?’

Leaving the shop in the capable hands of Anne, a retired music teacher from a local private girls’ school who tends to look after the classical music, and Odd Owen, a bearded part-time mature student who according to his own CV only ever reads books about World War II, we head next door to Annabel’s.

Over lunch Gerry tells me about his plans for the evening: he’s meeting up with his girlfriend Kara for a curry at the Diwan. Kara’s the girl I saw him with in Selfridges, a Dutch postgraduate student half his age. They met at a club night he goes to occasionally. She’s dropped into the shop a few times and even though she’s a bit too trendy for my liking with her retro hairstyle and clothes, there’s no denying that she is utterly stunning. Gerry tries to sell the curry to me by mentioning that one of Kara’s mates is coming along too but it sounds way too much like a double date. ‘I can’t,’ I tell him once he’s started employing emotional blackmail. ‘I promised my mum I’d take her to my sister’s tonight.’ It’s a lie and Gerry knows it. ‘Listen,’ I say finally, ‘all I want to do is go home, eat my tea and maybe watch a couple of DVDs in my room. I don’t even want to think about women, let alone be around them.’

The rest of the afternoon goes by in a blur. I spend an hour finishing off the donation sort, another hour putting new stock on the shelves before finally heading to the tills to take over from Anne, so that she can have her tea break. I’ve barely been at the tills a minute when a young woman with dark hair and an amazing smile walks into the shop, heads straight to the till and asks me a question that sounds like: ‘Have you got any elephant-dung paper?’