Thirtynothing

Chapter One

Dig woke with a start.

The first thing he was conscious of was the taste in his mouth, a rancid coating of… what was it? Onions? Garlic? Some kind of battery-acid-type thing going on in there as well. He slowly brought a hand from beneath his duvet and cupped it around his mouth. He let out a small puff of coagulated breath and sniffed it back in. Jesus. Grim beyond belief. He clamped his mouth shut again.

The second thing he was conscious of was his head, which appeared to have had a large shipment of ball-bearings dumped in it overnight, while his blood felt as if it had been transfused with silica and come to a grinding, desiccated halt somewhere around his temples.

The third thing was his stomach, a solid, churning area of gas and corrosive fluids, swishing and swirling around together like a kind of miniature primordial soup. He felt a bubbling tube of gas begin to wriggle through his stomach, around his intestine and down towards his bowel. He could tell it was going to be bad when it departed his body in a hot and silent phut, and before long his airless room was ripe with the stench of yeast and garlic.

‘Oh, Jesus. What the fuck is that smell?’

Which is when Dig became aware of the fourth thing.

The girl in his bed.

He turned his head slowly, and there she was. A girl. A girl with messy blonde hair and black stuff smudged under her eyes and bare bony shoulders and a tattoo of a sea horse on her left arm and one hand covering her mouth and nose while her face wrinkled up in distaste.

‘Jesus!’ The girl turned over on to her side with a disgusted flounce. She had some sort of accent, and another tattoo on her back, of a butterfly. It was very nicely done. Dig slowly manoeuvred himself up on his elbow and surveyed the girl as if she were some kind of strange sea creature which had been washed up on his bed by the tide. She looked young. Surprise surprise. About twenty, probably. And thin. Very thin indeed. Another surprise. He wondered what she was called.

‘Do you have any Nurofen?’ Her voice was muffled through her hand but was now recognizably Irish. Northern Irish, to be precise.

‘Uh-huh.’ Dig’s hand found the little tablets on his bedside table, and the glass of water he’d put there last night, a sign that at some point between getting home and going to bed he’d obviously been mentally and physically functioning to some extent. Which also indicated to him that relations had more than likely been had with this small, bony girl in his bed.

He turned to look down at the floor by his bed. Yep. There it was. A shimmery sliver of pearly latex with a neat little knot at the top. Well, that was something, at least.

The level of traffic noise wafting through the half-opened window from Camden Road outside led Dig to believe that it was probably some considerable time after the six in the morning his head was telling him it was. He turned painfully to look at his radio alarm: 11.48 a.m. It was also hot, stiflingly hot. Strange for the middle of November.

He passed the glass and pills to the bony girl.

‘Thanks.’ She gulped them down in one. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten to twelve.’

‘What! Fuck, you’re joking!’ She sprang out of bed, like a little pink whippet and began jumping into her clothes: a tiny black vest top, no bra, hard little nipples poking through, G-string, no buttocks, combat trousers, pierced belly button, trainers. ‘Fuck fuck fuck.’ She heaved the curtains apart, sending Dig recoiling across the bed with one elbow over his face. She surveyed the street below.

‘Where the fuck am I? Is this Tooting Broadway?’

‘What? No – no – Kentish Town – Camden Road.’

‘Oh no! Oh fucking no. I have to be in Clapham in ten minutes. Jesus! Can I get a bus from here? Where’s the Tube? D’you have a car?’

‘No. Five minutes that way. Yes, but it’s in for repairs.’

‘Oh, Christ – I’ll have to get a cab. I only have a fiver. D’you have any cash?’

Dig peeled the last crumpled tenner from his wallet and handed it to her.

She kissed it. ‘I’ll pay you back.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Work.’

‘On a Saturday?’

‘Yeah – I’m a waitress – shit – it’s going to be murderously busy today – look at that sunshine – but it’s only a temporary thing, y’know, part time.’

‘You’re a student?’ Something had come back to him from the night before.

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ She was scraping her hair back into some kind of knot. The sun was playing on her and she looked quite pretty. She seemed strong and bright.

‘Where d’you study?’ Dig was suddenly feeling vaguely sociable, as if he might quite like to see her again.

‘God, you can’t remember a thing we talked about last night, can you?’ She smiled. She pulled a pair of yellow sunglasses from her rucksack and sat them on top of her head. ‘Well’ – she looked pleased with herself, a little embarrassed – ‘I’m at sixth-form college right now, but my tutors reckon I’ll get a place at Oxford next year – if I get my grades.’

Grades? Grades? Jesus! ‘What – er, what grades?’ Dig rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

‘A Levels, of course.’

‘So – you’re – how old?’

‘Seventeen.’

Oh dear God!

She was standing at the door now, her rucksack on her back, looking all of a sudden like a child, like a small girl wearing big girl’s clothes. She seemed to transmogrify before his eyes, her hips disappearing, her breasts deflating, her waist expanding, her hair morphing as he watched from stylish topknot to perky pigtails. Oh Jesus Christ! Seventeen!

‘Hey, look,’ she was saying, waving his ten-pound note at him, ‘I’ll find a way of getting this back to you – I promise. I have your number, I’ll ring you.’

I’ll ring you. I’ll ring you! There was a child standing in his bedroom doorway, with a pierced belly button, waving his money at him and telling him she’d ring him. Jesus, what was the world coming to?

‘Oh, and by the way – Happy Birthday.’ She smiled at him, a nice, warm, intelligent smile, and then she was gone.

Happy Birthday. Oh yes, Happy Birthday indeed. Thirty years old. He was thirty years old. A thirty-year-old pervert. A dirty thirty old man. A heinous, raincoat-wearing, boiled-sweet-carrying, dribbling, drooling old man.

He’d slept with a seventeen-year-old.

OK, so it was the stuff of dreams, the stuff men of his age made lascivious, lustful jokes about over pints in pubs. But to have really done it, to be confronted with the reality of a seventeen-year-old in his bed. His little sister was eighteen and if he’d found out that she’d… with a man of thirty… he’d have… Well, anyway, it just didn’t feel right. Dig suddenly felt a little too old to be chasing after much younger women.

The previous evening was starting to come back to him in dribs and drabs. Tequila slammers at Nadine’s. Opening presents. Pints at the Lady Somerset with the rest of the crowd. All piling into a cab at midnight. Some club somewhere in town. (A club? They never went to clubs any more.) More tequila. And then dancing – dancing for hours… God, he’d probably looked a right arse. And that girl, that child… Katie! That was it, that was her name – Katie – except she’d pronounced it ‘Kayday’. Dancing with her and telling her, over and over again, ‘It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!’ And then – a curry? Shit, it must have been nearly morning by then… where the hell had they managed to find a curry at that time of night?

And that girl, Katie, had been there. And… yes, that’s right, Nadine had started on Maxwell in the restaurant and she’d tipped her raitha into his korma for some reason or, more probably, for no reason whatsoever. Poor Maxwell. It looked like his days were numbered. And then? Well, they must have got a cab or something. He couldn’t remember anything after that.

Dig wrapped himself up in his dressing-gown and made his way to his gleaming little Ikea kitchen, where he got himself some coffee. He switched on his ionizer, lit a cigarette and let his hangover wash over him for a while, as he trawled his memory for more detail, but nothing came to him, just blurred images and fuzzy fag-ends of conversation.

The coffee and cigarette, combined with the unimaginable gunk that had already been in his mouth when he woke up, had pushed his breath to crisis point. He absolutely had to brush his teeth.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror as he brushed. There’s the crunch, he thought, there it is. A couple of years ago I could have had a heavy night and woken up the next morning looking like something that vaguely resembled a human being, instead of this monstrous, clammy-complexioned, open-pored, dark-shadowed, grey-skinned sack of old bones that’s staring back at me from my bathroom mirror. But now I’m thirty, and although I still have youth ahead of me, I have left the greatest part of it behind me, and my body is no longer on my side, will no longer collude in my systematic abuse of it. My body is asking for a break, and my punishment for not giving it a break is to make me look this hideous in the mornings.

Still, he thought, he didn’t have much to complain about as he entered his fourth decade. He had a great social life and friends he’d known for years. He was liked and respected by nearly everyone he came into contact with. He could pull pretty girls; he owned his own flat – OK, so it was small and noisy and it was up three flights of stairs, but it was his; he had the job of his dreams working as an A&R manager for a small record label in Camden – all right, so it was poor pay for long hours and very little success, but he loved it. Unlike most men he knew of his age, he still had all his hair and a pretty firm stomach. His family lived just round the corner so he got to see his precious mum at least once or twice a week. And now he was thirty.

Thirty wasn’t so bad.

Yeah. Thirty was fine.

Actually, it wasn’t that different to twenty-nine.

Chapter Two

Nadine rolled sideways towards Maxwell and let his big, bear-like arms wrap her up in a sleepy embrace. His neck smelled sweetly musty, and traces of last night’s aftershave lingered on his skin. She could feel the hairs on his chest rubbing against her breasts and his resting heartbeat echoing through her ribcage.

The sun was streaming through the yellow and red sari silk draped over her bedroom windows and the calming sounds of outside activity floated over her bed like a summer breeze: a dog barking, a child discussing his plans for the day with his mother, car engines starting, front doors opening and closing.

‘Cup of tea?’

‘Ooh, yes please.’

Maxwell pulled his huge frame from the bed, squeezed himself into Nadine’s much-too-small red-silk robe and gently padded off towards the kitchen. Nadine stretched herself out in the newly spacious bed and smiled as she heard Maxwell performing his usual clattering pillage of the kitchen drawers and cupboards, unable even after three months to lay his hands on teaspoons, mugs and teabags without first exploring every possible location.

She clicked on the radio and listened to the homely babble of Radio Five Live presenters for a while, and suddenly realized that despite the traces of a headache lingering around her temples, a vaguely nauseous sensation emanating from her stomach and the slightly embarrassing memory of yet another scene with Maxwell in the restaurant last night, she was feeling quite inexplicably, deliriously happy. It was a Saturday morning, the sun was shining, there was a man in the kitchen making her tea, and she had no plans whatsoever for the rest of the day. Maxwell wasn’t usually here at the weekend. She’d only seen him last night because it was Dig’s birthday and Dig liked Maxwell and had insisted that she invite him. She wasn’t used to waking up with a man on a Saturday morning. It was nice. They could do couply things: they could go for a walk, or go out for lunch somewhere and read the papers. Or they could just stay in bed all day, watch the telly, eat bacon sandwiches, chat and have sex.

This, she decided, was one of those moments, one of those utterly perfect moments in life, which you absolutely had to draw into your lungs and hold there and absorb every drop of, because that was what life was all about. If you expected eternal happiness, then you missed the essence of life that was contained in moments like this.

‘There you go,’ said Maxwell, gently placing steaming mugs of tea on the bedside table – mugs, Nadine noticed, that she never used, her emergency mugs, ugly ones her mother had given her, decorated with insipid roses fading defeatedly after ten years of washing-up and kept at the back of the cupboard, mugs that only someone with no sense of design or aesthetics would have pulled from her cupboard when presented with a selection of at least twenty more attractive mugs. She felt a sudden burst of irritation and her little happiness bubble exploded over her head. Why couldn’t he be perfect? Was that too much to ask?

‘For God’s sake, Maxwell,’ she bristled, waspishly, ‘why do you always have to choose the ugliest mugs in the kitchen?’

‘Eh?’ Maxwell looked stumped, and Nadine felt flooded with disdain, at the precise moment she should have felt guilt.

‘Haven’t you noticed,’ she continued, ‘that when I make the tea I always use those Deco mugs or the Simpsons mugs or the South Park mugs. You know – the nice mugs? Haven’t you noticed that I never, ever use these mugs?’ She pointed at them in disgust.

Maxwell shrugged and shook his head. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ he asked sadly.

‘Huh! Exactly! That’s exactly it! If you don’t know what’s wrong with these mugs then there is no point in having this conversation.’ Nadine knew she was being unreasonable but she couldn’t help it.

‘Do you want me to change them?’ he offered.

Nadine jumped out of the bed in exasperation and gesticulated angrily. ‘No, Maxwell. I don’t want you to change them, I just want you not to have chosen them in the first place. I want you to be as unspeakably repulsed by these mugs as I am. I want you to look at these mugs and feel a deep sense of pity for the men and women of… of’ – she picked up a mug and read the inscription on the bottom – ‘of Lichfield Pottery, Staffs, who were actually paid to paint these disgusting flowers on to the sides of these disgusting objects and who probably think they’re highly talented artists. That’s what I want, Maxwell.’

Maxwell’s kind face crumpled up with the strain of comprehension, and Nadine could see that he was trying, he really was trying to understand what she was saying to him and this annoyed her even more. She was being a complete bitch and a real man would have told her to shut the fuck up. But he wasn’t a real man, and he had actually picked up one of the mugs and was now turning it around and around in his hand, gazing at it from every possible angle, his face a picture of studious contemplation.

‘Mmmm,’ he said, ‘I suppose it is a bit plain. A bit old-fashioned…’

‘Oh, put it down, for Christ’s sake!’ she fumed. ‘Put the fucking mug down.’

The badly chosen mugs, taken in isolation, were not, evidently, a big deal, but set in the context of their three-month-old relationship they were yet another sign that Maxwell was the Wrong Boyfriend. She’d been trying to convince herself for three months that it could work, that despite the differences between them, despite his penchant for brightly coloured designer menswear, his infatuation with Celine Dion, his unflappable demeanour and his unfeasibly good manners, despite his home being ten miles away from hers, just outside Dagenham in Essex, and despite the fact that he was a courier and she was a photographer who earned five times as much as him, she could make it work. Because Maxwell was as nice a bloke as you could ever hope to meet and Nadine felt that she deserved a nice bloke. But nice blokes aren’t necessarily perfect blokes and Nadine was sorry for her pettiness and intolerance, but she couldn’t, just couldn’t, abide the differences between herself and Maxwell for another moment.

‘Nadine,’ Maxwell was saying, softly, ‘I’m not really sure… could you explain to me why you’re getting so wound up about a pair of mugs?’

Nadine appreciated that this was a fair question. ‘Oh God, Maxwell. It’s not just the mugs. It’s not the mugs. It’s everything. It’s us. It’s me… this just isn’t working…’ Nadine listened to the words echoing in her head and thought how hollow they sounded. She wondered how many times in her life she’d used the same words before. ‘It’s me,’ she always said, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’

And it was true. It was always her. She hadn’t been dumped since she was twenty-one. It had been fine when she was younger, going out with unsuitable men, because all her friends were going out with unsuitable men, too. They’d all get together and compare horror stories, revel in the imperfections of each other’s ill-advised relationships, bond over mutual disdain for the inferior sex. That’s what you do when you’re in your twenties. But then, gradually, one by one, all her friends had found decent men, good men, and splintered off. And now, in her thirtieth year, Nadine found herself hanging around, like the Queen of Spades in a game of Old Maid. The game was over, the rest of the pack was in pairs, but she was still playing. And until a few weeks ago, she’d still been enjoying it.

But then she’d turned thirty and had begun to evaluate her situation, and all of a sudden the life of a serial monogamist didn’t seem like so much fun and there wasn’t the time to waste any more. Her youth was running out, her choices were diminishing, and it had hit Nadine then, the real reason why she went out with so many losers: she only went out with men who didn’t threaten her friendship with Dig. The moment a boyfriend started to make claims on her time or her emotions, it was over. The moment a boyfriend began to show any signs of resentment about the amount of time she spent with Dig, it was over. There existed between Dig and Nadine this sort of unwritten law that said that they weren’t allowed to spend quality time with anyone but each other. Weekdays were for boyfriends and girlfriends; weekends were for Dig and Nadine.

Dig was Nadine’s best friend, her favourite person in the entire world, and as long as they were friends she didn’t actually need to be in love with anyone else. It would just complicate everything if either of them ever fell in love with another person.

The only problem was that they just didn’t fancy each other; each one epitomized the antithesis of the other’s ‘type’. Dig liked tiny, girl-child-type women (which Nadine most certainly wasn’t) who made him feel manly, and Nadine liked enormous hairy men (which Dig most certainly wasn’t) who made her feel delicate. If they’d fancied each other, they would have been married by now. Probably.

Nadine looked at Maxwell, staring warmly but blankly at her, and she suddenly realized that he was going to be the last Wrong Boyfriend. Definitely. Without a doubt. No more Wrong Boyfriends. Only Right Boyfriends from here on in. She would have one last crack at trying to find a suitable man, and if that failed, she’d marry Dig, skinny legs and all.

She took a deep breath. ‘Maxwell,’ she said, sitting down beside him on the bed and gently removing the mug of tea from between his enormous fingers. ‘I think we should talk.’

Well, thought Nadine, as she closed the front door quietly behind Maxwell’s slightly stooped figure, at least he didn’t cry. That was the worst thing, the most horrible thing imaginable, to see a grown man cry, especially a man as big as Maxwell. He’d taken it quite well really, almost as if he’d never before considered the concept of being dumped and was going to go home and give it some thought, as if she’d given him some unfathomable lateral-thinking test to consider. Poor Maxwell, she thought. But he’d be fine. He’d be just fine – he was good-looking and funny and caring and generous – he’d find someone else in days. A nice Essex girl who would look up to him and respect him and love every inch of his hairy, chunky body, a kind girl who would appreciate him and make him happy, happier than Nadine had ever made him.

He’d be just fine. Unlike her.

Nadine glanced around her now empty flat, at the dents in her gaudy Bollywood duvet cover left by two bodies, and the hated pair of mugs still sitting accusingly on the bedside table. She absorbed the change in the atmosphere, the stillness of the air, the sudden silence from outside her bedroom window – and then she remembered how she’d felt twenty minutes ago, the thought of the day ahead which had pleased her so greatly and the pure moment of unblemished happiness she’d experienced and embraced.

It occurred to Nadine that maybe those moments weren’t meant to be fleeting, that maybe they were like seeds, and you were supposed to plant them and water them, and that if you tended them well, eventually you would grow a Tree of Happiness.

And if that was the case, she wondered, how come every time she was lucky enough to find a Happiness Seed she mashed it up, spat on it, stamped on it and then threw it out of the window? Why did she have to spoil absolutely everything?

Nadine felt her stomach begin to rumble with fake, post-late-night-curry hunger. She contemplated rustling up a quick bacon sarnie but then decided she had to get out of the flat, go for a walk, see someone, talk to someone.

She picked up the phone and called Dig.

Chapter Three

‘So,’ said Dig, regarding Nadine disbelievingly over a large plate of greasy meat and chips, ‘let me get this straight. You dumped Maxwell because he chose the wrong mugs?’

‘Well, yes. Among other things. I mean – we both know he wasn’t right for me, don’t we?’

‘I really liked him… well, compared to some of the other men you’ve been out with this decade.’

‘Yes. Of course. So did I. Who wouldn’t? But he was so annoying, you know? The way he dressed, and the way he was always going on about his mum, and Celine Dion, and the fact that he was allergic to garlic of all things – I mean, how can you go through life being allergic to garlic? – and he was so pathetic, sometimes, so… so… so…’

‘Nice?’

‘Very nice. But just so…’

‘Kind, pleasant, generous?’

‘Yes. But, so… so…’

‘In love with you?’

‘Look’ – Nadine pointed a speared chip at Dig – ‘he held his knife and fork like he was going to knit a sweater with them, OK? That’s just one of those things I, personally, can’t live with.’

‘Oh my God, Deen! You complete fucking snob!’

‘Well, it’s the truth. I can’t help the way I am, can I? It just used to make my blood boil. And he couldn’t spell either, and there is nothing worse than a man who can’t spell – it takes all the romance out of cards and love letters and things.’

‘You are unreal, Nadine Kite,’ said Dig, slowly shaking his head from side to side in wonderment, ‘you really are. What planet are you from?’

Nadine looked at him sniffily, sensing that her defence was shaky, to say the least. ‘OK,’ she conceded, ‘I admit it. I am a snob, and I am a fussy cow and I do demand a lot of men but, the bottom line is this: Maxwell wasn’t right for me and I didn’t want to go out with him any more and I’ve found a whole load of excuses not to love him back. But, I know, I know that when I meet someone who is right for me, then I won’t care whether or not they can spell, or how they hold their cutlery.’

Dig snorted sceptically.

‘Yeah, right. Take the piss. But I know it. OK?’

Dig cut a swathe through the juices on his plate with a chunk of toast and smiled wryly at Nadine. ‘Deen,’ he said, popping the toast into his mouth, ‘you know I love you dearly, you know you’re my best girl and I would do anything for you. But you are a nightmare. You are a complete and utter nightmare… If you were a bloke, you would be a bastard.’

Nadine dropped her jaw in mock indignation.

‘… And one day you are going to get your comeuppance. You are going to meet this so-called “perfect guy” and you are going to put up with his appalling table manners and his shocking shirts and he is going to turn around and shit all over you. He is going to turn around to you one day and say, “Nadine, you’re a great girl, but I just can’t stand those purple trousers you wore last Thursday and the way your ears wiggle when you laugh and, quite frankly, your ginger pubes make me want to puke. So, no hard feelings, eh?” And Deen – and I say this with all the affection and love in the world – I for one cannot wait for that day to come.’

Nadine took a sharp intake of breath and clutched at her neck. ‘You bastard!’

‘Since you were twenty-two years old, since the day you left university and realized that you were never going to see Phil again, you have been out with every bloke who was stupid enough to ask you. As if three years with that weirdo wasn’t enough. You have never once stopped and asked yourself if you actually wanted to go out with them, whether they were suitable, whether you fancied them, or if it stood a chance in hell of working out. You just use men to flatter your ego. You spend a couple of weeks doing everything within your power to ensure that they fall in love with you, and then the minute they do, you spend another two months building up a big enough list of faults and grievances to justify dumping the poor bastard.’

‘I do not!’

‘Yes, you do. Every bloke who asks. Doesn’t matter if they’re thin, fat, young, old, rich, poor or ugly. All they have to do is ask. Is it any wonder that it always ends in disaster? Is it any wonder that you spend half your life dumping them? Is it any wonder that you haven’t met the right guy yet?’

‘I do not go out with every guy who asks me.’

‘OK then. Name me one guy you’ve turned down – one guy.’

Nadine thought for a moment and then smiled wickedly. ‘Well. Let me think. Oh yes, that’s right. There was one bloke – you!’ She smiled smugly. ‘Got you! I turned you down.’

Dig shook his head. ‘No no no. That doesn’t count. We were kids then. I’m talking about after university, after the thing with Phil.’

Nadine went silent for a while as she flicked rapidly through her memory files, her face wrinkled in concentration. ‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘it’s not as if I get asked out every day or anything. You have to take these opportunities when they’re offered.’

‘Oh, come on! You haven’t been single for more than a week in the last ten years and you haven’t been out with anyone for longer than a few months. Work it out for yourself.’

‘Oh yes,’ leered Nadine, triumphantly, ‘oh yes, of course! I forgot I was talking to the world’s leading relationship expert. I forgot you were the man who had his heart broken when he was eighteen and hasn’t let one single woman near it since. I forgot I was talking to the man who hasn’t known the surname of the last six girls he’s slept with, who thinks commitment is staying the night, who thinks a date is a chewy version of a prune and who woke up in bed this morning with a seventeen-year-old girl!’

An old man who had been working his way slowly and disagreeably through a plate of overcooked roast beef and congealed gravy since they arrived threw Dig a look of profound admiration, and a young couple in the corner looked up from their newspapers with raised eyebrows, turning subtly for a glimpse of this apparent paedophile. Dig blushed.

‘Yeah, right,’ he whispered, ‘but at least I don’t lead them on, at least they know what they’re getting into. I never give them any false hope. And besides, girls that young, they don’t actually want anything serious, anyway. Not like you lot.’

‘You lot, who lot?’

‘You,’ he said, pointing at her, ‘you thirty-something women.’

Nadine raised her eyebrows ceilingwards. ‘Oh,’ she growled, ‘don’t start all that business again. I’m far too hungover for that argument. And anyway, I’m not thirty-something, I’m thirty-nothing.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Well, thirty is more like a full stop on your twenties, really. I don’t think you’re actually in your thirties until you’re thirty-one. Anyway, all I’m saying is, you’re in no position to preach to me about how I should be conducting my love life. You’re the nicest bloke I know and one day you’re going to make somebody a wonderful husband. But right now you should carry a health warning.’

‘OK, OK,’ sighed Dig, smiling, ‘so we’re both as bad as each other. You dump perfectly decent men because they choose the wrong mugs, and I’m the Jerry Lee Lewis of Kentish Town… Let’s face it – we’re both crap.’

‘Oh God, Dig. Look at us. We’re both thirty now – we’re too old to be crap, we’re not supposed to be crap any more. We’re supposed to be getting it together. My mum had two kids by the time she was my age and, as far as I can tell, I still am a kid. Where’s my biological clock, Dig? Where is it? Why haven’t I got one? Maybe if I had one then I’d be a bit more selective about who I went out with because I’d be subconsciously looking for a good gene pool, you know, a hunter/gatherer type, a sperm donor rather than a temporary ego boost.’

‘And I’d be looking for a good, heavy-hipped, child-bearing woman instead of chasing after ectomorphic breastless androgynes with body piercings.’

‘What have we been doing for the last ten years, Dig? I mean, I’m under no illusions about everlasting love, but we haven’t even come close. We haven’t had one long-term relationship between the two of us. Other people spend their twenties learning lessons about love and relationships, and you and I have just been going round and round in circles, learning nothing. We’re pathetic. Maybe that’s what we should be doing, Dig. Maybe we should at least pretend that we’re looking for a partner to have children with, even if we’re not – that way we might choose a little more wisely.’

‘But I don’t like heavy-hipped women.’

‘Oh, Dig. Don’t be ridiculous. Women don’t have to have heavy hips to bear children. Look at Pamela Anderson – she’s had two and she doesn’t look like she could give birth to a clothes-peg. No, it’s more a frame of mind, an attitude. I think we should give it a bash, you know. I mean, look around this place. Look at her.’ She pointed towards a pretty girl in her late twenties sitting alone with a bacon sandwich.’ She’s nice-looking, she’s got lovely hair, she’s slim and she’s most probably single. I bet if you asked her out, she’d say yes.’

‘Yeah, but why? Why is she single? If she’s so great then why isn’t she sharing her bacon sandwich with someone?’

‘God, I don’t know. Maybe she’s just split up with someone, maybe she’s just dumped her boyfriend because he put too much sugar in his tea. Maybe she’s as bad as us.’

Another girl walked into the café then, and the bacon-sandwich girl’s face lit up. The two women greeted each other warmly with a kiss on the lips, and Nadine saw their feet entwine underneath the table.

‘…Or maybe she’s a lesbian. But that’s not the point. The point is, we’re thirty years old, we’re healthy, we’ve got flats, cars, jobs and security, we’re both unbelievably nice people and we’re going to wake up one morning and find ourselves all alone. All our friends will have big messy houses full of teenagers and grandchildren and noise and activity, they’ll be arranging weddings and going to graduation ceremonies and discussing their children’s achievements and sending them off to see the world, and we’ll be alone, you in your anally tidy flat, me with fifty years’ worth of glossy magazines arranged in piles, with nothing but memories of how it was to be young. That’s not right. I don’t want that. And the only way we’re going to be able to avoid that is by doing something about it now.’

Dig had been nodding throughout this and now stuck one hand out towards Nadine. ‘I agree,’ he said, ‘and I think we should make a pact here and now. I’ll start looking for a more mature woman and you start looking for a bloke who measures up to your standards.’

‘And the first person to start seeing a decent man or woman gets… gets…’ Nadine quickly calculated the chances of Dig recognizing a ‘real’ woman if she slapped him around the chops with her handbag, smiled and stuck out her hand, ‘a hundred quid.’

Dig’s eyebrow shot up into his hairline but he grabbed Nadine’s hand and shook it hard. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘OK. A hundred quid for the first person to start dating a decent person.’

‘So that means a woman over the age of twenty-six, for you and a man who I actually like, for me. OK?’

‘OK!’

They shook hands hard and smiled at each other across the table, each one as certain as the other that this was one bet that would never be called in.

starfish and kites

Dig thought Nadine was a bit of a drip when he was allocated the seat next to hers on his first day at the Holy Trinity Convent School for Boys and Girls in Kentish Town.

She had unruly red hair and squidgy white hands with dimples where she should have had knuckles. She was very small and very round, and her grey school skirt stood out starchily from her legs in an angular ‘A’ shape, ending somewhere near her ankles, which were densely clad in thick-ribbed tights.

Nadine thought Dig was a bit of a nerd when he awkwardly approached the desk next to hers. He was very skinny and very pale, with an overdeveloped head of thick black hair that looked, to her, like a bad wig. His uniform wasn’t crisp and brand-new like hers, it looked sad and threadbare and out of sorts. She guessed that he was wearing his big brother’s cast-offs and then thought that he probably came from one of those huge Irish Catholic families that her mother had told her all about. He only had one eyebrow and he looked to Nadine like one of the children in Planet of the Apes.

Not surprisingly, none of the other children rushed over to get to know Dig and Nadine when the bell for their first break rang at 10.30 a.m., and consequently they had to make do with each other for company while they sat in the playground.

‘Dig,’ stated Nadine, swinging her plump little legs back and forth, ‘that’s a really stupid name. Why are you called Dig?’

‘It is not a stupid name. It’s short for Digby.’

‘Well, that’s a stupid name, too.’

‘No it’s not – it’s French.’

‘Yes it is. “Dig”. It’s not a name. It’s a verb.’

‘What about you? You can talk. Nadine Kite. That’s not a name, that’s a thing that you fly in the sky.’

‘Yes. I do know what a kite is, thank you very much.’

‘Oh yes – I bet you’ve never flown one, though, have you? I have. My dad bought it for me. We take it out on Primrose Hill.’

Nadine fell silent for a second and took an extra big slurp of her Banana Nesquik before shrugging. ‘Who cares?’ she said. ‘Kites are for kids. Anyway,’ she continued, changing the subject, ‘how come you’ve only got one eyebrow?’

‘It’s not one eyebrow – it’s two eyebrows that meet up in the middle, that’s all.’

‘Looks stupid.’

‘Oh,’ said Dig, ‘thanks a lot.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

They both stopped talking and began sucking aggressively on their cartons of drink. Dig turned to Nadine and pointed at her hands. ‘How come you’ve got no knuckles, then? How come they’re inside out?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look,’ he said, taking one of her little hands in his own and rubbing his thumb over the dimples in her joints, ‘the skin there goes in, instead of out. They’re not normal.’

‘Yes they are!’ She spread them out like starfish and gazed at them.

‘No, they’re not. Look at my hands.’ He splayed his long white hand open, placed it over her starfish hand and pointed out his sharp knuckles. ‘That’s what knuckles are supposed to look like.’

‘Hmph,’ said Nadine.

There was a short silence.

‘You can come with us – if you like,’ said Dig.

‘Where?’

‘Kite-flying. Me and my dad.’

‘Oh,’ said Nadine. ‘OK, then.’

They both sat then and stared at their touching hands, and let the warmth seep between their fingers while their cartons of drink sat on either side of them warming up in the September sun and the playground echoed around them with the sounds of a thousand other children.

Nadine looked up at him then, into his kind, brown eyes, and decided at that moment that whatever happened in her life, she was going to marry Digby Ryan.

THE BEGINNING

Lisa Jewell

THIRTYNOTHING

Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THIRTYNOTHING

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

starfish and kites