Turning Forty Read Online Free PDF

jewellery) thereby breaking my heart and completely crushing my dreams.
    The sixth-form Christmas disco was the social event of the school year and the date I had been planning for since laying eyes on Amanda on day one of the new term. While the majority of my fellow students had come up through the ranks of Kings Heath Comprehensive to do their A levels, Amanda was only there because she had failed to attain the correct grades to stay on at the nearby grammar school sixth form and so was, in every sense, slumming it.
    During the course of that first term I made it my mission to make Amanda mine. I made her laugh, made her compilation tapes and talked to her like she was a human being instead of the most beautiful girl in the school. And even though we never made it past this superficial level of intimacy I took comfort from the fact that whenever she saw me in the common room or in the corridor she would stop and chat as though we were good friends.
    Having laid all this groundwork, the sixth-form Christmas disco, with its unparalleled opportunities for a slow dance in the darkened surroundings of the main school hall, was the obvious place to make my move. What I hadn’t factored into my plans, however, were the fickle desires of girls like Amanda Dixon.
    Reasoning that it was pointless to stay at the disco a moment longer but barely able to stop tormenting myself with the sight that was currently offending my eyes, I mumbled in the direction of my friends Gershwin, Pete and Elliot that I was leaving. Even though there was still an hour before the night was over none of them tried to dissuade me. Wishing myself home to get on with my mourning in the relative privacy of the bedroom that I shared with my brothers, I zipped up my jacket and headed out across the vast, empty expanse of the playground towards the exit. Then I spotted a lone female figure sitting on a bench facing the main school entrance.
    ‘Pascoe!’
    The figure looked up, momentarily unsure where the noise had come from. I walked over to her and she took off her headphones.
    ‘You scared the life out of me!’
    ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s just that I saw you sitting there and . . .’
    ‘And what?’
    And what indeed? It wasn’t like Ginny Pascoe and I were friends or anything (at least not then). She was just a girl. One of many, neither over-cool nor over-pretty and given that I had eyes for no one but Amanda Dixon, to all intents and purposes Ginny had been invisible to me.
    ‘I just thought I’d see what you were up to,’ I replied, dousing my words in liquid nonchalance. I stared at her. She seemed different. For starters she was prettier and had that same air of confidence that all girls my age appeared to have been handed over the long summer break – along with proper breasts and womanly hips – that marked them out as being so much more complicated than us boys could ever be.
    I asked her what she’d been listening to.
    ‘You won’t have heard of them.’
    ‘Try me.’
    ‘The Pinfolds.’
    ‘Never heard of them.’
    ‘Any good?’
    ‘They’re the best,’ she said.
    I looked back at the school building. Through the partially drawn blackout curtains in the main hall I could make out the strobe effect lighting put on to accompany the opening drumbeats of ‘Blue Monday’. With a world-weary sigh that came from bitter experience I shook my head in embarrassment as half-a-dozen people who should know better failed to resist the temptation to do the Robot.
    ‘What are you doing out here anyway?’
    Ginny checked to see if the coast was clear before producing a two-litre bottle of Coke from inside her coat. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said, offering me a swig, ‘it’s my friend Katrina’s and somehow I’ve ended up babysitting it.’
    Desperate to maintain my cool I accepted the bottle she proffered and took an overzealous gulp, spraying the contents of my mouth over my jeans.
    ‘What’s in there?’ I spluttered.