Turning Thirty Read Online Free PDF

hours under the same roof as them.
    2) The simple fact that there isn’t a single way in the English language of making the words, ‘I’m moving back in with my parents,’ sound the slightest bit cool when you’re twenty-nine years old.
    3) I couldn’t think of another one. The first two were already more than enough.

    Despite all this – the parent/child clash, the distinct loss of cool – I knew that home was the only place to go. If life was a maze in which we’re supposed to find some kind of answer, then my move across the Atlantic and my relationship with Elaine had been a huge trip down a long, torturous dead end. It seemed fitting then, now that I was momentarily rudderless, to go back to the beginning. So I made the decision. I was going home for a break, not only from work but from life. I was going to live with my folks, let my mum fuss over me, let my dad give me gardening tips. And in three months’ time – by the time I had turned thirty – I’d be ready for a new beginning in Australia.
    That was my mission.

seven
    My final day in New York came faster than I anticipated and the final few hours even faster. I’d been packing all day and was in the middle of putting my last pair of socks and my laptop into a holdall when a fresh-from-work Elaine knocked on the bedroom door and came in. I noticed sadly that she wasn’t on the phone as usual. This evening, my final evening, was special.
    â€˜Hi,’ she said quietly, and put down her bag on the bed.
    â€˜Hi,’ I replied, almost as quietly. ‘How was work?’
    â€˜Work was cool,’ she replied. ‘You know I had that product shoot today? Well, Martha came to the shoot with orange hair.’ Martha was another of Elaine’s countless friends. ‘She dyed it as a bet with her boyfriend.’
    â€˜Insane,’ I said, with mock disbelief.
    She laughed, and as her grin faded to a smile her eyes seemed to sparkle and I could see that she wanted to tell me some more gossip, to share with me more about her day as she usually did. Then her eyes flitted across to my bags on the bed and the smile evaporated. The sparkle disappeared too.
    â€˜How was your day?’ she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
    I shrugged.
    â€˜Have you got everything you need?’ Elaine was now exuding that kind of loose energy people give off when they don’t know what to do but are desperate to do something.
    â€˜Yeah, I think so,’ I replied, even though I wasn’t at all sure.
    â€˜What about your toothbrush?’
    â€˜Yeah, you’re right. Good thinking. I haven’t got that.’ I disappeared into the bathroom and searched high and low for the toothbrush but couldn’t find it anywhere. I returned to the bedroom. ‘Can’t find it.’
    â€˜It’s on top of the radio in the kitchen,’ she said, without looking at me. ‘Where you left it.’
    I disappeared to find it and returned, seconds later, toothbrush in hand.
    â€˜I’ll miss that,’ she said, as I returned and dropped it into the bag.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Knowing where all the things you think you’ve lost are. I can’t help but feel that without me you’re never going to find anything you own ever again.’
    The fact that it had always been me who knew where everything was seemed to have escaped her but I could see that she meant well. Now that we were parting she wanted to give the impression that she’d been the kind of girlfriend who was good at that sort of thing. While I checked around to make sure I hadn’t left anything important she followed after me handing me things I’d overlooked that were practically essential to my survival. An hour later my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend and I were standing at Passport Control at JFK.
    â€˜Matt?’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜Call me when you reach England.’
    I nodded, then carefully