Turning Thirty Read Online Free PDF Page B

corrected myself. I couldn’t really see that happening. Unlike Elaine I wasn’t a great fan of telephones. ‘I’ll e-mail you at work,’ I suggested. ‘We can be transatlantic pen-pals . . . and this way you can keep your phone bills down to a minimum.’
    That seemed to lift her spirits a little so I picked up my bags and turned to leave. That was the moment I questioned what I’d considered to be the truth all this time.
    Was this a mutual break-up?
    Did this have anything to do with turning thirty?
    Or was this me letting the best thing that had ever happened to me go without a fight?
    My change of heart must have been obvious because Elaine started to cry the first real tears of the whole of our three-month protracted break-up. But she didn’t say, ‘Stay,’ or ‘Don’t go,’ she just kissed me, a long, slow, passionate kiss and walked away.

BIRMINGHAM
    Month One
    Date: Jan 9th
    Days left until thirtieth birthday: 81
    State of mind: Not too bad I suppose.

eight
    â€˜Where to, mate?’ said the taxi-driver, as I hauled my holdall and suitcase inside the black cab and settled into its shiny cushiony seat.
    â€˜Marlborough Road, King’s Heath,’ I replied carefully. There was something familiar about him that I couldn’t quite place.
    He pulled off. ‘Been on holiday, have you?’
    â€˜Nah,’ I said. ‘I’ve just come back from New York where I live – sorry, lived.’
    â€˜I’ve got a cousin in Washington DC,’ he replied, by way of nothing.
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yeah.’ He glanced at me in his mirror. ‘Never liked him very much, though. Always found him a bit stuck-up, if you get my meaning. Mind you, they were all a bit like that on his side of the family.’ He flicked the end of his nose in an attempt either to remove a stray bogey or indicate that his cousin’s side of the family had upturned noses. He laughed curtly and brushed the end of his fingers against the steering-wheel.
    The cabbie remained silent for the rest of the journey, tapping his fingers on the fur-covered steering-wheel in time to the music on the pirate radio station he was listening to. I had racked my brains but I still couldn’t place where I knew him from so I gazed out of the cab window at the cityscape.
    Birmingham, like most industry-based cities, was undergoing a face-lift but its metamorphosis had been rapid and forced – I barely recognised it. It was as if its citizens had tired of it being a national joke and told it to smarten up its act. But despite its near-comic status among the rest of the nation I’d always been proud of coming from Birmingham, precisely because it was so funny. It’s hard to take yourself too seriously when the whole nation thinks you’re there to amuse them.
    This was especially the case during my five years in London. The moment anyone there heard me speak they assumed I was bordering on clinical stupidity and would therefore speak v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y or expected me to act like some sort of latterday court jester: they would goad me into saying words like ‘actually’ ( ack-chur-lie ) ‘going’ ( gewin ‘) and ‘Birmingham’ ( Bhuuuuur-ming-gum ), thus revealing my accent in its fullest sing-song glory. It got to the stage where I felt I had to justify to everyone I met why I came from Birmingham, as if it was some sort of handicap, curse or practical joke taken a step too far. But I didn’t care. This was where I was from and there would always be a part of me that would love the city as long as I lived.
    â€˜Excuse me, mate,’ said the cabbie, interrupting my reverie, ‘but is your name Matt Beckford?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I replied cautiously. ‘It is.’
    â€˜I knew it,’ he said. ‘Ever since I picked you up I’ve been trying to work out where I know you from.’
    â€˜And