Page 6 of Wish You Were Here
‘What! Why?’ I say, exasperated that no-one, except Abigail wants to go out, out.
‘It’s my father’s sixtieth birthday,’ says Hugh. ‘Big family reunion business. They’ve hired a bouncy castle, and Uncle Tom is pit roasting a whole pig in the back garden!’
‘I’m staying out,’ says Flatmate Simon.
‘Coolio,’ says Abigail.
‘Sorry, mate,’ says Will. ‘I got offered the chance to hike Ben Macdui and I couldn’t say no. It’s the tallest peak in the Cairngorms and the second tallest in the UK.’
‘But you could get hammered at a nightclub, stagger to a kebab shop, fall asleep in your underwear and have a hangover that will completely ruin your entire weekend with us. Is there even a winner?’ I look hopefully towards Will, and it’s clear what the winner is.
‘You have to accept that things are changing,’ says Poppy.
‘She’s right,’ says Hugh, the oldest in the group. ‘Once you hit your thirties, it’s not all about clubs, alcohol and nursing a hangover for days. It’s happening, Ben. The wall.’
‘The wall?’ I enquire.
‘You know when people run marathons?’ says Poppy. ‘They say that at some point, you hit the wall?’
‘Yes, and then you have to smash through it and keep going,’ I reply.
‘Correct,’ replies Poppy. ‘But with age it’s like there’s a wall too, but what happens with the age wall is that everyone you know one day, and without any prior warning, go from wanting to go out every weekend, to wanting quiet nights in and cooking recipes from the latest Jamie Oliver cookbook because it’s nice, and everyone has to be up early for a parkrun or trips toIKEA, anyway.’
‘So you’re saying that we’ve hit the wall?’ asks Abigail.
‘I’m saying, the wall is coming, and it’s coming fast,’ says Poppy, and then a waitress appears, and we order our food, but all I can think about is the bloody wall.
We are a table of six, and apparently this is going to be the main event for the evening because we are now proper grown-ups, and messy, drunken nights only belong in your twenties. So we order big. We get focaccia bread, a variety of olives, burrata, meats and calamari. Poppy orders the cacio e pepe spaghetti, Hugh, ravioli, Abigail gets a Margherita pizza, Will goes for a 35-day aged sirloin, Flatmate Simon orders a spicy nduja pizza, while I decide to go for Mafaldine Al Tartufo pasta. Then we order cocktails. As the trickle of food and drinks begins to arrive, I think to myself that this is the sort of comfortable, grown-up birthday celebration we are going to get from now on. For a point of reference, when Will turned twenty, we went on an eighteen-hour bender, which included six pubs, two nightclubs,a kebab shop, three packets of cigarettes, three girls from Newcastle all called Kelly, a shopping trolley and it ended up with Will puking up in a bathtub, proclaiming himself ‘King of the World!’ before falling asleep on the sofa, wrapped in a black bin bag, a traffic cone for a crown.
‘So, what happened with you and She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named?’ asks Poppy as we tuck into our food, and I tell them the story of how I broke up with Saffy.
The day after the intervention, I agreed to meet Saffy in a pub after work. I arrived early and had a quick drink for some Dutch courage before Saffy arrived in a bullish mood. She’d had an awful day and would only be staying for one drink. After some brief small talk, I told her we had to break up. I wasn’t happy, didn’t see us going anywhere, and long-term, I didn’t think we were the right match, but ultimately I wanted her to be happy. She cried, stood up and then said.
‘Thanks for making a truly shit day even worse. I hope you go to fucking hell, Ben Armstrong!’ Then she left, and I haven't seen or heard from her since.
‘That doesn’t sound like it went too badly,’ says Will.
‘I suppose not. Although it leaves me on the cusp of turning thirty, single and with little prospect of finding love anytime soon.’
‘To be fair, that’s your own fault,’ says Poppy.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Because your choice of women is terrible. There’s Saffy, never a good choice, and she lasted for a year and a half, and before her there was Holly.’
‘What was wrong with Holly?’
‘Mate,’ says Will. ‘No offence, but Holly was the most boring girl in the world.’
‘She could send a room full of insomniacs to sleep,’ says Abigail.
‘Okay, fine, Holly wasn't the most exciting girlfriend. Hence, why we broke up.’
‘Then before her there was Claire,’ says Poppy, and everyone groans.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Claire was a thief!’ says Poppy.
