Turning Thirty

Everyone wishes for the impossible, I think it must be part of our make up as humans to desire the utterly unattainable. All through my youth and teenaged years I had longed for adulthood and the freedoms and responsibilities it held, somehow imagining that all my problems and suffering would cease to be when I passed eighteen or twenty or twenty-five... That was the other problem, the goal posts kept moving, because I still felt like a child, even when I reached those magical ages.

Last May I turned twenty-nine and fear struck suddenly at my heart, because to the whole world thirty is very definitely grown up. I had always had certain expectations of where I would be by thirty and what I would have -- and this wasn't it! I had expected a family, a husband and child, perhaps a cat; a house with my name on the mortgage.

Before I knew it I was twenty-nine and I had none of these things, just a room in a flat share. I told everybody that I didn't want a party, I didn't feel like celebrating, but they didn't listen. So, when I got back from work, after fighting with commuters on the underground for the last hour, I was really not in the mood for the big

"SURPRISE!" and the startling noise of party poppers and other party paraphernalia.

"Sod off," I muttered as I dumped my bag and damply steaming coat on the floor and kicked off my shoes next to them. There was a dull and shifty silence as the party reacted to my less than thrilled response.

"It's you I have to blame for this, isn't it?" I demanded as Trevor, my best friend, came sidling up to 'deal' with me and my filthy mood.

"Yes," he said, as he slipped a glass of champagne into my hand. "Drink this and eat these," wedging a small, sticky handful of chocolate fingers into my mouth, "then see if you still want us to 'sod off', OK?"

"OK," I mumbled through the biscuits, beginning to cheer up slightly as I noticed the table laden with kiddie party food like sausage rolls, Monster Munch and garish coloured biscuits.

I looked up from the table and stared round the room. It wasn't a bad turn out considering Trev had been in charge. Annie, my best girl friend, Kate and Mina, and the guys from work were all there, everyone except my parents, where were they? I glanced around the room and, with his usual disconcerting insight, Trev guessed who I was looking for and told me they'd be there by eight. In the meantime, he suggested, why not get the cake out.

"Cake!" I exclaimed, then gasped as I saw the towering chocolate confection heaped with sweets and sugar flowers and topped with an impressive number of candles, all gleaming in their own light and sparkling with silver glitter.

"Now you have to blow them out and make a wish -- a good one, mind!"

I leant forward slowly over the cake and thought very carefully about what to wish for. This was my twenty-ninth, next year I would be thirty and I was still no nearer all those things I wanted than I had been the year before.

"I want a family," was the thought in my head. "Yes, for my birthday I want a family."

I took a deep breath and blew.

"Yoo hoo, hello?" came a cry from the door. "Where's my birthday girl?" In wafted Mum in a cloud of perfume, with Dad trailing in her wake like a small tugboat.

"How are you, darling?" she enquired. "Having a good day?"

"Better than it was," I admitted, with a shamefaced grin at my initial reaction. "Have you got me a pressie?"

"Of course, sweetie, how could we forget? Daddy has it, look."

I turned to see my dad hold a box out to me. Grinning I took the handle from him and sat down on the sofa with it. I unfolded the top flap and started unhooking it all, then heard a pitiful little squeak from inside and a fluffy ginger head peeped out of the top, with huge ears and eyes and great, long, white whiskers.

"A cat," I murmured, picking him out of his box and giving him a little cuddle. "However did you guess I wanted one, Mum?"

"Well, it was your father, actually. He remembered you admired Lizzy-next-door's cat when you last came to stay and he thought you might want one yourself..."

"A cat," I thought, "the beginnings of a family. How strange." Then I resolved to put it out of my mind, because where would I find a man to marry in one year? Let alone start having his babies.

I grinned to myself, shut the kitten up in my bedroom where he couldn't be disturbed and went back out to dance with Trev, who had put The Nolan Sisters on the CD player in order to lure me out there. We boogied the night away, with everyone becoming steadily more inebriated until we kicked them all out at about 2am, then Trevor and I went to bed. Together.

I know! I said we were friends and I swear -- that's all it is, but occasionally we, well, we sleep together, when we're both single and desperate for sex.

I know what you're thinking, but it really isn't like that, because we've known each other for nearly thirteen years now and though we've had sex a few times before it's only ever been through need, not desire. Friendship with extras.

Mind you, it'd been a good few years since we had last used each other like that. I thought we'd grown out of it, but the alcohol obviously worked its usual trick. Oh well, it was good fun and made a delicious end to my birthday and it didn't affect either of us emotionally, you know, it never did.

Trev had to leave pretty early the next day, he had some client presentation to prepare for, then he disappeared off the face of the earth for the next six weeks.

I missed him heaps, but I stopped myself from calling, though I have no idea why, there was never any awkwardness before. Then I started hearing rumours from our mutual friends, some new girl or something, apparently he was in love. Oh, I didn't like that thought, but I had to know the details, so I picked up the phone and dialled his number.

"Hi babes, it's me. How are you?" I asked.

"OK," he said, cautiously. Cautiously? Why would he be cautious? New girl in the background?

"Is now a bad time? I hadn't heard much from you lately. I thought maybe you had a new friend or something."

"God no!" he cried. "Nothing like that, I've just been really busy at work."

"Oh, OK," I said, twiddling the phone cord round my fingers and feeling unaccountably pleased. "You wanna meet up sometime? I'm free this weekend."

"Yeh," he said. "Me, too. Can I take you out to dinner? Somewhere posh?"

"Oooh, fabulous! I'll dress up!"

"You should," he said. "It's a special occasion." I pestered him, but he wouldn't tell me what it was, so we arranged times and places and hung up. I was still grinning days later.

Saturday arrived and we drove off in style in Trevor's shiny new coupé, then sat in the restaurant sipping champagne and chatting.

"There's something I want to talk to you about," he announced suddenly, interrupting our small talk. "It's really important, so can you wait till I've finished before you say anything?"

"We've been friends for a long time, haven't we?" I nodded, as he seemed to expect it. "And in that time we've been through a lot together. Now, I know we've never really had a relationship as such, but recently I, well, I've started thinking about you all the time."

I was silent. I mean, what could I say? I'd been trying so hard to think of him as just a friend; denying all the strange new feelings that had sprung up recently and now he was telling me his feelings had changed too.

"I love you, as more than just friends," he said, his voice choking up as he spoke. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

He said more nice things after that, but I didn't hear them. Nor did I see the beautiful ring he produced from his jacket pocket, because I was too busy crying. He asked me why as he slipped the ring onto my finger,

"I don't know - I'm happy! It's probably PMT," I started to say, but then I counted... I hadn't had PMT yet and it must have been due two or three weeks ago.

"Darling, I think I might have something very important to discuss with you, too," I said quietly.

****

We didn't have a long engagement, just a couple of months, then a small wedding. Our daughter, Elsie, was born five months later and in six days I will turn thirty, with everything as I had wished. It turns out that my dream hadn't been impossible after all, merely improbable and in the end it happened in the most unexpected way. There is only one question left to consider -- what do I wish for this year?