The Thirty List

He was on a roll now. ‘I’d like to go to a festival. Michelle never would—she hates camping, and she’s not much of a music fan.’

‘A festival is on my list, so you can’t have it, but you could certainly go. Alex could go to that,’ I said, scribbling it down.

‘Hmm, yes, he probably could. Max too.’ I was getting another mental image—the little dog at Glastonbury, watching a field full of posh hippies dance about with no clothes on.

Patrick’s suggestions were coming fast now. He also wanted to buy a really nice car, take Alex overseas for the first time, learn to fillet fish—I know, of all the things you can do in the world he wanted to handle fish innards; I guess the gut wants what the gut wants—take up climbing and enter Max in a dog show. These were getting more outlandish now. I could more easily imagine Max skydiving than obeying dog commands.

‘You should put that you want to play in a band again,’ I said. ‘That was the first thing you mentioned, remember?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve sort of lost touch with most of my mates. Been so busy with work and Alex, you know.’

‘True friends don’t mind if you don’t see them for a while.’

‘I’d be rubbish now. I haven’t played in years.’

‘You think I was any good at dancing? The idea is to be slightly terrified at all times.’ I rapped the list with my knuckles. ‘If I can offer my opinion as a professional listmaker, these are too safe.’

‘Skydiving? Climbing?’

‘Yeah, but you’re not scared of those, are you? I mean, no more than a normal person who isn’t mad. You don’t mind heights?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then it’s too safe. So what’s your idea of hell? Like the most terrifying thing you could do of an evening? Nothing with sharks though, please,’ I said quickly.

‘Why not?’

‘I am really, really afraid of sharks.’

‘You know they only cause about ten deaths worldwide per year? More people die from bee stings. Are you afraid of bees?’

‘Bees don’t come up from underneath you and bite you in half.’

‘Or lightning, that’s pretty dangerous. Are you scared of that?’

‘Again, not likely to chomp me.’

‘Tigers? They can be pretty chompy.’

‘I’d see them in time to run away.’

‘I see. So it’s the element of surprise that frightens you?’

‘A bit. Mostly though, it’s the chomping. Now, pick something scary, that isn’t about sharks.’

‘I suppose … go on a date sometime.’ He said this last very suddenly. Almost shyly. ‘I mean, I don’t want … you know. Your number five.’

He was referring to ‘sleep with a stranger’. ‘Er, neither do I.’

‘OK. Dating does scare me, so it definitely counts, but I’d just like a bit of female company. Someone who didn’t want to talk about Thomas the Tank Engine, or whose turn it was to clean the loo, or—’

‘—whether you need to go to the garden centre to buy some trellising, or who was going to call the chimney sweep—’

‘—or the kid, when he sleeps, when he poops, whether his nursery is “pushing” him enough, or—’

‘—if it’s time to change the car and whether you should upgrade to the new Ford Focus this winter.’

He smiled. ‘I guess it’s a while since either of us flirted over cocktails.’

‘Yeah.’ As he went to make coffee, I wondered if he would ever consider me female company. Clearly not.

‘You’re still missing one,’ I said, tapping the pen. ‘That’s only nine.’

‘Who says it has to be ten?’

‘Everyone knows lists have to be in tens.’

‘What are you, some kind of list fascist?’

‘It’s just more … pleasing that way. Anything else you want to do—learn a language, hike the Grand Canyon?’

‘I’ve done that.’

‘Show-off.’

‘It was OK. Hot.’

‘So there’s no number ten?’

‘Put this down for now—number ten equals, find a number ten.’

‘All right. Though just so you know, I disapprove of this meta-list-making approach.’

‘Noted.’

‘So.’

In front of me, the darkened room could have held any number of people—hundreds, even. Part of my brain knew it contained only fifty or so, but the rest of me was trying to run away and hide behind my own back.

I smiled. Always smile, that was lesson one. Don’t seem nervous. Even if you’re afraid to open your mouth in case you’re sick all over the front row.

‘Hello!’ Always say something then wait for an answer. It engages the audience. Lesson two.

‘Hello!’ came back the lusty cry, reinforcing the impression that there really were hundreds of them. I blinked in the spotlight.

‘My name’s Rachel and …’ Oh bugger, I hadn’t done the microphone. You always had to ‘do the microphone’ first. That was actually lesson one. Somehow I found the idea of taking the mike from its holder, in front of all those people, more terrifying than anything else. I wasn’t sure my hands could remember how to perform even the simplest action.

It was a Sunday night, and we were in the back room of a pub somewhere near Camden. Alex was staying with a school friend, which Patrick was apparently OK with. This was the moment I had somehow believed would never take place, even when we’d been on the intensive course for the past two days, even when the event had started and I was waiting in line for my turn to perform.