Put It Away

I turned 39 on Friday and went for a night out in Edinburgh on Saturday. The two events were unrelated – I was almost as uninterested in this bridesmaid of a birthday as the people I live with were. Not quite – I did remember about it. My brother, my father and I all forgot my mother's birthday once so I put it down to a motherhood milestone. There will be no chance of any of them forgetting about it next year.

The night out started badly. The dress I had brought to wear had shrunk in the wash and was borderline for a 39 year-old to be wearing in public, The Wee Craicer called off and the taxi had £5 on the meter when we got into it outside my parents’ house where we were staying. The £5 was my fault for agonising into extra time about the shrunken dress. While the taxi rattled in the street outside, my daughter suggested that I wear the slip only, without the chiffon dress on top, my son was unequivocal about how bad it looked and my mother thought it was fine. My Dad thought it looked great, as did my very long ago former boyfriend, The Director, when we finally got to the packed bar we were meeting in. The Director had come dressed to carry out a burglary so I wasn’t the only one looking a little bit niche. We might both have looked quite zeitgeisty in NoLita or Hoxton, I in outgrown rags, he in streetwear that suggested malicious intent. But we were in Edinburgh where despite the temperature outside, lots of bare flesh was on show; some expanses firmer than others. The wobblier the flesh, the louder they were shouting. And the drinks were eight pounds each.

Only half the people we had originally designed to be on this rare and precious night out shoved their way through the bar to our table in the restaurant. The others were snugly at home with their sick children, workloads and music at an acceptible level. My husband was wearing the locked-in look that means he can’t hear anything and is wondering whether to drink white or red while he observes the evening. I felt sorry for him. As I sat eating and catching up with the The Perfect Couple and The Director I became aware that it would have been nicer to have been in one of our houses. (Not our rental or our building site actually, but either of their's.)

But what was I thinking? If we had been in one of their houses there wouldn’t have been a club to look forward to. And a club was where we were headed. At someone’s house there would have been no anticipation of that completely abandoned singalong dancing that you can really lose yourself in with old friends and not care who sees you. No glitter ball or hand waving or hair shaking or lights. No being gripped in a sweaty headlock by a drunk friend and told you are loved. After dinner things would liven up.

That was what we were all looking forward to as we descended from the blustery pavement into the breathy fug of the club. But it was rammed too. My husband took up smoking again just to get outside. The most expensive two cigarettes ever - bought from a machine for over three quid each. I mounted a halting expedition to the dance floor but it was listless hands by your sides dancing only and the music was so emptily wetly lame and generic that the urge to put my hands up (for Detroit or anywhere else) was gone. It was the final two fingers up to that night out and possibly all nights out for us. Even the music would have been better in any of our kitchens. Staying in looks like it really is the new going out. And if buying into that isn’t an appropriate way to mark your 39th birthday, (whether you mean to or not) I don’t know what is.