Chapter 2 – Now we are 40

Somehow the conversation has culminated in this: Sting offering himself up as a chicken.

We left the police station, Bryan laden with a box of scarves duly returned from the necks of giraffes.

“Time for a quick one Danny?” Bryan asked, nudging his eyes and eyebrows in the direction of the Goose and Feathers, “all this yakking with rozzers is making my throat dry.”

I had no choice but to follow, he had just saved me from a life of imprisonment. “I can’t stop,” I said, “I need to get new glasses, I can’t see a thing.”

“Nonsense dear boy, I brought you these.” He held out my prescription sunglasses.

I put the glasses on. The world of blurry confusion I’d been living in since I turned 40 that morning changed to one of dark, alien clarity. My head still hurt though.

“Fuck,” I said, “is this it? Life after 40 – groping around in the dark, literally and metaphorically, drinking beer you can’t taste because you drank so much the night before all your taste buds have been wiped out by alcohol poisoning.”

Bryan was already busying himself with his second pint. “You should phone a helpline dear boy, shout down the line at them: ‘I’m 40 years old, what the fuck do I do?’”

“You’re right I said, never mind Help the Aged, the aged are fine thank you very much, they’ve got their pensions, kids are grown up, mortgages paid off, they can put their feet up, enjoy their retirement; the only difficult decisions left are which cruise they should go on. But for us 40 year olds, there’s nothing – 25 years left of works’ curse, without the social life to balance it out, 25 years of financial, relationship and emotional turmoil to look forward to.

“All that crap and we don’t even have a fucking helpline. ‘Hello, is this Midlife Crisis, I’m a 40 year old man, what the fuck happens now?”

Bryan waved to the barman who came over moments later with fresh pints.

“If ever there was the need for a charity,” he said with a sigh, “all this nonsense about Live Aid, feeding the starving and ending poverty, when there are people in this country who are turning 40. Decent men, men who spent their 30s out of their minds on coke and drugs.”

“That’s it,” I said, “a charity. I should set one up. I’ve got fuck all else to do. Help the Middle Aged. Because once men hit 40 they need all the help they can get.”

Bryan didn’t even bother to reply. He took his phone from his pocket and started dialling. Within no time at all he’d arranged for his lawyer to bring round the forms for setting up a charity, his accountant to find the funds for a charitable £5,000 write-off of income tax to give us the necessary kick-start and Sting had agreed to do a charity fun run dressed as a chicken.

My first day as a middle aged man and Sting offers to dress up as a chicken. Do all men go through this when they hit 40?

Over three lunchtime pints my life had changed forever. I had gone from unemployed journalise to founder of a national charity.