30
"...Then around the time the coffees arrived someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Someone else said it was the first time you heard the bell.
What bell? someone asked.
But they all knew what bell. It was like you’d already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you’d properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven but you hadn’t heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn’t heard it because you were so busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn’t heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually.
Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents ageing. Bong. All the things you hadn’t done. Might not do. Bong.
And in the silence that came after the bell someone said, ‘Happy Birthday.'"
Graham Joyce "The Silent Land"