No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year (18 page)

Hughie nodded his agreement, even though I knew that he, like me, found this theory, though extremely comforting, exceptionally unlikely. We thought he was a go-getting creep who was laughing up his sleeve and probably telling everyone down at the vegetarian café what it was like screwing an old lady.

But “Scared stiff,” agreed Hughie, loyally.

“And anyway, you’ve got
us!
” said James brightly. “It’s friends you want, not lovers!”

Penny said tremulously: “But now I’m sixty, and no one will ever want to have sex with me ever again! They’ll be repulsed when they see my horrible wrinkly old body! To think that when I die, the last person I had sex with in the whole of my life ever will be frightened Gavin from Glastonbury!”

“Nonsense,” said Hughie. “Go to the Gambia and if you pay them a fiver you’ll find a guy on the beach who will sleep with you no problem. Even someone of sixty! Mind you, make sure they use a condom!”

Oh, dear. Suddenly I did rather wonder whether the idea that the synapses shrivel in the brains of over-sixties, making their social inhibitions wither, might have some truth in it.

“Anyway, what was he up to? Surely he could find someone his own age?” asked James inquisitively. And as Penny started to explain the scenario, I could see Hughie and James become more and more interested, particularly when she got on to the sex bits.

“Very good at sex?” said Hughie thoughtfully. “Doesn’t sound like a heterosexual to me.”

“Why on earth was he reading
Death in Venice,
anyway?” I asked. “Isn’t that rather a gay book?”

“Did you say he adored Eartha Kitt? And Lena Horne?” said James.

“
Wizard of Oz,
I seem to remember, was one of his favorites,” said Hughie. “Judy Garland. Gay icon. Bet he watches the
Eurovision Song Contest,
too.”

In the end we decided that Gavin was one of those gay men who are the scourge of older women.

“They decide they want to go straight and have children,” said James. “They find an older woman to practice on, and they discover they can’t hack it. Even though they can just cope with sex with a woman, it doesn’t really mean anything to them. You had an affair with an older woman once, when you were young, didn’t you, Hughie?”

“I certainly did,” said Hughie, shuddering rather, and coughing as he shuddered. “She was lovely, I adored her, but while I gave her great sex, I can’t explain, my heart wasn’t in it. Also there was something slightly disgusting about all that wet squishiness.”

Penny burst into tears. But luckily, as she was crying, I noticed that she was also shaking with laughter. “Gay Gavin from Glastonbury!” she said. “Oh, fuck him! What a weirdo!”

“To Penny, on her birthday,” shouted James. “And to Gavin’s amazing sexual prowess! May it shrivel and shrivel until finally it drops down a drain!”

Penny and he raised their glasses, but I noticed that Hughie, though smiling vaguely, was reticent, and barely sipped at his drink. Like me, I knew he found the whole toast slightly repellent. After all, even if Gavin were a creep, you don’t want to curse anyone in that way.

That’s one of the wonderful and terrible things about being older. You can see, even in the most repugnant people, the god in everyone, as they say (even if you don’t believe in God) and it becomes less and less easy to sneer at them. Well, hold on, Marie. One can sneer, but when you get down to it, you’re only sneering at their surface pretensions. Increasingly, I do believe that the most horrible people, even the bearded counselor at Marion’s dinner party, were once fundamentally good. Their judgement became clouded as they grew up, but Baby Beard was probably just as lovable as Gene himself. OK, OK—and the vile man across the road.

Sometimes I think that Gene (though I can hardly bear to say it, it sounds so utterly sentimental, trite and generally yucky) has taught me to love.

Anyway, enough of that. Even though the schoolmistress in me found that particular bit of the evening slightly repellent, at least everyone cheered up, and in the end I enjoyed myself.

As she left, Penny groped for her mobile. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve got a text!” She read it out:

“Oh, shit,” she said.

October 28

I took Pouncer to the vet today to have his teeth cleaned, poor chap. When I picked him up the bill was £225!!! He has been given a toothbrush, special teeth-cleaning chews, a gel, teeth-cleaning biscuits…for God’s sake.
And
he was given a follow-up appointment, which I certainly don’t want to take advantage of. His teeth aren’t even particularly white, for heaven’s sake. And he is, let’s face it, much as I love him to pieces, only a cat.

(I once tried to get my own teeth sparkling white, with the aid of a curious plastic gum-shield and some special gel, but it turned out that had I stuck it out, my two crowns would have been left as yellowed stumps.)

Pouncer had a little letter accompanying him saying that as he’d had an anesthetic, I must keep him warm, let him sleep…and rest…not let him out, give him soft food…fish or chicken…

He came back and scoffed a tin of Whiskas, went straight out into the garden and has been generally prancing around.

October 29

Went round to Hughie and James for a drink and to deliver back the trifle dish they’d forgotten to take home.

“Hughie, darling, what’s the latest?” I said as I sat down on the lovely, squishy, chintz-covered sofa. Over the top, but so, so comfortable. I wish Jack and Chrissie had a sofa like theirs. They have a curious thing that is only about three inches off the floor and you need a couple of skiing sticks to hoist yourself out of it. “Have you heard from the hospital?”

The minute I’d spoken I felt the room freeze slightly.

“Yes, he has,” said James. And as he spoke instead of Hughie, I realized, just in that sentence, that something not terribly nice was coming. I felt cold and prickly. “He’s on the waiting list for an MRI. Aren’t you, dear?”

“I am indeed,” said Hughie. “I can’t tell you how I long to be in that long tube of darkness. Everyone says: ‘Aren’t you frightened?’ but I say I’d like to stay there and never come out. I am looking forward to it immensely.”

“But I’m not,” said James.

“My dear,” said Hughie. “You will, I hope, be on the outside, singing wonderful alluring songs like a siren—perhaps the hits from
Oklahoma
?—enchanting me, reminding me of the wonderful world outside.”

I knew he was speaking cynically, but James didn’t seem to understand. “Don’t let’s talk about it,” he said. “I’m dreading it.”

“You’re dreading it,” said Hughie, “because you’re the one who, if I die, might be left behind. I don’t envy you. In your position, I would be the same. And to be honest, it looks more like
when
rather than
if.
But then, of course, it is
always
when.”

“So what was the result of the brontosauroscopy or whatever it’s called?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but listening like a hawk. I could almost feel my eardrum tightening, in case it missed a vital word.

“Cancer. Of course,” said Hughie quickly. “I think we all knew that long ago, didn’t we? I knew, anyway. But so what? Lung cancer, schmung cancer.”

“So what will the MRI show?”

“How far it’s gone. How long I’ve got. Whether to give me chemotherapy. But since I’m not going to have it, it seems fairly pointless.”

“You
might
have chemo,” said James.

“I am
not
having it and that’s that!” said Hughie, loudly and sharply. “It would just drag it out. And if I did have it,” he added, “I certainly would not refer to it as ‘chemo’ as if it were some kind of friend of mine. Anyway, I’ve got to go one day, my dear. Why not now? As Proust said, ‘We are all but dead people, waiting to take up our posts.’”

We laughed, in rather a forced way, and said no more about it. But I knew we were keeping quiet for James’s sake. And, in a way, for mine. I left rather earlier than usual. I know nothing about lung cancer. But I do know some people with cancer can carry on for years. Perhaps I need to consult Penny, the great amateur doctor.

Oct 30

In anticipation of buying a bicycle, to stop people calling me stately, statuesque or strapping, I borrowed a bike from Lucy, who’s in London this week, and we both biked to the V and A together.

What a mistake!

“I hope you’re going to wear a hat!” said Jack, when I told him on the phone.

“Certainly not!” I said. “It would make my hair go all funny.” I’ve got rather perky hair and after taking off a biking hat it’s all flat and hideous and the top of my head looks like the warming plate on an Aga. Or, worse, I look like one of those awful short-haired elderly betrousered and asexual-looking American women you see in art galleries, who exist as a warning to everyone over the age of sixty.

“What do you mean, no?” he said. “You always insisted I wore a hat when I was small, so I’m insisting you wear a hat now. And a yellow jacket,” he added, rather spitefully, I thought.

No question, those “hey-look-at-me” bright yellow jerkin tops just don’t suit me. Added to that, because I always wear long skirts, which get caught up in the wheels, I’m forced, on a bike, to wear trousers, which make me look frightful. One of my old boyfriends once told me that I have what he called a “Japanese bottom,” and I never wore trousers again.

So off I went to this Lighting exhibition at the V and A and arrived, having had exhaust fumes blowing in my face all the way, looking like a sweaty old lesbian, which never does the morale any good. Lucy, who’d bicycled ahead, was waiting for me in the café. She looked very cool and collected. But she also looked very low.

“When I married Roger, he was a working man,” she complained over a lightly done calf’s liver. (‘I’m going to be naughty,” she said, as she chose. “I know I should have a salad, but what the hell.” The idea of anything but a salad being “naughty” baffled me. If she wanted calf’s liver, have calf’s liver. Nothing naughty about it. But she was behaving as if she were some kind of secret shoplifter. Naughty chocolate cake. Naughty bread and butter. The whole idea made me cringe, but I smiled indulgently as I ordered a steak and chips. “Oh, you’re being naughty, too!” she squeaked. “I’m not being naughty,” I said irritably. “I’m just having what I want…but anyway…go on…”

“But now he’s retired, he’s driving me utterly bonkers,” she said. “He’s there
all the time
!”

The idea of having Roger, a sandy-haired man with hairs growing out of his ears, around even part of the time made me flinch, but the idea of Roger around
all the time
was an unspeakably unappetizing prospect.

“He never goes out,” she said. “And at around twelve o’clock every day, you know what he says?”

“No,” I said.

“He says, ‘What’s for lunch, pet?’ I just can’t bear it.”

I bet also, when they’re out and she’s telling a story, he interrupts and at some point in the conversation one or other of them turns to the other and says: “Now, who’s telling this story, you or me?”

Now, let’s be completely honest. I do have moments when despite Gene, despite my infatuation with the onset of age, and despite my increasing conviction that I should give up men altogether and never even fantasize about them, I can trail around the house feeling like a lost soul, longing for someone to chat to, longing for some kind of connection with AN Other, longing, I suppose, for a partner and a soul mate. But then, when I look back, none of the men I’ve been with would I be happy to have in the house with me now. And God knows, I’ve had enough.

Anyway, I only have to think of Lucy and Roger or, indeed Penny’s dreadful experience with the frightful Gavin, and the realization of how lucky I am comes roaring home. “I married him for life, but not for lunch.” That’s what Lucy was really saying. Men just can’t cope with retirement. While women are quite happy pottering about reading and getting the shopping and cooking and gardening, your average man just gloops about doing sod all when he’s retired.

I’ve seen these wretched creatures on walks in the country. You’re going along a lane minding your own business and suddenly, round the corner, comes a retired man, his wife and a dog. The wife has clearly given up all pretence at being a sexual being, since her hair is cut in a weird cut (the same style as mine after I’ve been wearing a bicycle helmet; yes the American-woman-in-art-gallery look) she’s wearing trousers and ghastly stone-colored shoes. He, on the other hand, has clearly had to retire from the important role he used to play in the office, for which he has substituted a wretched dog and a pair of binoculars.

You barely have time to say hello before he’s stopped and yelled at his dog, often a mild-mannered spaniel or sometimes even a dachshund: “Sitt! Sitt! No!! SITT!!” As he says this, he struggles to attach the animal to a lead, as if it were some kind of man-eating dragon. Then, as you pass, he retreats very obviously into the bushes to let you by, pulling on his dog so that it is nearly strangled, and says: “Good AFTERNOON! SITTTTT!!!”