The Younger Man

by Sarah Tucker

  ‘Don’t be so anti-social and get those earplugs out and talk to us’, shouts Doreen over Sheryl. I do as I’m told.

  ‘Now who’s bought the champagne? Has anybody bought the champagne?’ Doreen shouts down the carriage as the girls climb on board with bottles of the pink stuff and Marks & Spencer best of range.

  ‘I have!’ yells Carron. ‘I’ve got the champagne. Think Fran’s got the food. What have you got, Valerie?’

  ‘If I don’t sit down soon, probably contractions,’ replies Valerie. ‘Have you booked two seats for me, Doreen?’

  ‘No, but it’s pretty empty in this carriage. We’re travelling business so they’re wider anyway, but you can have one all to yourself.’

  ‘I will need one all to myself.’

  ‘Fine,’ shouts Doreen. ‘You sit there. Fran, bring the food here. Hazel, Carron, you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re okay,’ I say.

  Carron tells us she’s met someone. He’s a friend of Dennis. Or was a friend of Dennis. He’s not now as he’s sleeping with Carron. He’s not married, but she’s fancied him for a long time. He’s divorced with four children, grown up, own business and has been very sweet according to Carron. ‘He said he got to know the real me ironically when Dennis was talking about me, and he saw what a wanker, as he called him, Dennis had been, and decided to call me and ask if he could be of help.’

  Doreen smiles. ‘And he obviously was.’

  Carron smiles. ‘Obviously.’

  We’re all pleased Dennis’s ex-friend has put a smile back on Carron’s face. I know in two years Carron will be in a much better place emotionally than she is now. Fran says she won’t mention the wedding preparations for the duration of the trip as it’s starting to bore even her, so that’s all fine.

  Methinks I dislike maid of honour though. Sounds like a poshed-up version of old maid. I’d rather be called a train adjuster, or a flower holder, or something. Maid of honour sounds old. There are some things which make you sound older even when you’re not. And maid of honour is one of them. Like Spinster. I ask the girls if they’ve done a list of all those things they want to do before they’re fifty. Because I have.

  Doreen says she hasn’t but that it’s a good idea. She gets a notebook out and writes FIFTY MUST-DOS. BEFORE.

  I get my list of must-dos and read aloud.

  1. Must write a book of erotic fiction and get it published.

  2. Must get house in Tuscany.

  3. Must get through 40s without plastic surgery or Botox and look as though haven’t.

  4. Must read all Booker Prize winners for the past 20 years (have promised myself this since I was 20).

  5. Must learn Italian and French fluently.

  6. Must learn to ride well.

  7. Must learn to ski well.

  8. Must learn to surf well.

  9. Must learn to dive well.

  10. Must learn to love well.

  I look up and see their faces.

  ‘Well, that’s a nice mix of the material, spiritual, aspirational, emotional and downright ridiculous. You want to achieve them in that order?’ Fran asks. ‘Is that their order of importance or order in which you thought of them?’

  ‘Thought of the material, the experiences, the fantasies and then the spiritual.’

  ‘Don’t you want to have another child?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘All the things seem very selfish. There’s nothing with Joe in there. Or men in there.’

  ‘Learning to love well. That’s him really.’

  ‘That could be anyone. How about getting married or being less self-centred.’

  ‘Fran, what’s come over you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m jealous. I see you all and you’re enjoying life and you don’t have a man. Well, you do have a man, but you’re not tied down. You don’t have any ties and I’m getting married and all I think about it is that I’m getting responsibilities and not only that, I will have to compromise. I don’t feel my life is beginning, I feel it’s narrowing and this is what I’ve wanted, put on my action list since I was ten and now, well, I don’t think I want it. I love Daniel, don’t get me wrong, I do. But I thought about what Doreen said over lunch at Le Pont, about marriage being no more than a contract.’

  ‘Oh, ignore me, darling. I come out with such crap sometimes.’

  ‘No, you don’t, Doreen, you do sometimes, but not then. Marriage is no more than a legal contract, you yourself know that, Hazel. You deal with this particular contract every day and get both parties to read the small print they failed to do when they signed it. As for the spiritual side, no one believes in God any more. More people believe in the Church than God, which is ever so slightly hypocritical so why I’m getting married in a church is beyond me, because, well, I believe in God, but I don’t have any time for the church or religion. And neither does Daniel. That’s one of the reasons I love him. He has no hypocrisy in him whatsoever. But by doing this, by marrying this way, well, it is hypocritical.’

  I look at Fran. She is going through what I know every woman goes through usually a month, sometimes the year before she gets married. Her last year of being single. The year of doubt and temptation and have I done the right thing and do I want to be with this man, faithful to this man for ever. And will he be good for me as well as to me. Fran is so levelheaded, so grounded, I thought she would have dealt with this and moved on, but she seems to be stuck. Perhaps it’s because she’s got close friends who’re going through divorce, a best friend who’s a divorce lawyer, and is turning forty, a seminal age by anyone’s standards. So I say, ‘These are last-minute nerves. Everyone has them. You’re getting married in a month’s time and I know at the moment you probably feel as though you’ve been duped for most of your life by society into thinking this, this walking down the aisle thing, is what it’s all about. Well, it’s not, but in my view, marriage is, or has become another box into which you neatly put companionship and friendship and sex. Ultimately, it’s what you want it to be—not what someone else says it might be. As long as you agree on what it means to both of you, that’s fine. Screw everyone else’s opinion. It’s your and Daniel’s that matters.’

  ‘I’m older and wiser. I should know better.’

  ‘Do you think with age comes wisdom?’ I ask, thinking of Sarah and Joe. ‘I used to think that. But age brings a rigidity to thought sometimes—a narrow-mindedness when it should broaden over time. We think we know best, when in fact, we don’t. We get set in our ways thinking they’re the best ways—the tried and tested ways—but they’re not. They’re just easier and tired and relate to a different time that’s no longer relevant. With age comes experience, but we only gain from it ultimately if we learn from it. You love Daniel. I know you do. These are just last-minute nerves.’

  ‘I’ve got another four weeks. I can always say no on the day, or not turn up.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell us. Coz he will grill us afterwards about knowing or not knowing and why didn’t we tell and stuff.’

  ‘I’ll leave you all in suspense as to if I’ll turn up on the day. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  For some reason, I’m quite excited about the prospect of Fran making the wedding day a possible, not a definite. It will happen of course. But could it go on without the bride? I’ve been to some weddings where the bride seemed almost superfluous. She was there in body, but not in spirit, said nothing, just shook hands and laughed at the groom’s, best man’s and her father-in-law’s jokes. Oh, get real, Hazel, I’m talking about my experience of wedding day. Fran’s will be different. She will be the focal point. She will be the reason we are all there. For her sake.

  ‘So what does everyone think of my action list and has anyone done one of their own?’

  Everyone shakes their heads.

  ‘I’ve done all I want to do,’ explains Doreen. ‘I don’t want to travel anywhere I haven’t been to. Or get higher in my career.’

  The
tannoy on the train announces we’re going through the tunnel. I get the champagne out and pour for each of us.

  Valerie sighs. ‘I just want to let my fortieth come and go without me making a song and dance about it. I don’t want anything special.’

  ‘The date and day are like any other,’ I say. ‘But I think its best to think about it before it happens rather than deal with the aftermath, which is what I think a lot of people—not just women—men, too—do as well. All those men who have played the field, may have reached the peak of the corporate ladder and think, hey, I don’t have a wife. Lots of other trophies and no wife and no heir and spare and I gotta get them quick. I see that a lot these days. They collect families like they collect everything else. Did you know, the latest trend amongst the city slickers is having three families in one lifetime?’

  ‘Bit greedy, isn’t it?’ Fran comments.

  ‘I suppose you could argue it’s as nature intended. Males roam from family to family. That’s what they do in the wild. They spread their seed.’

  Fran interrupts. ‘Perhaps Henry VIII got it right. Ask yourself, who out of all his missus got the best deal? Was it Number One or Number Six? The one who got the young man, emotionally immature, full of hope and energy, enthusiasm and pride or the one who got the old, tired, having learnt nothing from any of the experience of course, holding onto the anger and resentment and power to behead?’

  Doreen smiles. ‘Surely the wives who didn’t get beheaded, who survived the experience, got the best deal.’

  ‘Well, yes, if you think of marriage as an experience to survive as opposed to one to thrive on. But my point is I think each wife essentially has the same man. Different body, slightly more wrinkled package, but same man who followed the same pattern. The older man is harder work, with more baggage, yet still with the mind of a selfish boy. That’s why I think it’s best to get the man young, because you get the man at twenty and they’ll be that way at forty and at sixty, only they won’t move as fast.’

  ‘I suppose men could say that about women,’ adds Valerie.

  ‘They often do. Difference is, women learn from their experiences and they enjoy maturing emotionally. That’s why there aren’t as many female Peter Pans, as there are male. In my experience, most men don’t learn about life while they’re living it, whereas most women do.’

  We all then discuss the things we’ve done in our lives of which we’re most proud. With the exception of Valerie, who’s expecting her first, and Fran, who’s yet to marry, we all say having children. Even Doreen, who I thought would say career, says having her brood comes way ahead of getting CEO.

  ‘I know you all thought I would say career, but it doesn’t compare with having kids. I like being a mum. I enjoyed being a mum a lot more than I do being a wife and I think hand on heart you ask most women and they’ll say the same thing. I think those who don’t have children in the end treat their husbands like kids or get cats or dogs and treat them like kids, but they must have this maternal relationship with something or someone even if it ends up being the house plant or the postman.’

  The girls sit and stare at Doreen as though she’s said something deeply profound. I think she’s simply voiced what all of us think. Doreen’s career gives her drive and energy, her husband support, but it’s her kids that inspire her. Not her husband. Not her marriage.

  Thanks to my bullying everyone has taken hand luggage only. Here for two days, one night in the Disneyland Hotel, we all feel slightly heady but happy. A very premenstrual Daisy Duck greets us at reception and asks us in strangled English if we have our passports. Doreen takes the lead.

  ‘Girls. All passports please.’

  We hand all passports to head girl.

  We’re sharing rooms. And I’m the odd one out for some reason. Doreen says it’s because I smell. We’ve done lunch on the train, so we head for Fantasyland.

  Doreen snarls, ‘I don’t want to do that fucking Small World ride. Elephants fine. Either I queue for them with Valerie or go on the Indiana Jones thing, but I’m not doing that ride.’

  Valerie wants to do the haunted house. I tell her she can do what she likes. I want to do the Peter Pan ride and Space Mountain, while Carron wants to see if they have a Johnny Depp puppet at the Pirates of the Caribbean. I say I doubt it.

  Two hours and four rides later, we’ve done Fantasyland and Discoveryland. And some of Wild West Land. Well, we think it’s Wild West land but they call it something else in the brochure. Valerie gets stuck in the elephant and is helped out by three burly French Chipmunks that she liked. Fran falls in the water at the Pirates of the Caribbean trying to collect a souvenir from one of the pirates, who looks a teensy bit like J Depp. And fails. Doreen threw something at one of the dolls in Small World ride and is banned from going on the boats again. A feat of which she is extremely proud. She quotes something from a Monty Python film about the French official’s mother drinking elderflower wine. Or something. Anyway, she says it in French so it sounds even funnier. Think we’re all still pissed.

  8:00 p.m. and fireworks. I get my purse pinched. Bloody French. Doreen tells me they could have been English. I think this is a possibility as ninety-nine percent of people who come to EuroDisney are English, despite the fact that everything is written in French and said in French, at least initially.

  9:00 p.m. and Wild West Show where we watch the Bison being chased by the Indians being chased by the cowboys and we discuss how badly the First Nations are being treated by the American government and how the land should still belong to the Indians and how a lot of modern medicine emanates from their ideals. And the little boy behind us, who can’t hear what is going on and can’t be more than twelve, tells us to shut the fuck up. I think he has a point.

  10:00 p.m. and we’re knackered. Valerie wants to go to bed because she’s sleeping for two. Fran wants to go to bed because she still feels queasy. Doreen and Carron are still debating if giving head is sex or not. I say of course it fucking is.

  I put my head down on the Minnie Mouse pillow case and have nightmare of dolls at the Small World ride chasing me with litigation papers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Valerie Has the Baby

  Knock on door in middle of night. Half awake. It’s Fran.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Valerie, she’s bleeding. I’ve called the receptionist but there’s no one there that can speak good English. Hazel, your French is up to scratch, we’ve got to do something, she’s in agony.’

  I don’t talk. I put a dress on as I’m walking down the corridor with Fran.

  ‘Have you woken the others?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Get them up. And get Carron and Doreen to stay with her. I will go to reception.’

  I rush to the reception desk. The morose Daisy has been replaced by a sleepy Donald. I say in my best French, ‘One of your guests is having a baby in Room 209. I need an ambulance NOW.’

  The duck understands. And calls for an ambulance.

  I tell the duck if the girl dies I am a solicitor and will sue it for manslaughter. And that Lady Diana would have lived if she’d had that car crash in England instead of France.

  Ambulance arrives in twenty minutes. Valerie able to walk, still bleeding. Girls all suddenly look much older than forty. And feel it, I can tell. I go in ambulance. The others take a taxi. The French streets are buzzing. Buzzing is now in my head. Valerie is just whimpering.

  ‘The baby will be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Valerie, it will be all right. It will be all right. I will call Harry. It will be all right. You’re over eight months. That’s good. And look at the size of you. He or she must be huge. Just wants to have a French passport and can you blame him?’

  ‘Yes, that must be it. That must be it.’

  At hospital, they take her in on a trolley and I follow. One person, who looks like a doctor, asks if I’m a relative.

  ‘Yes, I’m her sister. My other si
sters are in the taxi.’

  The doctor allows us to go in the room with her. I ask the doctor if I can help. He asks me how far gone she is. I reply eight months and say that I don’t think she’s had any problems and that she’s nearly forty and isn’t allergic to penicillin or anything in particular to my knowledge. And that she doesn’t like hospitals, but he doesn’t seem to get the joke.

  Others arrive. Looking frazzled. Doreen tells me no one brought their fucking purses, did they? So she had to find a cash point in the middle of the night. And asks how Valerie is and has she had the baby yet.

  I say no.

  So we sit. And think about life and friendship and ourselves and each other and how helpless we are. How helpless. Useless. Incompetent. Sipping tar-thick espresso from the machine. Good to know coffee in hospitals even in France is disgusting. National Health can’t be blamed for everything.

  Doctor comes out.

  Smiling. It’s a girl. ‘Mother and baby doing fine. Would you like to see her?’

  Collective ‘yes please.’ Collective grinning at baby and mummy, who’s all tearful and looks even more knackered than her sisters. Baby looks red and puffy and squashed but we all insist she’s perfect and has a perfect-shaped head and is beautiful because she is. She’s Valerie’s baby and she’s beautiful.

  Valerie asks me if anyone has called Harry and I say ‘shit, no, but will do that straight away.’ She gives me his number. I rush outside, switch on mobile and dial, not forgetting code.

  A very tired voice answers, ‘Hello, who’s that?’

  ‘Hazel, it’s Hazel. Valerie’s had the baby. It’s a girl. We’re in the hospital in Paris.’