When we arrive home, my missus breaks the silence. She’s staying with a friend tonight and wonders if I’d mind fetching her suitcase from the loft. There’s an unfamiliar hollowness to her voice, a kind of polite brittleness she normally reserves for traffic wardens. She could have just used the case we’d taken to the New Forest, but technically that’s mine, and maybe this is her first stab at dividing our assets.
Either way, I’m glad of the opportunity to demonstrate my dignity under duress.
Still in shorts and trainers, I climb the ladder and open the hatch. But as I reach inside for her red Samsonite, I feel a sudden searing pain in my left buttock, as if I’ve been speared by the Devil’s trident. A thousand volts fuse buttock to brain in a millisecond. Jesus Christ! Has she taken leave of her senses? This may be our lowest ebb, but we’ve never resorted to violence.
I collapse on the landing, writhing. My missus stands over me, eyebrows shaped like question marks. But she isn’t holding a skewer, a pitchfork or a branding iron. Just a Cath Kidston toilet bag. Nonetheless, my backside’s on fire. And as I wrestle my shorts to the floor, out it plops. The culprit. The perpetrator. A wasp.
I scramble to my feet, spewing expletives, grinding the little bastard to a pulp under my size 11s.
My missus tells me to calm down or risk anaphylaxis. She’s not a medic, but she has watched a lot of Casualty. Plus, she hates bad language. And as the family’s official first-aider, she does at least know of an antidote for wasp stings.
So two minutes later I am lying face down on our marital bed and she’s basting my bum with balsamic. A moment of exquisite tenderness in the midst of our Armageddon.
My relief is palpable. I hug her in gratitude. She smiles uncertainly … then heads off to pack her things.
It’s a strange thing, waking up single again after such a long time. Thirty years! I mean, that’s longer than Nelson Mandela spent on Robben Island. Which I realise is a cheap joke and totally unanalogous to my situation, and the very fact that I still find it funny, whereas my wife almost certainly won’t, perhaps goes some way towards explaining our split in the first place.
But whatever the reasons and however resilient you may be, it’s hard not to feel reduced, diminished and depleted. It’s a basic law of mathematics — your “other half” has gone. At night, for example, you find yourself sleeping on the same side of the bed, despite the circuitous route to the bathroom. In the morning, on autopilot, you still take two cups from the cupboard when you make the tea. And you’re constantly referring to “us” when what you actually now mean is just “me”.
Because we’re creatures of habit, aren’t we? And after half a lifetime, “adjustment” doesn’t come easy. Especially with that maelstrom of mixed emotions to muddle through. Exciting, challenging, liberating, yes … but at the same time, disconcerting, lonely, sad. And arguably a whole lot worse when, deep down, you genuinely still like each other. Break-ups are surely much easier for people who hate each other’s guts.
Still, one way or another, you just have to get on with it. So your first preoccupation is who to tell and how. Each family member presents a different challenge. Each set of friends needs to be assured there’s no acrimony — no sides. (And even then, as no one enters Noah’s Ark without a plus-one, it will be a while before either of you gets invited to dinner.) Then there’s the change to your domestic arrangements. Dividing your bank accounts. Splitting your worldly goods. Who gets the photo albums? Who gets that honeymoon sculpture? Who gets to spend Christmas with the boys? Every last detail in your life, recalibrated, recalculated, redefined.
The fact is, nature did not intend you to reinvent yourself at 60. So it’s tempting just to draw the curtains and hunker down with your Sky box and a hot toddy. But when it does finally dawn on you that you don’t have to conform or compromise any more, that you can now make radical changes to your life without having to refer or defer, it’s quite an empowering feeling. Hey, you can leave the toilet lid up if you want to! You can paint the living room purple! Upload heavy rock to your iPod! But why stop there, for God’s sake? What about the Big Stuff? Live the dream. Indulge your fantasies. Buy a flash car, for example. How about a Corvette Stingray? An Aston Martin? Something with gull wings? Cruising down Barnes High Street with the wind in your hair and Dire Straits pulsating from the speakers. That’d cheer you up, right? Sure it would. It does!
Until reality kicks in and you remember two things. The first is that flashy cars cost a fortune to run. And your impending divorce is going to plunder your bank balance. And the second is that you’re 60 and, not to put too fine a point on it, you’d look like a twit.
But don’t be disheartened. There are loads of other options. How about a nubile young girlfriend? You still have all your faculties, or most of them, so it’s certainly not out of the question. We older guys have our allure. Look at Bernie Ecclestone. Donald Trump … Hmmm. OK, scratch that. In any case, deep down you know damn well you’d prefer someone who’s been around the block a couple of times herself. Someone who’s actually heard of Dire Straits. Someone who’s so busy worrying about her crow’s feet and laughter lines that she fails to notice your ineluctably expanding bald patch and your dad-dancing. Besides, if 60 is the new 40, then 55 is the new 35. And 35 will do me fine.
But hang on a minute. This is freedom, man! Don’t throw it away. Don’t waste this golden opportunity. How about a tattoo? It’s cheaper than a flashy car. Plus you can design it to order. Give vent to your inner id. Get a flashy car splashed across your pectorals. Get a supermodel spread across your stomach. Why not get both? There again, wearing your heart on your sleeve is one thing; having it indelibly inked on your actual skin quite another. Far better would be to get a girlfriend with a tattoo instead. They’re much easier to remove.
Fair enough, no flashy new car then, no girlfriend half your age, no tattoo. What about some funky new clothes? A sleek designer suit. Some groovy shoes. A tailored coat. And you can join a gym. Work those glutes, crunch those abs, get that six-pack back. Yeah, that makes much more sense. Until you remember that you have a pathological aversion to gyms and you can’t abide shopping.
So perhaps this reinvention thing is overrated? Perhaps by the time you hit 60, you’re simply too set in your ways to change anything. Maybe just making the most of what you’ve got is the answer?
Several months on, and still reeling from a wretched summer in which I had to say goodbye to my lovely dad and very nearly my mum, too, I am sitting in a coffee bar waiting for a hot date. Although how hot she is remains to be seen because we haven’t actually met before. I’m early; she’s late. So there’s plenty of time to run through the usual catechism. Will she look anything like her photo? Will there be chemistry over the cappuccinos? And (inevitably) what the hell am I doing here? Well, the answer to that one is simple. I’ve succumbed to the new social norm and “gone online”.
I mean, how else do you meet someone when you emerge, semi-institutionalised, from a long-term marriage, defined (even by yourself ) as half-a-couple?
Not that there’s a dearth of singles out there. If 42 per cent of marriages end in divorce, the odds get even shorter when the kids fly the nest, and the glue that’s held things together starts to crumble. But any “appropriate” single women I know seem far too familiar somehow. It would feel a bit, you know, like incest. My friends seem reluctant to introduce me to anybody they know for fear of upsetting my ex. At least I think that’s the reason.
Besides, it’s not just “how” you meet someone, it’s “how quickly”. A fella in his twenties or thirties has all the time in the world. But in your sixties, it’s a different story. “At my back I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” Andrew Marvell could have put it another way: “Better get your arse in gear/ Before you need a Zimmer, dear.”
The great thing about online dating is that it speeds things up. So, encouraged by Bridget, my dating guru, I logged on to Encounters, the Times singles webs
ite. Window-browsing only, of course. But with that tingle of single women smiling beguilingly from its pages, I was soon won over.
I chose my user name — WingedCharioteer (natch) — wrote my profile, found some photos and pressed send. Within hours there was a steady trickle of respondents. Within days, a barrage. There’s a healthy appetite for fresh meat, it seems. And, according to Bridget, men “of a certain age” with their own teeth and hair are at a premium. The website has a chart showing the 20 most popular men and women, based on “hits” from other members. And to my amazement, within a couple of weeks, I was topping it. The 2015 Christmas No 1!
It’s a curious thing, this online mating dance. A member clocks your profile, ticks a box, makes you a “favourite”. You receive an alert, then check out theirs. If you like what you see, you respond. Then, buoyed by this reciprocity, you exchange a flirty message or two and, if the vibe feels right, suggest a phone call. By now you’ll have dropped your disguise — and so will she. You just have to pray she’s not a bunny boiler. So you have your chat and, if the voice doesn’t set your teeth on edge (or vice versa), you arrange a date. A drink or dinner if you’re feeling bold. A cautious cappuccino if not.
I sip my cautious cappuccino and glance around. Still no sign. Perhaps she’s clocked me through the window and done a runner. I glance at her photo on my phone. She doesn’t look the running type.
So I revert to my catechism. What exactly are you looking for when there’s no longer that pathological imperative to “go forth and multiply”? Someone to sit in the rocking chair next to yours and watch the sun go down with? Someone to knit your bedsocks and make your Ovaltine just the way you like it? Someone who reminds you to take your pill every morning? Yeah, right. The irony is, you’re looking for the same things you were looking for back in the day. Only now they’re much harder to find.
A woman appears at the doorway, suited, booted, slapped and coiffed. I don’t actually recognise her from the photo, but she’s agitated enough to be on a date. And before I know it, TangerineDream is beside me with her skinny macchiato.
But say you do find a person who ticks all the boxes. What about “the baggage”? Sure, you want someone who’s lived a life, who’s loved, travelled, has children she adores, a career she enjoys, a circle of friends who actually matter to her. Because you have those things and you want that symmetry. You just have to hope that none of the above will stifle a new relationship. Or that life hasn’t left her too cynical, suspicious and cagey.
On the other hand, it pays to be circumspect. Because when you’re “a certain age”, investing six months in another failed relationship means you emerge six months older, six months greyer and six months closer to the departure gates. It’s a biological time bomb of a very different kind.
My new companion’s a chatty one all right. She hasn’t drawn breath since she sat down. No danger of an awkward pause, at least. I’m really not sure if it’s there though, that “indefinable something”. The “chemistry” that can sweep you off into the deep unknown. On the other hand, how the hell do you know if you have that “connection” unless you at least try to connect? As a refugee from a very long marriage, those instincts can get rather rusty.
So I smile warmly across my cold cappuccino and, without interrupting her flow, TangerineDream smiles back.
One of the benefits of online dating is that you can set your radius wherever you want. I found that 60 miles was about my limit. If you’re a true romantic, prepared to comb the planet for the perfect partner, you would doubtless set yours to infinity. Although that first cappuccino would set you back a bit. Plus, there’s the carbon footprint to think about.
I wasn’t thinking about my carbon footprint when I first clapped eyes on my new neighbour. It was a few months later and I’d popped over with a parcel I’d taken in for her that morning. What to Cathy, I’m sure, was no more than a brief how-do-you-do across the doormat, was to me more like a Christmas epiphany. At that point, of course, I had no idea we had anything more in common than a shared postcode. All I knew was that she had a smile that could have lit up Oxford Street.
Perhaps things were looking up at last?
TERRIBLE TEACHING IS WHAT MAKES OXFORD SPECIAL
Giles Coren
DECEMBER 10 2016
YOU’LL HAVE SEEN the story last week about a graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford, suing his alma mater for a million pounds because “appallingly bad” and “boring” teaching in his third year led to his getting a second-class degree in modern history when he felt he deserved a first. This in turn led to his not becoming a big-shot commercial lawyer but only some other kind of lawyer, which led to his having less money, a smaller house, a shabbier car, a worse life, a shorter penis and issues around sleeplessness, much of it to do with recurrent stress dreams about the exam result that doomed him to a life of misery.
Faiz Siddiqui took the exams fully 16 years ago. And the case raises so many questions that my own tiny mind has been boggling ever since.
We all have moments when we lie awake at night, wondering about the life we might have had if certain things had not gone wrong. For me it was not going to Nick Rayne’s 13th birthday party in 1982 because I was scared there would be girls there, and subsequently finding out that there had been girls there and that everyone had snogged them and I’d totally missed out on the chance to begin my sex life, a setback from which I have never fully recovered.
Also not taking up the offer of an exchange year at an American high school when I was 17 and then finding out that the guy who went instead of me was beating hot chicks away with a muddy stick because of his English accent.
Also going up to Oxford with a girlfriend and then staying with her for two years when I should have been shagging around like every other student in the world, with the result that I got to my 21st birthday having shagged almost nobody.
But that’s sex, which is very important. Whereas to lose sleep in adulthood regretting the teaching you got in your third year? That is stone-cold mental. I can’t even remember the name of the mad old coot who supervised my third-year special paper. It was meant to be on WB Yeats but he spent eight weeks and 14 bottles of sherry trying to persuade me to change over to TS Eliot, whom he had known well, and then that was the end of term. “Appallingly bad” and “boring” do not even begin to cover it. But I have scarcely given it a thought since, let alone worried what kind of lawyer I might have made if the lazy old bastard had been better at his job.
Who even knew there was more than one kind of lawyer? Or that the class of degree you get affects which kind you become? Do they not all lead lives of quiet photocopying in dusty offices, commute from the suburbs and then retire at 50 to play golf? What on earth has the quality of Oxford teaching got to do with it?
Maybe the problem stems from Mr Siddiqui being of foreign origin and somehow mistakenly equating Oxford University with “learning” and “teaching” and getting value for money. We British johnnies who make up the majority of undergraduates, or did in my day, never gave that a second thought. One goes to Oxford precisely because the teaching is rubbish, nothing is compulsory, tutorials are optional after the first week and nobody ever, ever talks about careers.
If you want to be “taught” and pass exams and become a lawyer, don’t you go to a red-brick? Or Cambridge? Oxford is for drinking and playing tennis and nicking books out of the Bod under your cricket jumper and lobbing them at punting tourists from Magdalen Bridge. If you ask me, Mr Siddiqui got the wrong end of the stick altogether with his tertiary education and is now just embarrassing himself. After all, if it comes to suing the old place for getting you the wrong exam results I would do the same: take them to the cleaners for having, quite ridiculously, awarded me a first.
Complete farrago. I never read a book in three years, just flicked through some Coles Notes during the summer term whenever our chaps were batting and got lucky with the questions in the old summer quiz. And it cursed me for life: everyone
for ever afterwards expecting me to be some sort of genius when I am in truth — as you, dear readers, know better than anyone — a total moron.
“Oh here comes Giles with his big shiny First Class Degree From Oxford,” people go. “We’ll ask him what he thinks about this weighty matter.” And then it turns out I have nothing between my ears but sawdust and can only respond with silly faces and fart noises.
Great things were expected of me as a young man on account of my wholly inappropriate degree, but look where I have ended up: in a job where most of the better-known proponents — your Caitlin Morans, your Clarksons and Charlie Brookers and AA Gills — barely even went to school, let alone got as far as the Oxford University Summer Term Spelling Bee.
You think that you never got to be a big-shot commercial lawyer, Mr Siddiqui, because bum teaching diddled you out of a first. But what’s my excuse? I endlessly tell people that finals are all down to luck, getting the right questions and not having too bad a hangover on the day. There’s no escaping the lifelong blight of the big “1”, and forever being looked at askance for having come to nothing more than this tap-dancing media monkey you see before you.
And I’ll tell you the worst of it: even when you do get a first the nightmares still haunt you. Every time I get into a stressful situation with what I pathetically call “work”, I experience terrible anxiety dreams where it’s six weeks to go until finals and I haven’t done a blessed thing … and I wake up all drenched in sweat.
So take heart, Faiz old bean, from the knowledge that even with the class of degree you dreamed of, you would have ended up with the same boring job and the same terrible nightmares for the rest of your life. That is the flaw in the whole ridiculous system: even success doesn’t cure you. So you’re better off beating yourself up about all the sex you didn’t have because you were too busy worrying about exams than bringing stupid legal actions about the exams themselves.
The Times Companion to 2017 Page 10