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

by Virginia Ironside

  June 9

  Having bitten my nails ever since I was born, I’ve now managed to grow them at last. They’re turning into uncomfortable clawlike talons, and my fingers feel all stuffy and hot underneath them. What are long nails actually for? Retrieving dropped coins from the floor, picking my teeth, repairing damaged earrings? Scratching out the eyes of mine enemies? Must be more to them than that.

  June 10th

  As I walk down to the river to see Marion, the seagulls remind me of my own youth, suddenly, walking down with my grannie to feed them by the river. I remembered my tiny hand in her big hand.

  When Gene is older, I wondered, will he dismiss his grannie in the same offhand way that I dismissed mine? Will he behave as badly to me as I did to her? I was so troubled in my twenties that I had no time for my grannie, this woman who meant so much to me in my childhood. I don’t even remember going to her funeral.

  It is only now that I appreciate her and remember her with such waves of love. I hope she is looking down from wherever she is—not that, actually, I believe she is anywhere but you never know—and knows how much I loved her, and how she shaped so much of my life.

  And how will my son behave to me? Will he be impatient when I’m old and ill, like my father was with my grandmother? Like many sons can be with their mothers when they start to crack and crumble?

  June 11

  Penny rang. She’s been looking at a book on feng shui and has found a compost heap in the “relationship corner” of her garden. Would clearing it and putting in some wind chimes bring Mr. Right along, she asks?

  Later

  Archie rang saying his thank-you letter had been returned to him because he’d got the postcode wrong. Curiously insulting, that, to think that he didn’t even know my address. However, at least I was able to apologize for frightful evening, which he didn’t seem to think was frightful at all. He is so polite.

  June 15

  Oddly overcome with concerns about Gene. Each morning I am up at four, white with anxiety and fear.

  Desperate, I e-mailed Marion. I told her all my worries—that he’d get bullied at school when he went, that he’d take drugs when he was fourteen, that he would become overweight and be teased. I wrote that I worried about Jack and Chrissie suddenly moving to Australia, that they’d just ring up one day and say: “Sorry, we’re off. Tough tittie. Goodbye!” How, I asked her, can you stop the thoughts?

  Within minutes she’d written back:

  Dearest Marie,

  This is all, I am sure, connected with the impending loss of Hughie. My sister (grannie of five) speaks to me almost every day and so very often we prop each other up, trying to allay fears about the latest anxious preoccupations surrounding these heavenly little creatures. We are so blessed really to be involved with our young—and their young—but I suppose it’s bound to have a cost, following the punitive and universal rule of no good without the grind. I have been known to cry so much as I drive back home from my grannie duty that I can’t see where I’m going—the parting, the missing. And she and others rather a lot more sensible in general than us, feel equally bereft as they say goodbye. As usual, all to do with loss, isn’t it? Fear of losing yet another person who matters…The joy, though, the sheer unqualified joy of shared time with these littlies makes it all worthwhile, even the 2 a.m. angst, I reckon—and as soon as your Gene is on the phone with his “D’you know what, Gran…?” stories and discoveries, I’m sure there’ll be far more on the plus side. Makes me weep just thinking about the trust, the unconditional love that flows from these lovely babes, and being able to give the same love back to them—also unconditionally—makes all the anguish fade away.

  I am so, so lucky to have such friends.

  June 16

  Jack and Chrissie asked me to Sunday lunch. When I arrived they were convulsing with laughter.

  “Gene has got a name for you!” they shrieked.

  “Oh, really?” I said, immensely flattered as I took off my coat.

  “Who’s that?” they said to Gene, who was staring at me, smiling. They pointed at me. “Who’s that?”

  “Gaga,” he replied. “Gaga. Gaga.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Gene,” I said, with mock resignation. “I come here, I love you, I look after you, and all you can do is reward me with a name that clearly defines me as a barking old bat. You’ll go far.”

  But inside I felt as pleased as if I’d been given a Damehood. Gene recognized me. “Gaga.” Oh, dear. I think I’m going to cry.

  Got back to find message from James. Hughie back in hospital. And this time it seems unlikely he’ll get out.

  June 17th

  Today Hughie lies on his back in what hospital staff call, apparently, the “end-of” ward, a place from which there is no return. All he can do is breathe, in and out, in and out. And stare. Terrible sight. Hardly alive. He looks like some awful kind of Damien Hirst installation.

  James was sitting, wearing a blue plastic apron, by the side of the bed. And by other beds, other families also sat or stood, all dressed in their blue plastic premourning clothes, nervously touching bits of their swollen or emaciated relatives, serious-faced, whispering, moving slowly with anticipatory grief.

  Hughie kept making gurgling sounds, and there was no way he could communicate with anyone. Now he has a tracheotomy in his neck.

  When James went for a break I stood by Hughie, dipping a sponge into water and putting it on to his lips. I asked him if he was in pain, one blink for yes, two for no, but Hughie made no response and by the time he did blink, I’d forgotten which was yes and which was no. What a time to have a senior moment.

  I ended up standing there for three-quarters of an hour, sponging his sweaty, oily head, stroking his few days’ growth of beard, and, oddly, whispering sweet nothings to him. I told him that we all loved him, I loved him, he loved us—occasionally breaking off to say what gibberish it all was, and telling him to try to feel peaceful and relaxed.

  “We are all doing our best, everyone wants the best for you, come what may…” I said. Everything I said seemed to include the possibility of death. I felt it would make him feel happy to know that we weren’t all just hoping for him to recover when it wasn’t possible.

  Occasionally he would open his eyes, with a look of terror and suspicion, but then he seemed relieved to see me there, and went back to his struggle with breathing.

  Of course he’s going to die. I feel angry only that they are keeping him alive for the moment. It is so unfair. All they are doing is maintaining him in a state of misery, between life and death. They could keep him like this forever probably.

  The nurses came and went, all through the day, monitoring, writing, staring at the machines, fiddling, twisting knobs…it is a macabre scene.

  June 18

  James rang this morning saying they were going to turn off the machines that are keeping Hughie going. Apparently it is a situation known as “power off.” They anticipate he will die by four o’clock.

  As I had an appointment to have my hair cut at ten this morning, I kept it, but knowing I had a date with death in the afternoon was a strange experience. I felt very peculiar, with constant spells of dizziness. I kept putting off going to the hospital. Tidied the house. Had lunch. Even mowed the lawn. I really couldn’t bear it. Finally went, hurrying, and there was James on one side of Hughie’s bed, under a television monitor, which showed Hughie’s heartbeat and blood pressure dwindling away in front of our eyes.

  Occasionally a nurse came in and looked at the monitor and pressed a few buttons. James said: “It’ll all be over in quarter of an hour”—and sure enough it was.

  All three of us were surrounded by large plastic barriers, to shield us from the other people. I sat on one side of the bed holding Hughie’s hand; James sat on the other, his arm resting against Hughie’s paper-thin skin. “It’s like being in a swimming pool,” said James. He kept turning away to cry. Poor old Hughie. He already looked like a corpse, gasping away wi
th his mouth open, the yellowing whites of his eyes showing. Some of the tubes had been taken out of his hands, and he was covered with sticking plaster to protect the wounds. Very, very slowly, he faded away and all the machines came to a halt.

  And as he died, I had the most curious feeling. I was aware of dying being the most natural thing in the world. It was as natural as—as, well, going to the lavatory. Dying was just something one did. The only different thing about it was that we do it just once in our lives.

  As Hughie died it was as if a light chiffon scarf had been thrown into the air and—poof!—he’d gone. In an odd way it wasn’t sad at all. Just a normal part of a day.

  July 1

  The funeral took place in Golders Green Crematorium. I am now so dreadfully familiar with the place that I no longer have to get out the map to find it. On the way there, I had a strange experience. I allowed a huge container lorry beside me to pull into the traffic in front of me. The driver put on his winking lights as thanks. I was suddenly overcome with emotion. It seemed to signify all the kindness of strangers in the world. This great big dirty lorry, from God knows where, a grisly warehouse in the suburbs of Rotterdam perhaps, and yet this sudden burst of human warmth emanating from it. I found myself starting to cry with gratitude.

  Hughie’s death is making me so tender.

  This great sadness, what a treat it is to feel like this…what a kind of honor. Grief isn’t a curse, it’s a blessing. To be so connected that you feel true loss—what is there to commiserate about that? Why should you want to make anyone “feel better” when they’re unhappy in this way? This grief is only another side of loving, one part of what it is to be human. I can’t help being angry with people who try to claim sympathy when they are feeling bereaved. This deep fruitcakey, purple pain is a sort of joy, such a luxury.

  When you are feeling the pain of being bereaved, you are still connected to life, you still want the dead person to be alive, you still believe life is worth living.

  Though on second thought, I bet James wouldn’t agree with me.

  The moment I left the car and walked toward the group of mourners outside the chapel, I saw Archie. Tall. In his lovely dark coat. This time he was wearing a black scarf as well. He towered among the rest, a quiet group, all looking dazed, with their sad faces on, speaking in low voices.

  When I reached him, “I’m so pleased to see you,” he said, hugging me. “Let’s sit together.”

  We went in, and the funeral started. James read out a lovely piece by Cicero, which went:

  The death of the old is like a fire sinking and going out of its own accord, without external impulsion. In the same way as apples, while green, can only be picked by force, but after ripening to maturity fall off by themselves, so death comes to the young with violence but to old people when the time is ripe. The thought of this ripeness so greatly attracts me that as I approach death I feel like a man nearing harbour after a long voyage: I seem to be catching sight of land.

  I got up and spoke about Hughie, feeling rather like Tony Blair because I left significant pauses between phrases and adjectives. I am becoming sickeningly adept at this kind of thing, having now given four funeral addresses in my time. I find that after each point I make, I have to wait a bit to let a speck of emotion rise up in me. It does the whole drama thing good for the tears to fill the eyes. Indeed, so affected was I by my own words, that when I left the pulpit, gray-faced, I kissed my hand and pressed it to the coffin. I kept finding myself saying to myself: “Goodbye old boy. Poor old chap. Oh, you poor dim ducky. Oh, you brave old potato.” Just bits of rubbishy, affectionate nonsense. Returned to my seat next to Archie, who was blowing his nose violently. He said: “You certainly know how to get us all going. And five minutes max. I timed you. Perfect length. Brilliant.”

  For one moment I looked at the coffin. My connection with Hughie had been so special, I felt it was something that no one else had. And then I was aware of the fact that everyone else in the congregation almost certainly thought the same. They imagined that they all had some unique relationship with Hughie. And that was what made him so extraordinary. His ability to make each of us feel privileged to have had such an intimate relationship with him.

  I turned to look at Archie and smiled, but as I did so, I caught his eye. Then something very odd happened. I was suddenly overcome with a strange longing to kiss him. And felt extremely embarrassed about it. It’s awful how, the minute you fancy someone, you imagine that they must be aware of it. I hardly knew where to look. Then I remembered from other times how sexy funerals make you feel. Loss is such a turn-on. So I tried to dismiss the flicker of attraction as a passing mistake.

  At the party in the flat afterwards, all the sadness was temporarily gone, and we talked in relieved burbles, as if we were at a great reunion cocktail party. I had a long chat with James, drank a couple of glasses of wine and ate about six smoked salmon sandwiches.

  Penny was there with, oddly, Friedrich, the trainer who had been persuaded, for once, to get out of his vest and put on a suit. He looked about thirty years old. Penny appeared blissfully happy.

  “Have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz?” I asked him casually, as we passed in the corridor.

  Luckily, he looked utterly baffled.

  There was a bit of a scrum by the kitchen. And as I was squeezing by toward the front door—I was feeling a bit funeraled out—I noticed Archie was squeezing by in the opposite direction.

  “You’re surely not going, are you? So soon? We shall all be totally bereft,” he said. “Have another drink with me. Won’t you? We haven’t had a chance to have a real chat.”

  He took me, strangely, by the hand, and pulled me into the sitting room.

  As we sat down, I felt utterly confused. It was true. Archie was looking particularly dishy. His hair might be white, but it was very silkily white, he had a nice mouth…and with a lurch, as we looked at each other, I realized that I fancied him just as much as I ever had done when I was fifteen. Not only that, but it crossed my mind that he fancied me. We didn’t talk for a second, just looked at each other.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said. “Hughie and I had a chat before he died. And he said that you once had a schoolgirl crush on me.”

  What was I to say? I felt like an overblown rose, petals flying in all directions. I didn’t know whether to giggle or get all stuffy. Instead, I said, blushing: “Oh, rubbish. He was raving. Terribly ill. Full of chemotherapy. Went to his brain.”

  “He seemed OK to me,” said Archie, smiling very slightly. “Anyway, I thought he didn’t have chemotherapy? But look: The thing I have to tell you is that when I was fifteen, believe it or not, I had a crush on you.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” I said, completely beflustered. This couldn’t be happening to me, I told myself. I’m the one who’s got the single bed, remember, Marie? I’m the one who’s hopeless at relationships. I’m the one who’s renounced sex after sixty for good.

  “Fifty years too late!” I heard myself saying foolishly.

  “If I promise not to take you to Pulli, would you have dinner with me the week after next, when I’m coming up again?” he asked. “We could talk. We could—ah—talk about old times.”

  And then: “Oh, yes!” I heard myself saying, all defenses finally completely down. “Any day would be lovely!” Inside I was cursing myself and saying: “Marie, how could you? At least play it cool!”

  “What about Thursday of that week? Pick you up at eight?”

  “Lovely!” I said, gulping and blushing. I realized that I meant every word. Even if I’d asked fifteen people to dinner that night, I’d happily put them all off.

  Archie got up, reached down and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. Then he leaned over, put his mouth to it and kissed it.

  “Good-oh,” he said. “I’ll count the days.” He looked me in the eyes, then turned away and left me, reeling, on the sofa.

  Later

  Of course I just couldn’t stop thinking a
bout him. I tried to focus on the funeral, or puzzle about Penny’s relationship with Friedrich and even tried to tidy up Gene’s toys, which were scattered about the room from his last visit, but my brain seemed completely taken over by Archie.

  “We could talk about old times”! He’d “count the days”!

  I’m afraid I found the whole thing utterly thrilling and goofy making and tender and lovely all at the same time, one moment feeling like dancing inside and the next berating myself for breaking my resolve about relationships.

  When I turned on the computer I found I had an odd piece of spam, so odd that I wondered if it hadn’t come from the Other Side, sent by Hughie:

  tying finished conduct silence clock intelligent

  from shoulder imagine

  fill control enough by

  July 2

  I sat in the garden, thinking about Hughie and how lucky he was, in a way, to suffer only for a few weeks. I have a Living Will stashed in almost every room in my house, in my wallet, with my doctor, with my solicitor. Jack has been told so many times how much I want him to get rid of me if I become a burden, I’m sometimes surprised he doesn’t seize a cushion and do it now, just to shut me up.

  But here I am. With a date on the horizon. A proper one. With a friend. With, it seems, a grown-up. With a lovely bloke I’ve known for years and years and years. My only worry is what on earth I’m going to tell Penny. Not to mention everyone else to whom I’ve been banging on smugly about my chosen state of celibacy. I feel such a total idiot.

  Later

  In the garden, staring at my roses, which are blooming bright scarlet, I was feeling pretty blissed out, when a loud drumming started across the way. Suddenly the sounds of “Amazing Grace” came bursting into the garden, great roaring live music with tambourines and a choir. All the blackbirds and pigeons flew into the air with horror, and Pouncer’s ears went distinctly back. I became extremely irritated. I knew Praise the Lord! Inc. was a dreadful idea.