Age Becomes Her

There’s not a thing you can do about it.  You will age.  So you may as well enjoy it. 

She approaches me as I make my way along the platform to take the 9.55 Virgin train to London Euston. She has an old-fashioned grey rinse and set. That, her tallness and her spectacles give her the look of an old-school librarian.

“I wonder whether you would be prepared to take part in a survey about your journey today?” she asks.

I hesitate. Will there be anything in it for me? I doubt it. Gone are the days of the free lip gloss or chocolate bar.

“If you leave your contact details we’ll put you in a prize draw for a £1000,” she says.

Oh, go on then.

“This age group?” she says pointing to the 45-55 column.

I shake my head and point to the next group up. She doesn’t believe me, I think.

Her eyebrows shoot up.  “It’s terrible getting old, isn’t it?” she says.

“No,” I say. “At least I’ve got my Senior Rail Pass.” 

“Even so,” she says. “I’d rather be younger, wouldn’t you?”

No, I think. “I don’t know,” I say.  “I think I’d rather travel more cheaply.”

She’s younger than me and she doesn’t believe I’m over 60, I think. Get over yourself, woman.    

Becoming 60 doesn’t actually bother me. There’s nothing you can do about it and there are a few perks. Like the Senior Rail Pass. And like feeling justified about being as demanding, critical and grumpy as you like. Not that I abuse that of course. But for goodness’ sake, I’ve been around a while. Show me some respect. And I’m not an old dear. I still have all my marbles, thank you very much. 

I’ve stopped feeling guilty about taking the last seat on the tram.    

Our Daily Bread Lifeless

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Pattie folded the first-size sleeps suits. All white or lemon; they’d decided not to find out the gender of the child. She couldn’t bear to give them away, actually. Maybe she should keep them. “There will be other opportunities, Mrs Morris,” the doctor had said. “You’re young yet.” They’d said she should give her body time to recuperate, then try again. She didn’t know whether she dared, though.   

She picked up the pile of clothes and put them back into the chest of drawers. She couldn’t bear this room now either, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else with it.

“Should we change it back to a spare room?” Tom had suggested. 

She’d not wanted that either. That would be admitting they didn’t think it was possible.

The light caught the mobile as it twirled in the slight draft coming through the door.  It was a fine summer day and the landing window was open. If things had turned out differently she would have probably been pushing him or her out in the park today. 

It was nine months now since the miscarriage. It had been quite a late one. The doctor had explained it in a really funny way. “I’m so sorry, Mrs Morris. If it had been another couple of weeks the baby may have been viable.”

It hadn’t had a funeral. They’d not given it a name.  Nobody had offered this time to tell them its gender.  They’d just scooped up all the stuff that had come away from her body and she guessed it had all been incinerated.     

She was still off work. Clinical depression they’d said.  It’s not clinical, she thought. There’s a reason: my baby died.

“Wouldn’t it help to go back to the office?” Tom had said. But she’d not been able to face the looks of sympathy or worse still, the whispered conversations and the way they would, she was sure, avoid talking to her.

Her body didn’t seem to be recovering either. Her tummy muscles were still quite flabby. Her back ached. She was constantly tired.

It didn’t make sense. She’d seen some of the women whose babies had been due at the same time as hers. They had their bodies back and they seemed full of energy. Yet they were supposedly having sleepless nights and were breast-feeding their babies. They ought to be tired, not her.