“Ah.” Dr. Bamford’s eyes dim in sympathy. “But otherwise he was healthy?”
“Oh yes. Very. Extremely. He was super-healthy. He was amazing. He was…”
I can’t help it; I’m already reaching for my phone. My father was so handsome. Dr. Bamford needs to see, to realize. When I meet people who never knew my father, I feel a weird kind of rage almost that they never saw him, never felt that firm, inspiring handshake, that they don’t understand what has been lost.
He looked like Robert Redford, people used to say. He had that glow. That charisma. He was a golden man, even as he aged, and now he’s been taken from us. And even though it’s been two years, I still wake up some days and just for a few seconds I’ve forgotten, until it hits me in the guts again.
Dr. Bamford studies the photo of my father and me. It’s from my childhood—I found the print after he died, and I scanned it into my phone. My mother must have taken it. Daddy and I are sitting outside on the terrace of my old family home, underneath the magnolia. We’re laughing at some joke I don’t remember, and the dappled summer sun is burnishing both our fair heads.
I watch Dr. Bamford carefully for his reaction, wanting him to exclaim, “What a terrible loss to the world. How did you bear it?”
But of course he doesn’t. The longer you’ve been bereaved, I’ve noticed, the more muted the reaction you’ll get from the average stranger. Dr. Bamford just nods. Then he hands the phone back and says, “Very nice. Well, you clearly take after your healthy relatives. Barring accidents, I predict nice long lives for both of you.”
“Excellent!” says Dan. “That’s what we want to hear!”
“Oh, we’re all living far longer these days.” Dr. Bamford beams kindly at us. “That’s my field of interest, you know, longevity. Life expectancy is going up every year. But the world really hasn’t cottoned on to the fact. The government…industry…pension companies…none of them has properly caught up.” He laughs gently. “How long, for example, do you expect to live, the pair of you?”
“Oh.” Dan hesitates. “Well…I don’t know. Eighty? Eighty-five?”
“I’d say ninety,” I chime in boldly. My granny died when she was ninety, so surely I’ll live as long as her?
“Oh, you’ll live beyond a hundred,” says Dr. Bamford, sounding assured. “A hundred and two, maybe. You…” He eyes Dan. “Maybe shorter. Maybe a hundred.”
“Life expectancy hasn’t gone up that much,” says Dan skeptically.
“Average life expectancy, no,” agrees Dr. Bamford. “But you two are way above average in health terms. You look after yourselves, you have good genes…I fully believe that you will both hit one hundred. At least.”
He smiles benevolently, as though he’s Father Christmas giving us a present.
“Wow!”
I try to imagine myself, aged 102. I never thought I’d live that long. I never thought about life expectancy, full stop. I’ve just been going with the flow.
“That’s something!” Dan’s face has brightened. “A hundred years old!”
“I’ll be a hundred and two,” I counter with a laugh. “Get me with my super-long life!”
“How long did you say you’ve been married?” says Dr. Bamford. “Seven years?”
“That’s right.” I beam at him. “Together for ten.”
“Well, just think what good news this is.” Dr. Bamford twinkles in delight. “You should have sixty-eight more wonderful years of marriage!”
Wh—
What?
My smile kind of freezes. The air seems to have gone blurry. I’m not sure I can breathe properly.
Sixty-eight?
Did he just say—
Sixty-eight more years of marriage? To Dan?
I mean, I love Dan and everything, but…
Sixty-eight more years?
“I hope you’ve got plenty of crossword puzzles to keep you going!” The doctor chortles merrily. “You might want to save up some of your conversations. Although there’s always the TV!” Clearly he thinks this is hilarious. “There are always box sets!”
I smile weakly back and glance at Dan to see if he’s appreciating the joke.
But he seems in a trance. He’s dropped his empty plastic water glass on the floor without even noticing. His face is ashen.
“Dan.” I nudge his foot. “Dan!”
“Right!” He comes to and gives me a rictus smile.
“Isn’t that great news?” I manage. “Sixty-eight more years together! That’s just…I mean…Lucky us!”
“Absolutely,” says Dan, in a strangled, desperate voice. “Sixty-eight years. Lucky…us.”
Two
It’s good news, obviously. It’s great news. We’re super-healthy, we’re going to live long…we should be celebrating!
But sixty-eight more years of marriage? Seriously? I mean…
Seriously?
On the car journey home, we’re both quiet. I keep sending little glances to Dan when he’s not looking, and I can feel him doing the same to me.
“So, that was nice to hear, wasn’t it?” I begin at last. “About living till a hundred, and being married for…” I can’t say the number out loud, I just can’t. “For a while longer,” I end tamely.
“Oh,” replies Dan, without moving his head. “Yes. Excellent.”
“Is that…what you imagined?” I venture. “The marriage bit, I mean? The…uh…the length?”
There’s a huge pause. Dan is frowning ahead in that silent way he gets when his brain is dealing with some huge, knotty problem.
“I mean, it’s kind of long,” he says at last. “Don’t you think?”
“It’s long.” I nod. “It’s pretty long.”
There’s a bit more silence, as Dan negotiates a junction and I offer him gum, because I’m always the gum-giver in the car.
“But good long, right?” I hear myself saying.
“Absolutely,” says Dan, almost too quickly. “Of course!”
“Great!”
“Great. So.”
“So.”
We lapse into silence again. Normally I would know exactly what Dan’s thinking, but today I’m not quite sure. I look at him about twenty-five times, sending him tacit thought-wave messages: Say something to me. And: Start a conversation. And: Would it kill you to look this way, just once?
But nothing gets through. He seems totally wrapped up in his own thoughts. So at last I resort to doing the thing I never do, which is to say: “What are you thinking about?”
Almost immediately I regret it. I’ve never been that wife who keeps asking, “What are you thinking about?” Now I feel needy and cross with myself. Why shouldn’t Dan think in silence for a while? Why am I prodding him? Why can’t I give him space?
On the other hand: What the hell is he thinking about?
“Oh.” Dan sounds distracted. “Nothing. I was thinking about loan agreements. Mortgages.”
Mortgages!
I almost want to laugh out loud. OK, this just shows the difference between men and women. Which is something I don’t like saying, because I’m very much not a sexist—but honestly. There I am, thinking about our marriage, and there he is, thinking about mortgages.
“Is there an issue with the mortgage or something?”
“No,” he says absently, glancing at the satnav. “Jeez, this route is going nowhere.”
“So why were you thinking about mortgages?”
“Oh, er…” Dan frowns, preoccupied by his satnav screen. “I was just thinking about how before you sign up for one”—he swings the wheel round, doing a U-turn and ignoring the angry beeps around him—“you know exactly how long the loan period is for. I mean, yes, it’s twenty-five years, but then it’s done. You’re out. You’re free.”
Something clen
ches my stomach, and before I can think straight I blurt out, “You think I’m a mortgage?”
I’m no longer the love of his life. I’m an onerous financial arrangement.
“What?” Dan turns to me in astonishment. “Sylvie, we’re not talking about you. This isn’t about you.”
Oh my God. Again, I’m really not being sexist, but…Men.
“Is that what you think? Do you not hear yourself?” I put on my Dan-voice to demonstrate. “ ‘We’re going to be married for a massive long time. Shit. Hey, a mortgage is really good because after twenty-five years, you’re out. You’re free.’ ” I resume my normal Sylvie-voice. “Are you saying that was a random thought process? Are you saying the two are unrelated?”
“That is not—” Dan breaks off as realization catches up with him. “That is not what I meant,” he says, with renewed vigor. “I’d actually forgotten all about that conversation with the doctor,” he adds for good measure.
“You’d forgotten it?” I shoot him a skeptical look.
“Yes. I’d forgotten it.”
He sounds so unconvincing, I almost pity him.
“You’d forgotten about the sixty-seven more years we’ve got together?” I can’t help laying a little trap.
“Sixty-eight,” he corrects instantly—then a telltale flush comes to his face. “Or whatever it is. As I say, I really don’t remember.”
He’s such a liar. It’s etched on his brain. Just like it is on mine.
* * *
—
We arrive back in Wandsworth, find a parking spot not too far from the house, and let ourselves in. We live in a smallish three-bedroomed terraced house with a path up to the front door and a garden at the back, which used to contain herbs and flowers but now is mostly filled with the two massive Wendy houses my mother bought the girls for their fourth birthday.
Only my mother would buy two socking great identical Wendy houses. And deliver them in the middle of their birthday party as a surprise. All our guests were speechless as three deliverymen manhandled in the candy-striped wall panels and roofs and cute little windows and made them up while we all gawped.
“Wow, Mummy!” I exclaimed, after we’d said our fulsome thank-yous. “I mean, they’re wonderful…absolutely amazing…but…two? Really?” And she just blinked at me with her clear blue eyes and replied, “So they don’t have to share, darling,” as though it was perfectly obvious.
Anyway. That’s my mum. She’s adorable. Adorably annoying. No, maybe annoyingly adorable is a better way to put it. And, actually, the second Wendy house is pretty useful for storing my gym mat and weights. So.
As we enter the house, neither of us seems to have much to say. While I’m leafing through the post, I catch Dan looking around our kitchen as though he’s seeing the house for the first time. As though he’s getting to know his prison cell, I find myself thinking.
Then I chide myself: Come on, he doesn’t really look like that.
Then I exonerate myself, because in fact he really does. He’s pacing around like a tiger, eyeing the blue-painted cabinets morosely. Next he’ll be scratching a mark on the wall. Starting the tallies to mark our ceaseless, weary march down the next sixty-eight years.
“What?” says Dan, feeling my eyes on him.
“What?” I counter.
“Nothing.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Nor did I.”
Oh God. What’s happened to us? We’re both irritable and wary. And it’s all that bloody doctor’s fault for giving us such good news.
“Look, so we’re going to live practically forever,” I burst out. “We have to deal with it, OK? Let’s just talk this out.”
“Talk what out?” Dan feigns innocence.
“Don’t give me that!” I erupt. “I know you’re thinking, Bloody hell, how the hell are we going to last that long? I mean, it’s wonderful, but it’s…” I circle my hands. “You know. It’s…it’s a challenge.”
I slowly slide down the kitchen cabinet I’m leaning against, so I’m on my haunches. After a moment, Dan does the same.
“It’s daunting,” he agrees, his face relaxing as he admits it. “I feel a bit…well…freaked out.”
And now, finally, it’s out. The honest, deep-down truth. We’re both shit-scared of this epic, Lord of the Rings–scale marriage we suddenly appear to find ourselves in.
“I mean, how long did you think we’d be married for?” I venture after a pause.
“I don’t know!” Dan throws up his hands as though in exasperation. “Who thinks about that?”
“But when you stood at the altar and said, ‘Till death us do part,’ ” I persist. “Did you have, like…a ballpark figure in mind?”
Dan screws up his face, as though trying to cast his mind back. “I honestly didn’t,” he says. “I just envisaged…you know. The misty future.”
“Me too.” I shrug. “I was totally vague. I suppose I imagined we might reach our silver wedding one day. When people reach their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, you think, Wow. They’ve done it! They’re there!”
“When we reach our silver wedding anniversary,” says Dan, a little grimly, “we won’t even be halfway there. Not even halfway.”
We’re both silent again. The ramifications of this discovery just keep on coming.
“Forever is a lot longer than I thought,” says Dan heavily.
“Me too.” I slump against the cabinet. “So much longer.”
“It’s a marathon.”
“A supermarathon,” I correct him. “An ultramarathon.”
“Yes!” Dan looks up in sudden animation. “That’s it. We thought we were running a 10K and now we’ve found out we’re in one of those nutty hundred-mile ultramarathons in the Sahara Desert and there’s no getting out of it. Not that I want to get out of it,” he adds hastily, at my glance. “But nor do I want to…you know. Collapse with a stroke.”
Dan really knows how to pick his metaphors. First our marriage is a mortgage. Now it’s going to give him a stroke. And by the way, who’s the Sahara Desert in all this? Me?
“We haven’t paced ourselves properly.” He’s really warming to his theme. “I mean, if I’d known I was going to live that long, I probably wouldn’t have got married so young. If people are all going to live until a hundred, then we need to change the rules. For a start, don’t commit to anyone till you’re at least fifty….”
“And have babies at fifty?” I say, a little cuttingly. “Heard of the biological clock?”
Dan is drawn up short for a moment.
“OK, that doesn’t work,” he concedes.
“Anyway, we can’t go back in time. We are where we are. Which is a good place,” I add, determined to be positive. “I mean, think of your parents’ marriage. They’ve been married for thirty-eight years and counting. If they can do it, so can we!”
“My parents are hardly a good example,” says Dan.
Fair enough. Dan’s mum and dad have what you might call a tricky relationship.
“Well, the queen, then,” I say, just as the doorbell rings. “She’s been married for a zillion years.”
Dan just stares at me incredulously. “The queen? That’s all you can come up with?”
“OK, forget the queen,” I say defensively. “Look, let’s discuss it later.” And I head to the front door.
* * *
—
As the girls burst joyously into the house, the next sixty-eight years or whatever suddenly seem irrelevant. This is what matters. These girls right now, these rosy-cheeked faces, these fluty high-pitched voices calling, “We got stickers! We had pizza!” They both drag at my arms, telling me stories and firmly pulling me back toward them when I try to say goodbye to my friend Annelise, who’s dropped them off and is waving cheerily, already headin
g back to her car.
I hold them to me, feeling the familiar squirm of their arms and legs, wincing as their school shoes trample on my feet. They’ve only been on a two-hour playdate. It was nothing. But as I clasp them to me, I feel like they’ve been away for ages. Surely Anna’s grown? Surely Tessa’s hair smells different? And where did that little scratch on Anna’s chin come from?
Now they’re talking in that almost-secret twins’ language they have, their voices overlapping, strands of their blond hair meshed as they gaze reverentially down at a sparkly seahorse sticker on Tessa’s hand. From what I can hear, I think they’re cooking up plans to “share it forever, till we’re grown up.” Since it will almost certainly disintegrate as soon as I take it off, we’ll need a diversion, or there’ll be howls. Living with five-year-old twins is like living in a Communist state. I don’t quite count out the Shreddies into the bowls every morning to make sure things are equal, but…
Actually, I did once count out the Shreddies into the bowls. It was quicker.
“Right!” says Dan. “Bath time? Bath time!” he corrects hastily. Bath time is very much not a question. It’s an absolute. It’s the lodestone. Basically, the entire edifice of our household routine is based on bath time happening.
(This isn’t just us, by the way; it’s every other family I know with young children. The general perception is that if bath time goes, everything goes. Chaos descends. Civilization disintegrates. Children are found wandering the street in tatters, gnawing on animal bones while their parents rock and whimper in alleyways. Kind of thing.)
Anyway, so it’s bath time. And as our nightly routine gets under way, it’s as though the weirdness of earlier on never happened. Dan and I are operating as a team again. Anticipating each other’s every thought. Keeping communication brief in our almost-psychic parent code.
“Shall we do Anna’s—” Dan begins, as he passes me the hair detangler.
“Did it this morning.”
“What about—”
“Yup.”
“So, that message from Miss Blake.” He raises his eyebrows.