Giles
Economic forecasters have called it “the quickening”. They say that in the first 90 days of the epidemic, the world moved forward 10 years in terms of the predicted shift to remote working, learning and medical consultation, the uptake of ecommerce, video conferencing, the phasing out of cash, changes to commuter travel and so on.
A “ten-year evolutionary leap” is how the retail consortium Netcomm described it, while McKinsey, the consultants, declared “ten years’ growth in three months” in online shopping. The Economist magazine, in its annual predictions for the year ahead, at the end of 2020 essentially predicted that, by 2021, it would be 2030.
Which is all very well and good except for one thing: it means that I am now 61. And, boy, do I feel it. When the pandemic struck, I was six months into my fifties and going along fine. I’m not overweight, I’m not too grey, my oily Levantine skin has held up better than some of my fairer friends’, I can run and jump, I could in theory even still do sex (if anyone wanted to). On top of these, marrying and having my children late has made me the (joint) head of a “young family”, which brings with it some of the trappings of relative youth and, as commenters beneath my thrice-weekly columns in The Times never tire of complaining, my “sixth-form humour” shows me to be “childish”, “puerile” and “immature”. As if those were bad things. “When is he going to grow up?” they always ask. To which my answer has always been a jubilant, “Never!”
Until now.
Now, I am old. Forced to comply with the draconian social restrictions that some felt were necessary to contain the virus, I have found myself living exactly the sort of life I used to imagine I would live in middle age when I was a kid, but, until March 2020, didn’t. To wit: staying in every night, going to bed with a book at half-past eight, never going to parties, taking pleasure in cooking and gardening, not caring what I look like, going to the shops in my Crocs, considering a walk – a walk! – as exercise, drinking sensibly, never doing drugs…
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And with it have come correlative elderly behaviours, not forced by circumstances, such as observing the speed limit when driving – when the hell did that happen? – making sure I eat enough fibre and being much less inclined to mock and scorn and run immediately to humour.
Physical decrepitude has followed. Muscle tone has declined dramatically (because, of course, walking is not exercise). My uncut hair has gone grey and pubey since it grasped that I just can’t be arsed. My eyes are going (from all the reading?). My hearing is suffering.
I SAID, MY HEARING IS SUFFERING. I wee more often, especially at night. And, you know what, I don’t think I could do sex.
Then, of course, with the economic downturn, friends are starting to take redundancy (or worse), and say things like, “I’ve probably got one more roll of the dice,” or, “Who’s going to hire someone of my age in this climate?” And that reminds me that I’m probably in my last job too. After this, it’s just golf and cold-water swimming.
But you know what? I’m happy. I’m not overjoyed. Just happy. There’s a lot to be said for being young and beautiful, just starting out, falling in love, still thinking you’re going to change the world, being able to get into your car without going “Urghhhhh” and wondering when the seat got so low. But that was a long, long time ago. And this next bit, this next 30 or 40 years – inshallah – will be the longest bit of all. I was fighting it in my forties, even with the children at home, kidding myself I still looked a certain way, could do certain things. And I would have carried on, no doubt, into my fifties and beyond, like a lot of the sad saps you see. If not for “the quickening”. Which might better be called, in my case, the slowing.
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I like reading. I like going to bed early and waking up sober. I like wearing slippers all day and letting my eyebrow antlers grow. I like not going out. I like not trying to impress people or make new friends. I like sitting in the soft old chair by the kitchen window, with my cats in my lap, looking out at the sky and wondering if it’s going to rain.
Dylan Thomas exhorted us to rage at the dying of the light. But the fact is, I don’t like the lights up too bright now anyway; it gives me eye strain. And I’m all done with raging.
Esther
I hate being 40. So I was glad I hit that milestone last May, deep in lockdown. While the rest of the world lamented “lockdown birthdays” and bought T-shirts saying “Covid-19 ruined my birthday” I was relieved that the situation meant I didn’t have to tell anyone, or pretend to be okay with leaving my thirties.
Early in 2020, well before both lockdown and my birthday, Giles kept saying, “We ought to have a joint party for your 40th and our 10-year wedding anniversary. They’re within a week of each other. It just makes sense!”
He was boyishly into this fantasy jamboree and planned guest lists and menus out loud over dinner, while I went, “Mmm, hmm,” every now and again, because I didn’t want to piss all over another one of his ideas.
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But the mere thought of a 40th birthday party panicked me. I didn’t want giant silver “4” and “0” helium balloons turning spookily in the corner of the first floor of a pub, like twin Grim Reapers in disco gear. I didn’t want to give a speech, I didn’t want to smile brightly and make jokes about my age, I didn’t want to stumble home in my bare feet at 1am carrying bouquets of flowers and a bag of presents.
I didn’t want any of it.
In fact, I was so frightened by the whole thing that I wonder if I made the pandemic happen through some unconscious cosmic ordering misfire, so that I could bundle my birthday into a bottom drawer and slam it shut.
It makes no sense that I feel this way.
I don’t particularly miss my youth. I spent my teenage years obsessively disguising my spots. I spent my twenties avoiding paperwork and watching Grey’s Anatomy on my own. I spent my thirties looking after my children in an unnecessarily time-consuming way in order to both exacerbate and excuse my anxieties about professional underachievement.
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Giles says, “People who are afraid of death are afraid of life,” and I think this is just the most insightful thing he’s ever said, along with the driving advice, “Always rotate the steering wheel to its maximum so your manoeuvre gets the full benefit of the turn.”
I’m terrified of death and also, yes, of all life, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never been to a festival or on a rollercoaster. My worst nightmare is relocating to a foreign city. Hell, even moving postcodes is out of the question.
And I’ve noticed when reading interviews with celebrities in the weekend colour supplements that it’s always the major party animals or nonstop workaholics who declare they are at their “happiest ever” at 40 or 50 or 110. Whatever shred of truth they are hanging this bold statement on is probably down to a feeling that they have truly wrung all achievement and fun out of their allotted years. The likes of Ronnie Wood are also probably stunned still to be alive at all.
Sure, getting older is a privilege but I live a small, timid existence, barely leaving my local area even when I am allowed to. Apart from the no-school and no-holidays thing, lockdown is just my life. I’m always just delighted to get to cocktail hour without the sky falling in. What’s to celebrate about that?
The only good thing about being me at 40 is that Giles is 11 years older than I am, and always will be. So compared with him, I will always be young.
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I’m still not having a party though.
Listen to Giles and Esther’s podcast, Giles Coren Has No Idea, with new episodes available every Friday on the Times Radio app, thetimes.co.uk or wherever you get your podcasts