Would you dare do it?

Who'll carve the chicken?

Not that I’m intending to, but suppose I joined a dating agency. Two problems: (1) Apart from being married I’m not tempted. (2) If I simply imagined the event – fictionally – I would be cheating: it could go anyway I chose – high comedy or profound tragedy.

So I'd have to pretend I was desperate. Which is difficult; like most adults I strenuously resist desperation as a life mode. This week’s Guardian magazine carries many such encounters and most depict a civilised evening meal à deux. But elsewhere I read that many such manufactured dates end badly.

Down to basics. It’s not just me, there’s my algorithm-chosen partner. Who could quite possibly be desperate too. Hmm. I see why that could end badly.

So, suppose I, or she, recognised the other’s desperation and sought to reach out, to help? And the evening became an exercise in sociological caring. Seems unlikely, too pat.

Is there an alternative to desperation? Curiosity, say. In fact a project similar to a day out of my previous professional life. The difference being the ultimate aim: then I was after information, today I would be looking for what? Emotional expansion covering friendship as well as something more meaty.

The more I think the more I envisage a disaster arriving with the starters. My default state is to ask questions – they fill in awkward gaps. But VR, among others, has warned me that not everyone responds well to being interrogated. Nor do they respond enthusiastically when urged to ask their own questions.

Having started this hare (It’s a phrase they have in the Airedale Beagles, qv) I’m maliciously attracted towards a hilarious short story treatment. Fictional but funny. Perhaps I could discuss that over the dinner table. Offering to share the byline.

Some progress; could do better

In Saturday’s Guardian magazine some bookish person or other is traditionally subjected to a set of questions. Not all answers seem entirely truthful; may even be self-serving. Do I also tell fibs?

My earliest reading memory

At primary school the class had Mr and Mrs Peg readers with green covers; mine was red, the only one. I was more or less left to my own devices. At home my mother read me Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. Dimly – I think – I perceived these young people were “growing up”.

The book that changed my mind.

Aged ten or eleven I was lent a Peter Cheyney “Saint” thriller (title forgotten). Again, the details are vague, but I wanted to read more because of the style in which it was written. Laconic, mainly. I recognised style in later books by other authors.

The book that made me want to be a writer

I’ve always disliked novels about novel writers. Saw them as cop-outs from sedentary males who rarely stirred out of their mancaves. Raymond Chandler’s The High Window transfixed me by treating grim events humorously, managing to be moralistic without being pious. Much later came Ulysses, an infinity of possibilities, the unattainable goal.

The book I discovered late in life

Very late in life came poetry (other than Shakespeare) and with it Louise Gluck’s Poems 1962 -2012. Simple, even mundane, material becomes plutonium.

The book I’m currently reading

Wayne Barne’s Throwing the Book. He’s a retired rugby football referee. (Also a barrister). No great shakes as a writer but there are truths even in sport. And commercialism is one of sport’s untruths. Nothing in it for anyone who is unaware of Ireland’s present predominance in rugby. As Walt Whitman said: my life is full of contradictions  

Who we are and what we do - now

"Bags of space", said the Mobility saleswoman,

as we assessed VR's bum width against the

wheelchair seat. Should make France more

explorable, if we get there this year

Drove VR to Mobility to check whether her backside fitted the seat of a wheelchair I’d chosen. Wheelchairs can cost thousands; this was secondhand, priced at £50 (“one careful user”). It fitted. Driving back I listened to the familiar lilt of Beethoven’s Spring sonata for violin and piano. Improving the afternoon gloom.

Reflecting: This had been a trip “outside”, something mildly different, a forty-minute treat. Breaks in the routine are rare.

If you flitted round us at home you’d conclude ours is a very dull life. Tangible silence; VR downstairs, same easy chair, reading her Kindle for hours with leisure breaks of FreeCell. Me upstairs, grinding out the words, fidgeting Solitaire.

Bursts of incompetence as I prepare brunch and sometimes an evening snack. Cursing a spoon falling from arthritic fingers. Food no longer a major priority. A modest glass or two in the evening. Often a foreign movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime (free, courtesy of grand-daughter and daughter).

VR’s illness hinders talk so we choose subjects carefully, using a minimum of words. VR damns her reduced mobility. Recalls childhood memories in précis. Thanks me for my burnt offerings. Says she’s lucky to have me. Once – A veritable thunderclap! – says I’ve still retained some looks so why don’t I find someone else? I’m speechless. And undeserved.

I summarise what I’ve read and what I’ve written. Speaking loudly. Sigh heavily when mealtimes roll round. Make a big deal out of “doing” the garden while only planning to weed a couple of pots. Most days I visit Tesco, on foot if I may, by car if there are too many bottles.

We can live comfortably without chat. That’s when I inspect VR’s lined face with enormous affection, a gentle and cumulative delight.

Dull? Let’s say private.

Members of the same club, say

Our comparatively new king, Charles III, and I have something in common: a malady disguised by many a euphemism (Note: that’s a five-dollar word to comfort those who find reality too harsh). I think the USA invented Big C. Certainly it was a US movie – the first version of Ocean’s Eleven back in the sixties – which launched The Big Casino.

Charles was complimented for going public. A good sport, having received, as it were, an invitation to a party few wanted to attend. Fair enough. Previously the UK royal family only contracted anonymous ailments. None that I know of ever suffered the indignity of haemorrhoids. Too hard to spell.

The popular UK newspapers handled this news gruesomely, making me queasy. I wanted to give you a flavour of their glutinous sentiments but the Internet was silent.

More than that, the apocalyptic tone employed in referring to cancer. The sheer horror, etc. As if the word itself was infectious.

So why do I find myself distanced by this news? Maybe because I’m more than a decade older than Charles. The younger you are the more horrified the response, it seems.

But let’s get one thing straight. Forget all misapplied references to anything like “courage”. The surgeon dispensing my first diagnosis was quite gruff. I idly wondered (aloud) whether any hacking and/or cutting would be worth submitting to. He became gruffer, promised me “a miserable death” if I discounted surgery. Good on him.

Was I being philosophical? Better cancer than Alzheimers? Perhaps. Fact is I surprised myself; truly there are more interesting things to think about. How to improve my singing timbre. Giving Tone Deaf wider appeal. Cancer stuff is terribly predictable and I hate being obvious.

Charles has gone into medical purdah. Pity. Couple of questions I could ask. 

Time like an ever-rolling stream...

Some time ago I swore a private oath I wouldn’t post about old age. And here I go – reluctantly, I admit – breaking that private oath.

Today is Monday, the beginning of another week. You want numbers? It’s the 4576th week of my life. A meaningless figure but not a meaningless day. Since January 2016, 8.30 on Monday morning has signalled Singing Lesson! the reaffirmation of a late yet very positive phase of my long life. Gilded gates opening on a difficult but rewarding activity which had previously seemed as impenetrable as the rationale of logarithms, a willingness to accept the fictional existence of Bilbo Baggins, or a defence of the British royal family.

Singing lessons started in my eightieth year and all of a sudden I realise that was some time ago. In the interim I’ve got older and feebler. Never has the passage of time been so evident as when I struggled to get out of bed an hour ago. The creaky structure that is my body whined and groaned.

Today, even the prospect of singing lacks encouragement. In the way of things V and I will be tackling my most difficult song yet, Der Neugierige, sixth in Schubert’s Schöne Müllerin song cycle. Yes, yes, I know. There’ve been other “most difficult” songs and now they’re merely part of the repertoire. Eventually I’ll crack this one and all will be well.

But the effort to do so will be just that little more demanding. As was getting out of bed. I re-focus on my life and see it as a race against – What? – oblivion, of course. I need to achieve and go on achieving. Until the lid on the grand piano is lowered and the stage is empty.

On. On. But more slowly. Uh, uh… On.

POST SCRIPTUM. Disregard the old-age pessimism above. V was in top form with Der Neugierige, planed out the difficulties and I sang loudly and confidently. Music is the GREATEST specific against death's imminence. I feel no more than seventy-five.

Lessons usually end with V "warming me down" (ie, familiar easy phrases).  Not today. She said, "Let's just end with memories of the Schubert".