The time of our lives


Hope you're not expecting one of those deluded upbeat articles saying that 60 is the new 40 or grey is the new blond. There is nothing good about ageing. The only thing I've gained with age is weight. My parents, who are 89 and 90, assure me that the sixties are a doddle. They look back on theirs as a golden age, when they could both still see, hear, walk, and drive - after that, they chortle merrily, it's downhill all the way. I can still see, hear, walk and drive but that's about it. I can't run. I can't read without glasses. I can't cut my own toenails because they have turned into rhinoceros horn. Walking uphill hurts my thighs; walking downhill hurts my knees. Walking on snow terrifies me. Probably the longest walk I've done all year is from the check-in at Stansted to the boarding gate, and I was thinking, as I trudged along, when will I be eligible for one of those nice buggies? As for teeth, don't get me started. I have spent more money on implants than Martin Amis and I can still barely chew. I once worked out that for me to have as many teeth as Cameron Diaz would cost over £100,000.

I used to say 'The night is young' - now I can barely keep my eyes open till Newsnight. I get fretful if meals are late. I get furious if people are late. I worry about sleeping in strange beds. I check strange baths for handrails because I know that getting into a bath is a damn sight easier than getting out. I go to the loo before embarking on the smallest journey 'just in case'. I say things like 'Just in case' or 'Better safe than sorry'.

Until two years ago my medicine cabinet contained only Anadin. Now I take five pills every morning and feel a bit funny when I forget. My friends all discuss fish oils the way they used to discuss HRT - or contraceptives if any of us can remember back that far. Sex now is unthinkable - not because I don't fancy men but because I would regard any man who claimed to fancy me as, by definition, a pervert. But anyway men are becoming scarce and will become scarcer with every passing decade. Eventually it will be like those playgroup years when even to see a man in daytime was an event. And because men are rare, I have developed the tiresome old trout habit of thinking, 'Oh, James is coming round - I'll get him to change that light bulb/ move that bay tree/ fix the digibox. Exactly like the men I always hated in my twenties who said, 'While you're here, could you just sew on this button?'

But the really big difference is that I think about death all the time. In my thirties I interviewed the medium Doris Stokes and she said, 'Think of all those friends and loved ones waiting for you on the other side', and I could truthfully say I had no friends or loved ones 'on the other side' unless you counted my dog, Zulu. But I have been to a dozen funerals in the past few years (including my husband's) and now the other side looks like quite a party. And nowadays I expect people to die. When friends lose weight I don't assume they've been dieting, I assume they've got cancer. I used to listen agog when people told me about their illnesses, now I hesitate to ask 'How are you?' in case they tell me it's their prostate.

I worry about my own death the way, in my twenties, I used to worry about childbirth. Would I be one of the lucky ones or would it be four days of labour followed by an emergency Caesarean? Except now the question is: will it be the lucky massive heart attack or four years of Parkinson's? Apparently the best way to die is by falling asleep in a snow drift, but snow drifts are infrequent in north London. Assassination, plane crashes and being struck by lightning are also desirable but unlikely. So that probably means the old standbys - heart attacks, strokes, cancer - which is where smoking comes in handy. I treasure the handbill David Hockney gave me saying Death Awaits You Even If You Do Not Smoke. Death does await you - you've always known it in theory but in your sixties you know it for real.

Against all this, are there any pluses? Well, there's your bus pass and £200 winter fuel allowance, and all those free medicines which it suddenly seems you need. There are 'concessions', though mainly to places like gyms and ice rinks where you don't want to go. In Islington, where I live, you get cheaper residents' parking. Actually, in Islington you get almost anything by saying you are old. I have learned to preface all phone calls to the council or to the police with the statement 'I am a pensioner', which seems to be the key to hitherto unreachable kingdoms like bulky rubbish collection or burglary investigation. But this is pretty small beer compared to the immanence and imminence of death. My friends assure me I will feel quite differently when I have grandchildren. I live (just about) in hope.

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