A Certain Age (16 page)

Scene One: Andy is very uncomfortable physically; in pain; quite brave; on a drip

[
Pain
] Ah! Ooh that’s bad. That’s – ooh. I feel like, like I’m going to
BURST.
Oh! The nurse said, don’t try to move, Mr McKee, but – ooh. I can’t reach, you see. Can’t reach the
mobile. And it’s nearly eleven and I need to contact – ah! – Sara, about that meeting of hers at the university. If she got the job I can say, “Well done, Sara!” Aagh. And if she didn’t – aagh – I can say, “Och, what an outrage! You’re too good for them, sweetheart!” But that big alarming nurse spotted the mobile when I came in, that’s the trouble. “You do know these are strictly forbidden until after the operation?” she said, picking it up and shaking it at me. Agh. “Now, you don’t want to get me into trouble, do you, Mr McKee?” And I said och, nurse, what a suggestion! Agh. Shouldn’t we at least have dinner first? [
Kind
] “Yes, well,” she said. “Less of the amusing backchat. I’ll just pop this into your smart wee leather hold-all here, and we’ll say no more about it.” I told her I needed to text my wife – it was about 9.30 then – but she said, “She can find out how you are by telephoning the ward, Mr McKee. She does know what’s happened?” [
Calling; the nurse is bustling about
] “One of my men said he would call her,” I said. “It was all so quick. I was inspecting a
ROOF
. Roofing is what I do, you see. [
His standard – very weak – joke, of which he never tires
] Och, yes: you might say I spend my whole life
OUT ON THE TILES
.” Well, I like to break the ice. Even when you’re doubled in agony, you’ve got to make the effort.

“Look,” I said. [
A wave of pain
] “Aaagh. If she does happen to call, could you wish her luck from me?” [
Calling back
] “You’re wishing
HER
good luck?” she said, as she rinsed the sink in the wee bathroom with disinfectant, wiped it with a paper towel, and operated the big metal pedal bin, all in one smooth efficient action. [
Proud
] “Aye, a meeting at the university! Ten o’clock. Sara’s applied for the contract to redecorate the senior common room. Blues and golds. Swags in saffron silk. She’s been working on the design for weeks. It’s based on a room in Buckingham
Palace, I think. Or possibly the Hermitage. In St Petersburg.” [
The nurse at rest
] “It’s
YOU
that needs the good luck, Mr McKee. Listen to you, you poor wee man. Thinking about someone else’s palatial swags when you’re that distended you look like – [
an idea
] well, you’ll have seen the film
Alien
?” [
Laughs, gingerly
] “Thanks a load.” [
Querying the pronunciation
] “Sara?” she said. “Well, she used to be [
normal pronunciation
] Sarah, right enough. But everyone uses the new name now.”

They’ll be along in a minute with the pre-med. Nice room. Wee menu to tick for later on. My own TV and telephone. Inoffensive upholstery in easy-wipe fabric. Somewhat like a Travelodge, but with the addition of crippling pain and guaranteed secondary infection. Ooh. I feel such an idiot, being rushed in here like this. Well, it felt like
WIND.
And all weekend Sara kept saying, [
snappy
] “Andy, could you stop lying on the floor like that, you’re confusing the dog.” And I’d say, “Look, Sara, I just can’t shift this wind.” I said to the nurse, “But is it wind, though?” And she said, “Mr McKee, between your stomach and your – [
swingeing sharp pain
] Aaaagh! Aaagh! – you’ve got enough wind to blow you round the world in eighty days.” She seems to be excessively interested in cinema, that woman. Aagh. I hope they didn’t tell Sara before the meeting. I wouldn’t want her to be worrying. Och, I wish I could reach that
PHONE.

Scene Two: post op. A few days after. Beep-beep, beep-beep text message alert

[
An effort as he reaches for the phone
] Agh. At last! That will be Sara. Let’s see. Yes! [
Reads
] “No nws yt. Hv lrdy rdrd
slk.” Slk? Oh silk. Have already ordered silk. Och, that’s terrible. What a way to treat a gifted person. “R U OK.” [
Touched
] Ah. You see? R. U. OK. Four letters, but how much they say! Good job I had my charger in my wee briefcase, you see! Forearmed is – forearmed, or whatever it is. I’ve been waiting
THREE DAYS
for that message: imagine if the battery had run out before it came!

[
He texts back, laboriously
] “…Dear…Sara…comma…poor…old…you…Full stop…Did-dums…Full stop…The …surgeon says…the D…I…A…R, no, delete that…try again, D…I…
O
…R…R, nope,…och I know…
LAVVY
problems will be…over…in…a…couple of…weeks…exclamation mark!…I…shant…oops, apostrophe…SHAN’T be…out…on…the…TILES [
laughs
] …for…a…while…exclamation mark!…Your…loving…Andy X…X…X…X. Send.

[
Exhausted
] You certainly get a lot of time to think, lying here like this for three days without any visitors. Oh yes. And you know what I keep thinking? I don’t want to sound smug, because that’s the last thing I am, but you know, I am a lucky man. I mean, yes, my body did just swell up like I was fifteen months pregnant and I nearly died. And I’ll spare you all the grisly details but there was a lot of weird and wonderful lavvy action, not to mention terrible, terrible pain. But I survived it OK, and soon I’ll be back to my nice modern home with five bedrooms (three en suite), to my nice, clever wife, and my nice, successful business. I’m sure if we’d had children they’d have been nice as well, but we didn’t, and as I was explaining to Geena, the big nurse, not having children, well that’s not nice but I can live with it. The thing is, Sara has such a lot to give to the world in terms of integrated curtain design and revolutionary cantilevered tie-backs that I can
absolutely see what she means about letting other people do the breeding. “There’s no shortage of bairns in the world, Andy,” she says. And I say I know, I know. [
Pain
] I resist the obvious riposte that there are quite a few curtains in the world already too. Ah! But it’s a raw subject with her. It’s one of those subjects that are best left alone. Especially if you’re a supportive spouse. What’s the difference between a levitating banana and Sara McKee? One has no visible means of support, while the other’s got a faithful old mutt of a husband called Andy.

Geena likes to hear about Sara for some reason. She seems
INTRIGUED
, as if she’s never met a supportive man before. She thinks I’m a saint for agreeing not to have children when it’s so clear that I’d be a fantastic dad. We had a nice wee chat yesterday when she was removing my epidural (don’t ask) and trying to take my mind off it. She’s a confirmed singleton, she says. [
Confidential whisper
] A lot of bad experiences, she said. I said, [
kind
] Geena, you’ve no idea what it is to be loved, have you, dear? You’ve no
MODEL
. And she had to wipe away a tear before saying that unfortunately it’s the first rule of nursing not to fall in love with your hospital patients. “Ah ha?” I said. “Is that because the implicit power relationship makes it unethical?” I said. “Och no,” she said. “It’s because they’re generally ill and full of self-pity, plus, statistically, they have alarmingly short life expectancy.”

I didn’t say this, but to be honest, it’s quite straightforward being there for somebody. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t do it. Because there’s only about four rules to master. Basically, you just say, “Yes, dear, how much would you like?” when they ask you for money; “Och no, that’s terrible,” when they’re upset about some wee silly setback; and “Well,
I’VE
always thought you were
much too nice to her,” when they’ve had some tiff with their best friend. Throw in an occasional “Sara’s quite brilliant, you know,” when you’re out together socially, and just watch the result. Of course, you can still come unstuck. The thing a man always has to remember is this: while women have a very firm idea about the reaction they require from you, you must never ask them to tell you what it is. Sounds unfair? Ah ha. It is. But the idea is: they want you to understand them so perfectly that you don’t need a hint. [
Laughs
] I know! Hilarious. So if you find yourself saying, “For pity’s sake, Morag! Just tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it!” you might as well go off and hang yourself. The way they see it is: if we have to ask, it shows we don’t know.
OR:
[
slightly unpleasant impersonation of a woman
] “It’s not enough to
SAY
it, Andy; you have to
MEAN
it. Saying, ‘Oh, poor baby’ doesn’t mean you actually care!” [
Amused at how preposterous this expectation
is] Ach, bless their fluffy wee heads.

“Look, I’m Sara’s rock,” I explain to Geena. “I can’t expect her to be mine as well.” And Geena says, “A rock, is it? In that case, I’m going to call you Rocky.
Rocky IV
was the best one, uh-huh, I’ll call you Rocky Four.” I’ve never had a nickname before. Or indeed been linked in any way to Sylvester Stallone. It makes me feel quite proud.

[
Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep of incoming text. Excited
] Ah-ha! From Sara! You see? Everything’s on the up. Uff. Open. [
Reads
] Well. “Thnx 4 flwrs.” Well, OK, OK, I know what you’re thinking. The idea ought to be that
SHE
sends flowers to
ME.
But I just sent her a wee bouquet of anemones. I got Maria to arrange it from the office, and she said, “You’re too good, Andy; she doesn’t deserve you,” or some such thing.

[
He texts a reply
] “…Dearest Sara comma Life…
hyphen…threatening…phase…over…exclamation mark!…Your…loving…Andy…XXX.” And
SEND.

[
Pause. Pleased
] Rocky Four!

Scene Three: a week later. He’s a bit better

Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever spent so long by myself as I have this past ten days. Geena’s been great. Although we’d get on better, obviously, if she weren’t so disapproving about my sweet wee wife who isn’t here to defend herself. Geena has no idea about Sara. She has no idea what we’ve been through. Everything’s a bit black and white for Geena. “Your wife will have been to see you, then, Mr McKee?” she says, hands on hips. “Er, call me Rocky?” I say, but it doesn’t disturb her train of thought. “Not even a bunch of flowers!” she says. On Thursday I found out from one of the other nurses that this no-flowers-from-wife situation was being gossiped about right down as far as paediatrics, so in the end I hatched a plan and I got Maria in the office to order some daffs to be delivered here, and it seemed like quite a good idea, but unfortunately the card said, “To Andy, from Andy. You funny man, love, Maria,” which Geena read aloud in some amusement, so that was that. I know what she’s thinking: Sara’s some kind of spoiled, career-obsessed, curtain-mad hussy, I’m too infatuated to notice that she’s deprived me of my right to fatherhood. What sort of wife doesn’t come to see her husband when he’s at death’s door? Well, she’d be a bottle blonde, uh-huh, I can imagine her myself. A young bottle blonde with long red fingernails, an open-topped Saab, and a mahogany-tanned personal trainer
named Kevin. Meanwhile, I’m some human incarnation of sweet little Greyfriars Bobby.

In fact, Sara’s only five years younger than me, uh-huh, thirty-seven, we’ve been married for fifteen years. She’s showing her age a bit now, of course. A few wrinkles round the knees, poor thing. A bit of sagging on the neck. [
Whisper
] A little bit of cellulite. Other people don’t notice, of course, and I say, “I expect your clients think you’re lovely, Sara, but I’m closer to you, so I can’t help spotting all the wee signs of deterioration.” For example, her hair. It’s just gone all dry and wiry in the past couple of years. I’ve mentioned it to her a few times, but she’s not really taken the hint – not even when I called her “Brillo head”. So the other day I bought her some special shampoo for wiry hair and I left it for her to find in the bathroom. Now, not many husbands would do that, would they?

“How old was she when you married her?” Geena asked me yesterday.

“Twenty-two,” I said. “She was supposed to be in her last year at the university, but it didn’t turn out that way. I put her through the rest of her university and then art school. Well, the business was going well, even then. We made a pact that we wouldn’t start a family until Sara had finished all her studies, and – well, a lot of things happened, and somehow or other she didn’t finish until she was thirty-two.”

[
Shocked
] “Ten years? She sponged off you for ten years and then refused to have children?”

I wasn’t going to explain to Geena about the amount of time everyone lost when Sara’s little brother had his accident in ’95. Mind you, it was still ten years in total, she was right. And it was nice having someone so vehemently on your side.

“But she’s very successful now,” I said. “And terribly, terribly good. So all the studying was worthwhile. I still call her Student McKee.”

“Uh-huh,” says Geena. “Well. I can think of better names.”

Jimmy’s accident still makes me angry. I suppose it always will. Sara had already started her doctorate on the necessity for a post-modern paisley when the accident happened, and although I always thought it was a rubbish idea for a PhD and that she was being very poorly advised by her supervisor, we were happy enough at that stage; we were even still thinking about children. And then little Jimmy crashed his Suzuki into a brick wall one Friday night in Stirling and everything changed. One minute I had this happy wee wife who laughed at my jokes and was, I have to say, like a kind of joyful erotic mermaid between the sheets; the next, she was just a travesty of a person, a kind of hollow black hole, a howling wraith. Now, I’m not the sort for self-pity, but it was horrible to see her change like that. Horrible. Suddenly, she’s up all night weeping; she’s standing in the garden, weeping; she’s breaking down in the supermarket, weeping. She’s getting thin and weird and snappy and even – I have to say this – quite ugly and prematurely old. “It’s the shock,” they told me, in an effort to console. “It will wear off in a couple of years.”