Older and Wiser

Older and Wiser
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday May 16, 2015

I spot a friend’s elderly father sitting outside the cafe with his coffee. A brisk north-easterly has turned Kirwin Street into a wind tunnel. A gust flaps his newspaper and whips a flurry of dry leaves under his table but he’s unperturbed.  

“Edward!” I say. “It’s freezing out here. Come inside and have your coffee with me.”

He hoists himself up to kiss my cheek. We move inside to a table by the wall. Edward, dapper in a navy sportscoat and crisp shirt, sweeps one hand across his glabrous head, flattening a few token wisps to his pate.

“How are you?” I say. It seems an obvious question to ask an 87-year-old.

“Can’t complain,” he replies. “I can still read the paper without glasses.”

I detect a note of pride.

“But my teeth are wearing out,” he adds. “I’m going to get new dentures and have the teeth of a 20-year-old. That’ll confuse the ladies!”

I ask about his left knee. (Long pestered by arthritis, it was reconstructed last year). He gives it a slap.

“It feels brand new!” he says, then cranes forward as if to tell me a secret.

“You know, I was dying at 71. My aorta was leaking.”

He unfastens the top button of his shirt and gives me a glimpse of the scar he says bisects him from throat to navel.

“They fixed me up with a pacemaker and a new aorta made of Kevlar. Kevlar! Now I’m bulletproof. I could live for a thousand years. The question is: would I want to?”

I wonder what’s coming next.

“At my age, people die. I’ve said goodbye to almost everybody.” He rattles off a catalogue of three dead brothers, long gone friends, neighbours, classmates, colleagues, the dentist.

“People my age are only alive because death’s forgotten to visit.”

“But are you lonely?”

“Of course! No-one wants to be alone. I miss the warmth of another body sleeping next to mine. But my life is never dull or empty. The good thing about getting old is there’s finally time for thinking. I like to speculate on the nature of human beings. In the mornings, I lie snug in my bed for a long time.” He chuckles. “Because I can!”

“Would you like to meet someone?”

“Where would I find another Barbara?” he ponders aloud. “I was so desperately in love with Barbara.”

His voice trails off and I study my coffee foam to give him a moment to collect himself.

“She was a helluva catch. I was eight years older. She died of lung cancer at 65. She was just a kid, for goodness sake!” I hear the bitterness in his voice, but then he softens.

“That’s the unfairness of life, isn’t it? I’ve never recovered from Barbara’s death. I’m not sure I want to.”

I stay silent.

“A man is only the reflection of the woman he lives with,” he says with a smile. “She completed me. We were married for 45 years. She’s been gone twelve years. It feels like an eternity.”

He brightens.

“But a large family is a good shock-absorber: five children, eight grand-children, four great-grand-children. When I’m with them, life’s fantastic.”

I tell him about my middle son’s upcoming birthday and ask: “How do you think of the future?”

“I make plans. I want to putter down the canals of France in a houseboat; go places I’ve never been. In January I cruised from Sydney to Fiji. There were 2000 passengers. I went to a singles night but only four people turned up. And two of them had partners.”

We snort in unison.

“You know, time goes faster as you get older. But it’s not time that’s going faster – it’s me going slower. Old age is what happens as you wear out. Like the soles of your shoes – week by week, slowly, imperceptibly, and then one day they’re just too worn out to put on. They’ve outlived their purpose.” He quotes a Jaques’ line from As You Like It:

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

He inspects the mottled skin on his still manly hands. “I’m doing okay, compared to some. I’m gobsmacked by my own good luck. How have I managed to get this far in such good nick? My memory’s the problem now. I can feel the fine details fading out. I see people I’ve known for 40 years and I can’t remember their names.”

It’s time to go. I feel buoyant after my half hour with this insightful, perpetually youthful old man. He stands up to say goodbye. “Luck is everything,” he reminds me.

I sit in the car and reflect, wondering if he’s right.