Out of Time

I thought about the 90s. I was very social. Always out, usually with other people. Most of my twenties took place then, in that time when youth was celebrated, where youth culture came in from the side, where the mainstream was altered by the upstart outsiders. And we – me, my friends, the crowd of us all – felt the rush of it, the need for speed. There was an up-and-out head-fuck that we searched for, constantly. Was that still within us, even now? That weird hyperactivity, the hunt for the high, a hatred of slowing up? A desire to escape the mundane, to be busy and crazed with endorphins. Even now?

In the 90s, drugs were involved in this, of course, and I thought about the people I know who have continued their hedonism into their forties. There were others who waited until middle age to start what used to be called dabbling. Others had given up everything – no booze, no drugs – but seemed driven to find other highs, through exercise: running, cycling, triathlons. Or they turned their drug obsessiveness into a new delight in food. Tracking down the most exclusive, carefully sourced ingredients from an expert, then taking such trouble over the preparation and timing that the moment of ingestion dominated their whole week … I noticed that all the new gadgets had names like ecstasy tablets. The Spiralizer. The Thermomix. The Mirage. The Nutribullet, made by a company called the Magic Bullet.

If you were young in the 90s, how does that affect your middle age?

I tried to think about this as I got up in the mornings, laid the table, helped small limbs in and out of uniforms, checked homework. S was away a lot, at this time, and I was alone with the kids. That was okay. Once you’ve had a child, and that child goes to nursery, or school, or a child-minder, you become plugged into a system. I had numbers to call, in case my arrangements fell through. And F was still little. Until she started crawling, I took her to meetings, showed her off like a new handbag. She was a good distractor.

My thoughts came and went. They mostly turned into questions.

Music was one, of course. I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t believe in music, in what it can do. I’m of a generation that knows that music can save your life, give your life meaning, express the inexpressible, alter your course. People came into nightclubs while on a train track to normality and left believing they could be anything they liked. Their minds were opened up to a different way of living, a new way to work. They rejected the norm, the factory job, the lawyer training. Freelance creativity was their way out.

But what does music mean when you’re older? How does freelance feel when you’ve reached your forties, when you’re in a position where other people – your children – are relying on your work being stable, on the regular pay cheque that comes in every month? The internet had changed most of the creative jobs: journalism, media, photography, books, film-making, acting, fashion, comedy, music. There were fewer jobs and they paid less. All the work that seemed like an escape when we were young wasn’t proving to be so now.

Music, creativity, community, getting out of it. These were more than the habits of a generation: they were – they are – our touchstones. They had been how we got through life, what we had used to help us negotiate its pitfalls and terrors. It could be that part of my midlife angst was concerned with whether the old ways – our old beliefs – were effective any more. And what I could do if they weren’t having the same effect. If they don’t work, if they make it worse, then what?

In Bristol I gave a talk at a Festival of Ideas. I wasn’t sure I had any ideas worth festivalizing, but as what I’d been thinking about was midlife, I talked about that. I brought up death maths, and expensive bikes, drinking too much, and mourning the rush, and middle-aged sex lives. I made jokes about spiralizers.

Afterwards, there were questions from the audience. One man in his early 40s put his hand up and said, ‘I still feel 22.’ (‘Feelings aren’t facts!’ I didn’t say.) He had recently bought a skateboard. He didn’t know whether to learn skateboarding or hammer the skateboard to the wall, as a decoration.

How can we make our minds, which insist that we’re still 22, match up with our bodies, which are twice that age? How do we get rid of the sense of having missed out? How can we stop worrying about looking silly, because of our age? What should we do with our old MA1 jackets, or 12-inch remixes, or twisted Levi’s jeans? Does it matter if we don’t like new pop music? Is it okay to go to all-nighters if we go with our kids? What if we haven’t had kids?

I did my best with the questions. But I hadn’t studied mindfulness or sociology. I’m not a self-help guru. I can never tell if a new moisturizer makes any difference at all to my wrinkles. I was uncertain about many things, including time and consciousness and whether my mood (which was upbeat) was due to the warmth of the hall or the peri-menopause.

I wondered, what is an adult? We stretch our youth so far, so tight. We pull it up over our ageing bodies, like a pair of Lycra tights. We all do it to a certain extent, and yet we’re cruel to those who seem to hold on too hard for too long. We laugh about MAMILS (middle-aged men in Lycra) and cougars (middle-aged women sleeping with younger men). We mock women who have Botox and surgery, even as we urge them to stay as young-looking as they can. We giggle at dad-dancing, post up patronizing ‘Go on, my son!’ clips of grey-haired ravers on Facebook.

But it’s double standards. Because didn’t we, in our hearts, believe that youth is better than middle age? I think we did. I think we do. And our youthful ideals were clashing with our ideas of adulthood. There was a fight going on, inside and out. We take our children to festivals and get more trashed than they do.

‘What do you do in nightclubs?’ asked P. ‘I know you dance, but how long for? Can you choose the music? Why does everyone drink alcohol if it makes them ill?’

P once had a severe dancing-and-sugar comedown after a wedding. He danced for hours, fuelled on Coca-Cola and sweets. In the morning, he woke, white as a sheet, was sick, and had to go back to bed. He actually said, ‘I’m never doing that again, Mum. Never.’ His hangover was textbook, even though he didn’t drink.

I was great in nightclubs, but what did that qualify me for now? Could I continue with what I did – writing about popular culture, especially music – now that I was twice the age of those I talk to? A music writer. A critic. These jobs are as old-fashioned as being a miner, and as destined for redundancy. That’s a proper hangover.

Anyway, weren’t clubs partly about fancying people? I seemed to have a shifting sense of who I am. If you’re settled in a relationship, what does that mean? How does middle age affect your idea of love, of sex, of faithfulness? What about money? Not only did I know many people who earned a lot more than me, money, in general, seemed to have changed its meaning.

And what of the shallower stuff? How I looked. What my body could do, how it worked. My blood still pumped, I still bled. Did my body bleed as it used to?

Gradually, gradually, in between the bubbling, same-old rigmarole of everyday life, I came up with a plan. I would look back for a short time. (What’s the phrase? ‘Looking back is fine but it’s rude to stare.’) I would look back quickly, just long enough to investigate my prejudices and assumptions about adulthood. I would recall my twenties, check in on my thirties. There would be no beating myself up about wrong decisions, I would merely tell the tale. And then, I would arrive at my forties and I would look at that. At this middle decade, between the old age of youth and the youth of old age.

I would think about what I looked like. What my body can do. What marriage means, what happens when it changes over time. Work, and how our 90s’ assumptions might affect how we work now. Money. Money, which leads to jealousy. Anger, and patience, how they grow or die.

How children impact on your life in the everyday. Not the love – the love is assumed, we know the love – but what having children means for those who care for them, the routine of them, the stability. Parents. Family.

And death, I suppose. Time. The time left.

If I couldn’t tie these subjects down, catch them, skewer them with a ready pin for labelling and exhibition, then at least I could watch them fly. I could marvel at their existence. I might even see them settle (from the corner of my eye), and then I might glimpse their colours.

2. Adult-ish (#ulink_4fdff923-e131-5d04-969f-2a71d81cdfca)

January is always a bastard. Not only because it’s January, but because it’s my birthday, on the 7th. Exactly one week after New Year’s Eve, two weeks after Christmas Eve, when nobody wants to go out, or drink alcohol, or spend money, or see anyone they know well ever again, other than to tell them precisely what they think of them and their crappy idea of a gift or a joke or a long-term partner. S has used up all his present ideas for me over Christmas. And even if I do celebrate my birthday, the next day when I wake up, guess what? It’s still January.

But, you know, the kids love a birthday. They love giggling outside our bedroom door and then sneaking up to the bed with all the noiseless subtlety of piglets in mining boots. They love nudging each other – ‘You go, go on, one, two, three’ – before shouting, ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM,’ and singing the birthday song and its coda: ‘How old are you now? How old are you now? How old are you NO-OW? How old are you now?’ They know the answer. Those birthday bumps would break your back.

Downstairs, on the kitchen table, my array of presents is minimalist. A card from my mum. A printout of a photo of the four of us from S, with a promise to ‘buy you something later’. Two packets of Haribo Tangfastics, my favourite sweets, from P, wrapped wonkily in Christmas paper. Not exactly bumper. But you know what? It’s fine.

I take the kids to school and F tells everyone it’s my birthday, and my age. This is also fine. I’m not going to start lying about it. How old am I no-ow? I am 44. I am 45. Or 46, 47, 48. Not much has changed in the past few years. I am an adult. Whatever that is.

I watch P as we walk to school. Though I often forget how old I am, and when I remember it pulls me up short, he is of an age when every birthday is vital, when how many years (months, days) you’ve lived add up to power. When two years’ age difference is a chasm, an insurmountable status gap. Another small boy, a head taller than my son, just another kid to me, is as thrillingly attractive and powerful to P as a pop star. He keeps trying to play football with the older boys. He trots faster to catch up with them. I can see them tolerating his breathless jokes, bearing his presence, but only just.

P’s birthday parties involve football, usually; sometimes the cinema or Laser Quest. What did I do when I was his age? How about older? 15? I can remember my 17th birthday (in a Scout hall) and my 21st party (above a pub) and my 30th, and my 40th, just a few years ago. My 40th birthday party was very like my 30th. The main difference was that when a stranger offered me ecstasy, I didn’t take it.

I don’t want a party like that now. I’m not sure why. Some time over the past few years I lost the desire to be the centre of attention and the stamina required for all the organizational palaver. I wouldn’t mind a party in the summer, maybe, with champagne cocktails and up-and-at-’em music, around a heated open-air swimming pool. A barbecue. Nicely dressed young people topping up drinks. In Los Angeles.

But in January, in London, in an expensive, cramped, roped-off area of a pub that you have to vacate at 11 p.m. or share with whichever punters decide to wander in? No, thanks. Maybe I’ll think differently when I’m 49 and a half.

Our idea of adulthood is formed by our youth. Adults were a puzzle to me when I was young. I looked at them and thought: How did they ever get married? Who could love these enormous, slow-moving creatures, with their pitted skin and springy hair? Their trousers hung loose over their flattened behinds. Their chipped, crumby teeth were like the last biscuits in the tin. When they were close, unpleasant smells leaked from hidden places. They talked a lot, in booming voices, about nothing important. They sat down. Then they stayed sitting down.

(‘Come on, Mum!’ says F, in frustration. ‘Stop talking! Let’s PLAY!’)

Not all adults were the same. I settled on my dad’s lap and put my hands on the outside of his hands. I tried to force them together, to make him clap. He’d resist, hold steady, until suddenly, he relaxed, and let my pushing win. Blapp! His big hands, cupped, made the most impressive noise I’d ever heard. A gunshot, a crack that split the air, indoors or out. I used to try to copy him. But the Dad Power Clap cannot be made by the young. Only dads, with their dad hands, can create such thunder.

I liked my dad’s smell. He smelt of nothing much, Swarfega sometimes, toast sometimes, talc. He didn’t wear aftershave. My mum didn’t wear perfume. She had a bottle of Chanel No 5, which I played with, but the liquid was orange, the scent was off. Sometimes, she smoked in the car on the way from work and her clothes smelt, not like fire, but chemical, metallic. She hid her cigarettes from us in her handbag. ‘Death sticks’, some people called them. I took them one by one, from the golden box, examined them, slit them open to scrutinize the curling tobacco slivers. Death looked a lot like wood shavings.

She stood in front of me and my brother and said, ‘Look, my thighs join all the way up, too.’ This was to my brother. He was weird about his legs, because mine were a different shape, and he was younger and wanted to be like me. I knew it didn’t matter – who cared what your legs looked like? It was whether you could run fast that was important – but it was another reason to lord over him. I liked to emphasize our differences, though we were very similar. Our bodies were small and strong. We hung them upside-down from anything.

My mum wore no make-up. Her cosmetics bag contained one brown mascara, old and dried up, one lipstick and some shiny blue eye shadow. She rarely used any of them. Not when she went to work, as a secondary-school teacher, not when she saw friends. Only on special birthdays, when we went out to a restaurant to sit quietly and worry over cutlery selection. She wore trousers, no heels. In heels, she towered over my dad.

Neither of my parents put much effort into their appearance – odd, when we lived in a suburb that judged you by what you wore when you put out the bins – but, still, I thought they looked good. Handsome, rather than cute. Slightly 1960s, even in the 70s and 80s. My mum changed her hairstyle a lot: in the space of five years, she had a long orangey bob; a cap of sleek, dark curls; a blonde Purdey-style crop. She wore blouses that looked like shirts, nothing girly, no florals.

And, even when my dad got burnt in the sun, when his stomach reddened in stripes where the skin had folded as he’d sat reading, I thought he was fantastic. (His feet burnt too, so after one day of holiday he wore socks and sandals, like the university lecturer he was.) He was great at sport: football, cricket, throwing and catching, crazy golf, anything to do with a ball. Also, card games, building dens, drawing. He worked out the Rubik’s Cube in a matter of minutes. He could skim a stone so it bounced seven times. He had a side parting and his hair flopped over his right eye.

When I was P’s age, my mum was 37, my dad 40. When I think of my parents, I think of them then, and a little older, as I grew into my teens. I see them in their middle age. Was that their prime? It seemed so, to me.

Now, their elderliness comes as a surprise. How careful they are as they get out of the car, the time it takes, the probing for the pavement with extended foot, how they grip the door frame to pull themselves up and out. Every time they come to stay, and I notice their slowed movements, I have to readjust my image of them, overlay it with the reality. They have changed shape. My dad, once slim as a reed, is rounder. My mum has grown thinner. Their hair, their teeth, all different. They have the accessories of the senior citizen. Age-related discount cards. Spectacles: off-the-shelf, from Boots. Mouth plates, with odd teeth on them, like sparse standing stones. Hearing aids. Sudoku.

Despite all this, they are not as old to me as they once were. When I was a child, when my parents were younger than I am now, they were ancient. But now the gulf is not as wide.

I knew that my parents – my adults – were not like other grown-ups. They were special because they were mine. They loved me, as I loved them. Though I couldn’t truly fathom how they could love each other – not as a separate unit, not without us children to mediate, to inspire passion. I loved my parents in a devoted but patronizing way, convinced that nobody else could want such battered specimens. They were like old teddies. The only people who valued them were those who’d cared for them for a long time.

Other children’s adults were bewildering. Their nostrils were enormous – you could see the hairs in there, sometimes the bogeys. They breathed at you and asked you questions to which there were no proper answers, such as: Haven’t you grown? How’s school? (I do this now.)

They told you off for different faults from the ones your parents chose. Leave your shoes out the back! Don’t blow bubbles in your drink! Use a teaspoon for the sugar! The women wore make-up that made their faces all slidy, the men dressed exclusively in shades of mud-brown, from shoes to spectacle frames. Those slurpy noises they made when they drank their tea, the ‘oof’ when they sat down, said in a comedy voice, to get a giggle. How old were they? Who knew? 25? 42? 117?

At junior school, I loved a few teachers. Mr Buckley, who had a beard and liked a laugh. Miss Braben, who taught us stories. Matronly, shaped like a peg doll, with a shelf bosom and padded hips. Once, she stopped the class to tell us all to look through the window. There was a horse, somehow free to roam south Manchester, galloping past the school, sweaty and wild-eyed. Its enormous head flicked and twisted through the air, its legs glistened; an astonishing sight. We stared. Then we went back to I Am David.

But most teachers – most adults – were scary. Horror-story characters. The headmaster resembled a giant winged insect, striding around in his billowing black gown, leading us in succinct, reasonable prayer at assembly: ‘Dear Lord, we ask you to grant us … a GOOD day … Amen.’ When I went to senior school, there were science teachers with stains on their shirts; a maths teacher who smelt so rank that, when you asked a question, you held your breath as he talked you through what you should be doing. He crouched down to check we understood, kind, careful man that he was; we let out our breath dramatically when he moved on.

One teacher had an enormous pus-filled spot that moved daily from the side of his nose to the space between his eyebrows. One, who taught sports, a woman, made sexy jokes that we didn’t quite understand. One, a Latin teacher, eccentric and funny, was so well-known as a pervert that whenever he told me, or any of my gang of five girlfriends, to stay behind for being naughty, another of us remained too. We didn’t even talk about it, just made sure there were two of us. We backed around the desks as he advanced.