Low life
Birthday blues
Jeffrey Bernard
On Tuesday 27 May I shall be 65, and the only compensation about that mile- stone is the fact that this morning the DSS has sent me forms to fill in so that I can get my retirement pension. As far as I'm con- cerned there is something faintly ridiculous about the use of the word retirement in any connection at all with me. While it is true that I have had my fair share of really nasty and hard jobs — navvying before the days of pre-mixed concrete, dishwashing, coal mining, the Forestry Commission and a boxing booth — I remember much more clearly the moments of idleness, loafing and tomfoolery in the past than getting blisters on my palms or pulled muscles humping 16-stone sacks of grain when I once worked on a farm and weighed about 9 stone. Whatever it is I am going to get, and it should just be about enough to pay for Marks and Spencer, the corner shop and the newsagent, I have a nasty forebod- ing that what I am due might be reduced by the fact that I already get something for having donated a leg to the Middlesex hos- pital just over three years ago. Anyway, all of this stuff about pensions and money is completely unimportant when put next to the business of simply becoming 65 years old.
In many ways I find it humiliating since for most of the time I feel about 30, and it is also a nasty punch below the belt as far as vanity goes, particularly sexual vanity and all the things that happen to a face when it collapses. I can now sit in a place like the Groucho Club and get glanced at by women in the most depressingly disin- terested way in which they are thinking, `Who's that old twit?' assuming that they have actually bothered to notice one in the first place. And another complaint I have is that nature doesn't compensate one for getting older as it should by making the 50- and 60-year-olds fancy each other as much as the 20- and 30-year-olds.
It is also disconcerting to be called old by younger people: 65 isn't exactly old and I should think that being old starts at being 75. But I suppose it works both ways and I am very nearly convinced that everybody under the age of 30 is a half-wit. I can remember that, when I was 19, I was abso- lutely sure that I knew as much as Newton and Einstein put together but no one would listen to me. At least I can borrow most people's ears to spout drivel into.
Another aspect of being 65 that I don't much care for is that, to my surprise, I don't enjoy watching sport as much as I used to. I don't want to go to a cricket match all that much to see someone hit a century. I want to go to a cricket match and hit the bloody century myself. I suppose that at 65 and with only one leg I could take up bridge and however boring that has always appeared to me from a distance the players have anyway — no game in the world is boring if you are playing for much higher stakes than you can possibly afford. I have always fancied the idea of playing a game of Monopoly with real money and, my God, doesn't the weight of money, never .mind the weight of the jockey, alter the speed of a horse.
Which reminds me, this afternoon I am supposed to be writing a feature for a newspaper on, of all subjects, unrequited love. Apart from the fact that I feel slightly insulted to be asked to attempt that sub- ject, how can I possibly write a feature when the racing from York today, about the best racetrack in England, is on televi- sion? The trouble is, hacks, especially free- lance ones, can't retire at 65. They simply have to go on until they drop dead and, knowing how reluctant governments are to shell out money, the dropping dead aspect must be just around the corner. So please try to wish me a happy birthday on the 27th. This one is almost a matter of life and death.
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