After about five minutes of my stepmother’s company, I’m always in a good mood. It’s not because of our beautiful harmony, though please think that too if it makes me sound good. In her 80s, and feeling the ravages of time ever so slightly, she makes a constant litany of benevolently envious remarks. There’s a lot of general observation about the condition of being me, and how fabulous that must be: “Oh to be 50 again”; “It must be wonderful to have an appetite”; “I wish I could still sleep in”. Ordinarily I don’t give much thought to the singular pleasures of human maintenance activities – eating, sleeping, having a shower – and when you really look at it, it isn’t a bad life, to be 52.
Then she’ll move on to admire my particular skills: “Look at that!”; “What?”; “Look how fast you got out of the car.” It’s a fact, I’m incredibly good at this: I don’t grunt while I’m doing it; it doesn’t take 17 minutes. I’m pretty good at all sitting to standing manoeuvres. “That’s nothing,” I think. “You should see me get out of a squat.”
