The Last Taboo

I was pretty cool, calm and collected about turning fifty. Apart from a few occasions when I became morose after a glass or two of rosé, and remembered all my unachieved ambitions and shattered dreams.

“Oh my God, can you believe I’m FIFTY and I’m still not a millionaire, and I’ve never even seen the water go down the plughole the wrong way?” I ask anyone willing to listen.

The dog slinks away quickly, recognising this as a queue for me to turn on her screaming, “Its all right for you, you’re still young, you’ve got your whole life in front of you.…..”

Alice decides on direct action - she gets a wooden spoon and goes over to the sink.

“Hang on, I’m sure I can do that for you.” She says, splashing dishwater around the kitchen while she tries to defy the laws of nature.

I laugh. “That’s not the point, honey. What I’m saying is that is that I’ve never crossed the equator… I’ve never been to the southern hemisphere. I’ve never seen Australia, Tierra del Fuego, Pitcairn Island or the South Pole.”

“Oh God, stop whining. You’ve been to the Northernmost town in the world and Iceland, and you used to live in Mexico. We’re the ones who should be whining - when did you last take us on holiday?” Nat joins in.

I’m not in a sympathetic mood. “You live in a goddamn holiday resort, you spoilt brats.”

“So do you.” 

Oh yes. That shuts me up. I stop worrying about the plughole thing and the lack of noughts on my bank account - or the lack of numbers in front of the noughts- and start stressing about the party instead. 

Guethary or London is my main dilemna.…. bringing on the usual split personality issues -surf chick or art star?

“Are you sure you want to make a big fuss about it anyway?” A male friend asks me when he gets caught in the psychologists chair. “Are you sure it’s not one you’d rather.... forget?”

What does he mean? I’m quite ready to accept my new maturity....and he must be mad if he thinks I’m missing out on cake, sweets, fizz and PRESENTS!

“Hang on, you celebrated your fiftieth last year didn’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s different.… you’re a woman.”

Of course, I’d forgotten the difference between Older Men and Older Women. Older men are suave and sophisticated. They have a lot to offer a younger partner - life experience, financial security, Galerie Lafayette storecards, and cars with underseat bum-heaters. An older woman, on the other hand, is probably too busy making jam to bother about sex. Unless she’s a deranged sexual predator, a slave to her unbalanced hormones.……

I see where he’s coming from. What we’re talking about- or not talking about is The Last Taboo. There’s an unspoken question hanging in the air.

“Had any hot flushes yet?”

There are some words you just don’t say. You don’t say ‘Macbeth’ in theatrical circles, you never call Lord Voldemort by name at Hogwarts, and in the rest of the world you don’t mention the menopause.

Or The Change as it’s ominously nicknamed. Sometime during the next ten years I’ll wake up one morning ‘changed’. I’ll look in the mirror and wonder who that old crone staring back at me is. I’ll start drinking sherry, knitting cardigans for my cats and picking up teenage boys at the Unicorn disco in Bidart. 

The difference between me and this man turning fifty is that he could still have a whole new family if he wanted, but I couldn’t. On the other hand, I have three children already. And as anyone who was in the Sol y Sombra tapas bar in Fuenterabbia last Sunday will confirm, that’s already more than I can handle sometimes.

(Sorry darlings, I didn’t mean it. Je ne regrette rien. And you were right, it was a dodgy looking flight-snack of a tapas - but you didn’t have to shout at me, I didn’t invent Russian salad.)

I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but isn’t there a bit of a ‘women know your place’ agenda here? I have an image from a nature documentary I watched years ago stuck in my head. There’s an old female chimp sitting in the long grass alone. David Attenborough’s post-menopausal yet still seductive voice tells us, “ The dominant male silverback has moved on to new, younger mates. But this rather mangy unattractive creature has been confined to the margins of chimpanzee society now she is past breeding age. She tries to make herself useful by grooming other female’s offspring.” She picks a flea off a baby chimp and eats it. Is there a subliminal message going out to the masses?

Off course we don’t fall for this any more.... especially not with all those fabulous at fifty role models. We say, “I wouldn’t mind looking like Jerry Hall when I’m fifty three,” conveniently forgetting the fact that we didn’t look like her in the first place.

“None of us are getting any younger.” My friend hasn’t finished yet. “My doctor told me the other day that until your fifty, you’re young. Then suddenly, you’re old.”

Oh god, maybe he’s right. I ring my mother to check at exactly what time on thursday 4th March I can expect the transformation. Then I check my list of Things To Do when I’m Fifty, to see if I’m being reasonable. Hang Ten. That’s surfing with all ten toes over the front of your board. Hmm maybe that is a tiny bit ambitious. I change it to Hang Five. But later in the day I add Surf in Iceland, to balance it up a bit. Reasonable was never one of my strong points.

And what about the party? Should I invite my friends from London over here and try to teach them to surf, eat foie gras and take rosé seriously in one weekend?

I ask Daisy Tea for her opinion.

“Are you ready for the collision of your two universes?” 

Put like that, maybe not.

I decide on two parties, to be on the safe side. The first in Guethary on my real birthday, and an ‘official birthday’ party in June. The theme is ‘Mutton Dressed as Lamb’. Get out your belly tops girls, it’s time to overthrow the system.