Surprise Me(8)

There he is in the mirror. My handsome, youthful husband. But what’s he going to look like in sixty-eight years’ time? I have a sudden, dismaying image of Dan all elderly and wizened, batting at me with a stick and yelling, ‘Humbug, woman, humbug!’

Which is ridiculous. He’ll be old. Not Ebenezer Scrooge.

I shake my head sharply, to dispel the image. God, why did that doctor ever have to mention the future in the first place?

‘I was just thinking …’ I trail off.

‘How many more times we’re going to have sex?’ Dan nods. ‘I already worked it out.’

‘What?’ I swivel to face him. ‘I wasn’t thinking that! I was thinking—’ I stop, intrigued. ‘How many times is it?’

‘Eleven thousand. Give or take.’

‘Eleven thousand?’

I feel my legs sag in shock. How is that even physically possible? I mean, if I thought exfoliation was going to wear out my skin, then surely …

‘I know.’ He takes off his suit trousers and hangs them up. ‘I thought it’d be more.’

‘More?’

How could he think it would be more? Just the thought of it makes me feel a bit dizzy. Eleven thousand more shags, all with Dan. Not that – I mean, obviously I want them to be with Dan, but … eleven thousand times?

How will we even have the time? I mean, we have to eat. We have to hold down jobs. And won’t we get bored? Should I be googling new positions? Should I install a TV on the ceiling?

That figure can’t be right. He must have misplaced a zero.

‘How did you work that out?’ I demand suspiciously, but Dan ignores me. He runs his hands down my back and cups my bottom, his eyes full of that intent, single-purpose look he gets. The thing about Dan is, you can only talk about sex with him for about thirty seconds before he wants to be doing it, not talking about it. In fact, he views talking about sex, generally, as a total waste of time. (I rather love talking about it, but I’ve learned to do that afterwards. I lie in his arms and tell him everything I think about … well, everything, and he says, ‘Mmm, mmm,’ until I realize he’s fallen asleep.)

‘Maybe I’ll put off my run,’ he says, kissing my neck firmly. ‘It is our anniversary …’

And it is. And the sex is great – we’re pretty psychic at that too, by now – and we lie in bed afterwards and say things like ‘That was amazing’, and ‘I love you’, and everything that happy couples say.

And it was amazing.

And I do love him.

But – totally, absolutely honestly – there’s also another tiny voice in my head. Saying: One down. Only another 10,999 times to go.





THREE


I wake up early to find that Dan is ahead of me. He’s already got out of bed and is sitting in the little wicker chair in our bay window, staring morosely out of the window.

‘Morning.’ He turns a smidgen towards me.

‘Morning!’ I sit up, already alert, thoughts buzzing around my head. I reckon I have this whole living-forever thing worked out. I was thinking hard about it while I was drifting off to sleep, and I have the answer!

I’m about to tell it to Dan – but he gets in first.

‘So basically, I need to work till I’m about ninety-five,’ he says in utmost gloom. ‘I’ve been doing sums.’

‘What?’ I say uncomprehendingly.

‘If we’re living forever, that means we’ve got to work forever.’ He gives me a baleful look. ‘To fund our ancient, elderly lifespans. I mean, forget retiring at sixty-five. Forget retiring altogether. Forget taking it easy.’

‘Stop being so miserable!’ I exclaim. ‘It was good news, remember?’

‘Do you want to work till ninety-five?’ he shoots back.

‘Maybe.’ I shrug. ‘I love my job. You love your job.’

Dan scowls. ‘I don’t love it that much. My dad retired at fifty-seven, do you know that?’

His attitude is really starting to piss me off.

‘Stop being negative,’ I instruct him. ‘Think of the opportunities. We have decades and decades in front of us! We can do anything! It’s amazing! We just have to plan.’

‘What do you mean?’ Dan gives me a suspicious look.

‘OK, here are some of my ideas.’ I shuffle forward in the bed and fix my gaze on his, trying to inspire him. ‘We divide our life into decades. Each decade we do something different and cool. We achieve things. We push ourselves. Like maybe for one whole decade, we speak only Italian to each other.’

‘What?’

‘We speak only Italian to each other,’ I repeat, a bit defensively. ‘Why not?’

‘Because we don’t speak Italian,’ says Dan, as though I’m totally nuts.

‘We’d learn! It would be life-enhancing. It’d be …’ I gesture vaguely.

Dan just gives me a look. ‘What are your other ideas?’

‘We try new jobs.’

‘What new jobs?’

‘I don’t know! We find amazing, fulfilling jobs that stretch us. Or we live in different places, maybe. What about one decade in Europe, one decade in South America, one decade in the States …’ I count off on my fingers. ‘We could live everywhere!’