Getting older wasn’t too bad. The baldness suited Martin. Everyone said it. He’d had to change his trouser size from 34 to 36. It had been a bit of a shock, but it was kind of nice wearing loose trousers again, hitching them up when he stood up to go to the jacks, or whatever. He was fooling himself; he knew that. But that was the point—he was fooling himself. He’d put on weight but he felt a bit thinner.
There were other things, too, that had nothing to do with his body and aging. The kids getting older was one, and the freedom he’d kind of forgotten about. For years, if he stayed in bed in the morning, if he wanted to, it had to be carefully planned. Lizzie, his wife, had to be told. The kids had to be told, and nearly asked. It hadn’t been worth it, the fuckin’ palaver he’d had to go through. For years, all those years the kids were growing up, he’d been on call. A pal of his had used the phrase, on call. He’d been talking about his own life, but—there were four of them there that night in the local, sitting around one of the high tables—he’d been describing all their lives.
—I’m like a doctor without the fuckin’ money, Noel had said.
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