Lust for life never dies, it just gets chipped away by our failing bodies

OF course I noticed him as we pushed our trolleys around the supermarket. I may be past it, but the memories linger on. For a start he was taller than the men in this area who tend to match me for size. And infinitely better dressed – no camos, no boiler suit.

A cashmere sweater was hooked around his shoulders, a lightweight summer scarf was wrapped Parisian style around his neck, leather loafers on naked feet, chinos neat but definitely not pressed.

I am a trained observer, don’t ya know? But oh my, the face. It was the face of the Frenchman of all our dreams – lean, high cheekboned, slightly stubbled, deep brown intelligent eyes, and hair almost jet-black.

Saturnine, he’d be described in a Jilly Cooper novel. He was a Jilly Cooper novel on legs. He’d be, I surmised, around 33, possibly a bit older. Our eyes met and I consciously straightened up, no longer slumped on the trolley handles, scootering my way around the aisles.

Self-consciously I pulled my own scarf further up the Margaret Rutherford steroid-induced jowls and sucked in my cheeks as far as possible without looking dim-witted.

He was there in the next aisle and this time he gave me the sweetest smile. By the next he inclined his head as well.

Jeez, by the third aisle a Del-Boy refrain was going round my mind: “Still got it girl. Still got it.”

Criss-crossing on the fourth aisle, he paused, placed a hand on my trolley, bent towards me and said: “Forgive me asking this …”

Well, by now my heart was doing an Irish jig but I kept my older woman, alluring, sophisticated look as I gave him a quizzical smile and nodded permission to continue.

“May I help you with your shopping? You seem a little …” He paused. “… Fragile.”

Fragile? I could have walloped his handsome chops with my baguette.

“That’s very kind of you,” I replied, mustering the dignity I no longer possessed. “I have a lung problem but I’m fine, thank you. Just a bit breathless.”

(Why, why did I tell him I had a bloody lung problem? I’ve become that old woman who tells the dogs in the street her ailments if they stop for a pat.)

I just wanted to gallop (ha ha) away as he continued asking if I were sure, with a smile reserved for grannies everywhere.

“Perfectly, but thank you,” I said rather haughtily, almost wrenching the trolley from his kind hand.

In truth, strictly between you and me, I could have cried. His kindness somehow set the seal on that crossover point between youth and vibrancy, ageing and decaying.

Plus I was mortified that I had even for a second considered his interest might be more than concern. In fact I’m sure my face flamed. In hindsight he probably saw that and thought I was now having a heart attack.

I made sure he was nowhere in sight in the car park as I drew deeply on my rescue inhaler before struggling the bags into the boot.

It is just as well I think that I’m tucked away in rural France where ageing is as natural and inevitable as the seasons. Were I in the city, I would still be watching my weight, updating my wardrobe, fighting gravity all the way.

Would I be happier doing that? God yes, on one shamefully shallow level. But without doubt it would be tougher coping with COPD in a more frenetic life filled with expectations and reminders of who/what one was.

Accepting limitations and working within them is what my life is all about these days. I understand that but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

After last week’s column someone emailed to say they were happy I now seemed contented. Inwardly I bristled. Contented is a pair of old socks, a pair of slippers, a waving farewell to hopes and dreams and, yes, fantasies. I want never to be contented. I want to dance in the rain and howl at the moon; walk barefoot on beaches, run in the surf, skip on city cobbles, drive recklessly for miles with no end in view.

All these things I have done, so why do I still yearn for them? Because the lust for life never dies, it is just chipped away bit by bit by our failing bodies.

No, time can’t be held back; surgery only wipes away the wrinkles and God knows most of us will have enough of that for serious reasons before we’re through. But we need challenges; need to be challenged constantly to get us through this with some semblance of that ingenue who still lives within us.

I tried to discuss all this with Miriam. She always listens and smiles away, but this time I pin her down with all I’ve just been saying.

She looks at me, thinks, shrugs and says: “You’re born, you live for a while and then you die.” That’s it, says her shrug.

So, I persist, “You’re contented?”

This time her answer is even shorter. “Non.”

The difference is she seeks it.

Ah, if that man in the supermarket only knew what he’d unleashed.