The Last Family in England. Matt Haig

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      horlicks

      Later that evening, Adam had even less to say. While the rest of the Family’s voices competed with the sound of the television downstairs, Adam was nervously interrogating his face in the bathroom mirror. I stared in amazement as he carefully examined each side profile.

      This was very unusual behaviour.

      You see, up until that day Adam had treated his appearance with an almost canine practicality. Unlike his son, who could hold conversations with his reflection for hours at a time, Adam only looked in the mirror as a matter of duty. To shave, to straighten his tie maybe or, if prompted by Kate, to comb his hair. But that was as far as it went.

      Yet here he was, analysing every detail, his mouth dropping in surprise at each new discovery. And there was a lot to discover. The thing which seemed to cause the most immediate distress was his hair, which was beginning to whiten around the temples.

      ‘Oh my God,’ he mumbled. ‘When did that happen?’

      But there was more. Nose hairs, creased forehead, crinkled eyes, blotched cheeks, saggy neck, and other irreparable damage. In desperation, he unbuttoned his shirt.

      ‘Come on,’ he said, as if praying for good news. ‘Come on.’

      When he reached the last button he made a noise, a brief but unmistakable whimper of disappointment.

      His pink, hairless body could hide nothing away. No matter how much he tried to tense his whole upper body, he was confronted with a bitter certainty. He was, officially, past it. Again, I thought about the fundamental sadness of humans. Their inability to understand their own nature, their reluctance to grow old, their concentration on one sense at the expense of all others.

      So concerned was I with Adam’s desperate state of mind that I had failed to notice Charlotte’s footsteps as they made their way upstairs. It wasn’t until she was standing right behind me, in full view of her shirtless, muscle-strained father, that I realised. Faced with this distressing sight her first instinct, as was so often the case, was to call for her mother.

      ‘Mum! . . . Mum! Dad’s being weird in the bathroom.’

      Adam, suddenly aware of his audience, quickly shut the bathroom door. ‘I, um, won’t be a minute, Charlotte.’

      Moments later the toilet flushed and he reappeared wearing an awkward smile and a buttoned-up shirt.

      ‘It’s all yours.’

      Charlotte tutted her response and grimaced as he tried to place a friendly hand on her shoulder. The bathroom door was already closed, with Charlotte behind it, when Kate appeared at the top of the stairs.

      ‘Love, are you . . . OK?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You’ve missed the news.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘I’m making a Horlicks, if you’d like one.’

      ‘No, no. It’s OK. I’m fine.’