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179 pages

English

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People in their forties and fifties sometimes wonder what sex will be like after 60.People between the ages of twenty-five and forty wonder if sex is possible after 60.People under twenty-five think that sex is against the law after 60.All are agreed that old age does not come alone. It brings with it aches, pains and illnesses - which are either peculiar to old age or more deadly, even fatal, than at other times of life.But libido remains. It never goes away. Can I still? Should we really? Might she, perhaps?The answers to these questions make for a symphony of differing moods, tempos and movements. Bawdy, Pathetique, Mock Heroic, Tristesse, Farce. These are the movements of The Old Sex Symphony.The auditorium is hushed. The conductor raises his baton...

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Romance

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	28 mars 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781999933111
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Published by Tsada Publishing

Copyright © 2018 Vincent Kane

Vincent Kane has asserted his right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988 to be identified as the author
of this work

ISBN 978-1-9999331-1-1

Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-99993-312-8

This is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, or actual events is purely
coincidental.

No part of this book may be
copied or reproduced in any way or form
without the prior written consent
of the publisher.

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About the author

Vincent Kane worked for almost four decades as a broadcasterin News and Current Affairs on BBC Television and Radio. Hisawards include an O.B.E for services to broadcasting in Walesand a B.A.F.T.A. lifetime achievement award.

He was also the founder and for 25 years the chairman of TheWales Quality Centre, a not-for-profit organization with amission to improve the performance of business and industryin Wales. He is an honorary Fellow of The Chartered Instituteof Quality.

Kane was born and educated in Wales. He served in the WelchRegiment for National Service and was student president atCardiff University where he read English. Now he and his wifeMary are retired and live in Cyprus, where she paints, he writesand they frequently entertain their children and grandchildren.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again, it had a dying fall.
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more,
Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1.
THE
OLD SEX
SYMPHONY

Vincent Kane

TSADA PUBLISHING
Contents

Cover
Copyright Credits
About the author
Epigraph

Title Page

Overture

First Movement
Bawdy: The Soldier

Interval 1

Second Movement
Pathetique: The Friar

Interval 2

Third Movement
Mock Heroic: The Professor

Interval 3

Fourth Movement
Tristesse: The Chairman

Interval 4

Finale
Farce: the Rotter

Curtain Call
Overture

Peter is a psychiatrist, recovering from a nervous breakdown. So acute was the collapse and yet so valuable are his services to the health authority which employs him that they offered him a sabbatical year and they went to some trouble arranging it for him. It was agreed between the health authority and Peter that he needed to get right away from the disturbed environment which had closed in on him; perhaps out of Britain altogether. In the opinion of the consultant physician who examined Peter for the authority he was as much in need of physical recuperation as psychological because his body was worn out by years of overwork, by the strain of the great anxiety which had clouded his mind for 18 months, and by the effects of the cocaine to which he had turned in a desperate attempt to cope.
What he really needs, the physician told the authority s board after presenting his report, is a long holiday. The chairman had no illusions about that; he wasn t prepared to countenance awarding a year s sabbatical to a member of staff who would use it for a long holiday. The outcome, he told his board with a wintry smile, would be that the Audit Commission might well award him, the chairman, a life-long holiday. A compromise was sought, and as is so often the case, was achieved more by accident than design.
Just at that time a Mr. Hadjicostas, consultant geriatric psychiatrist to several general hospitals in Cyprus, was in the U.K. to attend a family wedding but while that was, at least for Mrs. Hadjicostas, the main purpose of the three week trip Mr. Hadjicostas had another agenda. He was, and had been for some years, conducting original research into a particular aspect of his field – geriatric psychiatry - which had been overlooked or underplayed in the learned scholarship to date. He was hoping to produce a paper but he needed most urgently to widen the pool of his research which was much too limited in the narrow confines of Cyprus.
Elsie, the delightful English girl so soon to be welcomed into the bosom of the Hadjicostas family, was a secretary working for the health authority and when on the day of the board meeting the chairman s p.a. was off sick Elsie was called in to take the minutes. So it was all fresh in her mind when that very night she met her father-in-law to be for the first time at a grand family barbecue. Peter, she explained, was a consultant geriatric psychiatrist just like Mr. Hadjicostas and he had been responsible for three busy hospitals. He was a very good psychiatrist, or so she had heard, everybody spoke highly of him but he was overworked and very frustrated because there was so little he could do for many of his patients whose families just wanted to be rid of them, and then something awful happened and he was under a cloud for a long time and finally he just went to pieces and now there was a big question mark over his future. The Board wanted to grant him a sabbatical but it was all up in the air.
Mr. Hadjicostas listened to all this attentively and asked the delightful Elsie, with whom he was much taken, some probing but gentle questions. Next morning he put through a call to the health authority and over the next ten days a series of hastily convened meetings were held culminating in dinner a deux with the chairman and the deal was done. Peter would spend his sabbatical attached to Mr. Hadjicostas or rather his department in Cyprus. He would benefit from the calm warm environment and as he grew stronger he would assist Mr. Hadjicostas in his research project bringing to bear his own experience in the UK and calling in the experiences of other consultant geriatric psychiatrists around Britain with whom he already had connections. The intention was that a paper would be published at the end of the year and the chairman, with the Audit Commission at the back of his mind, secured a commitment that it would be a joint publication; Peter s name would be alongside that of Mr. Hadjicostas.
Two important questions had not been answered until the brandy arrived at the close of the cosy dinner; in truth they hadn t been asked.
What was the particular aspect of geriatric psychiatry which had been overlooked or underplayed and was now to be researched?
What was the awful event which had clouded Peter s mind over 18 months and brought him close to ruin?
The chairman put his question first and Mr. Hadjicostas answered it in one word.
Libido.
Libido? The chairman turned pale. In old people? You re joking!
It never goes away. Mr. Hadjicostas took a pull at his brandy and then he asked his question and this time it was the chairman who replied in one word.
Murder.
Murder? Mr. Hadjicostas spluttered and coughed as the brandy went down the wrong way.
He was the chief suspect in a murder inquiry.

Five weeks later Peter and Mr. Hadjicostas sat in the garden of the Cypriot s villa on the outskirts of Limassol watching the sun sink into the Mediterranean. At least Peter was watching the sunset: Mr. Hadjicostas was watching his guest, appraising him after his first week of total relaxation. He looked tense and withdrawn, perhaps a decade older than his 45 years, hollow cheeked and thin, he needed to flesh out but he had caught the sun so his pallor was gone and the nervous twitching of his eyelids was mostly gone too and that constant tapping at the ground with the front part of his right foot was constant no more, just the occasional spasm.
Feeling any better? Are you getting back to normal?
Normal? What s that? Peter stared at him. Nothing is normal. Twenty years of practicing psychiatry has taught me that in human affairs nothing is ever normal. The abnormal is the norm. If everything were normal it would be a social catastrophe; civilization would implode.
Are you ready to start work on my project….our project, I should say. Mr. Hadjicostas corrected himself, remembering what the chairman had told him about the Audit Commission. Thank heaven they didn t have anything like that in Cyprus, he thought.
Perhaps you might paint the picture for me. I think I have the outline; could you fill in the detail?
Mr. Hadjicostas sank back in his chair joining his hands across the top of his abdomen; a comfortable position because there was an ample amount of abdomen to support them. His face took on a half smile; a dreamy expression, and so when he spoke did his voice. He sounded like an affectionate uncle telling a bedtime story to a group of enthralled nephews and nieces.
People in their forties and fifties sometimes wonder what sex will be like after 60.
From twenty five to forty people wonder whether sex is possible after 60.
Younger than twenty five, people think sex is against the law after 60.
All are agreed that old age doesn t come alone. It brings with it a host of vicissitudes, disease and illnesses which are either peculiar to old age or are more common, more dangerous, or more often fatal in old age than they are at other times of life.
However the sexual dilemma remains. Can we still? Should I? Could I? Might she? The young delude themselves if they think these questions ever go away. The old delude themselves if they think they can ignore them.
He sat forward in his chair; his tone more urgent and direct.
It is the manner in which they confront their libido, despite the aches and pains of old age, with which we are concerned Peter. It gives rise, I had thought until recently, to a saga…but now I don t think it is a saga, it is a symphony of differing moods and tempos. The old sex symphony. Can you help me compose that symphony, Peter? No, no, correction. It is not we who should compose the symphony: the patients must tell their own stories, b