How to Age Disgracefully

Art goes home and climbs into bed. William leaves him a casserole, but Art doesn’t emerge. He feels all his problems “were exposed to the air again: his lack of money, the end of a career that had never even begun, his addiction to stealing, and […] his overwhelming shame at what he’d done to his family so many years ago” (167). He doesn’t know how to deal with any of it.

Lydia, hiding in her bedroom, grapples with her identity. If she is no longer responsible for childcare, since her children are gown, and she is no longer a wife, “then what on earth was she? What was the point of her?” (168). She turns to a self-help book but feels her anger at Jeremy mixing with guilt and shame that she is responsible for his not loving her. Jeremy shouts that Lydia needs to get rid of Maggie before he leaves to meet his friends for a drink.

Lydia takes Maggie to Daphne’s and is awed by the impressive building. When Maggie darts away into Daphne’s apartment, Lydia, feeling as if everyone has abandoned her, starts to cry. Daphne invites her in.

Daphne feels she is breaking a personal rule to let someone who is not a workman into her apartment, but she likes Lydia, though she considers her a wimp. Lydia is impressed by the elegance and luxury of Daphne’s apartment. Daphne feels that, “if she was going to spend her life under what felt much like voluntary house arrest, she might as well ensure that that house was spectacular. And if her future looked entirely bleak, she could at least immerse herself in a past which had been so extraordinarily colorful” (176).

As Lydia looks at her personal pictures, Daphne reveals that she was the illegitimate child of a housekeeper for a wealthy family, and they fostered her after her mother died. Lydia shares her own conventional, middle-class upbringing. Daphne admits she’d always wanted luxury, but wonders, “Would she have been happier with a life like Lydia’s? An ordinary life” (177).

Daphne asks Lydia what she wants and admits she doesn’t think Lydia actually likes herself. She guesses that Lydia has lost sight of who she is, and Lydia admits it. Daphne suggests a makeover so Lydia can love herself again, and who cares what Jeremy thinks.

Ziggy is tense all through Christmas, including Jenna’s brief visit with their daughter. He takes Kylie out shopping and runs into Floyd. Ziggy tells Floyd he doesn’t want to work for him anymore, and Floyd says he’ll let him go after one last delivery.

Ziggy makes the delivery, but as he leaves, he is attacked by a man on a moped. The man hits Ziggy on the head with a baseball bat and steals the backpack Ziggy was supposed to deliver to Floyd. Ziggy is sure that Floyd is going to beat him up, too.

Daphne introduces Maggie to her date, Sidney. When Sidney kisses her, Daphne reflects on how she met her husband, Jack, and the strong physical desire she felt for him. Jack gave Daphne what she wanted—clothes, jewelry, respect, admiration—but it came at a price.

Sidney seems safe and dependable. He shows her pictures of his son, Sonny, an aid worker. When Sidney tries to touch her hair, Daphne responds by burning him with her cigarette. She reflects that she will have to get used to being intimate with another person again.

It’s a new year, but Art feels he is “the same old Art, with the same old problems” (193). William gives him two more days to sulk, and Art knows he has to emerge sometime. He walks past the community center without going in and enters the supermarket. He fills his pockets with stolen items, feeling, “He wanted it to happen. He’d pressed the big red self-destruct button, and it felt wonderful” (195). Two security guards take him aside for questioning. Art pretends to be confused. Then his phone rings.

Lydia walks to the community center wearing a vintage Christian Dior jacket and an enormous double strand of pearls. Jeremy noticed and complimented her, but Lydia realizes she no longer wishes to please him.

A crowd outside the community center is admiring a pair of knitted breasts that have been draped around the statue outside. A placard pleads for the reader to save the community center. A man comes forward with scissors, intending to cut away the yarn, and Daphne shouts at him to stop, calling him “Edward Scissorhands” (199). While bystanders film the incident, she tells the man he can’t destroy public art by their very own Hammersmith Banksy, or Yarnsy.

The social club gathers, with Ruby knitting something in pink yarn, the same shade as the breasts outside. William’s daughter-in-law, Amy, comes to style their hair. They give Lydia an attractive makeover while Anna describes how her five husbands died or went missing.

When a man comes in asking if Lydia is the architect he’s supposed to meet, Lydia says the architect had to cancel. Daphne calls Art, who is supposed to take Maggie that day, and announces she is leaving for the supermarket to get him out of trouble.

Daphne pretends to be Art’s wife, playing along that he is confused. The security guards let him go. Art thinks Daphne must despise him, but she says she likes him better for having a “fatal flaw” (206).

She goes to Art’s apartment, which is grubby and shabby. He confesses to his stealing habit and says that he wanted Maggie in order to enter a TV show competition. He reveals that his wife and daughter, Kerry, left him in 1987, and his wife, Jill, died of cancer 10 years previously. Daphne notices there is a second bed in the room but asks to see inside the wardrobe. She asks Art for a spare set of keys, then gets a call from Janine, who reports that she can’t get in touch with Ziggy.

Ziggy’s mother offers to take Kylie to the nursery and tells him to go to school. Ziggy has skipped school since he was severely beaten by Floyd for getting mugged for the backpack. Floyd claims that Ziggy owes him 10,000 pounds sterling and must continue making deliveries.

Ziggy goes to the pub and gets drunk with some old friends from school, forgetting to pick up Kylie. When Daphne enters with Kylie, she shouts at Ziggy to pull himself together, dunking his head in a washbasin in the restroom. As Daphne emerges, the barman tells her she’s a meme on TikTok.

Lydia participates in Daphne’s plan to help Art and empty his wardrobe, bringing all his stolen items to the community center. Members from the antenatal class and the Alcoholics Anonymous group gather to help sort items and clean Art’s house. Lydia feels a sense of satisfaction at tidying up, getting rid of dead weight, and thinks of Jeremy.

Daphne realizes her image is all over TikTok and there are discussions about her on OurNeighbours.com as well. She imagines that time is running out as she makes a list of things to do on her whiteboard. She thinks, “Having spent the last few months experiencing the thrill of having friends, and a life outside her apartment, the thought of leaving it all behind made her unbearably sad” (222).

She goes with Art for auditions for the dog talent show and jumps the queue by claiming Art has incontinence issues due to his prostate. The audition is not impressive, but Daphne suggests the judges should have “some fairly useless competitors for the audience to feel sorry for” (227). One of the judges asks if Art has an emotional backstory, and Daphne says he lost touch with his only child.

Art is angry that Daphne took something he told her in confidence and used it for extortion. Daphne argues, “if they’re going to stereotype us, we might as well use their lazy preconceptions to our advantage” (230). She admits she is not a nice person and speculates on how to get revenge on Jeremy.

A rider on the tube recognizes Daphne, though Art thinks they are admiring him. Back at his house, Art is overwhelmed to find it clean and tidy. He feels “a huge weight he’d been carrying for so long had been removed from his shoulders” (233). William asks if he can help Art find Kerry, and Art guesses that the TV producers will probably find her for him.

Daphne struggles to write an apology to Art, realizing that she cares what he thinks of her.