Senectus

Viv couldn’t help smiling as she began Emma Donoghue’s book ‘Akin’.

An old man packing his bags.

Hard not to read the situation metaphorically, Joan commented in his head.

Noah corrected her: not old. He was only seventy-nine, till next Monday. When he’d been young, your seventies had counted as old, but not these days. Say, youngish up to sixty: then middle-aged, or young old, through the sixties and seventies. Ancient Romans used to distinguish between senectus (still lively) and decrepitus (done for). Sharp as ever, hale, hearty - surely Noah could still count himself in the senectus camp?

Perhaps the eighties will become our adolescent old?