No. I'm not about to tell you some fast breaking news from beyond the grave about Noel Coward's literary creation - though the film does have a bearing on this article.
It is, however, this.
There is a picture or two in Grandma Sergei's house that I particularly like. I haven't seen them for a little while, as there is some redecoration going on, but like them I do.
One is of big Sis, at the height of her badminton career, about to serve a shuttlecock. The other is big Bro, in road-racing mode, resplendant in CC Breckland colours.
I often look for these two pictures. They mean rather a lot to me.
Here's why.
I'm a bit younger than my siblings; five and seven years respectively to be precise. This means that - academically - I never got to go to school with them at the same time, in the same schools. They were up and out with their friends long before I could ride a bike. They were passing driving tests, working, drinking in pubs before I was yet arrived in High School. We were born in the same decade, but it might have been a generation apart.
Before I reached the age of about 13, I found it difficult to see who exactly they were. They were conceptual: a little distant but loving nevertheless, and rather tolerant of the bespectacled, aggravating little brother that I probably was.
So, those pictures. Those
particular pictures, are the very snapshots of my siblings that I carry around with me in my little locked-up treasure-chest of memories. They are the mental pictures that flash up each and every time I speak over the phone with them. They are the perpetual portraits in my gallery. Unchanging, age-defying, ever youthful.
It explains why I feel slightly shocked, each time we meet. Surprised that they don't look like that any more. I mean, they do, kinda. But older.
In my mind, they are still 19 and 21. Still beautiful and handsome. And they still are. Really. Just - older.
I'm older too, of course. In my forty-first year. And I also have a mental self-portrait of myself in that private gallery. It also is an image that doesn't age, but again, each time I look in the mirror, I'm slightly shocked by the middle-aged man staring back at me. I don't recognise myself.
When I'm on court, I'm still 19. Still surprised when I ache so terribly the next day. When I can barely walk across the office for two days. But it allows me to keep that portrait looking youthful. It's a magical secret, and I don't know why I'm sharing it, but here it is.
Spend some time with yourself. Paint that self-portrait in that private gallery. Frame it with happy memories, and then remember to take a peek every now and then.
If the portrait doesn't age, then neither will you. Because it is you.
It's not magic. But it really can feel like it.
Sergei x
