Now that we're all waiting, breathless, for Jane Eyre to say 'Reader, I married him' I'm not spoiling any surprises here, I hope , how do you think she'll cope with being married to a man twice her age? Jane's about 18; Rochester is pushing Luckily, 19th century dress rules mean she won't have the embarrassment of that male fashion foible known only to age-gap wives - the rule that says the older the man, the shorter the shorts. Even as Rochester ages and those breeches, now tightly strained across thigh and saddle, get a bit baggy, at least things will be covered up.
Still, being married to an older man is different, even without the memory of a mad previous wife in the attic hanging over you. You are children of different times and cultures. My husband David was issued with a ration book as a child. For pudding as a child I had the choice of Angel Delight or yoghurt. Such things influence your life. Clothes, though, are the biggest difference. I bring him home some handsome knee-skimmers or board shorts, perhaps drawstring, perhaps cargo style, and he immediately looks cornered and starts talking about Boy Scouts.
Men his age have a different range of reference. Anyway, the shorts went back to the shop. Early in our relationship, I delved into his wardrobe because he needed a dinner jacket. He had one that would do, he said vaguely, from "a few years back". Alarm bells rang. Flares, I thought: bound to be inch flared bottoms. As I pulled the suit - straightlegged but blue velvet - from the back of the wardrobe, I realised the truth was worse than I'd feared.
This man was pre-flares. He was practically the Missing Link. A lot of wardrobe work followed - though I never cracked the shorts situation. The age gap between us is hardly Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas, but there's a subgenerational gap which occasionally yawns. At first he couldn't understand why I supplemented his Imperial Leather soap with shower gel; why I threw out tights instead of mending them; why I didn't miss having a manual choke on the car; and had I really never eaten stuffed heart?
I was equally bewildered by his habit of filling in cheque stubs - even the line which tells you to record what you've got left. Is this for people without credit cards? Also by the fact that he had maroon pyjamas; and by his assumption that Dire Straits was just something you got into if you didn't fill in that last line on the cheque stub. He's normally a romantic symphony chap, but every now and again he'll break out into an Elvis or Roy Orbison impression.
