There’s a tipping point, I think. A moment beyond which there’s no going back. For me, it arrived just last week. Each year, my brother Cameron and I are the same age for exactly four days. Tradition dictates that for those ninety-six hours we must squabble like seagulls over the world’s last remaining chip. Such infantile behaviour is probably forgivable, even mildly endearing, during childhood. That this kind of malarkey should have survived into adulthood is something about which I am slightly ashamed. In my defence, I can only say this: he started it.
There’s a tipping point, I think. A moment beyond which there’s no going back. For me, it arrived just last week. Each year, my brother Cameron and I are the same age for exactly four days. Tradition dictates that for those ninety-six hours we must squabble like seagulls over the world’s last remaining chip. Such infantile behaviour is probably forgivable, even mildly endearing, during childhood. That this kind of malarkey should have survived into adulthood is something about which I am slightly ashamed. In my defence, I can only say this: he started it.
Every family has its hierarchy. And, as the first born, I was right at the very top. I was the star perched atop the Christmas tree, the ladder’s highest rung. Lucky for my siblings, I was a kind and beneficent ruler, prone to acts of compassion and generosity if I wasn’t already too busy either teasing them or breaking their toys. As the eldest of five kids, I was lord over all I surveyed which, if I climbed the big eucalypt in the back yard, was quite a lot. Be in no doubt: being the eldest child is a pretty sweet deal.
But there was a problem. As a result of what I can only conclude was a major scheduling error, my brother Cam’s birthday was (and, annoyingly, still is) four days before my own. None of my friends had this kind of problem; they were all at least a full year older than their younger brothers and sisters. Only I had to suffer the unique and exquisite ignominy that is being a ‘same age brother’. Imagine this: you are required by your parents to attend some kind of function, most likely one involving cold buttered pikelets and alleged ‘punch’ that, in reality is just a truckload of pineapple juice with random fruit meteorites thrown in. Amidst the festivities, some well-meaning but gloriously deluded adult asks how old you and your brother are. In less time than it takes to say ‘pineapple chunks’, my brother would volunteer that we were the exact same age.
This was objectionable for several reasons. Firstly, the mathematics are all wrong. It was as if my brother was deliberately ignoring the fact that I remained three hundred and sixty one days his senior. All that mattered was the headline, details be damned. Try as I did to point this out, he remained completely immune to reason. It drove me to distraction which, I think, he enjoyed immensely. Second, my brother seemed to regard the fact we were the same age as an event that totally redefined our relationship. I was, at least according to my brother, no longer the boss of him.
It was always such a jarring claim. Fact is, for the other three hundred and sixty one days of the year, I never felt like I was the boss of my younger brother. I was more like a consultant, someone who’d be brought in to analyze things before issuing a report that told him everything he did was wrong. Back then, this was a full time job. Whereas I believed I was being helpful, upon reflection it’s clear that my brother regarded these interventions as acts of tyranny. Little wonder that he used those four days to maximum effect.
Credit where credit is due: he was relentless. Cam’s grin was never wider than it was immediately after his birthday. It was like the Arab spring every year as he rose up to seize control, albeit for periods of less than a week. Even into adulthood, I could expect to be reminded that I was no longer the boss of him and that we were, at least technically speaking, equals. It got so that I would ‘accidentally’ misplace my phone, laptop and carrier pigeons for those four days, lest he should track me down and begin taunting me. Now, however, things are different.
There comes a point where being the same age as your older brother is no longer the glorious achievement it once was. This is the moment when cutlery, glasses and the little clay pot that holds the ground up black pepper all go flying as the tables gloriously and permanently turn. That moment is middle age. To make my point, I came out of the blocks fast and hard, sending him an early morning text that read: ‘suck eggs – you’re now the same age as me.’ If I were younger, I would probably have thrown in a few antagonizing emojis for good measure, but I could tell that I’d hit my mark. Over the next three days, I was sure to remind him that we were the same age. His attempts to explain that I was still three hundred and sixty one days older than him fell on deaf ears (one of the side-effects of getting older). Until, of course, my birthday came around.
They say pride comes before a fall. When my mobile shuddered, I reached over only to find a message from my brother: ‘Congratulations, you don’t look a day over forty-four. Enjoy your mid-forties’. The part of me that isn’t outraged is kind of impressed. Cam has since emphasized that, at forty-four, he is in his early forties, whereas at forty-five, the term ‘early forties’ is no longer available to me. He has once again managed to get the better of things. It is clear to me now: I must seek revenge. And I only have three hundred and sixty one days left to prepare.