Essays and Stories by Marian Keyes Page 11

  But about a week after my big day, I was talking to an old friend; someone I'm very fond of, except for her obsession with weight. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just her own, but she 's very fixated on others', scornful when they put it on and jealous when they lose it. Whenever we meet, I can actually feel her weighing me but I've never confronted her, because that 's just not what I do. Anyway, she was talking about how she 'd knocked the candy bars on the head and how thin and powerful she was feeling when suddenly, without warning, a red mist descended and, from far away, almost like I was listening to someone else, I heard myself telling her off. I listened attentively. I believe I told her that she was entirely wrong to judge people on their tubbiness instead of qualities like kindness, generosity and sense of humor. (I said "people" but of course, I really meant me.)

  Then the mist cleared and although we were both a little puzzled, I thought no more of it. Until, two weeks later, when it happened again! Another beloved friend, who has three little boys and has become such a baby bore, I would rather be trapped in a lift with Osama bin Laden than with her. She has the uncanny ability to turn any topic of conversation—parking permits, cirrhosis of the liver, aardvarks—back to her children. (Can I say at this juncture that I know tons of mothers and no one else is as bad as this.) It 's exhausting maintaining a fixed smile, saying, "Really? So he tried to open a letter that could have been your parking permit. Well, er, lucky it wasn't!" Before I knew what was happening the red mist had descended again and I heard myself asking if we could talk about something other than her children, just for ten minutes.

  It was only when I got "red-misted" for a third, then a fourth, time that I noticed the pattern and somehow intuited it had something to do with my great age. Could it be . . . ? Was it possible . . . ? I was finally an adult!

  Three of the bust-ups have healed beautifully but the fourth, the mother of the little boys, hasn't forgiven me. She says it 's not her fault that I haven't had children and she wants to know what she 's meant to do with her babies? Hide them in a drawer? I'm sad but I will live with it. (More adult stuff, it 's wonderful!) It 's taken me forty years to discover that I can have confrontations—and survive. I have great hope for the lining of my stomach as I move into my fifth decade.

  Now fifty, that 's really old . . .

  First published in Woman and Home, February 2004

  Big Air

  One of the things about being a writer is having to do reseach. Some research is lovely (spending two months in Los Angeles), some research is tedious (looking up stuff on the Internet) and some research is . . . er . . . interesting. Like attending the final of the first Irish air guitar playing championship. The winner would go on to represent Ireland in the world championship in Finland.

  Believing that there would be safety in numbers, I trawled among friends and family, looking for people to come with me. Almost everyone laughed scornfully and told me to shag off, except for my father, who was apoplectic with disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all. "No one plays air guitar in public, it 's the sort of thing you do in the privacy of your own home. In front of a mirror?" He checked with Tadhg. "With a tennis racket? Amn't I right?"

  "Yes, well, these lads are doing it in public," I said.

  "Gobshites," Tadhg said, still crimson from the tennis racket dig.

  "Ah, the poor craythurs," my mother said, always one to support the underdog. "I'll come with you." But when she discovered there would be no seats, just standing only, she quickly retracted her invitation.

  The only person I could get to accompany me, other than Himself (who had no choice), was my friend Eileen, who is a lawyer with a sense of adventure.

  And so to clothing. It doesn't matter what I'm going to—a funeral, an antiwar protest, an air guitar championship—I agonize over what to wear. All I want to do is fit in. But as I reckoned the rest of the audience at this yoke would be "airing" along with their betters on the stage, I expected the look to be back-combed hair, headbands, spandex pants and eyeliner.

  The eyeliner I could do, the rest I hadn't a hope with, so (as usual) I decided to dress from head to toe in black, black being the safest if you don't want to stand out like a middle-aged sore thumb. But in a sudden burst of defiance, I decided to not even try. Let them laugh! So I wore a pink cardigan. (Mind you, not just any pink cardigan but a really beautiful one from Club Monaco. Sorry, a quick digression here to tell my Club Monaco story. Last time I was going on a book tour in the U.S., it was decided that my New York reading would not be in a bookstore, but in Club Monaco, combining books and fashion. It would be a fun night, clothes could be bought at a discount and I would wear Club Monaco clothes for the evening, which I could then keep. When news of this got out, several people said accusingly, You have the best job in the world. Shakily I agreed, but I was in the horrors because, for me, clothes shopping is a soul-destroying exercise in damage limitation. I'm so short and tubby that almost nothing looks nice on me and I feared a terrible humiliation awaited me in New York. The guilt too was corrosive: I didn't deserve my job because through my own short, fat fault, I couldn't partake of the perks.

  In the run-up to the tour I used to wake in the middle of the night paralyzed with fear: What if nothing in Club Monaco fits me?How mortified will I be? On a scale of one to suicidal?

  But as it happened, my fear was entirely unfounded. On my first morning in New York, I showed up at Club Monaco the minute they opened, only to discover that they had tons of stuff that looked lovely on me—gorgeous tops and jackets and skirts and bags and, yes, fabulous pink cardigans. I wear mine with pride.)

  Then I saw Himself 's get-up and I felt a flicker of fear. He was in jeans, a dark T-shirt and a shortie denim jacket. See, Himself, in his youth, was an air guitar supremo, with a grand head of curly, shoulder-length hair, all the better to twist his neck in 360-degree rotations with. The hair is now a distant memory but, looking at the clothing he 'd chosen, I sensed that long-dormant air guitar playing tendencies had been resuscitated. He denied any such thing, said he was merely "trying not to embarrass" me.

  Muttering that at least he wasn't wearing a pink cardigan, we called in to Eileen's office where she quickly finished up a multimillion-dollar merger (I like to think) and rose to her feet, smoothing down her cream-colored suit.

  "Are you going dressed like that?" Himself asked anxiously.

  "At least I'm not wearing a pink cardigan," she replied.

  On the short walk to the venue, I discovered that Eileen and I had diametrically opposed expectations from the night when she said, "I wonder how bald air guitar people manage."

  In astonishment, I said, "None of them will be bald, they'll all have hair, loads of it. And white spandex cat suits, and tons of makeup."

  But Eileen insisted they'd be in baggy Metallica T-shirts and dirty jeans, and I wondered where she was getting her information from.

  Three abreast we sauntered towards the entrance, where the bouncer checked out Eileen in her expensive, well-cut solicitor threads and asked, "Are you sure you want to go in, love? You do know what 's going on in there?"

  She said she did, but he wouldn't let up and eventually she said, "I'm the mother of one of the competitors."

  This seemed to reassure him, until his gaze moved to my pink cardigan, and the anxious look was back. "And so am I," I added.

  Then we were in, and between the ultraviolet light and Led Zeppelin on the sound system, Himself looked suddenly wistful. I suspect that if he could be anyone, it would be Robert Plant circa 1971. Indeed, I was plunged into my own trip down memory lane, to when I was fourteen and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple were on the playlist at the disco I went to.

  Contrary to expectations, as we battled to the bar, the audience looked really normal: no leopard skin, no big hair. It dawned on me that they were probably family and friends, there to support. Or to laugh. I needn't have worried at all about my clothes.

  With—unusually for us—impeccable timing, we 'd just got
our drinks when the MC appeared on the stage, to kick things off. She was a girl and she looked good, like a proper rock chick, with lurex tights, short skirt, knee boots and dreadful heavy curtains of riblength hair.

  And we were off ! The first competitor was a tiny bloke in a Metallica T-shirt and dirty jeans. Although he wasn't bald, his hair was short. Eileen gave me a smug smile. Twiddling at his tummy, he roamed back and forth along an invisible eighteen-inch line and his USP was putting his foot up on the speaker and giving the devil's horns salute. He was astonishingly poor. I could have done better myself.

  "Jesus Christ," Eileen muttered, utterly appalled. "We 'll be shamed in Finland if they're all as bad as him."

  To our intense, patriotic relief the second bloke was much better. In an AC/DC schoolboy rigout, with a peaked cap over a black nylon wig, he did the kneeling-down-and-leaning-back-andmaking-agonized-faces thing. Then he lay on his back, twirling around, nearly knocking over a microphone, and for a grand finale he smashed up his air guitar. But Eileen took agin him because she said he spent a lot of his time playing the air drums. Or at least the air guitar to the drumbeat. And as she, quite correctly, pointed out, it was an air guitar competition. You can see how she got to be a high-powered lawyer.

  Contestant number three, I took agin. It was his clothes; big roundy shades, short curly hair, headband and beads, altogether too flower power for my liking. "Are these people taking it seriously at all?" I asked. Meladdo's chosen song was something by Led Zeppelin, and beside me I felt Himself twitching.

  By then a pipe to the side of the stage had started to wheeze asthmatically, pumping dry ice onto the stage in irregular bursts. Just in time for Smell Gibson, another tiny little bloke. He was barechested, decorated with red streaks of blood-style paint, and although his hair wasn't very long, it had lots of static electricity. He was great! Much struttage and leaping and he brought his dazzling display to a close with a crowd-pleasing baring of his tiny buttocks. Fantastic energy.

  After that virtuoso display, number five could only be a disappointment, and indeed he was—dressed as a priest and his chosen music was Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy." An out-of-work stand-up comedian, we concluded, and he wouldn't be going to Finland if we had anything to do with it. (In all fairness, his facial expressions were probably the best of the night, he did an excellent duck mouth but it simply wasn't enough.)

  Number six was a girl! The only competitor of the night with long hair. I'll repeat that: the only competitor of the night with long hair. A disgrace. She wore a short skirt and diamond-patterned tights from Marks & Spencer, I recognized them because I have a pair myself. Her chosen music was some thrash metal yoke that I'm too old to recognize and in the middle of it, the strobe lighting suddenly came on which made her look better than she was. But it wouldn't have mattered how good she was: rock chicks should not wear tights from Marks & Spencer.

  Contestant number seven was yet another minute bloke, in jeans and T-shirt, who did a Chuck Berry–style, extended-leg hopping back and forth across the stage.

  Then things picked up a bit when the MC promised that contestant number eight was wearing a cat suit. About bloody time; I was mortified that I'd so misled Eileen about what the contestants would be wearing. However, it was the wrong sort of cat suit. It wasn't crotch-clinging spandex but a cat costume. Without a head admittedly, but furry and with a tail, which your man twirled a lot. Again I despaired that no one was taking this seriously enough. I mean, national pride was at stake.

  In keeping with the animal theme his song was Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog." Beside me I could feel Himself straining at the bit. He was only dying to leap on the stage and show these whippersnappers what was what.

  Number nine was a tall bloke with short hair, sunglasses, spiky leather bracelets and a denim jacket with the sleeves hacked off. He wasn't too bad.

  But number ten! Please! Another girl, playing to ZZ Top's "Bad Girl." This one was in jeans, T-shirt, short hair, no makeup and— God Almighty—glasses. Not shades, or statement glasses but swotty, short-sighted-person's glasses. She was—and God knows I don't enjoy being cruel—but she was piss-poor.

  "And these people came through regional heats?" Himself asked in amazement. "How bad must the others have been?"

  That concluded the first round and everyone trooped downstairs and outside for a cigarette. On the stairs we passed a bloke on his mobile saying, "Mammy? Can you hear me? They've just done the first round, the free-form round, and he did very well."

  Half an hour later we all trooped back in for the second round— where the competitors had to play along to a mandatory song, which happened to be "Smoke on the Water." Marvelous stuff.

  Again, Smell Gibson surpassed himself and when it came to the voting, my hopes for him were high.

  Competitors are apparently judged on "originality, ability to be taken over by the music, stage charisma, technique, artistic impression and big air." However, if I had my way, they'd be judged on "knottiness of their back-combed hair, quantity of eyeliner used, agonizedness of facial expressions, angle of thrusting crotches and shininess of spandex."

  But never mind! Because Smell Gibson, great hope of our glorious republic, won!

  And with that, I started to hustle Himself and Eileen towards the exit. "Go quickly," I urged.

  You see, the ideology of the Finnish bloke who was the original organizer of the air guitar competition is that air guitar can contribute to world peace. He reckons that if everyone plays air guitar at the same time, soldiers will have to lay down their weapons, crime will have to stop and all viruses and bacteria will be paralyzed by the collective air guitar energy.

  In homage to that worthy sentiment, tonight 's show would be closed by everyone—audience and all—playing their air guitars. Now, I've nothing against world peace, nothing at all, but I couldn't take any risks with Himself: if the music "took" him, he 'd be up on that stage, banging his head, doing huge circles with his "playing" arm and making faces like he 'd just been kicked in the nads.

  Before the music had even started, we had left the building and the three of us slipped away quietly into the night.

  Eyes Wide Shut

  Afew years ago a plethora of Keyeses went to visit Niall and Co. in Prague for Christmas, hoping for snow, handmade wooden toys and a merciful break from turkey. (Carp is their thing, apparently.) Unfortunately there wasn't room for everyone to stay in Niall's apartment (all mittel-European charm and atmosphere, with lovely, funny windows and strange names like Skvorecky and Havranova on the doorbell). Never mind, we sez, a hotel will do— only to discover that an alarming number of Prague hotels were closed over Christmas.

  Eventually, and in a bit of a panic, we found a place—Hotel Praha—on the Internet. They claimed they'd be happy to take us. But strangely, it wasn't in any guidebooks and although it was a mere five minutes' walk from Niall's apartment, he 'd never heard of it. God only knew what it was like, but what choice did we have?

  I'll admit it: from the off, the omens weren't good. First the flight from Dublin to London was massively delayed and we were terrified we 'd miss our connection. The second we landed in London, we had to do an undignified, sweaty, interterminal trolley dash, with some of the older and more infirm members of our party crouched among the bags, holding on to the trolley edges for dear life. In the nick of time, the nick of time—that 's what they kept telling us—we made the flight, the door slamming behind us the minute we wheezed aboard—and then! We went nowhere! We sat for what felt like days on the runway—at the very point at which it dawned on us how terribly, slaveringly hungry we were. We hadn't eaten all day and wouldn't be getting anything until the plane took off, if it ever did, and if it hadn't been for my mother's emergency stash of peanut M&M's, we 'd have started eating each other, like in that film about the plane crash in the Andes.

  Worse was to come—when we landed in Prague, my bag with all my Christmas presents in it hadn't made the journey. (I have extremely bad lug
gage karma. In a past life I must have been a baggage handler who nicked loads of stuff out of unlocked suitcases.) I'm so used to losing bags at this stage that I don't bother waiting at the luggage carousel anymore; I go straight to the lost luggage desk and start filling out the forms.

  The rest of my family, complete with their luggage—lucky bastards—went on ahead, and when I'd filled in enough missingbag documents to satisfy Czech bureaucracy, myself and Himself finally arrived at Hotel Praha. Now, at this point, it 's important to remember I've had a long stressful day, all I've had to eat is seven peanut M&M's and my bag with all my lovingly purchased presents has disappeared and I'm fully convinced I'll never see them again.

  "Welcome to Hotel Praha!" the super-cheery desk man said. "You are very late. Very, very late. So we have put you in a special room!" Naturally enough, the day having gone so badly, I presumed he meant a six-foot-square windowless box and I prepared to vault over the counter to savage him. But I paused mid-crouch when he continued, "When Tom Cruise was making Mission Impossible in Prague he stayed in the same suite for six weeks! Nicole cooked him dinner there!"