Making It Up as I Go Along

by Marian Keyes

  Well, it was FECKEN FANTASTIC. I felt NOTHING – compared to the last time, which had been utter torture. Then I went straight to the airport, and Himself accused me of behaving oddly and he was right, I WAS feeling somewhat spacey, and then we realized that the Emla must have entered my bloodstream, because, addict that I am, I’m extremely sensitive to any kind of drug, and things that wouldn’t bother the normal person at all have a profound effect on me. Like, I get high from the local-anaesthetic injections you get at the dentist, that’s how bad I am.

  So there I was, wandering around Dublin airport, with a bloodshot eye, banging into things and knocking over displays of Butlers chocolates and making people stare hard at me, and poor Himself was trying to reconstruct pyramids of boxes and chocolates and generally keep a lid on things.

  When we got on the plane I sort of went to sleep, but it was better than sleep, I was utterly EUPHORIC. I felt warm and whole and at peace, but a wonderful euphoric kind of at peace, not a boring kind of at peace. It was probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life, and when the pilot said, ‘Twenty minutes to landing,’ I felt a great sense of loss because I knew I had only twenty more minutes of this lovely bliss and then it would all be over, and I wondered if I’d become addicted to Emla cream.

  Anyway, the plane landed and the euphoria abated and my eye cleared up and the photo shoot went grand and I haven’t been tempted to smear myself with Emla cream since, so I think I’m in the clear. (Please don’t do as I did. Please! I got told off by concerned medical types that what I’d done was very dangerous and that I was lucky to be alive.)

  However – baldy legs! I mean, they’ll grow back, the hairs, lots of them will, Rome wasn’t built in a day and when you’ve legs as hairy as mine, you’re in it for the long haul, but for the moment I’m slippery and smooth and yes! Baldy!

  The only drawback is that I no longer get ingrowing hairs, which I’ve always thought was Mother Nature’s consolation prize for the hairy-legged woman. The HOURS of fun I’ve had, equipped with just a pair of simple tweezers. All gone now.

  mariankeyes.com, September 2007.

  Perfume

  You know Christmas is on its way when the mad perfume ads start. A five-second flash of spooky, long-limbed beauties running through a black-and-white forest while a voiceover whispers nonsense like, ‘I am flat-footed … I am prone to colds. I am … Incorrigible.’

  Perfume is funny stuff and lives in a peculiar place in our consciousness. It’s ‘glamorous’, it’s a way of connecting with a luxury brand – we might not be able to afford a couture coat, but we can afford a little bottle of fragrant water. Which is why it’s the default purchase of every unwashed boyfriend lurching through the duty-free before his flight home from a stag weekend, having spent the previous forty-eight hours drinking heavily, and realizing, almost too late, that his girlfriend will be expecting a gift in exchange for letting him go, and having the presence of mind to appreciate that a Toblerone just might not cut it.

  In recent times, we show the love for our celebrity of choice by buying their perfume. I had a recent entanglement with a gang of adolescent girls, and I don’t know whether they were Directioners or Beliebers, but they were drenched in some bouquet of chemicals that caught me in the back of the throat and was so sweet, my teeth felt loose in my gums. I extricated myself from the encounter, feeling deeply unhappy. One of the ingredients in the perfume – who knows what it was? – had conjured up the awful confusion of being twelve years of age. For me – for most people, it seems – the sense of smell is linked inextricably with memories, and one whiff of something can kick off a cascade of complex recollections.

  Which means no matter how well you think you know someone, you can’t predict what fragrance they’ll like. You can’t even depend on a classic, as I discovered last year on my birthday. Suzanne always gets me a present that I really want – because I take the precaution of hinting heavily. (She does the same to me. Her birthday is a day after mine, and as she says, ‘Why waste the money on crap that we don’t want?’) But last year she decided to freestyle and clearly she thought she’d done pretty well, because she was all smiles as I tore off the paper. ‘You can’t go wrong,’ she said, ‘with Chanel No 5.’

  I have news: you can go wrong with Chanel No 5. To millions of people it smells of timeless glamour, but to me it smelt of suffocation, as though my head was trapped inside a musty, talc-filled polo neck.

  Although that is nothing compared to the effect some aftershaves have on me. There are a few whose names I can’t even utter because they trigger such an avalanche of awful memories, of certain men and bad times. These nameless man-colognes are filed in a locked room in my brain under ‘TERRIBLE MISTAKES’ and I never go there.

  But there’s a positive side to being a person who can be poleaxed by a perfume: I dot nice smells throughout my life, especially at the trickier junctures. I find mornings particularly difficult, but it felt wrong to ask Himself to come into the bedroom and stick an oar under me and oust me on to the floor. Surely there was a more dignified way of getting out of bed? So I embraced alluring shower gels.

  In fact, I now have a … well, a sort of library of shower gels. Yes, decadent as it sounds, I have an array. To match my mood. Like, there are days when the bracing smell of ginger is what I need. But on other mornings ginger seems like a drill sergeant and I gravitate to something pink and sappy, like rose, or something sunny and cheerful, like orange.

  I’m partial to a French brand called Roger & Gallet. They do lots of pretty smells and they’re not too spendy. You used to be able to buy them only in France, so whenever I visited I’d ferry home several shower gels and swank around, feeling like the owner of rare and exotic beasts.

  Then the chemist up in Stillorgan started selling them and I was quite put out.

  I’m fonder still of the shower gels from Espa – do you know the brand? Oh God, it’s lovely! It uses essential oils and natural, sustainable ingredients but it’s not REMOTELY earnest or Goop-y. They do an Energizing Shower Gel, but because the price tag is fairly hefty I use it only on the mornings I need the heavy guns. But a little goes a long way and it changes my mood for the better and makes the whole house smell lovely.

  Then I grapple with the vexed area of body lotion. Sometimes it’s one job too many, but when I do manage to throw some on I’m always glad, because throughout the day I catch an occasional hint of fragrance and it’s like a little present to myself.

  However, I’m not a fan of perfume itself – I find it too concentrated and ‘sudden’. It’s a bit like being hit on the head with a mallet. Nevertheless, I get endless enjoyment from the ads and pass many a happy hour ‘doing’ my own versions. Indeed, it is a game that could be played by all the family. ‘I am hirsute … I am verboten … I am certifiable. Certifiable. The new perfume from Marian Keyes.’

  First published in Daily Mail Plus, October 2013.

  Chemists

  Once a month I go to my local chemist to pick up my anti-mad tablets and each visit gives me so much pleasure that frankly I wish I had to go every day. I hand over my prescription to my lovely pharmacist – we’ll call him Edward (although his name is Ronan) – and while he assembles my Madness-Be-Gone kit, I have the option of sitting peacefully on the Chemist Chair.

  I’m such a connoisseur of chemist shops that I schedule visits on foreign holidays (in the same way that other people go to the market looking for knock-off handbags), and I have strong opinions about what makes a place perfect: every well-appointed emporium should have one chair. Two would also be acceptable in case you g
et a crock-off – two equally infirm people both looking for a sit-down. But three chairs are too many; three would encourage chat, and above all I value the peace and quiet of chemists, where the only sound, like the soothing babble of a distant stream, is the whisper of a worried man disclosing details of his strange rash to Edward.

  So I eschew the chair and I browse the shelves with great pleasure and discover all kinds of things I hadn’t realized I needed. It’s like being in a glittering Aladdin’s Cave. The feet section is a particular delight. Blister plasters always make the cut, because a blister can happen at any time, right? And are you familiar with the tubey things for bunions? Sadly, I don’t have bunions myself, but perhaps I might have a visitor to my home who would say, ‘Listen, any chance you’d have a tubey thing for a bunion? I’ve been caught short.’ It could happen.

  The bandages section also holds particular allure for me. Whenever I gaze upon those rolls of stretchy salmon-coloured stuff that could be used to strap up a sprained ankle, I vow for the millionth time that this will be the year I do a first-aid course, so I can be an Emergency First Responder should anyone ‘take a tumble’ with me in the vicinity.

  But perhaps it’s best I don’t do one of those courses, because there’s a serious chance that I might start impersonating a doctor.

  If I may speak philosophically, I find that some products in a chemist connect me with the suffering in my fellow man. I mean, what goes on in a person’s life that they need a latex finger coverer? Never mind walking a mile in a person’s shoes – wear their latex finger coverer for ten minutes and see how it feels.

  Moving on, I throw some cotton buds into my basket – everyone needs cotton buds, they’ll always come in handy. And cotton-wool discs are another staple. And fizzy vitamin C is a great cure-all – you’d pity the home that doesn’t have any. And a couple of make-up sponges. And a bottle of nail-varnish remover. And some eyebrow dye …

  It’s always a particular thrill when something that’s been advertised on telly actually appears in the shop. The day Voltarol pain-relieving gel arrived was a great one, and immediately I snapped up three tubes, fearful that they’d sell out, like a limited edition nail colour from Chanel.

  Some chemists stock fancy cosmetic brands like Clinique, but mine has the cheapest range I’ve ever encountered. It’s called Essence and someone told me (it might even be true) that it’s Rimmel’s diffusion line, and seeing as Rimmel isn’t exactly spendy itself, that will give you some idea of the prices. Rock bottom. I can never stop myself from picking up a nail varnish from Essence. Or two.

  Lovely colours, they have.

  The skincare section features LaRoche-Posay, which really is very good and not at all spendy, so I always convince myself I need something from it. I mean, sun protection is an essential, isn’t it? All year round.

  Then I arrive at the strange perfumes, clearly left over from Christmas – peculiar acrid smells by Kylie and Justin Bieber. They never fail to get me in the back of the throat, which serves to remind me to buy some Strepsils.

  At the counter, the perfect chemist must feature tins of Fisherman’s Friends, little boxes of strawberry-and-cream diabetic sweets and rolls of Panda liquorice. I don’t buy them, but I do appreciate them being there.

  A little chat about my purchases always enhances my experience.

  Edward says, in surprise, ‘You have a bunion now?’

  Blushing slightly, I admit that I’m simply anticipating the needs of some future, as-yet-unknown guest to my home.

  ‘It’s good to plan ahead,’ he agrees. ‘Anything else I can get you?’

  ‘Rennies, please. And Panadol ActiFast. And Imogas. And Zovirax – the pump, not the tube. And you might as well throw in some Clarityn – I know it’s only March, but summer will be here at some stage. Is there anything you think I’ve missed? Anything new and exciting?’

  With pride he produces a little bottle of eye drops. ‘It’s to combat the itchy eyes people often get with hay fever. Just out this week.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, all excited, ‘in that case I’ll take it!’

  So I pay for my purchases and leave with my bulging bag, and I’m already looking forward to next month.

  First published in Red, May 2013.

  Teeth

  There I was, minding my own business, bothering no one, and while I was being so blameless, eating a bar of chocolate, I took a bite, which was just like all the previous bites I took – except the next thing I heard this unmerciful cracking noise. I’d fecking broken the bridge on my teeth.

  I swear to God, my teeth cause me nothing but misery and it’s entirely my own fault: I didn’t go to the dentist for ten years, from the age of twenty to thirty. I mean, I was drinking alcoholically, and if you think you’re worthless and deserve nothing and you’re contemplating killing yourself, you’re hardly going to go to the dentist, now, are you? So I didn’t, and although sometimes I used to wake up in the middle of the night in the total horrors, wondering if the day was coming when I’d wake up with a mouthful of rotten teeth, I did my best to ignore it.

  Then I ended up in rehab and one of my teeth kicked off and honestly I haven’t had a moment’s peace from it ever since. I had to have a root-canal thing WHILE I WAS IN REHAB.

  But on the upside, because my life was such an epic shambles, having to go to the dentist seemed like nothing at all. All my fear had gone. Which is just as well, because I have been a very regular visitor since. Not by choice, either.

  I’d had some sort of cap put on that root-canally tooth, and one day when I was back at work I was eating a Toffo and the next thing out the entire tooth came, attached to the Toffo.

  So I shoved it back in again, and a while later I got published and was sent off to Bath to visit Waterstones, and I was having a cup of tea and a scone with a girl who worked there, and I was as nervous as billy-o – her name was Cordelia, I still remember, because the incident had such an impact on me – and the next thing my tooth was rattling around in my mouth. Yip. Rattling around. In my mouth.

  And I was trying to suck up to Cordelia, so I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified to swallow my bite of scone in case I swallowed the tooth, and I was terrified to open my mouth because she’d see the enormous, draughty, echoey black hole of a gap. So I spent the rest of my time with her nodding silently and giving enthusiastic, clamped-mouth smiles and gesturing expansively until I was finally able to leave, some centuries later, and spit the half-chewed mouthful of scone and the runaway tooth into my hand.

  Awful! Eventually it became so unstable that I had to have a bridge put in. And for those of you who don’t know what a bridge entails, the dentist files down the two healthy teeth on either side of the gammy one, so that when your bridge cracks and falls out, it looks like you’re missing not one but – yes! – three teeth.

  A delightful look. Especially if you’re – as I was – due to have your photo taken the coming Monday morning with the gorgeous Cathy Kelly, for Woman and Home. And especially if you’re – as I was – making a television ad the following Wednesday. And especially if you’re – as I was – going to New York in two weeks for a lunch with the glossy magazines.

  Mercifully I got an emergency appointment with the dentist and he fitted a temporary yoke. Then I got home and had my lunch, which happened to be chickpea curry, and a while later I was passing a mirror and glanced in only to see that the teeth in my new temporary bridge had gone BRIGHT YELLOW. The yellow of jaundice. The yellow of fever. The yellow of cowardice. It was the fecking turmeric in the chickpea curry!

  Too la
te I remembered what the dentist had said the last time I’d had a temporary bridge put it – that the bridge was made of very porous acrylic, so to stay away from foods that could stain. E.g. Ribena, Diet Coke – and curry!

  So I scrubbed and scrubbed. I scrubbed till my gums bled. I scrubbed till I’d nearly dislodged the fecking thing, and mercifully most of the yellowness faded.

  mariankeyes.com, July 2009.

  Sweets

  Sweets. Twirls, limited edition Magnums, Percy Pig and Pals: I love them as much as I love shoes and handbags, and my specialist subject on Mastermind could be Confectionery of Our Times.

  Subsisting on a diet of Chunky KitKats and Cornettos did me no harm whatsoever! Because I was as healthy as a very healthy thing.

  Apart from all the times I was sick. Yes, okay, apart from all the times I was sick. About once a month I succumbed to a high temperature, swollen glands, ear infections, achy limbs and a muzzy head.

  I was perpetually up at the doctor’s, whingeing about my gammy health, and eventually he sent me for a load of tests, which, to my extreme surprise, all came back normal. At the very least, I’d been expecting ME (even though I’m told it doesn’t exist), an overactive thyroid and some mild form of diabetes. It was a crushing blow, and that was when I decided to go the alternative route, kicking off with acupuncture.

  I explained my symptoms to the acupuncturist and lay back, waiting for her to stick a couple of needles in me and effect a miracle cure. But no. She asked many, many questions about my lifestyle and diet and suggested that it might be an idea to knock the sugar on the head. I said, ‘Mmmm, yes, maybe,’ humouring her, like. It was inconceivable.