Making It Up as I Go Along

by Marian Keyes

  It made me think about all the people, all the individual human beings, around our globe who campaigned for her, or who paid a small sum every month to Amnesty, or who refused to go on their holidays to Burma, even though there are magnificent hotels and resorts there (built by slave labour), simply because she had asked us not to, and it made me aware of how powerful any individual is, once they align themselves with others with the same beliefs.

  Then there was more singing and at the end all of the artists were on the stage and everyone, including the audience, was singing ‘Get Up, Stand Up’, and I swear to you it was like a religious experience, it was utterly transcendent.

  ASSK was hurried outside – things were running much later than had been anticipated – to receive the freedom of the city, and Mam and I were despatched to a reception room and were told that after the ceremony outside, ASSK would be ‘doing a quick walk through’ the room and that there ‘might be an opportunity to meet her’. And I got the message: there wouldn’t be an opportunity to meet her. And that was okay.

  It was a long, thin room and it was rammed with hobnobs, far, far more than at the earlier do, and I was starting to think that maybe we should just go home, that we’d had a wonderful time and there was no point waiting, when a good Samaritan – and I’ve no idea why she chose me to be the recipient of this bountiful news – whispered me a little whisper: that ASSK was not going to come through the door everyone was expecting her to come through, that she was going to come in at the far end of the room.

  I didn’t know whether or not to believe this person; I didn’t think this person was deliberately misleading me, but I thought they might have it wrong.

  Nevertheless, I made up my mind to chance it. First I consulted with my mammy, who urged me to go it alone. ‘I’m old and decrepit,’ she said. ‘I’ll only slow you down. I’ll mind your bag. Off you go and do your best.’ So I made my way towards the far end of the room, where the crowds were thinner and thinner and eventually there was no one at all. Wondering if I was being taken for a right eejit, I loitered by the door …

  And suddenly it was all action! Organizey men appeared beside me and there were walkie-talkies and urgent words and extreme tension. ‘Just a quick walk through the room,’ they were saying. ‘She’s exhausted and she’s got a plane to catch.’

  With a shock of surprise, I realized I was in exactly the right place, and apart from the organizey men there was no one else near me, not for yards. Then someone was saying, ‘Three seconds, two seconds, she’s coming, she’s coming …’

  And the door opened and in she came, tiny, powerful, brave woman that she is, her entourage hurrying in her wake, and I took my chance and jumped into her path, and she looked a little startled to see me but recovered well, and I stuck my hand out and she took it and I said, ‘Thank you for enduring,’ and she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Thank you for helping me to endure,’ and of course, she wasn’t talking about me, she was talking about all of us, about you, about every single one of us who has wished her well over all these years, so I just thought I’d tell you.

  mariankeyes.com, June 2012.

  Pasha

  Thank the Lord, Strictly is back and as soon as I watched the preview show a few weeks ago, I felt a huge uplift in my mood! Genuinely, seriously. More effective than any antidepressants I’ve ever been on.

  I can’t pinpoint what it is that I find so joyous about Strictly. The glitteryness? The music? Seeing people who don’t really look like dancers suddenly start to blossom? Anyway, I immediately applied for tickets for the live shows and – of course – they were all gone, they’ve been gone for months.

  I brooded upon the matter as I sought a solution. I even considered asking It Takes Two if they’d have me on the Friday panel, just to get ‘close’ to the show. (I planned to do the panel, then kiss everyone goodbye – ‘Goodbye, goodbye, leaving now, off I go, out of the BBC, very much leaving, practically gone, indeed I am gooooone’ – but it would be a ruse, see. I’d only be pretending to leave the BBC. Instead I’d sneak down to the studio floor and hide under the bandstand for twenty-four hours, with a stash of cereal bars, and I’d watch the Saturday show from there.)

  In the end I discussed the matter on Twitter and many of my folleyers asked the BBC if they’d rustle up a couple of tickets for me – and would you believe it?! – they did! I am so grateful to all the people who lobbied for me and to the BBC for the tickets. But do you see how great the Twitters is and how we help each other when we can?

  I had two tickets and myself and Himself discussed this long and hard and it was decided that, even though he loves the show nearly as much as I do, he’d fall on his sword and give the spare ticket to Jenny.

  Now, let me tell you about Jenny. Jenny has been my friend since 1986 and she’s probably the most ‘true and good’ person I’ve ever met, and her kindness to me goes way beyond the call of duty. But the thing is she’s very hard to thank. She says she has everything she needs and, for example, she thinks flowers are a waste of money (for herself, she’d happily send them to someone else).

  However! She’s a massive Strictly fan, perhaps even more than me, because Jenny does dancing, as in she can do salsa, tango, jive, jitterbugs and all the rest. Jenny Boland could be a judge on Strictly! She knows all about ‘kicks and flicks’ and ‘finishes’ and other judge-speak.

  So the long and the short of it was that Jenny and I went to the Strictly ACTUAL show! Himself had to disappear to an unknown location because Jenny would have insisted that he go instead of her, but when I told her – honestly – that I hadn’t a clue where he was, she eventually gave in.

  And oh God! If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll know how excited we were. The first thing is that you have to get there HOURS before the show starts. People had been queuing from eight that morning, and Jenny and I got there about three. We waited in a BBC canteen till we were called at about 5.30 and when we walked into the studio, I nearly puked with the excitement.

  I know people always say this about television sets, but it really was much smaller than it looks on the telly. Everything was so near! There was the judges’ table and there was the band and there was the stairs – all a matter of yards away. We were in the second row from the front and it was then that Jenny and I discovered that we were in with the friends and family of the celebrities!

  Denise Van Outen’s husband was there, and I was sitting beside someone who was a friend of Johnny Ball’s, and next to her was someone who might be JB’s wife. Supporting Louis were some very clean-cut-looking young men. Athletes, allegedly. But they looked sort of holy, you never saw such neatly combed hair!

  Antony Cotton was in the front row, and other people that I recognized but didn’t know from where. Then, at the very last minute, who comes in, only Nadine and Nicola from Girls Aloud, to sit in the front row! Thrilling it was, thrilling I tell you!

  I’d show you photos of all of this glittering glamour except that our phones had been taken away from us. So I can’t.

  Am I conjuring up anything at all like how thrilling it was to be within touching distance of the dancers and to see their nerves before the music started and to watch the reaction of the judges?

  I have seventeen favourite couples, which takes some doing as there were only fourteen couples, thirteen now, in fact only twelve now, they’re dropping like flies! My favourites are – obviously – Nicky Byrne because I’m Irish, and Lisa Riley because her cha-cha-cha in week one was the most uplifting thing I’ve ever seen, and Fern Britton because she’s dancing with Artem, and Artem is Himself’s fav
ourite (of the men dancers; Aliona is his favourite female).

  But if I had to have a favourite favourite, it’s Pasha. And Kimberley, obviously.

  So the dancing started and at the end of each dance I was jumping to my feet and giving rowdy standing ovations. (I was close to being out of control.) But not everyone was as excited as me and Jenny. I’m going to whisper you one tiny little piece of gossip. I shouldn’t, and Christ knows, I don’t want to blot my copybook with the BBC, but I can’t stop myself! During the show, a certain famous ‘friend and family’ was approached by a poor man from the BBC to tell them that the celebrity they were there to cheer on would be the next to dance and that the cameras would be on this ‘friend or family’ so would they please smile.

  I’m not the only one who commented on this certain person’s sour puss throughout the show, so I suppose I’m not giving away too many secrets.

  Eventually the Saturday-night show ended, but instead of the professional dancers all rushing away and shouting, ‘No, no, no! Leave me be!’ they loitered on the dance floor, chatting to members of the audience they knew. At this stage I’d decided that the person I really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to show the love to was Pasha. I don’t know why I particularly picked on him, because I love everyone in the show, judges, dancers, celebrities, male and female, young and not-so-young.

  And he was tantalizingly close. A matter of yards. He was chatting to Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud, who is the cutest little thing; she had a lovely pink jumper on. Because I was in the second row, my route to the dance floor was barred (the front-row chairs were sort of glued together, so I couldn’t just shove them aside), and I watched Pasha with mounting hysteria.

  The clock was ticking, soon he would be gone, and just when I was considering clambering over the back of the chairs, I got a lucky break in the form of Brindan, who came to chat to the Johnny Ball supporters seated next to me. With uncharacteristic rudeness, I interrupted and said, ‘Ah hello there, Brindan, we meet again! Yes, we have met before!’

  Politely he prepared to engage in chat with me, but I said briskly, ‘No need, Brindan, no need. But would you do me a favour?’ I’m sure he was expecting me to say ‘Would you autograph this torn bit of paper for my granny?’ or some such. Nevertheless, he gamely agreed. So I said, ‘Would you go over there and get Pasha for me.’

  Instead of being offended, instead of saying, ‘What am I? Your pimp?!’ he said, ‘Okay.’ He went over, had a little whisper in Pasha’s ear, Pasha looked up and clearly didn’t know me from Adam, but he made his apologies to Nicola Roberts and immediately he came over!

  This is what I said: ‘Pasha, my name is Marian, you don’t know me, I’m nobody, nothing, and you are Pasha and I love you, yes I do, you remind me of my nephew, his name is Luka, he is eleven, and I love you, you are Pasha, I saw you in the live show in Dublin in January or it might be February and I thought you had a very lovely kindliness about you, you are Pasha, you are sweet, I sound mad to you, I know it and I can hear myself and yet I can’t stop myself, I love you, but not in a stalkery way, yes, everyone always says that, especially the stalkers –’

  At this stage, Jenny, keen to release Pasha from his torment, interjected with some nice words and broke my unstoppable gush. Now, the thing is I’ve met a few famous people over the years and most of them have been (all, even) pleasant. But with a lot of them, they’re so used to hearing star-struck love and praise that even though they try to hide it, something shuts down behind their eyes. I suppose it’s very hard to engage when someone is shouting facts about yourself at you that you already know. But not Pasha. I was right up-close and I’m telling you, he is real! He’s as sweet as he seems. His eyes did not go funny! He was genuinely friendly, not just ticking off the seconds, being polite to a manic fan. Trust me on this! Please!

  He hugged me. At least twice. Possibly up to four times. Jenny says it only happened twice. But it FELT like four.

  mariankeyes.com, October 2012.

  Writers I Love

  May I tell you about what turned out to be one of the happiest days of my entire life? I may? Tanken yew! Well! You know Sali Hughes, the brilliant journalist who writes for the Guardian on a Saturday and the Pool on a Wednesday? And has her own website, salihughesbeauty.com, where she does great videos called ‘In the Bathroom’, where she visits the bathrooms of famous and/or interesting people and discusses their beauty products and skincare and whatnot? Well, I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time because while she really loves all things beauty, she’s entirely honest and reliable and informative. She knows everything.

  We first came into contact when I twittered asking people what I should do about the little broken capillaries on my face and everyone told me to email Sali – and she emailed me back immediately, giving me a variety of options and telling me the upsides and downsides of each. And after that we stayed in touch, and even though we hadn’t met in real life I loved her already because she has great sweetness and gentleness coupled with razor-sharp intelligence.

  Also, she gives airtime to all kinds of brands, they don’t have to be big names and expensive, so she’s in nobody’s pocket, so I know that what she writes in her columns is genuinely impartial. Also, she’s wonderful for giving exposure to new and emerging brands, which thrills me because I am a divil for ‘New and Exciting’.

  And now she’s after writing a book, called Pretty Honest, and it is the ABSOLUTE BEAUTY BIBLE – it covers everything from the very basics, such as identifying your skin type, to how to manage your beauty when you’re going through something awful like cancer, and she demystifies the ‘anti-ageing’ industry, separating out cod science from things that do actually work. (As well as acknowledging that there’s nothing wrong with looking your age – basically she gives you every option.)

  Every woman should have this book. Because beauty stuff is a passionate hobby of mine, I thought I knew a bit, but compared to Sali I know nothing and I’ve already consulted the book many times.

  So anyway, there I am, living in Dublin and, you know, living a quiet life, seeing my mammy and the Redzers and the Praguers and going for walks with Himself and Posh Kate and Posh Malcolm – when Sali sends me this invitation to a lunch. A foncy lunch – being thrown for her by Bobbi Brown – yes! The make-up brand Bobbi Brown! And I was invited!

  There were only twenty people invited and I was one of them – and when I saw the list of the other invitees, didn’t I nearly get sick! They were all writers or journalists that I hold in HUGE regard: India Knight, Jojo Moyes, Sam Baker, Polly Samson, Miranda Sawyer, Hadley Freeman, Lucy Mangan, Maria McErlane, Georgia Garrett, Julia Raeside, Jo Elvin, Camilla Long, Sophie Heawood, Bryony Gordon and Sarah Morgan. Also invited were three amazing women from the Estée Lauder group: Jay Squier, Cheryl Joannides and Anna Bartle.

  My immediate impulse was that I couldn’t possibly go, that I didn’t belong, that I wouldn’t fit in, and then I thought, ‘Feck it! I want to go. I’m GOING!’

  And this was huge for me because I’ve been mad in the head (MITH) for so long that I’ve had to keep my life very small and safe because it was all that I could cope with. But I realized I was ready to go into a daunting, intimidating situation and try to hold my own.

  And off I went. And I really hope you don’t think I’m being a boasty-boaster, I just wanted to let you know that if you’ve suffered from the MITH-ness yourself and you think you’ll always feel terrible, it may not be the case for ever.

  I ‘jetted’ in from Dublin – normally, when I travel by air, I simply fly, but because this was so glamoro
us I ‘jetted’ – and the lunch was upstairs in the private room in Balthazar and I had to scuttle past the welcoming committee to go to the Ladies to do last-minute checks on myself, only to discover that – horrors! – I’d somehow managed to leave Dublin without my comb!

  For a brief but very real moment I contemplated scuttling back past the welcoming committee, leaving Balthazar and going back to the airport and flying home – yes, ‘flying’ home, no ‘jetting’ this time, it would be an ignominious return – and never contacting any of the people here today ever again. Then I remembered a day long ago when my mammy couldn’t find any of her combs, because all of her daughters had stolen them, and she had to go to Mass (not a Sunday but a holy day of obligation) and she ended up having to comb her hair with a fork. Inspired by her ingenuity, I resolved that as soon as was polite, I’d secrete a fork from the table into my handbag and race back to the Ladies and sort my hair out that way.

  So in I went to the room and I was appallingly nervous – the first person I saw was Camilla Long – Camilla Long! In real life! And then I met Sali and my hands were shaking so much, my fingers were all fumbly. But she was the kindest, nicest woman you could meet, and exquisite-looking, like a doll.

  And as it transpired, everyone was INCREDIBLY nice. The only person I’d properly met before, apart from the amazing Jay Squier, was the wonderful novelist and co-founder of the Pool Sam Baker, who is very grounded and calm and kind, and she passed on a little of her calmness to me. And she was with Jojo Moyes – Jojo Moyes! My love, my admiration, my downright jealousy of Jojo’s talent knows no bounds. But would you believe, Jojo had also forgotten her comb! So I decided that if someone as amazing as Jojo Moyes had forgotten her comb, forgetting one’s comb was actually admirable. Perhaps it could become a ‘thing’. A bit like the ice-bucket challenge – where you go out for the evening without your comb …? No, maybe not. Sorry. Not all my ideas are runners …