by Marian Keyes
Instantly, I went into tipping frenzy. Whenever I go to the US, I live in such terror of undertipping or not tipping when I should have done that I have a constant knot in my stomach and tip anything that moves. If I was mugged I would probably press a dollar into my attacker’s hand. Disney had given me a daily allowance to cover food, cars and, of course, tips. I managed to spend most of it in the walk from the car to the door of the hotel. Dollar bills flurrying everywhere. After I checked in, another young man pressed the button to call the lift and I went into a small spasm about whether I should tip him too. Feck it, I thought, why leave him out?
My ninth-floor room was actually a suite. With its original Art Deco furniture, features and proportions it was beyond amazing. It had sweeping views over the awesome megalopolis of LA. Directly below me the Hockneyesque hotel swimming pool winked and twinkled in turquoise invitation. I can’t believe I’m here. A little girl from Dublin, who the hell do I think I am?
There was a message to meet the producer and his staff for dinner in Maple Drive, which the guidebook described as one of the best restaurants in Beverly Hills. This made me want to lie down in a darkened room with a cool cloth on my forehead. Instantly, every item of clothing I’d brought – and there were an awful lot of them – seemed inappropriate. I’m not worthy, I thought over and over. I had to go out to buy something.
Disoriented and jet-lagged, I lurched along in the ninety-degree heat, my legs feeling as though they were sinking up to my knees into the pavement. And it was then that I discovered that it really is true that no one, no one, walks in LA. I was a one-woman freak show and the Sunset Strip traffic slowed down to stare incredulously at me. I turned back.
Later, when my cab drew up outside Maple Drive, a crowd of young men surged upon me. For a moment I thought it was my lucky day, then I discovered they were that odd breed of human beings – valet parkers. They fell back when they realized there was nothing for them to park.
In the restaurant the prices were entrail-freezingly high. The waiter, another firm-jawed, orange plastic type told us about the day’s specials. ‘We have a miso broth which is a low-sodium, lactose-friendly, dairy-free, vegan soup. It has zero, read my lips, zero fat content and comes in at fifty calories a serving. We also have a pumpkin risotto, which is a yeast-free, candida-friendly, vegan dish’… And so on, ad infinitum. He could have won an Oscar for his delivery.
When Julie the scriptwriter, who’d flown in from New York, ordered a steak, there was an appalled intake of breath. Red meat! Meanwhile, the Angelenos ate nothing, just fiddled abstemiously with a piece of dressing-free radicchio. There was one bottle of wine between a table of six. It’s not that they’re mean, you understand – on the contrary. But nobody drinks.
The next day, we went to the producer’s beautiful house to ‘bounce around some ideas’. He lived in Brentwood, which is a lush, moneyed area, home to people like O. J. Simpson. The houses are all enormous, mostly Spanish-style, with exotic, palm-treed gardens, pools and ‘Armed Response’ signs. Electronic gates were the order of the day.
After we’d bounced until we could bounce no more, I went to Shutters on the Beach, a spectacular restaurant on the beach in Santa Monica, to bond with the scriptwriter. I was torn because, while it was fabulous there, it was Paul Whittington’s birthday and he was celebrating it in a bar which was rumoured to turn a blind eye to smoking.
The following day I was to meet the producer on the Disney lot. When I asked where exactly his office was, I received the reply, ‘On the corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive.’ ‘HAHAHAHA!’ I roared. ‘Stop it, you’re a hoot. Tell me the real address.’
‘That is the real address,’ he replied in a small, perplexed voice.
So we did indeed meet on the corner of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive and made our pitch to a thirteen-year-old executive. And before I knew it, it was time to get back on the plane. As I snuggled gratefully beneath my Virgin Atlantic duvet, I couldn’t take my eyes off one of the other passengers – a middle-aged woman wearing a strange gingham suit and a yeehaw belt slung low on her hips. ‘Who’s your one?’ I thought in astonishment.
It was Vivienne Westwood.
First published in Irish Tatler, February 1999.
If it’s Wednesday, it Must be Hamburg
Every now and then I go to furrin parts to promote books. When I was on tour in Germany and Austria, promoting the German edition of Last Chance Saloon, Irish Tatler asked me to keep a diary. This is it…
Hamburg. Saturday Night
We’ve collected our baggage and are speeding away in a taxi ten minutes before we’re supposed to land. God, I love German efficiency. It’s easy to make fun of the Germans (go on, try it if you don’t believe me), but I’m very fond of them. Have arrived in Hamburg for a five-day publicity tour and it’s going astonishingly well so far. Starting when we turned up at the Lufthansa desk at Heathrow and they actually had us booked on the flight!
At ten-fifteen we arrive at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten (apparently the second-best hotel in the world), and are shown into a five-room suite which is bigger and far nicer than our house at home. ‘By the living jingo,’ exclaims Himself (who has been let come with me), ‘but we’ve landed on our feet this time!’
A knock on the door and a waiter is carrying in a bucket of Veuve Cliquot. Another knock and a woman is presenting me with an armload of flowers. Another knock and both Himself and myself are invited to select a fancy shower gel – he picks Hermés, I pick Trésor. Just as I think I’ve died and gone to heaven, there’s another knock on my door and it’s the arrival of my schedule for the next five days. That wipes the smile off my face, let me tell you. Busy is one way of describing it. Inhuman might be another.
Sunday Morning
Free time to wander around the shops of Hamburg – but they’re all closed! I thought Germans had a reputation for being hard workers. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s a big cod. All sorts of fabulous shops and not a single one of them open. Scratched pathetically and whimpered at the door of the Prada shop. (Actually, I’m only showing off here. If it had actually been open I’d have been way too intimidated to cross the threshold.)
Sunday Afternoon
Met Yvonne, the publicity girl who’ll be travelling with me and minding me for the five days. Luckily, she’s a dote. And then, it’s showtime! The minute the first interview started I remembered with a sudden sinking heart: a) how much I hate doing interviews, and b) how much harder it is doing them across the language divide. If you say to an Irish journalist, ‘I’d love to have children but you can be damn sure I’ll be mainlining heroin at the birth,’ they don’t tend to reply, ‘Heroin? But I am vorried vot it will do to your baby.’ And when I hurriedly explain to Fritz that I don’t actually intend to mainline heroin, it’s just that I’m not keen on pain, he looks at me in confusion and says, ‘Ah! So it vos a lie?’ ‘No,’ I explain desperately. ‘Not a lie. A joke! Joke. Funny. Hahaha.’ But my attempt to do a charades-style enactment of a joke falls on barren ground.
I’d also forgotten how much more seriously German journalists treat interviews with authors. For a start, they’ve all read the book (almost unheard of in England or Ireland). And their questions are so much more intense. ‘Vot is the secret of heppiness?’ several of them asked. While I flapped around trying to come up with an answer, I yearned for a journalist to ask me what colour my pants were.
Sunday Evening
Tonight we had dinner with the woman who translates my books from English to German and I was so happy to be with someone who spoke fluent English that I almost burst into tears.
Monday
Interview after interview after interview after interview. They just kept coming. Before I was finished with one journalist another would be hovering in the doorway looking meaningfully at me. And every single one of them had been to Ireland on their holiers. ‘Yes, I know Letterfrack.’ ‘Yes, I know Doolin.’ ‘Yes, I know Buncrana.’ (I said those sentences a lo
t during the course of that long, long day.) There was a time when I used to think there could be nothing nicer than talking about yourself all day long. But since I’ve become a writer and started going on publicity tours I’ve changed my mind. It actually sends you temporarily bonkers. In the midst of my umpteenth conversation about how the Celtic Tiger has changed Ireland (with specific reference to Letterfrack, Doolin or Buncrana), my head lifted and I heard my voice echoing from far away. My first out-of-body experience of the tour.
When the last interview finished my mouth was cotton-wool dry and I was as dazed and exhausted as if I’d been without sleep for several days. I never wanted to speak to anyone else for as long as I lived, but instead I had to put on my party frock and repair to the Abaton cinema where a famous German actress called Ulrike Kriener and I were doing a reading.
To my great delight, over a hundred people turned up. (I’ve done readings in Ireland where five people have showed and three of them are homeless men who’ve come in for a sleep.) Doris from the publishers gave the assembled audience a big long introductory spiel about me, but it was all in German so while they writhed in hilarity, I remained sitting on the stage wearing an uncertain smile. What was she saying about me that was so funny? Was it my big arse? Or my skirt?
The reading kicked off. Ulrike read in German and I read in English and the audience laughed, which was great. Afterwards when they were invited to ask questions they all went very coy and silent, but a few of them came up afterwards for a chat. It was the high point of the day. Then went for dinner with Yvonne, Ulrike and Doris. A couple of journalists came too, so I had a few more conversations about Ross’s Point and Westport. Finally, collapsed into bed at midnight.
Tuesday. Munich
Came to sometime around ten o’clock when we got to our hotel suite. It was fabulous and peculiar – I was awake enough to register that. Even though the hotel was a big, business-type place with marble lobby and Louis Vuitton shop, our suite was done out like an (enormous) Bavarian woodcutter’s cottage. All rough-hewn wood, low ceilings, high little windows and chintz Austrian blinds. A couple of over-the-phone radio interviews followed (mercifully in English – the hell of ‘simultaneous translation’ was still ahead of me in Berlin), then two hour-long newspaper interviews, and then – a cancellation! An hour to stagger around the Marienplatz gawking at the Munich people, wondering what it was like to be them.
Back for three more intense interviews, then off to Café Mufthalle for the evening’s reading. TV München were doing a documentary on me, which meant I had to smile constantly from seven till midnight in case they filmed me looking knackered or distracted.
Once again people turned up, once again they laughed (particularly at the introduction. It is my arse), and once again they all looked shyly at their shoes when they were asked if they had any questions.
After the reading we went for dinner (still being followed by TV München’s cameras. Have you any idea what it’s like eating a hamburger and chips, aware than your every mouthful is being filmed? Actually, what a great way to lose weight!), and at twelve-thirty finally got to bed.
Wednesday. Vienna
It’s official. I’ve died and gone to hell. I’ve never been so tired in my life. Slumped against the plane window, we flew over snow-covered forests en route to Vienna. Vienna is gorgeous, the hotel suite with its upstairs sitting-room and tented day-bed is delicious, but I’m too tired to care.
A couple of interviews before lunch, then got taken out into the snow-swirly streets by a photographer. ‘Febulous, febulous! Sharming, febulous,’ he encouraged, as he clicked away and I slowly froze to death. Only when the tips of my fingers had actually fallen off with the cold did he let me back to the hotel. (Said that later to a journalist, who stared closely at my hands, then fixed me with a ‘Do you take me for a right eejit?’ look.)
At one o’clock we had lunch with the Irish Ambassador to Austria. Oh, the joy of being with an Irish person! Said ‘Feck’, ‘Yoke’, ‘Divil the bit’ and ‘Ride me sideways’ many, many times, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to attempt to provide a fifteen-minute explanation.
Back to the hotel for more interviews. Then at five-thirty we repaired to Molly Darcy’s Irish bar for that evening’s reading. We were due to start at six, but I warned Ulrike and Yvonne that if there were Irish people involved we’d be lucky to get going by half-six. ‘The man who made time made plenty of it,’ I tried nervously, but they just didn’t get it. And sure enough, because Molly Darcy’s were very decently providing the audience with sandwiches, the reading couldn’t start without them. At ten past six word came that ‘the sandwiches are being cut’. The Austrians and Germans were beyond incredulous (you’d think that after all their holidays in Kinsale and Castlegregory that they’d know what we’re like). By contrast, I was thrilled and for a few minutes I savoured the fantasy that I was at home. At twenty past, the first of the sandwiches made their appearance and by half six (just like I’d foretold) we were underway. No official dinner that evening – hurray! Tried to walk around Vienna to see the sights by night, but were driven back by snow. In bed and asleep by ten o’clock.
Thursday. Berlin
Despite my extreme shaggeredness, couldn’t help a frisson of excitement as we circled over the (alarmingly large) suburbs of Berlin.
In the taxi on the way to the hotel we passed a bombed-out old church. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘A monument to the futility of war,’ Yvonne replied.
Two press interviews, then off to Deutsch Radio for a live interview with their version of Terry Wogan. We passed a huge abstract sculpture. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘A monument to the sorrow of war,’ Yvonne replied.
The interview was a pure disaster. The idea was that the German Terry Wogan would ask the questions in German, they’d be translated into English and spoken into headphones I was wearing, then I’d reply in English and the translator would translate back into German. But due to a technical hitch I could barely hear the English translation, so I couldn’t answer the questions. And when I attempted to anyway, I could hear the translator speaking in German in my head-phones, which was like having a peculiar echo on the line. God, it put years on me. I thought it would never end!
Going back to the hotel, we passed a crowd of people gathered around something on the ground. ‘What are they doing?’ I asked.
‘They’re looking into the empty, underground library,’ Yvonne said. ‘A monument to the sadness of war.’
Two more interviews, then out for that night’s reading. On the way we passed a big, silver building. Yvonne told me it was the Jewish museum. ‘A monument to the abhorrence of war.’
The reading went great, the best yet. Then out for dinner. On the way home we passed a crisp packet lying on the pavement. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘A monument to the grief of war,’ Yvonne replied. ‘Oh no,’ she recovered herself. ‘It’s a crisp packet.’
Then home to bed. I’m never speaking to anyone ever again.
First published in Irish Tatler, May 2000.
Given the Boot
The minute I got off the plane and set foot on English soil, the heel fell off my boot. With a bit of an undignified skid the majority of the boot decided to head for Arrivals, Terminal One, but the heel decided it was happier staying where it was, thanks.
Suddenly I was listing to one side, like a wrecked ship. So as nimbly as I could (not very), I moved out of the way of all the narky people who’d come crashing into the back of me after my hasty, sliding halt. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, as they marched past, glaring and glowering, hefting their bags of duty-free. I took off my boot to inspect the damage. Critical. The heel was hanging on to the mainland by just a couple of nails. So I limped along to the luggage retrieval and gave the whole sorry mess a good hammer on the carousel. Mercifully the heel went back on, but then I looked inside and saw a tangle of nails erupting up into the boot, like a hernia.
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Naïvely, I expect objects to survive until I’ve had enough of them. I expect them to serve me, to do my every bidding until I choose to cast them aside like a dry husk. Not to mention that I feel the loss of a piece of footwear as I would a close relative. That’ll learn me to anthropomorphize things. ‘Lookit.’ I waved the boot at Himself. ‘They’re shagged and they’re only new!’
‘Hardly new,’ he said mildly (because that’s the kind of man he is).
‘They are new,’ I insisted. ‘No more than a year, anyway.’
‘More like a year and a half,’ he said, offering me his arm as I upped-and-downed along, my foot cold from the floor, my face warm from the embarrassment, my ears burning from the other passengers’ sniggers.
‘And how am I going to get to the hotel with only one boot?’ I demanded.
‘Lep up on the trolley there,’ he offered. ‘I’ll push you to the Tube.’
The loss of the boot wasn’t a major catastrophe in the overall scheme of things. Except that the following day I was going to a literary lunch, then I was leaving London for Australia and New Zealand in an attempt to convince the good burghers of the Antipodes to buy one of my books. (I’m really sorry if I sound like a big show-off saying that, but they worked me into the ground, I swear, and it took me the best part of six months to get over the jet lag.) It would be cold in New Zealand. The boots were vital.
