Making It Up as I Go Along

by Marian Keyes

  There are a couple of ways to address The Wait. You could walk out – I’ve done it once or twice. Or you could decide to draw up a list of everyone you’ve ever slept with. Take out a pen and notebook that you’ve brought specially for this purpose and start. Be rigorous. One-night stands, everything. Don’t forget people you ‘met’ on holiday. Rack your brains good and proper. At some point Elijah will appear and you will be expected to jump to your feet. My orders to you are DO NOT! Finish your list. When you are finished – and I want you to do a thorough job – then and only then may you look up at him. If you feel you could manage to, I beg you to quirk an eyebrow at Elijah and say, ‘Ready then?’ Practise this at home if you don’t feel confident you can do it for the first time in the saloon.

  Step Four: The Gown. Elijah will hold it in a way that no matter how you try to get into it, it will be wrong. If you try to go in front-ways, it will be like a coat. If you approach it like a coat it will have to be put on over your head. Indeed, rumour has reached me that some hairdressers are inventing onesie gowns that you have to step into, feet first. I’ve discovered that I cannot out-think them in this matter. The only thing I can suggest is that you say, ‘Okay, Elijah, you win round four.’

  Step Five: The Consultation. Be alert: this is the central part of the process. This is when the real meat of the breaking happens. This is where you sit in front of the mirror and Elijah will lift a piece of your hair and contemptuously let it fall again. He will lift another strand and, in disgust, drop it. If everyone has done their job right, you will be close to tears at this point. Then Elijah will say, ‘So what happened here?’

  Usually I stammer, ‘How do you mean?’

  And Elijah will say, ‘Well, it’s a disaster. Did you get it cut like this for charity? Sort of like a Movember thing?’

  ‘… but …’

  ‘And the condition! It’s so dry it’s breaking off in my hands.’

  Then he will ask the most leading question you will be asked in your visit. He will say, ‘What do you use for your home care regime?’ And this is where you need to have your answers ready, my amigos. The very best thing you can do is to lift your chin, meet his eye in the mirror and say scornfully, ‘Home care? I never blow-dry my hair myself! My hairdresser comes to my house every morning at seven.’

  However, if you feel you can’t manage to pull this off, there are a couple of alternatives. You can say, ‘I use Frédéric Fekkai.’ (This is the most expensive hair range that I know of.) ‘Admittedly, Elijah, it costs an arm and a leg but it’s worth it, right? I’ve just started using that overnight conditioner, the one that costs 195 quid a bottle and I find it perrrr.ittty immmp.ressive. In fact, Elijah, your own hair is looking a bit banjoed, you could do with some yourself. I’ve got a bottle here in my bag. I can give it to you for … let’s say … £220?’

  OR you could say, ‘I use Majestic Gold,’ and Elijah will curl his lip and say ‘What?’ (Because you’ve just made it up.) And you will say, ‘Oh yes. It’s from the United Arab Emirates. Next-generation haircare. Miracle stuff. It’s, like, literally the most expensive range on the planet.’ Pause and give a little tinkle of a laugh. ‘They use real gold in it. I hear they’re starting to use it in —’ And here you will mention their nearest rival.

  OR you can say, ‘Elijah, you know and I know that my hair is fine. I know you’re going to try and sell me an expensive conditioner. But, Elijah, here’s how it is. I have enough money to buy the conditioner or I have enough money to give you a tip. But I don’t have enough money to do both. It’s up to you. You decide.’

  You must plump for one of these options. A stand must be taken. Else when you go to the till, you’ll find a little bag with rope handles waiting for you.

  Step Six: The Hairwash. You will be taken to a basin and a child who dreams of being on the minimum wage will ask if you would like a head massage. You will say yes. The child will place their thumbs on your skull and press twice. The massage is now over.

  Step Seven: The Blow-dry. It all depends. It might go okay. Elijah might do what you ask. Or he might not. It depends on how bitter he is that you didn’t buy the conditioner.

  Step Eight: The Conversation. Elijah will fire an opening salvo by asking if you’ve been on holidays recently. You can shut things down fast by saying, ‘I haven’t been anywhere for a while. Not since they made me surrender my passport.’

  Step Nine: The Hairspray. Be a good girl and take your medicine. Open your clob and let Elijah spray in a mouthful. Don’t drag it out.

  Step Ten: The Removal of the Gown. You will stand up and expect Elijah to start untying bows. He won’t. You will have to do it yourself.

  Step Eleven: The Stealthy Sell. When you go to the till to pay, the receptionist person will say in a sing-songy casual way, ‘Did you want to take any products, at all?’ And you will see the conditioner Elijah tried to flog you sitting there, gazing at you hopefully like a puppy in an abandoned dog’s home. Just say no. Again.

  Step Twelve: Your Next Appointment. Super-casually, the receptionist will ask, ‘When will I book you in for your next appointment, at all?’ Are you brave enough to say, ‘When hell freezes over’? I confess I haven’t yet been, but I hope one day I will be.

  Step Thirteen: The Return of Your Coat. The receptionist will ask, ‘What’s your coat like?’

  ‘It’s blue.’

  ‘Reeeeealllly?’ A blue coat? How … well … hysterical!

  They’ll disappear into a little cubbyhole and while they’re in there they’ll eat a Twirl and check their texts. Some time later they’ll re-emerge, swallowing down the last of their chocolate, and say, ‘No blue coats.’ They’ll look at you like you’re a halfwit who can’t even remember what they put on that morning.

  ‘But there must be. It has a hood –’

  ‘A hood?!’

  There will be a moment when you think, ‘Why would I want a blue coat with a hood? Wouldn’t I just be better leaving without it?’

  Stand your ground, I urge you. Stand your ground. Make them go back in.

  After a while they’ll come out dragging a rag along the floor. It will be your coat. Feigning astonishment that anyone would wear such a thing, they’ll ask, ‘Is this it?’

  Shame will have you teetering on a knife edge. You really will consider denying it and just running away. Don’t. It is your coat. You bought it because you loved it. Don’t abandon it.

  Very accusingly the receptionist will say, ‘It was under a pile of other coats.’

  Do NOT apologize.

  The Final Humiliation: Putting Your Coat On. The receptionist will go behind you and pretend to help you into your coat, but in reality they will be pinching the armholes closed so you will flail around, like you’re doing the upright backstroke, wondering why you’re so useless.

  Just take your coat from them and say, ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  There we are, I hope this hard-won experience is in some way helpful. May I just state again that I love my hairdresser, so obviously not all of them are horrible.

  mariankeyes.com, January 2013.

  Personal Shoppers

  Personal shoppers. Yes. As Mam would say, it was far from personal shoppers I was reared. All the same, I managed the superhuman feat of shutting down the voice in my head which tells me, You deserve nothing, long enough to make an appointment with a personal shopper – we’ll call her Alex – in a Large Department Store in London (hereafter known as LDSIL).

  I don’t know the kind of people who normally use personal shoppers, but I suspected I wasn’
t one of them. I thought they might be very busy lady executives, or people who go to a lot of charity balls, people who simply didn’t have time for traipsing around the shops.

  I actually like traipsing around the shops. But I was interested in forging a long-term relationship with a personal shopper for one specific reason: shoes. Yes, shoes. Other things, also, hopefully, but specifically shoes.

  Because I have very small feet … sorry … hold on! Right now, can I stop people who want to tell me how lucky I am that I can buy all my shoes in the cheapo children’s department. I am a short-arse and I need heels, I need height. Children’s shoes are a) horrible, b) made of plastic, c) too low, and d) have pictures of the Wiggles. I am not lucky at all.

  Every spring and autumn, when the new shoes arrive in the shops, I launch myself on the trail for the white truffle of shoes, the holy grail: the size 35. But I don’t live in London, and Ireland doesn’t stock any shoes smaller than size 37. (‘There isn’t the demand,’ they tell me, while I reply, in despair, ‘But I’m demanding them.’) And the chances of me accidentally being in London the lone day the pitifully few size 35s arrive on the shelves are slim. My cunning plan was that a trusted personal shopper would be my person on the ground to bag the 35s.

  However, we were midway between new shoes seasons, so I decided, for a bonding first date, to ask Alex to help me find a dress. A dressy dress, but not too dressy, one that could go from the office to the red carpet, not that I’d be going anywhere near a red carpet, but just in case. A dress like an Issa dress, but not actually Issa, as I already had a shamefully high number.

  So we met, and although she was very thin, she didn’t call me darling. This pleased me. We went to the store café and she got me an orange juice and quizzed me about what I liked and what my look was and what my size was, and none of this was as easy as it sounds. Then she went away and I stayed sipping orange juice and trying to do a sudoku and in fifteen minutes she returned and led me to a large, off-the-beaten-track changing room crammed with dresses.

  Thrilling? Yes, at least in theory. But in practice it was not a success. The dresses were all dresses I’d noticed on a fact-finding trawl earlier in the day. Nothing new or spectacular had been released from a secret vault for the special customers. And nothing really worked. The Temperley dresses made me look like Camilla Parker-Bowles – yes, I know everyone loves her and she can do no wrong now, but there’s no denying that something about the set of her shins in a flared skirt calls to mind a stag at bay. Or perhaps a sideboard.

  The low-waisted Etro dress made me look like Toad of Toad Hall, like I was all stomach. The Missoni dresses were heart-stoppingly expensive. The DVFs were nice but a little safe, and, like I said, I already had far too many Issa dresses.

  Sweat broke out on my forehead and I was suddenly filled with panic. I was trapped, trapped in this changing room with all these expensive, unsuitable dresses, and I’d accepted a free orange juice. I had to buy something. I was morally obliged to. Alex had gone to all this trouble … The room seemed to become smaller and lower and the dresses seemed to cackle, as if taunting me.

  In the end I bought an Issa dress – I couldn’t, just couldn’t find the nerve to walk away with nothing – and asked if I could make an appointment for the next time I’d be in London. (Shoe-time.) She said she wasn’t taking appointments that far in advance and that she’d call. But she didn’t, and as the time got closer, I rang and left a message. She didn’t get back, so I rang and left another message. I rang again and it was on phone call four that it dawned on me: Alex wouldn’t be calling me back. Oh my God … I’d been rejected by my personal shopper!

  Why? Why? Was I not stylish enough? Thin enough? Had I not spent enough money? Should I have refused the orange juice? No answers were forthcoming and I faced the frustrating, unpalatable truth: a person like me would never have a personal shopper. Once again, Mammy Keyes was right. Feck’s sake!

  First published in Marie Claire, October 2006.

  Kettlebells

  I did a kettlebells class. Sweet baba Jay! What happened was, one morning Himself – and this is a fairly regular thing – went off to run up the vertical side of Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in Wicklow (I’m fairly sure it is, although I might have that wrong, but either way, it’s very high).

  Himself is always at that lark. If he’s not running up the sides of mountains, he’s going for fifty-kilometre hikes in the hills in the dark (true fact) or doing them AWFUL wretched endurance yokes. In Ireland there’s one called Hell and Back but you might be more familiar with Tough Mudder or similar – you know, when they have to run through lakes and get electric shocks and carry concrete bollards over twelve-foot-high walls and crawl on their bellies under a blanket of razor wire and whatnot.

  And it dawned on me that the disparity in our fitness levels was becoming a bit of an unbridgeable gap and that it was time I took myself in hand. So I did a little bit of research and discovered that a kettlebells class was being held that very morning in the local gym in Bluepool. (In fairness, it mightn’t be called that any more, but that’s what it was called when I was a teenager and these things tend to stick.)

  I gave them a ring to establish more details and the lovely lady on the phone said the class lasted forty minutes and wasn’t too hard, so along I went, only to discover that the lightest kettlebell was eight kilograms – I mean, that’s well over a stone!

  Which was bad, but there was worse to come because the instructor – a very nice young man with tattoos and fancy facial hair – said we’d be doing the class outside. Outdoors! At the best of times I’m no fan of any space without a roof and walls and windows (preferably closed). But this decision meant that my gasping, wheezing shame would be visible to all the people sitting on the top deck of the number 4 bus. I should mention that the number 4 bus’s terminus directly overlooks the all-weather pitch where we’d be doing our class. So the top-deck passengers wouldn’t catch a quick glimpse of me as they whizzed by. Oh no. They could have a good fifteen to twenty minutes, planked in a stationary position, able to study me and my cherry-red face in great detail. Perhaps even, to bond with their fellow commuters as they studied my ‘form’:

  ‘She’ll never last the class.’

  ‘Mark my words, that one’s going to take a tumble.’

  ‘Hold on! I’d say she’s going to puke!’

  ‘You’re right, you’re right, only a matter of time! I’m giving her four minutes.’

  ‘Put me down for three minutes fifty.’

  ‘Two minutes thirty-five for me.’

  Yes, they’d watch me as if they were watching a very interesting-in-an-atrocious-way sporting event and emerge as firm friends.

  Before the class started I realized that everyone else – seven or eight women – knew each other and were regulars, and from earwigging their conversations I gathered that their children all seemed to be in school with each other. So I hovered on the edge of their bonded circle, smiling like the anxious, unfit gom I am.

  Then off we went! Instructor Boy said we’d start with a warm-up, and my experience of exercise-class warm-ups is of doing grapevines and other sappy easy things, but there was none of that lark. Instead we were made to do sideways-running along the four sides of the pitch. You know when you see football teams training on the telly and they’re doing the sideways-running and then they do that strange sprinting where they bring their knees up to their chests and then they bring their heels up to their bums? Yes? Well, that’s what we had to do.

  It was AWFUL and I thought I was going to die from unfitness, but I couldn’t lose
face, not with the people on the number 4 bus watching me avidly. (I was too mortified to look directly at them, but I was always aware of a sea of faces clustered the length of the bus, locked in rapt watchfulness.)

  Then! We had to start flinging the kettlebells around and I could hardly lift my eight-kilogram one, never mind swing it, and once I got it up I couldn’t control it, and it was a mercy that I didn’t clatter myself in the head and knock myself out, although I DID actually consider doing that, just to get out of doing the rest of the class, in the same way that First World War soldiers would shoot themselves in the foot and say that the gun had accidentally fired while they were cleaning it, so that they wouldn’t be sent back to the front.

  But I kept going, even though the class went on for AN HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES, and despite everything there was a great sense of camaraderie and I liked the teacher and the other people and it was only six yoyos and there was a kind of honesty about the whole thing I liked.

  I’ve fashioned great plans to return but I haven’t as yet, because with one thing and another … But I will! Yes! Almost certainly! Perhaps …

  mariankeyes.com, May 2014.

  Shite for Goms

  It seems like a thousand years ago now, but in August last summer I was on holiday in Italy with my entire family. We were staying in a deeply charming villa near a beautiful hilltop town called Cortona, and you know yourself – Italy, sunshine, tomatoes, the funny pointy trees, saying ‘Mi scusi’ – it was fabulous.

  Everyone had a little wish list: Seán wanted to make pizzas from scratch; Oscar planned to learn to swim; I set myself the challenge of trying every one of the forty-nine flavours of gelato in the Snoopy Gelateria; and Caitríona, who lives in New York, was desperate to visit a designer outlet, an hour’s drive from the villa.