Further Under the Duvet (14 page)

So I looked and instead of the radiant golden hue I’d been expecting, I was a nasty Eurotrash mahogany, which I was
prepared to bet went all the way down to my internal organs. Again I couldn’t leave the house for a week. I mean, no one wants to be humiliated in the street by strangers shouting, ‘Who’s been drinking the fake tan, then?’

Elementary mistake number four: The mud and how it works. In the deliriously happy days of doing my make-up column, I was invited to have the mud done. So I showed up at a hotel room, stripped off and hopped up onto the table, where a lovely girl smeared me with smelly mud, then got a big loofah and rubbed some of the mud off, then told me to get up and get dressed.

When I pointed out that I was still covered in smelly mud, she said, yes of course I was, that was how it worked, everyone knew that, but I’d be able to wash it off in the morning.

‘Obviously you’re going to look manky for the evening,’ she said. ‘But tomorrow morning, after your shower, you’ll have a fabulous tan.’

‘Grand, grand,’ I said.

She seemed to pick up on a little anxiety from me. ‘You hadn’t planned to go out tonight, had you?’

‘No, not really.’ Just for my mother’s birthday.

‘Probably best if you leave off your boots and tights. They’ll only interfere with the tan. You can drive in your bare feet.’

I looked out into the March night, it was pelting rain and freezing cold. ‘Okay.’

So off I went. And as luck would have it, the police were doing random checks on the Booterstown road. I rolled down my window and watched the copper’s face recoil as the smell hit him.

‘Licence, please.’

I handed it over, but the smell was clearly alarming him, so he had a low muttered consultation with his colleague, and the net result was that they asked me to get out of the car. In my bare feet. I tried to explain about the fake tan, but they just ordered me to open my boot – presumably to show them that I had no smelly dead bodies in there.

They kept me for ages, searching in their rule book to see if they could bring me in on anything. I wasn’t obviously breaking any laws, but they were very suspicious.

In the end they let me go and when I arrived at the restaurant to celebrate my mammy’s birthday, I caused a bit of a stir. As if the smell wasn’t making me unpopular enough, bits of the mud were going black and green and falling off my face into my dinner. I looked like a burns victim.

Mind you, it’s important to say that the following morning, when I’d washed off the muck, I had a rich, deep, smooth beautiful tan. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

First published in
Marie Claire,
Septmeber 2005
.

I worry, therefore I am, and in my ongoing quest to bring it to heel, I have given many things a go: reiki, craniosacral therapy, hypnotherapy, yoga and angel channelling.

None of them really helped, certainly not for any length of time, although, mind you, the reiki did generate a response. As I left the clinic, I felt a surge of rage that nearly knocked me into the street and into the path of a passing Saab. Perhaps an unlocking of decades-old rage had occurred? Or was I just feeling super-swizzed at having handed over eighty nicker for someone to lie me on a table in the dark and mutter at my head and feet? Who can tell?

Anyway, recently, three separate people suggested I try meditation.

One of them was a feathery-strokery, away-with-the-fairies reflexologist who told me I should think of myself as a golden egg (er, why?), so naturally I immediately discounted his advice. But one of the others was one of the most beautiful human beings I know – we’ll call her Judy. (It’s her name.) She’s been meditating for years.

And the third was a specialist who was treating me for TMJ – some jaw condition that I’d brought about by constantly clenching my jaw, because of anxiety.

Being advised by three such disparate people gave me
pause for thought; suddenly I began to like the idea of me being someone who meditated, and instantly started trying out different versions of myself where I would be asked, ‘Marian, how come you’re so calm?’ And I’d say, ‘Oh, well, I meditate, see? Meditation is part of my life. But not in a beardy, sandal-wearing weird way, as you can see.’

I would smile in a wry, knowing way. I would be invited to lots of charity lunches. I would still wear very high shoes and lipgloss.

Then I discovered that the recommended amount of time to meditate was twenty minutes, twice a day and I reacted with outrage. Twenty minutes! Twice a day? Where would I get twenty minutes twice a day? I’m really busy!

And never mind the fact that I can quite happily while away twenty minutes studying my shin, poised with a tweezer, on the search for ingrowing hairs. (TMI?) (Too much information?) If not, let me continue. Those smooth-limbed women (lucky cahs) who’ve never had their legs waxed won’t know what I mean but the sourcing and extraction of ingrowing hairs is life’s consolation prize for the hairy-legged woman. The sense of satisfaction is incomparable.

Anyway, I compromised by agreeing to try one lot of meditation a day. Committing to two daily sessions would be akin to buying a full set of golf clubs before I’d had my first golf lesson. (Or so I told myself.)

So how did I go about it? First, I needed something to tell me when my twenty minutes were up, so my Shaunie the Sheep kitchen timer was called into active service. Then, apparently, you have to say a mantra. The most famous is ‘Om’. But how do you say it? Like,
‘Om, om, om, om, om, om, om, om, om, om…’? Ad infinitum. Like the sound of soldiers’ feet marching across a parade ground. Or would it be more like an ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm’? Which made me feel very anxious, as if I was having to hold my breath under water. How long did I have to say one ‘Om’ for? When would I be allowed to stop and start the next one?

I consulted the lovely Judy who told me you needn’t bother with ‘Om’ if it’s not working out for you. If you prefer you can simply meditate in time with your breathing. Or count to four, then start back at one again. Or there are several Aramaic and Sanskrit mantras doing the rounds.

I selected a four-syllable Aramaic word and every day I say to Himself, ‘I won’t be available for the next twenty minutes. I’ll be meditating.’ And I think I’m
it
.

Off I go and I sit on my special chair in my special room (spare bedroom) and light my special candle (Jo Malone Lime) and twist Shaunie’s head round to twenty minutes – it feels like wringing a turkey’s neck – and think, God, I’m great! Right then, now for a bit of meditating! Okay, off we go. Okay, meditate, meditate,
meditate
… Oh Christ! I never rang that woman back about the insoles. I’ll do it as soon as I’m finished this. Although, what did her message say? That she’d be out of the office this morning? Right, I’ll try her this afternoon, if I remember. Oh God, I’m meant to be meditating. Concentrate, concentrate. Okay, I’m concentrating. What are we getting for dinner tonight? That salad can’t be in the full of its health, we bought it on Monday…

And if I go more than three seconds without thinking of something I have to do (or eat), I suddenly think, ‘Look!
Look at me. I’m meditating! I’m actually meditating.’ And then, of course, I’m not.

It might look easy, you might think that all you have to do is sit in a chair and close your eyes for twenty minutes, but this meditation is actually very hard. And long! As Shaunie’s poor gormless face clicks his way back to health, every meditation minute is like a Northern Line minute.

Nevertheless, three months down the line, I am still doing it. I think I might actually be a small bit calmer. It’s all a little alarming – if I stop being anxious, who will I be?

First published in
Marie Claire,
February 2005
.

When I first met Himself he had a very good job – company car, pension plan, grudging respect from his staff – the lot. I, on the other hand, was badly paid and devoid of ambition. Then I got a couple of books published and confounded all expectations by starting to earn more than he did. As soon as I could, I gave up my day job in order to write full-time and discovered that my writing had so much associated admin that I needed a full-time PA/dogsbody/kind person to hold my hand and tell me I’m not crap. Himself has a degree from Cambridge, can do hard sums in his head and knows the meaning of ataraxy. But he became that full-time PA/dogsbody/kind person to hold my hand and tell me I’m not crap and resigned from his job, waving goodbye to the car, the money, the grudging respect. Soon his days were an undizzying round of phone answering and five o’clock dashes down the road to catch the last post. In short, I ruined his life.

Our situation isn’t such an unusual one: since time immemorial, one clever spouse has given up their ambitions to run the home and facilitate the career of their perhaps less clever, but higher-earning partner. But until recently it was nearly always the women who made the sacrifice – not necessarily without justified, cat’s-arse-faced resentment, but it has been done.

Look at Hollywood: how many stories have we heard of women who put their own ambitions on hold in order to support their actor husband through the lean years? (Only to be abandoned as soon as the money begins to roll in. ‘Thanks a million for working three crappy jobs while I went to auditions. I’m off now with that anorexic one with the fake knockers and bee-stung lips over there, but hey, I’ll always speak fondly of you in
People
interviews.’)

And are things any better in the non-Hollywood world? Not very often. Now and then, when they’ve had a few drinks, their team has won and they’re generally in a benign humour, men will let a woman or two into the higher strata of the workplace. Just for the novelty value, of course. Sort of like getting a pet. And in case you’re thinking I’m overstating things, just take a look at the business-class section on any plane: you’d break your neck on all the grey-suited testosterone swilling around in there.

But, the odd time, the very, very odd time it happens that women are more successful than their male partners; even to the point where men take over the role of stay-at-home wives and become househusbands.

And men don’t like it; at least that’s the perceived wisdom. The rule states that men are the hunter-gatherers and if their spouse has some spare time to help out with the berry picking, then well and good, but they must never forget who the
real
providers are or else they’ll up and punish us by becoming sulky and impotent.

I asked my brother Niall how he’d feel about being a ‘home-maker’ and he said he’d love it: he’d get to play golf and party while someone else went to work, shouldered the
stress and provided the readies. But when I put it to him that he’d be responsible for childcare and making dinners, he disappeared behind his newspaper, muttering, ‘Feck that.’

The funny thing is that when people promise that they’ll stick with their spouse ‘for richer, for poorer’ it’s the ‘for poorer’ part that causes the worry. No one thinks for a minute that the ‘for richer’ bit could be a problem.

I know a writer who got an advance that was described as ‘life-altering’. Sadly it proved to be just that because about six months later her husband legged it. But who is to say that the dosh was the reason he went? To be quite honest she has more than a touch of the Madeleine Bassets (super-drippy girl from P.G. Wodehouse novels) and if I was married to her I’d have gone too. (All that talk of when an angel cries it makes a new star, it’s enough to make anyone run.)

I know another writer who got a big enough advance to keep her family in i-Pods and skiing holidays for several years, but her husband has continued to work all the hours God sends, and she sees less of him now than she ever did.

Anyway, when Himself changed his role to being my PA, I knew how important it was to preserve his dignity. So shortly into our new arrangement a concerned friend took me aside and suggested that next time I wanted Himself to bring me something to eat, perhaps I shouldn’t pound the bedroom floor with a thick stick and yell down the stairs, ‘Oi! More Percy Pigs up here. On the double!’

But I can’t stop other things. Like the way that Himself gets called Mr Keyes (it’s not his name; that’s my dad). In fact, some people can’t even get his first name right: in the last few months Himself (aka Tony) has been John, Tom
and Joe. Even his profession is misrepresented: in one magazine article he was described as a psychiatrist (which he may be, having to deal with me on a daily basis, but not in a professional capacity) and in another he was ‘a dentist’. And the thing is, he doesn’t stomp around in a big, mad, hairy rage, shrieking at me to write to the editor, demanding a retraction. He doesn’t care because he knows who he is. (I’m making him sound like a saint here and definitely running the risk of being hit with the Curse of the Smug Girl. Now it’s almost certain that in two weeks’ time he’ll be caught down some dark alley getting a handjob from a transsexual.)

But what’s gas is that
women
aren’t always comfortable with Himself’s lowly status. Female journalists often ask him what he ‘does’ and he answers proudly, ‘Dogsbody.’ And, lo and behold, when the piece comes out he is described not as my ‘dogsbody’ or even my ‘colleague’, but as my ‘Manager’.