Making It Up As I Go Along (14 page)

Then Eileen left for Buenos Aires and Himself and
I went to Bariloche, still in Patagonia but a two-hour flight away – the
size
of
Argentina! – in the Lake District, and it was hilarious. It was like being in Switzerland!
Log cabins a gogo. Triangular-shaped houses! Everything made of wood! Jagged snow-capped peaks!
Chocolate! (Yes, sadly another lapse from my sugar-free state.) Pine forests! Deep, dark-blue
lakes! Stunning, so it was, utterly stunning.

Myself and Himself were
staying in this hotel in Bariloche called Llao Llao (pronounced sort of like ‘Yow
Yow’, I believe, or maybe the person who told me was just taking the piss and hoping to
make a gom of me).

Apparently it’s a famous hotel and
it’s been there a long time and frankly,
mes amies
, I found it slightly odd. It
sort of had a Swiss/Wild West peculiar identity. Lots of wood and stag antlers and wooden
banisters and wooden floors and dead animals looming out of walls and cowhide on floors and
… you know. But nice enough.

In fairness we were in a tiny horrible room with
twin beds, although we had asked for a doubler, and if there’s one thing that makes
Himself cry and put his back out it’s twin beds (he puts his back out when he shoves the
twin beds together, and he insists on doing it even when they’re glued to the floor).

Basically we got off to a bad start. But then
things picked up and we went out in a canoe in the lake beside the hotel and all in all a lovely
time was had, but from the lake we noticed that there were massive building works going on which
we hadn’t noticed up to that point. (Bear with me, this becomes important.)

Anyway, two days later, we are in this massive
concourse downstairs having our breakfast (I will also explain that) when who do we see
wandering in desultory fashion around the breakfast buffet, plate of scrambled eggs in hand?
Only John Rocha!

For those of you who don’t know who John
Rocha is, let me explain. He’s an Irish designer and he designs clothing and glasswear and
hotels. He ‘did’ the Morrison Hotel. Also, he is a fairly distinctive-looking
character, with waist-length, black-but-greying straight hair, and he was dressed in designer
black and he looked – the truth hurts but I am obliged to say it – out of place
among the Argentine holidaymakers, who were dressed
in jolly holiday shades
and fleeces and other relaxed clothing.

Himself and I were TREMENDOUSLY excited to see a
famous Irish person and in such an unusual location, and it couldn’t have happened at a
better time because we were beginning to get homesick. Anyway, Himself decided to climb to his
feet and cup his hands together to form a loudhailer and shout at the top of his voice in his
best Colin Farrell accent over the heads of the stylish Argentines eating their dolce con leche
(they’re mad for it, I was fairly mad for it myself, it’s like caramel and they have
it on their bread, very sweet, gorgeous), ‘John, JOHN!!! JOHN, ya mad bollix, what the
FOOOK are YOU doing here?’ (I should at this point tell you that John Rocha doesn’t
know me and Himself from a hole in the ground.) Anyway, Himself didn’t actually do it, he
just pretended to do it, and we got great enjoyment out of it and we concluded that John must be
‘doing’ the new wing of Yow Yow and that hopefully he’d steer clear of antlers
and suchlike. (Was that a pun? ‘Steer’ clear? Could have been.)

Oh yes. I have to explain what we were doing at
the breakfast buffet, because although I love buffets, I hate being in the presence of strangers
eating their breakfasts. I’m bad in the mornings, jumpy and nervy, everything seems louder
and brighter and – yes, forgive me,
mes amies
–
smellier
. And the
smell of eggs – particularly fried eggs, but I will also include poached, boiled and
scrambled and any other way you can think of – makes me want to cut my own throat. So I
try to avoid communal breakfasts because if I’m feeling in any way at all suicidal, the
stench of eggs tends to nudge me that little bit closer to the edge.

However, this was not our first breakfast of the
day, but our second. The first we had had several hours earlier, when we had checked out and
left for the airport, but en route to the airport we discovered that our flight had been delayed
by eleven hours, so
we came back to Yow Yow and they let us in and
suggested that we kill one of our eleven hours by having a second breakfast. Which we duly did.
And to think that if our flight hadn’t been delayed we would have missed the sight of John
Rocha nosing around the Coco Pops. (I apologize to non-Irish readers. The sight of John Rocha
making his own toast may not be as thrilling to you as it was to me.)

After four days, we went to Buenos Aires and we
were meant to meet up with Eilers but due to the flight delay by the time we got in it was too
late and she left for Ireland early the next morning, so that was that.

Just the two days in BA (as they say). (It would
have been three if it hadn’t been for the delayed flight.) After extreme forbearance on
the shopping front up until this point, I had a mild shoe-and-bag frenzy in some place called
Ricky Sarkovy (something like that). I got blue metallic stilettos and a silvery metallic bag
and a purple metallic belt.

My friend Conor McCabe had assured me, and I
quote, that everything in Buenos Aires was ‘dirt cheap’. Sadly, I did not find this
to be so. As I may have mentioned, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something
about me that just repels bargains. I think it’s because I’ve an eejity face and
when shopkeepers see me approaching, they think, ‘This one will buy anything’ (which
is true). ‘I’ll just raise my prices by 1500 per cent.’

And now here I am, back home, with the shakes and
mild nausea. (Jet lag.) (Also terror at having to resume work.)

mariankeyes.com
,
February 2007.

Myself and Himself went to France on a walking
holiday. I know it must seem that my life is one big holiday but honestly it isn’t,
it’s just that there was a gap in the schedule: the new book had gone off for the
copy-editing and there was nothing for me to do for a little while and soon enough I’d be
doing the proofreading, so you’ve got to take your chances where you can find them, so we
went to France.

Also, I feel jackknifed with guilt about going on
holiday in these horrible financial times, but this was a very cheap holiday because we were
spending our days walking, at no financial cost, and staying in very basic places (lino on the
floors, extremely small rooms so that one of us had to stay in bed while the other of us got
dressed, that sort of thing. Also, no tellies, not that it would have made any difference,
seeing as I can’t speak French).

So we had the cost of the ferry and the petrol,
which obviously is an expense but it’s a bit different from going to Reethi Rah in the
Maldives and staying in a villa with its own pool and a butler for two weeks. (I spend a lot of
time on the interwebs looking at it and dreaming …) So anyway, off we went to France, to
the Auvergne.

It’s a volcanic region – the place is
JAM-PACKED with extinct volcanoes – and the guidebook said it was very remote, and I had
visions of inbred peasants throwing stones and shouting, ‘
Allez chez vous!
’
at us as we tramped past in our walking boots and rucksacks, but the book had it ALL WRONG.

It was STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL.
Lakes and, yes, hills – indeed, you could call them mountains. And – this is the
best bit – meadows full of wild flowers, wild daffodils and violets and foxgloves and
poppies in the hedgerows, and butterflies and all of that, and it reminded me of the way rural
Ireland used to be before they started using pesticides.

There were cows in the fields, and goats and
sheep and – unsettlingly – llamas. Yes, llamas. The Peruvian type, not the Tibetan.
Twice I saw them. Once I would have put down to a fragile state of mind. But twice made me think
that I probably wasn’t imagining it. And not once were stones thrown at us. We met hardly
anyone, but the few ancient oul’ fellas on tractors we encountered were very nice and
SALUTED us, like
actually saluted
us, like we were in the army.

It’s funny because my mother is a rural
type and she uses the word ‘salute’ when she means ‘greet’ or
‘wave’. But I didn’t realize it was something that LITERALLY happens.

We walked miles and miles every day. Thirteen of
them. Miles, not days. Six days. Then in the evenings we would arrive at our lino-floored billet
and eat enough stodgy food to sink a battleship. Yes, the food was fascinating. Completely not
what I expected from French food, which I always associate with complicated reductions and
creamy sauces and general gussied-up fanciness.

This was proper rural stodge. Their signature
dish is half an acre of potatoes, mashed with a warehouse full of cheese and 112 pints of cream
and the side of a pig. The PORTIONS, amigos. MASSIVE. Like rural Ireland, where the woman of the
house feels she has failed as a hostess if her dinner guests don’t spontaneously develop a
hernia in the course of the dinner.

And for breakfast there was no chopped fruit or
granola or ‘lifestyle’ food; what you got was a ginormous croissant and a
bucket of coffee, and I was fecking DELIGHTED because I adore croissants but
won’t let myself eat them because of the continual war that rages between my appetite and
the size of my arse. But I had no choice but to eat my ginormous croissant because there was
nothing else and I had a hard day’s walking ahead of me, so it was great.

Then we’d buy cheese and stuff to bring for
our lunch and one day I insisted we purchase ten slices of Parma-style ham, only to discover
many hours later when we’d collapsed beside a lake to refuel that it wasn’t Parma
ham at all, but raw bacon. A low moment, amigos. Yes, some disappointment and – sad to say
– a shameful attempt to reapportion the blame, as I sought to absolve myself of
responsibility.

But other than that little hiccup, we had
un
temps merveilleux
!

mariankeyes.com
,
May 2009.

While the Praguers were living in Prague, I
visited them regularly. And when it transpired that Ireland were playing Slovakia in the
European Championship qualifiers, the two things tied in very nicely. So I went to Prague with
Himself, Tadhg and Susan, then we drove to Bratislava with Niall to see our glorious boys in
green thrash the living daylights out of Slovakia.

Okay, Slovakia. Well, we went there thinking a)
the Irish football team would bate the living daylights out of the Slovaks, and b) that the
Slovaks were lovely people (Ljiljana had said they were). Neither of these things turned out to
be true.

We set off from Prague on the Saturday morning,
full of good cheer. We then proceeded to stop at about fifteen different McDonald’s on the
way, partly because of my bargain-basement bladder and partly because we were all hungry at
different times and partly because it was the month for Himself to have his once-a-year
McDonald’s.

We arrived at the SAS Radisson in the centre of
Bratislava to discover that only one of our three rooms was ready (even though it was later than
three o’clock). We could hardly hear the conversation with the surly, surly, oh
very
surly
desk person because of the singing of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ from the
bars across the street. Undeterred, we went to the one ready room and Tadhg leant out the
window, looking at the hordes of Irish fans out there,
and said,
‘There it is! I’ve seen my first green inflatable hammer!’ And so festivities
were declared open!

Out we went. Irish fans everywhere, full of
niceness. Slovak police also everywhere, not full of niceness. Making people take down Irish
flags. Telling people to shut up the singing. Slovak bar staff. Not full of niceness.

Back to the hotel to see if the rooms were ready.
Revelation from (different other) surly desk person: the hotel was overbooked. There was no room
for Niall. The whole town was full. But they had secured him some rude lodgings outside the
town, halfway to Budapest. All of us very distressed. ‘He’s our brother!’ we
exclaimed. ‘We don’t see him that often! Don’t send him halfway to
Budapest!’

But nothing doing. Mood low. Arrangements to meet
in the lobby at 6.15 for food before the match. However … however … as luck would
have it, weren’t we staying in the same hotel as the team! Yes! Before 6.15, Himself and
myself were ‘grooming’ ourselves (i.e. putting on our green gear) when we heard an
extra-loud commotion down in the street: a coach had drawn up outside. THE coach. To collect the
team and bring them to the grounds.

We were so excited we climbed out the window and
on to the roof and then we decided we should rush downstairs to see if we could see them
in
the lobby.
And sure enough we did! They all appeared out of the lifts, seconds after
myself and Himself arrived, and they disappeared into some back room for a ‘chat’.
Then they appeared again, a long line of them, being led by Damien Duff. I’ve always been
fond of him because of his alleged predilection for twenty hours’ sleep a night.

And – coincidentally, just like me –
he too has had his hair recently de-gingered, because he was looking very blond and
Nordic (but small) (but there’s nothing wrong with small, nothing at
all). As he led the boys out, his eyes connected with my awestruck ones and he gave me a slow,
deliberate wink! (I am afraid this is a complete lie. But I’ve told it so often that
I’ve started to believe it myself.)

Then we went for something to eat. And my God,
the frozen, unsmiling hostility of it all. You’d swear it was illegal to smile in
Slovakia. Indeed, maybe it is! Certainly, enough police were around to enforce it. Frankly, we
were
astonished
by the unpleasantness of the staff. I mean, I admit that Irish people
can sometimes be a bit wearing, with their constant chat and bonhomie and desperate desire for
the craic, but come on!

Then we went to the grounds, where the warm
Slovak welcome continued. There were only two gates for the Irish fans and 279 for the
(thirteen) Slovak fans. Tumbleweed was blowing through the Slovak turnstiles but they still
wouldn’t let us come in. They directed us (curtly, nay
brutally
) to the Irish
gates, which looked like Red Cross feeding stations in a famine zone. It was really –
genuinely – scary.

Although everyone (by which I mean the Irish
people, not the granite-faced Slovaks) was really good-humoured, we were so crushed that my feet
were lifting off the ground. By the time we got in the national anthems were playing, and there
were still loads of Irish people stuck outside in the throng, so they would have missed the
start of the game.

However, the less said about the game the better.
All that you need to know is that it looked like we were going to win, then we let in a Slovak
goal in injury time. Déjà fecken vu! It was Tel Aviv all over again! We were gutted,
gutted, gutted! And to enhance our happiness, the Slovaks sent in a load of riot police, who
were so obviously
itching
for a fight.

I’ve never been so
insulted in my life! I’ve been to Irish games in lots of countries and never, ever, ever
have we been treated like this. Irish fans are nice! Everyone knows that! (Like I say, yes, we
can at times be wearing with the anecdotes and the good humour, but coshing people over the head
with batons just to shut them up surely isn’t the way to go.)

Then – the final salt in the wound –
the Irish fans were locked in – yes,
locked in
– for fifteen minutes at the
end of the match, to let the six Slovak fans home safely (yes, I had originally thought there
were thirteen Slovak fans, but seven of them were Irish who had had to buy Slovak tickets
because all the Irish ones were sold).

It was a bad business. Doubtless there are many
nice Slovakians who spend their days from dawn till dusk laughing their heads off. I am not
judging the entire Slovakian nation, only the 417 Slovaks I met. Maybe they were having a bad
day. All of them.

In fairness, no wonder it was such a peaceful
business when they decided to break away from the Czechs and make their own country. The Czechs
must have been delighted! ‘Work away, lads, good luck with it all. No, no – no need
to feel guilty, we’ll be grand. We’ll miss you, of course, your little smiling
Slovak faces, but we respect that you must do what you must do.’

And of course, out of suffering, great art
sometimes comes. So much so that I’ve been inspired to write a pome about my time there.
It goes as follows:

Final little piece on the match and then
I’ll shut up about it. Susan and I were both woken in the middle of the night by a very
over-refreshed and heartbroken Irish fan shrieking in the street outside our
hotel, ‘Staunton.
Stauuuuuuuuuuuuntonnnnn!
’ (Staunton is the Irish
manager.) ‘We know you’re in there! Get down here, you …’ (pause for
breath) ‘
useless
…’ (another pause for breath)
‘
GOBSHITE.
’ After a short pregnant pause, sounds of ragged sobbing reached
me and Susan.

(Himself and Tadhg did not have their slumber
disturbed as they were sleeping the sleep of the very drunk. And Niall, of course, did not have
his slumber disturbed either, as he was halfway to Budapest on account of the SAS Radisson
Bratislava having given his room away to someone else. I’m not bitter. No. I’m only
saying.)

Note: I subsequently heard that the reason there
were no Slovakian supporters at the match was because they were boycotting it because the ticket
prices were so high. Also, that the SAS Radisson Bratislava is not owned by Slovakians, the
implication being that if it had been, they wouldn’t have given Niall’s room
away.

mariankeyes.com
,
September 2007.