Making It Up As I Go Along (26 page)

There are several ‘clusters’ of
nephews in play, in my life. I will commence with the Redzers, who are Dylan (four) and Oscar
(two), who are the children of my sister Rita-Anne and her husband Jimmy. Anyway, myself and
Himself went with them on a little mini-holiday (Friday to Monday) to the Powerscourt Hotel.
Now, I make no bones about it, I am besotted with the place. It’s odd: when it was first
built in the heyday of the Celtic Tiger I withheld my judgement, I decided I wasn’t going
to be easily seduced by it … and then I went there …

Oh God, where do I start?

Well it’s only half an hour’s drive
from my house. So in thirty minutes I went from crowded Dún Laoghaire to the mountains and
the trees and the greenery and the lakes and the peace of Wicklow. No airports, no planes, no
seven-hour drives, just thirty minutes in the vehicle.

We parked the car and already my shoulders were
loosening and lowering.

Rita-Anne and the Redzers had also just arrived,
and in we went and the welcome we got was lovely. The staff are so nice – a lot of
‘foncy’ hotels offer ‘Snotty Disdainful Service’ under their list of
amenities, but not here. They’re very warm and they even have a little
‘pretend’ check-in for nippers, so they don’t get bored and start flinging
themselves around, roaring and shouting, while the real check-in goes on.

Then we went to our lovely
rooms, with views of the Sugar Loaf, and in the Redzers’ room they’d put in a
‘special’ (that’s what he kept calling it) roll-out bed for Dylan and a cage
(i.e. cot) for Oscar, only he
is
a bit of a wild man, so that’s why you could
easily visualize him in a cage. Also, for ‘the younger guests’ there are
mini-bathrobes! And biscuits! And free milk in the fridge.

Then it was time for everyone – even the
younger guests – to put on their togs and bathrobes and go for a swim. And, oh my God, the
pool! It’s all mood-lit and almost womb-like.

In general, I fear the water. Not fear it, in
that it might
drown
me; I fear it, in that it might
wet
me. You couldn’t
pay me to have a bath. I DO, I must stress this, I DO know my duties as a member of society, so
of course I have plentiful showers. But I forced myself into this beautiful pool because I knew
it would calm me. And it did.

Then it was time to watch the Redzers eat their
tea! Despite his tender years Dylan has already been to the Powerscourt Hotel (we went for
Dad’s eightieth back in March), so he knows all about room service and he thinks
it’s the most wonderful thing ever invented!

I had a quick (and I do mean quick) shower and
changed into my nightdress and went in my bare feet with Himself to watch the tea-eating. (This
information becomes relevant very shortly.) Jimmy (husband of Rita-Anne) was after arriving and
then in came Tibor with the grub – Tibor is Mr Room Service, he’s from Hungary.

The chip-eating began with gusto – then the
most godawful racket started up. It was the fire alarm. It was one of those noises that make you
feel like your head is going to explode with the vibrations – they probably use them in
Guantánamo Bay – but like the Irish people we are, we calmly continued eating our
chips. ‘Just a drill,’ one of us would say, from time to time,
while our heads started to judder and melt. ‘Are you eating your gherkin? Can I have
it?’

All of a sudden, it dawned on us, as one, that
maybe it wasn’t a drill, that maybe there
was
a fire. Giving the few remaining
chips a wistful farewell glance, the six of us hurried from the room, three of us in our
jim-jams (Dylan, Oscar and me).

‘Don’t go back for anything!’
somebody shouted, and out in the corridor other people (all of them, sadly, fully dressed) were
pouring from their rooms. Instinctively we made for the lifts – and then we remembered
everything we knew about lifts and fires, so we recoiled and started hurrying down the stairs,
Dylan and Oscar being carried. It was high drama, my amigos, high drama.

We emerged into the Sugar Loaf Lounge, which is
in the lobby, and there was no alarm going off there. Instead there were a load of civilized
people wearing chinos or nice frocks and sipping glasses of wine and looking in alarm at our
ragged barefoot band. ‘Fire alarm,’ I said weakly, pointing upwards, suddenly aware
that I didn’t have any make-up on. But we weren’t allowed to go back to our rooms
– the noise was still clanging away up there and a load of men wearing belts full of tools
were heading upstairs with purpose. So we settled ourselves on a couple of couches and when a
lovely member of staff offered us a drink, we said, ‘Feck it! Why not? We’re on our
holiers!’

The strange thing was that it felt very homey.
Apart from the worry that some random stranger might catch sight of the soles of my hideous
feet, we were all quite relaxed and happy there. No one – certainly not the staff –
behaved as if there was anything untoward in the sight of a grown woman sitting in the lobby of
this lovely foncy hotel in her nightdress. (May I stress that my nightdress was my usual
long-sleeved, high-necked, floor-length,
stripy jersey item from Marimekko;
at least it had the virtue of being very modest.)

We all had a lovely time and then two weeks later
Himself and myself went to Englandshire to visit his parents, his brother Chris, his partner
Caron and their two boys, Jude (seven) and Gabe (five). Our visit coincided with the annual
Cambridge Folk Festival, which is nothing like as bad as it sounds. For a start it’s not
just folk music (although there
was
some ‘As I roved out one dewy morn, I spied a
maid all fair and square’, etc.). And it’s not like a festival in that people
aren’t falling around scuttered drunk. It’s all very mellow.

People spread out rugs and read the
Guardian
and eat falafels and buy jester’s hats made of felt and occasionally go
to one of the three music tents to hear some music.

Now, I readily confess to not being a
music-lover. I’d be quite happy to be described as a music-hater. Nevertheless, it was all
fine. The sun shone on the Saturday and then, from Stage 1, I heard the oddest noise. It was
music … but I liked it. ‘This I have to see,’ I said and pushed my way through
the crowds – the great thing about being in a place full of
Guardian
readers is
that no one feels they can chide you for pushing – and I got right up near the front. My
information was that this was the
Keb’ Mo’ band, and I swear to
God, I spent the next forty-five minutes transfixed, goosebumps all over my body. The Keb’
Mo’ man was singing sort of soul, and sometimes he was more bluesy; he has the most
captivating voice, like melted chocolate, and the charisma was rolling off him like a sea mist.

When I got back to base camp, everyone fell on me
and gave me a right scolding. ‘We were worried!’ they said. ‘We didn’t
know where you’d gone!’ Then, when they heard I’d gone to see a band, they
were even more worried.

Keb’ Mo’ was
almost
the
highlight of the Cambridge Folk Festival. My two actual highlights were 1) Jude
‘cycling’ me a smoothie – do you know of such a thing? He hops up on a special
bike and cycles like mad and the energy generated powers a blender. And 2) Gabe holding my hand
when we went to get ice cream! It’s the little things, isn’t it …

mariankeyes.com
,
August 2012.

Right! Rita-Anne asked me if I’d mind the
Redzers and I was keen – yes, keen – to help because they are two little balls of
delight, but knew that I alone would be insufficient for the task, for they are full of vim, but
Himself couldn’t help on account of going to Watford for the football and especially on
account of Watford having done so well this season and, as we speak, definitely in the
play-offs, which is very good! Yes!

So I asked Gwen if she’d help and Gwen said
yes, and oh, my amigos, this was great, great news as Gwen is officially GWN (good with
nippers). She really has the gift: she has a handbag full of stickers and just has a great
‘way’ with childer. Whereas I do NOT have a great way with childer, because somehow
they intuit that I’ve no natural authority and am a total pushover and therefore they do
NOTHING I ask them to.

So anyway, yesterday I arrived at Redzerville and
Gwen had already been there for two hours and I expected the house to be bedlam because whenever
the Redzers come to me they zoom through the house like a pair of red-haired tornados,
rearranging everything, and we find the oddest things in the oddest of places for months
afterwards. (Do not get me started on my beloved home bingo kit is all I will say …)

But no, as good as gold they were, sitting at the
kitchen table, doing colouring.

Then we left and proceeded to the nearby shopping
paradise
of Dundrum, where we aimed for MaccyD’s. The Redzers
don’t often go to MaccyD’s, so this was a big, big, big treat, which they’d
been looking forward to for ages. I will digress slightly here and tell you that Oscar (Redzer
No 2), who is super strong-willed, would only wear his Cheltenham Town football outfit for the
visit, which is slightly (quite a bit) too large for him, and red socks so long they went up to
his thighs. He cut a dashing figure.

To get to MaccyD’s we had to go through
House of Fraser, and the thing is I wanted to get Gwen a little present because Gwen is a really
good person who has been incredibly kind to me in a multitude of ways and I knew Gwen was
looking for a Clinique Chubby Eyes Stick in Bountiful Beige and her fella had tried and failed
to purchase it in Manchester and in various duty-frees.

So, as I discovered myself to be actually
passing
the Clinique stand in House of Fraser, I brought our cavalcade to an abrupt
halt and asked of the lady, ‘Have you any Bountiful Beige?’

‘No,’ says she, ‘and we
won’t be getting any until the end of April.’

Distressed, I exclaimed, ‘There’s a
world shortage!’

‘Yes,’ she replies, ‘and
it’s all your fault for tweeting about it.’

For some reason that made us all fall around the
place laughing, even the Redzers, who are young and innocent and who know nothing of Chubby Eyes
or tweeting but who are essentially upbeat souls who enjoy a good laugh.

All went well in the McDonald’s, including
the Happy Meal toy, which the lads were very excited about. Oscar didn’t finish his chips,
but Rita-Anne had warned us this might happen and under no circumstances were we to leave them
behind because he’d be looking for them later, so we wrapped them up in a napkin into a
little parcel which he insisted on carrying himself. Oscar, it has to be said, is a great man
for carrying things. Oscar always has something in his hand.

However, unbeknown to either
myself or Gwen, Dylan had stashed half his hamburger in his pocket. (This detail becomes
important later.)

Out in the Dundrum concourse, I put it to the
lads that we go to Harvey Nichols to ‘look at make-up’. The lads, who are always
positive, seemed happy enough to ‘look at make-up’, even if they had no idea what it
entailed.

But the thing was, I had an ulterior motive. See,
I had a plan to try to get something nice for Gwen, seeing as the Chubby Eyes were embargoed
till the end of the month.

So in we went and I strong-armed her to the
Hourglass counter (I would have brought her to the Tom Ford counter but that is only in Brown
Thomas) and shoved her at the lovely lady and said, ‘My friend here needs a foundation.
Will you look after her?’

Next thing poor Gwen is ‘taking the
stool’ and the Redzers were left in my sole care, and the thing is that even though there
are only two of them, it feels more like a hundred and I am a poor figure of authority at the
best of times.

They were
extremely
interested in the
make-up, the pair of them, EXTREMELY interested. And full of zip and vim after their lunch. They
were grabbing lipsticks and scribbling on their faces and sticking their fingers into eyeshadows
and thinking they were like finger-paints and putting stripes of colour everywhere, and I was
racing around trying to control them but it was like herding weasels and they were slipping like
mercury from my grasp and thinking it was all hilarious and I could feel the aghast looks of the
other shoppers, that is to say, the
real
Harvey Nichols shoppers.

Oscar had managed to procure a pile of
Chantecaille eyeshadows, a collection worth about a thousand euro, in his squishy little paws
and was all set to depart for home with them, and
Dylan was trying out the
new Hourglass illuminating powder, which isn’t even officially launched yet, and it was
absolute mayhem and poor Gwen was up on the stool, being done, and in all fairness the Harvey
Nichols staff remained cool. Which was good, because there was worse to come. Oh, much
worse.

Gwen eventually agreed to let me buy her
something (an Hourglass primer), mostly because she just wanted it all to be over, I think, and
she came down off the stool and tried to put a shape on the lads but it was too late, the damage
was done, they were wildly overexcited and in fairness who would blame them? I too get very
excited around make-up, especially new stuff.

I went to the till, and Gwen had the bright idea
of taking the boys to look at the fish in the tank at the Crème de la Mer counter, and in
fairness the fish
did
have a calming effect because the shrieks died down for a while.

Then Dylan produced the hamburger half that
he’d put in his pocket for ‘later’, and of course Oscar had his leftover
chips, so they took a notion to sit on the floor and have an impromptu picnic, right in the
Harvey Nichols doorway.

Which, even writing about it now, is still making
me laugh. And I think everyone came out of it well. The Harvey Nichols employees were really
nice, no one made us feel anything other than welcome, and the Redzers’
joie de
vivre
and their total unselfconsciousness and ability to be spontaneous and in the moment
was lovely to behold.

mariankeyes.com
,
April 2013.