Making It Up As I Go Along (6 page)

Once a month I go to my local chemist to pick up
my anti-mad tablets and each visit gives me so much pleasure that frankly I wish I had to go
every day. I hand over my prescription to my lovely pharmacist – we’ll call him
Edward (although his name is Ronan) – and while he assembles my Madness-Be-Gone kit, I
have the option of sitting peacefully on the Chemist Chair.

I’m such a connoisseur of chemist shops
that I schedule visits on foreign holidays (in the same way that other people go to the market
looking for knock-off handbags), and I have strong opinions about what makes a place perfect:
every well-appointed emporium should have one chair. Two would also be acceptable in case you
get a crock-off – two equally infirm people both looking for a sit-down. But three chairs
are too many; three would encourage chat, and above all I value the peace and quiet of chemists,
where the only sound, like the soothing babble of a distant stream, is the whisper of a worried
man disclosing details of his strange rash to Edward.

So I eschew the chair and I browse the shelves
with great pleasure and discover all kinds of things I hadn’t realized I needed.
It’s like being in a glittering Aladdin’s Cave. The feet section is a particular
delight. Blister plasters always make the cut, because a blister can happen at any time, right?
And are you familiar with the tubey things for bunions? Sadly, I don’t have bunions
myself, but perhaps I might have a visitor to my home
who would say,
‘Listen, any chance you’d have a tubey thing for a bunion? I’ve been caught
short.’
It could happen.

The bandages section also holds particular allure
for me. Whenever I gaze upon those rolls of stretchy salmon-coloured stuff that could be used to
strap up a sprained ankle, I vow for the millionth time that this will be the year I do a
first-aid course, so I can be an Emergency First Responder should anyone ‘take a
tumble’ with me in the vicinity.

But perhaps it’s best I don’t do one
of those courses, because there’s a serious chance that I might start impersonating a
doctor.

If I may speak philosophically, I find that some
products in a chemist connect me with the suffering in my fellow man. I mean, what goes on in a
person’s life that they need a latex finger coverer? Never mind walking a mile in a
person’s shoes – wear their latex finger coverer for ten minutes and see how it
feels.

Moving on, I throw some cotton buds into my
basket – everyone needs cotton buds, they’ll always come in handy. And cotton-wool
discs are another staple. And fizzy vitamin C is a great cure-all – you’d pity the
home that doesn’t have any. And a couple of make-up sponges. And a bottle of nail-varnish
remover. And some eyebrow dye …

It’s always a particular thrill when
something that’s been advertised on telly actually appears in the shop. The day Voltarol
pain-relieving gel arrived was a great one, and immediately I snapped up three tubes, fearful
that they’d sell out, like a limited edition nail colour from Chanel.

Some chemists stock fancy cosmetic brands like
Clinique, but mine has the cheapest range I’ve ever encountered. It’s called Essence
and someone told me (it might even be true) that it’s Rimmel’s diffusion line, and
seeing as Rimmel isn’t exactly spendy itself, that will give you some idea of the prices.
Rock bottom. I
can never stop myself from picking up a nail varnish from
Essence. Or two.

Lovely
colours, they have.

The skincare section features LaRoche-Posay,
which really is very good and not at all spendy, so I always convince myself I need something
from it. I mean, sun protection is an essential, isn’t it? All year round.

Then I arrive at the strange perfumes, clearly
left over from Christmas – peculiar acrid smells by Kylie and Justin Bieber. They never
fail to get me in the back of the throat, which serves to remind me to buy some Strepsils.

At the counter, the perfect chemist must feature
tins of Fisherman’s Friends, little boxes of strawberry-and-cream diabetic sweets and
rolls of Panda liquorice. I don’t buy them, but I do appreciate them being there.

A little chat about my purchases always enhances
my experience.

Edward says, in surprise, ‘You have a
bunion now?’

Blushing slightly, I admit that I’m simply
anticipating the needs of some future, as-yet-unknown guest to my home.

‘It’s good to plan ahead,’ he
agrees. ‘Anything else I can get you?’

‘Rennies, please. And Panadol ActiFast. And
Imogas. And Zovirax – the pump, not the tube. And you might as well throw in some Clarityn
– I know it’s only March, but summer will be here at some stage. Is there anything
you think I’ve missed? Anything new and exciting?’

With pride he produces a little bottle of eye
drops. ‘It’s to combat the itchy eyes people often get with hay fever. Just out this
week.’

‘Well,’ I say, all excited, ‘in
that case I’ll take it!’

So I pay for my purchases and leave with my
bulging bag, and I’m already looking forward to next month.

First published in
Red
, May 2013.

There I was, minding my own business, bothering no
one, and while I was being so blameless, eating a bar of chocolate, I took a bite, which was
just like all the previous bites I took – except the next thing I heard this unmerciful
cracking noise. I’d fecking broken the bridge on my teeth.

I swear to God, my teeth cause me nothing but
misery and it’s entirely my own fault: I didn’t go to the dentist for ten years,
from the age of twenty to thirty. I mean, I was drinking alcoholically, and if you think
you’re worthless and deserve nothing and you’re contemplating killing yourself,
you’re hardly going to go to the dentist, now, are you? So I didn’t, and although
sometimes I used to wake up in the middle of the night in the total horrors, wondering if the
day was coming when I’d wake up with a mouthful of rotten teeth, I did my best to ignore
it.

Then I ended up in rehab and one of my teeth
kicked off and honestly I haven’t had a moment’s peace from it ever since. I had to
have a root-canal thing WHILE I WAS IN REHAB.

But on the upside, because my life was such an
epic shambles, having to go to the dentist seemed like nothing at all. All my fear had gone.
Which is just as well, because I have been a very regular visitor since. Not by choice, either.

I’d had some sort of cap put on that
root-canally tooth, and one day when I was back at work I was eating a Toffo and the next thing
out the entire tooth came, attached to the Toffo.

So I shoved it back in again,
and a while later I got published and was sent off to Bath to visit Waterstones, and I was
having a cup of tea and a scone with a girl who worked there, and I was as nervous as billy-o
– her name was Cordelia, I still remember, because the incident had such an impact on me
– and the next thing my tooth was rattling around in my mouth. Yip. Rattling around. In my
mouth.

And I was trying to suck up to Cordelia, so I
didn’t know what to do. I was terrified to swallow my bite of scone in case I swallowed
the tooth, and I was terrified to open my mouth because she’d see the enormous, draughty,
echoey black hole of a gap. So I spent the rest of my time with her nodding silently and giving
enthusiastic, clamped-mouth smiles and gesturing expansively until I was finally able to leave,
some centuries later, and spit the half-chewed mouthful of scone and the runaway tooth into my
hand.

Awful! Eventually it became so unstable that I
had to have a bridge put in. And for those of you who don’t know what a bridge entails,
the dentist files down the two healthy teeth on either side of the gammy one, so that when your
bridge cracks and falls out, it looks like you’re missing not one but – yes! –
three teeth.

A delightful look. Especially if you’re
– as I was – due to have your photo taken the coming Monday morning with the
gorgeous Cathy Kelly, for
Woman and Home
. And especially if you’re – as I
was – making a television ad the following Wednesday. And especially if you’re
– as I was – going to New York in two weeks for a lunch with the glossy magazines.

Mercifully I got an emergency appointment with
the dentist and he fitted a temporary yoke. Then I got home and had my lunch, which happened to
be chickpea curry, and a while later I was passing a mirror and glanced in only to see that the
teeth in
my new temporary bridge had gone BRIGHT YELLOW. The yellow of
jaundice. The yellow of fever. The yellow of cowardice. It was the fecking turmeric in the
chickpea curry!

Too late I remembered what the dentist had said
the last time I’d had a temporary bridge put it – that the bridge was made of very
porous acrylic, so to stay away from foods that could stain. E.g. Ribena, Diet Coke – and
curry!

So I scrubbed and scrubbed. I scrubbed till my
gums bled. I scrubbed till I’d nearly dislodged the fecking thing, and mercifully most of
the yellowness faded.

mariankeyes.com
,
July 2009.

Sweets. Twirls, limited edition Magnums, Percy Pig
and Pals: I love them as much as I love shoes and handbags, and my specialist subject on
Mastermind
could be Confectionery of Our Times.

Subsisting on a diet of Chunky KitKats and
Cornettos did me no harm whatsoever! Because I was as healthy as a very healthy thing.

Apart from all the times I was sick. Yes, okay,
apart from all the times I was sick. About once a month I succumbed to a high temperature,
swollen glands, ear infections, achy limbs and a muzzy head.

I was perpetually up at the doctor’s,
whingeing about my gammy health, and eventually he sent me for a load of tests, which, to my
extreme surprise, all came back normal. At the very least, I’d been expecting ME (even
though I’m told it doesn’t exist), an overactive thyroid and some mild form of
diabetes. It was a crushing blow, and that was when I decided to go the alternative route,
kicking off with acupuncture.

I explained my symptoms to the acupuncturist and
lay back, waiting for her to stick a couple of needles in me and effect a miracle cure. But no.
She asked many, many questions about my lifestyle and diet and suggested that it might be an
idea to knock the sugar on the head. I said, ‘Mmmm, yes, maybe,’ humouring her,
like. It was
inconceivable.

But a few days later my temperature shot up
again, my energy
plummeted and suddenly I got an overview of the past year:
I’d been sick every three weeks, I was constantly exhausted and I had a box of Max
Strength Lemsip about my person at all times. With that, something happened …

I had a flashback to this really horrible,
humourless woman I’d once met in Los Angeles who used to bore on about how the
manufacturers of processed sugar should be sued for destroying health, in the same way that
cigarette companies were being sued. At the time I’d despised her, thinking she was a
no-fun body-fascist, but – unthinkable thought – what if she’d been right?
What if refined sugar really
was
Satan’s dandruff?

And why was it all right for me to nod along
knowingly with
Jamie’s Dinners
and to shake my head sadly at all the children
subsisting on white sugar in all its wondrous forms, but to eat so much of it myself and not
expect to get fat/hyper/sick?

I still don’t know what exactly happened to
me, but suddenly I was just sick of being sick and I thought, ‘If there’s a chance
that I might feel well occasionally, I’ll give this no-sugar thing a go.’

It was the most unlikely thing ever. I was so
fiercely bonded to sweets, I had planned that, on my death, I’d be buried with a selection
box and my coffin would leave the church while the organist played the Flake theme. I loved
sugar as much as I had ever loved alcohol – actually maybe even more so, because a bag of
M&S fruit gums (the very best kind, connoisseurs will agree, because of their soft texture)
had never made me puke on my new shoes or go home with a man I’d just met.

Being the kind of person I am, I couldn’t
just cut down. If I had even one square of Fruit & Nut (still a classic, I think
you’ll agree, despite so many upstart pretenders), it would trigger a chocolate-based orgy
and there was no knowing where it might end. It was all or nothing, and unfortunately it had to
be nothing.

This might sound
self-indulgent, but giving up sugar was a bit like a death. The thought of never eating
cheesecake again made me jackknife with grief and I actually dreamt about chocolate, the way you
might dream about an old boyfriend who’d broken your heart.

Without sugar, I felt naked and bare, all alone
in a hostile world; it had calmed me when I was anxious, cheered me when I was upset and fired
me full of energy when I was knackered (mind you, I’d crash far worse, half an hour
later).

Some kind soul suggested that I attack my
cravings with a handful of almonds. Great. Thanks.

But almonds it is, and I’ve had three
straight months without falling sick. Also, I look different – everyone says. They study
my face and ask, ‘What is it?’ and I say, ‘I’ve shaved off my
moustache.’

‘No, no,’ they say. ‘It’s
not just that …’ My skin, they say, is glowing and my eyes are clear and bright.
Which makes me wonder what I looked like before – from the sounds of things, like
something out of
Night of the Living Dead
.

However, another massive change awaited me. To be
continued …

First published in
Marie Claire
, September
2005.

… Right, you know about the terrible tragedy
that befell me when I had to give up sugar on account of my atrocious health? It was horrific
– like having to walk away from the love of my life because his mother had put a contract
out on me or because he’d decided to join the priesthood.

Bad and all as that was – and let me make
no bones about it, my heart was broken – there was worse to come: it wasn’t just as
simple as not eating chocolate, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Bounty ice creams, cheesecakes, summer
puddings, custard … I made the shock discovery that sugar is lurking in just about all
processed food. Even savoury stuff. Yes, even
dinners
. The stark truth was staring me
in the face: I’d have to start cooking.

I didn’t cook. I didn’t know how and
I didn’t want to learn. The thought of having to have meat ready at the same time as
potatoes at the same time as two veg made me want to crouch in a corner, whimpering and rocking.
I literally couldn’t boil an egg. Worse, I was quite proud of it (because it subverted
men’s expectations of women).

Preparing dinner for Himself consisted of
piercing the cellophane on two plastic trays of ready-made meals and slinging them into the
microwave.

To ensure we stayed healthy (although we
didn’t), I made us take a daily vitamin pill the size of a horse tablet. And every
Thursday we went to my mammy’s for dinner, ensuring that we got at
least one hot, home-cooked meal a week. One Thursday she’d give us spaghetti
bolognese, the next chicken casserole, the next spaghetti bolognese, the next chicken casserole.
Even when we went away the spaghetti/casserole two-hander would continue and when we returned
we’d slot smoothly back in, as if we’d never been gone. Very comforting. A fixed
point in an uncertain world.

I was so disconnected from all culinary business
that when Siobhán visited with her toddler and needed to open a tin of baby food, I spent
many fruitless minutes hunting through drawers and cupboards before I realized that, actually, I
didn’t have a tin-opener. I mean, who doesn’t have a tin-opener?!

Then Siobhán dropped her glass (probably
from the tin-opener shock), and when I went to sweep up the broken bits I discovered I
hadn’t a clue where the dustpan and brush lived. I was pretty sure I had one, but for the
life of me … Again, I must admit I was quite proud of this.

I scorned domestic goddesses. Cooking for others?
Making a rod for your own back, more like. But I was too beaten to resist – I was on day
four of my Percy Pig cold turkey (the worst day; I kept hallucinating that I could see bags of
Penny Pigs, when everyone knows Penny Pigs were discontinued over two years ago) – and I
surrendered to the inevitable.

Overnight, I booked lessons, bought cookbooks and
invested in some Le Creuset.

The classes were a revelation. Instead of making
shank of lamb and loin of pork and other pompous, terrifying stuff, the teacher made Thai
curries and things
I actually liked.

Once I started, I found cooking to be the most
charming thing ever: I was mesmerized that you can take all these separate, disparate things,
put them together in a certain way and suddenly you have this delicious dinner. It was like
magic!

Because I’m such an
all-or-nothing person, I went overboard to embrace the new me. I bought a folder and started
tearing out recipes from magazines; it now contains three recipes.

The real sign that I’d undergone a profound
change happened on a recent mini-break: instead of scouting out the nearest chemist, I went to a
kitchen shop and bought a slotted spoon, a Y-shaped peeler and a pastry brush. (I haven’t
a notion what to do with the pastry brush, but I’m hopeful it’ll come in handy at
some stage.)

I can hardly believe it’s me, and yet I
always flirted with a soft-focus vision of myself, pottering about my kitchen in a kaftan and
gold flipflops; when glamorous friends dropped in unexpectedly, I’d throw together a
delicious four-course banquet from three mouldy tomatoes at the bottom of the fridge.

However, it’s not all fun and games. In the
first financial quarter since the new me, M&S’s shares have dropped by 19 per cent and
I’m sure it’s all my fault. I used to have a kitchen that gleamed with cleanliness
but now it’s a spattered shambles. And what about cooking smells in your hair? Am I the
only person who cooks wearing a shower cap?

I’ve also made the painful discovery that
not everyone loves a gourmet-swot. When I told a friend that, for dinner, I’d made pork
and apple sausages with lentils in a red wine reduction (she asked, I wasn’t boasting,
simply answering a question), she said, ‘Christ, you can’t do anything by halves,
can you?’ This was not meant as a compliment.

And then, of course, there’s the
farmers’ market. At my local one I buy spices and swotty multi-grain bread and
manky-looking organic vegetables and chat about recipes and stuff to the stallholders and
it’s all very nice.

The problem is that music is provided by
pan-pipe-playing,
poncho-wearing types, and family groups sway about to
them, sipping at their freshly squeezed organic apple juice, and frankly the whole hippy-dippy
carry-on makes my scalp sweat with embarrassment. But what can I do? These are my people
now.

mariankeyes.com
,
October 2007.