Making It Up As I Go Along (21 page)

I say, ‘I’m not going to
be.’

He says, ‘Do I have slippers?’

I say, ‘Go in your runners.’

‘With my togs?’

‘Yes, with your togs.’

‘It’d be better if I went in my
slippers.’

‘You haven’t got any
slippers.’

‘But they said on the
bing-bong I was to come in my slippers.’

‘But you haven’t
got
any
slippers.’

‘Help me look for the slippers.’

‘There are no slippers! There are no
slippers! THERE ARE NO SLIPPERS!’

6.01 p.m.

He’s gone. To calm myself, I will count my
Solpadeines.

6.13 p.m.

He’s back! He admits that it was
‘shockingly cold’. He said he just ‘jumped in and jumped out’ but that
the Dutchman swam out to an iceberg and preened a little. I said, ‘What Dutchman?’
He said, ‘Have you not met the Dutchman?’

In other news, his lad is ‘much
shrunken’, but should return to normal, given time.

In other other news, he reports that the
M&S-style snacks are ‘out but covered in cling film’.

6.16 p.m.

He says no one came down in their slippers. He
says, ‘I don’t think there
were
any slippers.’

8.45 p.m.

After dinner, there was a chocolate buffet. With
chocolate penguins! And other chocolate beasts! And then! We were looking out to sea, at the
quare, beautiful light on the ice mountains, and we saw eight penguins swimming towards us,
looking like the arrival of the cavalry. And then!!! Yes! Three whales. Humpbacks. A mother and
a father and a baby, and they swam right up beside the ship and swam alongside us for a good
while, doing their
blowhole stuff, until one by one they curved up and
showed the fin on their back and then, like they were saying goodbye, showed us their tail-fins
and then disappeared, down into the deep, leaving behind three circles of water.

I haven’t got words to even start to
describe how rewarding and enriching this journey has been. It’s like I’m drunk on
beauty. Everywhere I look, I see astonishing natural magnificence. Just now I’m looking
out the window and there’s a mountain that looks like K2. And beside that there’s
another one and another one, and there’s nothing, not a single sign, that human beings
have ever existed. Everything is still and poised; not even the clouds are moving. It’s so
surreally perfect that it almost looks like a painted backdrop.

Also, my mental state while I’ve been here
is different. I feel slowed down, like my brain has been wrapped in a duvet. I have literally
forgotten what day it is. I feel like I’ve been on this ship for ever and that I’ll
be here for ever and all there is is right now, but in a fluffy, giggly, carefree sort of way,
rather than in that grim, clenched-jaw, I’m-in-the-moment mindset that seems to riddle so
much positive thinking.

It’s not like I’ve surrendered
control, but that it slipped away from me while I was staring, slack-jawed, at yet another
too-astonishing landscape.

At home I find the days far too long. A half-hour
can take a shocking amount of time to pass. But time is nothing here. I’d brought lots of
box sets to watch, but haven’t got further than Episode 1 of
The Good Wife
. And
I’ve barely read anything, and yet I never feel bored and I rarely get the fear where
I’m desperate for something to calm me.

Also, I’ve gone almost feral in my
appearance. It’s goodbye to make-up, it’s goodbye to combing my hair, my Gelish nail
varnish
has peeled off several of my nails and it seems utterly unimportant
to do anything with them.

There is nowhere else like this on earth. Nothing
even close.

Another thing that adds to my cocoon-brain
feeling is the loveliness of every single one of the staff. Everyone, from Iris the receptionist
to Joseph who always remembers my Sprite Zero, to Marvin the plumber who had to come and fix our
jacks, they are all warm and treat me with a generosity of spirit that seems genuine.

I spend a lot of my life agonizing about economic
inequality and worry that people who have to work as hard as these people do must really resent
the spoilt, rich Westerners they take care of. But I don’t feel like that here. I feel
everyone takes great pride in doing their job excellently and they sincerely want us to have a
great time. I feel everyone who works in the dining room is (justifiably) proud of the delicious
food and thoughtful service they provide.

As for the twelve guides, I am
humbled
by how they have gone out of their way to make sure everyone had a wonderful trip. Also,
everything is extremely tightly organized, but there’s never any sense that any of the
guides are stressed or tired. They all seem to genuinely love the Antarctic and are passionate
about getting the best out of the trip for every single person. Really, I cannot praise them
enough.

7.44 p.m.

Sideshow Bob hasn’t come down for dinner!
Himself says he must have done the Polar Plunge and ‘collapsed’ his hair. Himself
says he might have had to take his hair to the medical bay.

7.59 p.m.

Sideshow Bob appears in the dining room and his
hair looks freshly ‘done’. It is unusually pineappley and sticky-uppy and sway-ey.
Himself says that he has obviously been to the medical bay and ‘had a shot’.

6 a.m.

The bing-bong awakens us with news that there is a
pod of TWENTY (20) humpback whales just off the ship. We pull on our thermal long johns and
puffy jackets and other warming devices and run for a look. We are just in time to see them
before they turn tail.

2 p.m.

I watch four orcas for an hour. They are so curvy
and graceful and sleek in the vast expanse of navy ocean and I feel very peaceful.

I should mention that apart from one snowy
morning the weather has been magnificent every day I’ve been here. Sunny, and the skies
have been gloriously blue. I’ve barely been cold. Admittedly I’ve worn an awful lot
of technical clothes, but still.

5 p.m.

We take a Zodiac cruise beside cliffs and under
flint archways and through staggeringly quare landscapes. There is a fair bit of bouncing and
getting splashed and Himself says, ‘This will play merry hell with Sideshow’s
hair.’

I agree but I am also
focused on how FABLISS this will be for my telly series – Zodiac chases through the narrow
canyons of rock and beneath flinty arches barely big enough to fit a boat and into ice caves and
down blue icy tunnels. I tell you! It will be
Lost
meets James Bond meets a cold
place!

Another thing about ‘my’ show: all of
the main characters will have thrilling and interesting back stories. Including – yes!
– possibly having died.

Other news

Himself and I have made friends with some of the
other passengers – an Englishman, a Swiss woman, an Australian man and an Australian
woman. Yes! I didn’t want to tell you about it until I was sure it was for real, but it
is! We have got into the very happy habit of ‘taking’ our meals with them, and they
are great fun and excellent company and very nice.

7.30 p.m.

Sideshow Bob appears for dinner and his hair looks
much subdued.

I ask Himself if
The Frozen
will include
people coming back from the dead like they did in
Lost
. He says no. But secretly I plan
to overrule him, and when we are sitting in Harvey Weinstein’s office doing our pitch in
LA I will throw in the part about the dead people reappearing and there will be nothing Himself
can do about it! Hahahahaha!

Yes, that is the end of our excursions. Now we
have two days at
sea, until we get back to Ushuaia. I’m a little bit
sad, but it has been an incredible trip.

9.30 p.m.

… d’you know what? I feel a bit sick
…

10.01 p.m.

Yes, I definitely feel sick.

10.11 p.m.

… Christ, I’m dying …

The sea is wild rough and the whole ship seems to
have the gawks. I spend the day in bed, even forsaking my lungeon. Himself goes downstairs for
one of the lectures and he says there were only fifteen people there and they all had their
faces in gawk-bags.

6.03 p.m.

The ship has reached calmer waters and I am well
enough to ‘rise’ for our final dinner, which we are ‘taking’ with our
new friends.

7.11 p.m.

At dinner I take a last look round at my fellow
passengers …

… and then there were four. Hipsters, that
is. The ordinary looking lad’s metamorphosis is complete. His hairs, his clothing, his
spectacles, his everything. He leaves the ship a fully-fledged hipster!

7 a.m.

We come into port in Ushuaia and get off the ship
and I have a little cry because it was all so wonderful. But still, I feel incredibly lucky
– this has been the trip of a lifetime!

Our flight isn’t until one o’clock,
so we go – with our four new friends – to Los Cauquenes, which is the beautiful
hotel we stayed in for our first two nights. We have coffee and lovely conversation and at 11.30
Himself and I leave for the airport to go to Buenos Aires, where we will be staying overnight
because we’re not in time for today’s flight to Heathrow.

Our flight is delayed but that is grand. When we
were in Argentina seven years ago, we were delayed eight hours at El Calafate airport, so it is
all par for the course. The plane eventually comes and we take off and make a
‘short’ stop in a place called Trelew and most of the plane troops off and then
comes stomping back on five minutes later, complaining that this is NOT Buenos Aires!

7.30 p.m.

I will not bore you with the airport/lost baggage
details. You’ve heard it from me too often, too many times before. Then we go to the Park
Hyatt, where we discover that we have been upgraded to the Presidential Suite! Oh my God, I
cannot tell you! It is beautiful and lavish and HUGE! We have a sitting room and a dining room
and a kitchen and TWO (2!) bathrooms.

We’ve no idea why we’ve been upgraded
(I’m not being coy, it is all booked in Himself’s name. Perhaps Himself is famous
here …).

As we drive to the airport I remark on what wide
streets Buenos Aires has and say that some of the streets are almost as wide as O’Connell
Street, to which Himself says that some of them are
wider
than O’Connell Street.

… but this cannot be true. O’Connell
Street is the widest street in the world, no? (This reminds me of when I was visiting this part
of the world seven years ago and Eileen and I were in Brazil on a scenic flight across the
Amazon and the pilot told us that the Amazon was the longest river in the world and I said,
‘Indeed it is, except for the Shannon.’ And the pilot was a right cranky-arse and
said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I said, ‘The Amazon is
indeed
the longest river in the world. Except for the Shannon. Which is the
true
longest. So
the Amazon is the second-longest river in the world. Apart from the Dodder. And perhaps the
Dargle.’ And he was really, really annoyed and did not ‘get’ me at all.)

11.10 a.m.

They are playing tango music at the passport
control.

And I am
not
lying about that.

Boo, we are home! And here ends Marian’s
Antarctica diary.

mariankeyes.com
,
January 2014.

Right, I’ll tell you the whole Tom Dunne
thing. He’s really famous, especially in Ireland, because he was (is? As far as I know
they’ve never broken up) the lead singer in a band called Something Happens, which was
GINORME in the early 1990s but I was living in London then so I missed it all.

Then he got a job as a radio presenter on
Newstalk
and I STILL didn’t know about him because I never listened to the radio
except when I was in the car and I was never in the car because I was meant to be at my computer
working.

But then I was at the dentist, I was lying in the
chair, having stuff done to my teeth, and Seán Moncrieff was on the radio and he was so
funny and dry and witty and clever that it took the sting out of the dentistry somewhat.

So I changed the setting in my car to
Newstalk
and I said to Susie, ‘Isn’t
Newstalk
great?’ And
she said, ‘Yes! Isn’t Tom Dunne fantastic?’ And I’d been all set to
launch into praise of Seán Moncrieff and I said, ‘Who’s Tom Dunne?’ And
she said, ‘You don’t know who Tom Dunne is?????’

Then she turned to everyone else and said,
‘Marian doesn’t know who Tom Dunne is!’ Then the entire room erupted with
laughter and total strangers were wiping away tears of mirth.

So, yes, Tom Dunne. I started listening to him
and very quickly I fell in love with him and veered dangerously close to becoming a Tom Dunne
window-licker and that was okay because Himself
loved him too. In fact,
everyone I’ve ever met loved him and we were all manufacturing excuses to drive places in
the morning at the time that Tom was on.

He has a beautiful voice and I’ve laughed
out loud SEVERAL times while listening to him, and he talked about himself and his family and
home life and weekends with such warmth and humanity that he is a FORCE FOR GOOD in this
sometimes-frightening world.

Then! One Wednesday he said, ‘Bin night
tonight,’ and Wednesday was OUR bin night too, so Himself and myself realized that we must
live quite near to him and we obviously had the same bin collectors!

In my next monthly newsletter I wrote about this
‘connection’ I have with Tom and he must have found out about it because –
yes! – he played a SPECIAL SONG for me on his show about Wednesday nights being our
‘special’ night.

It caused a sensation among my friends and
family! A veritable SENSATION, I tell you. It began with Posh Malcolm ringing me and saying,
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but Tom Dunne is sending you coded messages on
his show!’

And it continued from there. A torrent of
jealousy from other Tom Dunne window-lickers (formerly my friends) was directed my way, but I
didn’t care.

However, I’d never met him and was quite
certain that if I did, I would DIE!

Of course there was a small chance that I might
bump into him, seeing as we live near-ish to each other (seeing as we shared the same bin night,
like). And even though I’d no idea where exactly he lived, it didn’t stop me having
a mental image of it.

However, Suzanne, who also has a fondness for
Tom, she
also
has a mental image of where Tom lives, which differs from
my
mental image, and the last time I met her, we drew out a sort of map on the
table, using napkins and salt and pepper yokes as landmarks, and we nearly fell out over it.
(‘No,’ she insisted. ‘When you get to the traffic lights, you go up the
road.’ ‘You don’t,’ I replied. ‘You go straight on and he’s
in there on the right.’ ‘No, no, no!’ she said. ‘You go UP the road.
Up!’ And so on. And relations between us have been slightly frosty since.)

Anyway, one cold, sleety, miserable day a few
weeks ago, I was ‘down the town’ and I was looking particularly unattractive.
I’d overdone the mythic oil in my hair, so my fringe was looking all bitty and greasy
(like Tommy’s in
Love/Hate
actually,
just
like Tommy’s) and my
hair was up in a ponytail. BUT! I’d put a hat on
over
the ponytail and it was a
particularly unattractive hat but good at keeping me warm but all the same I looked like I had a
particularly strange-shaped gargantuan head. I was wearing my North Face duvet-coat and was
laden down with bags filled with turnips (or something equally grim) and I was feeling knackered
and bet-down and I’d just come out of Ecco shoes (I know!) where I’d been looking
for insoles and who did I see, when I emerged, only Tom Dunne!!!!!!

Horror zipped through me. Horror! Our eyes met
and he looked sort of horrified himself. ‘Tom,’ I said haltingly. ‘Hello.
I’m sorry. About the hat. It’s only because it’s so cold. Tom, I’ve
fantasized about meeting you and my hair would be just blow-dried and I’d be looking
fantastic and moving in slow motion and, oh Christ, I can’t believe this is
happening.’

With extreme kindness Tom said, ‘You look
great, Marian, we both look great.’

‘Do we?’ sez I. ‘Okay.’

I gestured at the sleet, at my appalling hat, at
my bagful of turnips, and said, ‘Living the dream, Tom, living the dream.’

An awkward little pause
followed, then I exclaimed, ‘Will I give you a hug, Tom?!’

So he let me hug him and then I let the poor man
go on his way and on trembling legs I made my way home. I couldn’t get my key in the lock
and Himself had to open the front door and I said, ‘You won’t BELIEVE what’s
after happening!!!’

Himself looked concerned and I wailed, ‘I
met Tom Dunne down the town!’ And Himself looked aghast and said, ‘In
that
hat? Oh God!’

mariankeyes.com
,
August 2013.