Making It Up As I Go Along (24 page)

This section contains bits and pieces culled from
various newsletters written over the years, which will hopefully give you an idea of all the
lovely people in my life.

Tadhg and Susan are getting married! This is extra
wonderful because Tadhg has always insisted he would never get married, and not that people need
to be married or anything to show their commitment, but a wedding can be a great day out. (Also
a reason to have a nervous breakdown if you were planning one anyway.)

The only condition Tadhg (which, incidentally, is
my favourite man’s name in the whole world and I’d love to write a hero called Tadhg
but no one outside of Ireland would be able to pronounce it) … anyway, yes, the only
condition Tadhg has put on things is that he doesn’t want the big, traditional wedding,
and this is fine by me because they’re planning to get married abroad and we’ll all
get a holiday out of it.

Initial talk was of the Caribbean, but some older
members of the family began cribbing about long flights, so that plan has been abandoned and now
Italy is the word on the street.

I’ve never been to Italy, so I’m
extra thrilled, but then yesterday my mother came up with some nugget of information that Irish
people have been banned from getting married in Italy because they’ve been causing ruckus
and commotion. I don’t know if there’s any truth to this rumour, but in fairness
there might be because a reliable woman I know says that at any Irish wedding the most important
question you must ask is ‘What time does the fight start?’

Then, on Saturday 28th, baby
Gabriel was born to Caron (partner of Chris, Himself’s brother). This is thrilling,
thrilling news. (I may have already told you that they’re the parents of the beautiful
Jude – two and a quarter) and there are celebrations all round. You can’t beat a new
baby for cheering everyone up.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we had an unexpected
visit from Ema (almost seven) and Luka (five). Niall and Ljiljana had to come from Prague for a
funeral, and Himself and myself were put on childcare duties while they went to the funeral. And
of course it’s a bad business to profit from someone else’s misfortune, but we had a
lovely time.

I had great middle-class plans for a brisk
bracing walk down the pier, pointing out educational things (‘Did you know 4,000 tons of
rock were blasted to build Dún Laoghaire harbour?’ and other such boring facts), a
healthy home-cooked lunch, educational games in the afternoon, followed by ten minutes of Nick
Jr, if they’d eaten all of their organic beetroot.

Sadly, it didn’t work out that way. First
of all, Ema tried on all my shoes and went away with a pair of my very highest and later I got
into trouble with Ljiljana about it, then she tried on all my lip glosses and later I got into
trouble with Ljiljana about that too. Then, after Luka nearly killed himself messing on the
treadmill (Ljiljana doesn’t know about that, but if she had I would have got into trouble
with her about that also), they watched
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
and learnt many
new words (notably ‘fuck’).

Then we got into the car and went – yes!
Where else? – to McDonald’s, where they had – yes! – Happy Meals, with
crappy toys, then Ema put a bag of excessively smelly fries into my Balenciaga handbag (which
she had commandeered) and we traipsed desultorily around Dundrum shopping centre, buying things
we didn’t want and didn’t need (except for my jacket, see
below), then we went to see
Meet the Robinsons
and bought loads of sweets. This, I
suppose, is the modern way.

In fairness I had a GREAT time and – of
course – got a new jacket. I’d been looking for a jacket and had drawn a blank and
then there it was! It’s very nice. Navy, mid-thigh, canvas. My only anxiety is that it has
two rows of buttons and I look a bit like Sergeant Pepper.

However, it is very nice, so nice that when my
dad saw me in it he said, ‘That’s very nice.’ Which was highly unexpected
because he is a) blind as a bat, and b) a man. He called my mother into the hall in order for
her to admire it alongside him, and she looked at me doubtfully and said, ‘Has it an awful
lot of buttons?’

Then Niall and Ljiljana came home from the
funeral, and Ljiljana and I sat on the couch for about ten hours and discussed all the different
vitamins and supplements we take every day. I know it sounds odd, but it was HUGELY
enjoyable.

Then they went back to Prague and – I
suppose triggered by the funeral – Mam and I got into a discussion one night about
her
funeral. She is incredibly specific about what she wants. She listed out a whole
load of yokes – she doesn’t want earrings while she’s ‘laid out’.
She does want lipstick but she doesn’t want blusher. Or maybe it’s the other way
round. Christ! I was meant to write it all down and she’ll come back and haunt me if I get
it wrong.

Honestly, there was a load of specifications: she
wants to wear blue and white; she wants her ‘good rosary beads’ wound through her
fingers; and she doesn’t care what shoes she wears, because apparently your feet are
covered, so no one will see. She doesn’t want a biodegradable coffin because she’s
afraid it would be too flimsy and that while she was being carried down the aisle it might give
way and she might topple out on top of the mourners and the shame of her bare feet would be
there for all to see.

Although she is a humble
woman, she was quite definite that she wanted ‘a decent coffin’. Not necessarily
made of ‘endangered species’, she said, but something ‘decent’. THEN we
had a discussion about who she wanted to carry her down the aisle. She thought the
undertaker’s would have ‘lads’ to do it, but I suggested that having family
members doing it would be nicer. We tussled a little and then I got to use words that you
don’t often get to use in their correct context, which are, of course, ‘Well [heavy
sigh], it’s your funeral.’

I know it sounds horribly morbid, but it was
actually very funny. ‘Uplifting’ was the word my mother used. Odd, no?

Then, on the 17th, I was on
The Paul
O’Grady Show
and it was FABULOUS. I love that show and he was so nice and funny. I
have to tell you something. Dad watches Paul O’Grady and loves, loves,
loves
Buster the dog. I also (even though I fear dogs) love Buster the dog. (Buster the dog is Paul
O’Grady’s dog.) Anyway, when I heard I was going on the show I said to Dad,
‘And I’ll meet Buster!’ ‘Yes,’ he sez, ‘and the other
dog.’ ‘What other dog?’ I asked. And he said, ‘The other dog,
there’s another dog that’s on sometimes.’ ‘Is that right?’ I said,
suddenly going patronizing and like I was talking to a small child. That is because poor Dad
sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick; that and the bad eyesight made me conclude that
‘the other dog’ was a figment of his elderly imagination. So on I go to the show and
I’m telling everyone behind the scenes that Dad is a great fan of Buster and then someone
said, ‘But it’s not Buster who’s on today, it’s Olga.’

‘Olga?!’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ they said.
‘There’s another dog. Olga.’

The mythical second dog! I was rightly humbled!
Rightly! Dad was right and I was wrong.

mariankeyes.com
,
April 2007.

At the start of May, we went to Euro Disney. I
will list the cast members: me, Himself, Mam, Dad, Rita-Anne, Jimmy, Caitríona and
Seán (who had come from New York), and Ema (seven), Luka (five) and Ljiljana (not exactly
sure, something in her thirties), who had come from Prague.

I had worked round the clock before we went in
the hope that I’d finish the first draft of
This Charming Man
and therefore would
be able to kick up my heels with great relief in the company of Minnie Mouse, Tigger, etc., but
sadly it was not to be. A small but challenging portion still remained to be written and hung
over me like a guilt-making, anxious-making cloud as we boarded the Minnie Mouse Express.

But never mind! Have you ever been to any of the
Disney places? Now, I wouldn’t blame you for curling your lip in a sneer and saying,
‘You’d never catch me in any of them places. It’s nothing but a money-making
exercise!’ Well, I agree with you that it probably IS a money-making exercise, but not
JUST a money-making exercise, because it’s GORGEOUS.

There were a few hairy moments, such as when Dad
overdid it on the teacups and got ‘a reel in the head’ (Irish phrase meaning
‘dizzy’) and had to be led away, weaving all over Main Street USA, bumping into
small children and knocking their Mickey Mouse ears off their heads, and he had to be reinstated
in his hotel room by my mother. It was her I felt for really because she’d got a
gleam in her eye and had fashioned plans for the Aerosmith ride which now
came to naught.

And speaking of which, the Aerosmith ride is just
TOO funny. It’s a roller coaster, like other roller coasters, except that they play
Aerosmith songs, so there you are doing loop-de-loops and hanging upside down and singing
‘Walk This Way’ and doing the ‘nerdiddynerdiddyner’ guitar bit.

Another hairy moment was on The Cars ride (or
indeed
Les Voitures
) when I got chastised by an outraged Disney employee as I flicked
the Vs at Himself, as Ema and I drove past Luka and Himself.

Then we went to Paris! Yes, for two days! Where
Niall (father of Ema and Luka) joined us and the thing was, and none of us knew it, but
Seán Ferguson had planned to ask Caitríona to marry him! Yes! In Paris! How romantic!

But everything conspired against him. She got a
sore throat (oh yes, she is a Keyes, no doubt about it) and refused to go out in the cold for a
romantic walk, where he had planned to find an ultra-romantic spot to pop the question.

So he shelved his plans until after dinner that
evening. But guess what! We put on the news and there was a big newsflash saying, ‘40,000
rioters expected in central Paris this evening!’ Because of the election, you see? That
right-wing bloke Sarkovy, or whatever his name is, had been elected instead of the lovely
Socialist WOMAN, and people – specifically the Algerian-descended youths in the outer
suburbs whom Sarkovy had called ‘scum’ – were flooding into the
Champs-Elysée to demonstrate their displeasure. As it happened, we were staying two feet
from the Champs-Elysée, and the restaurant we were going to for our dinner was approx
eighteen inches from the Champs-Elysée.

As we went out for dinner the fuss was beginning,
but after
dinner, when we emerged from the restaurant, preparations for the
riot were in full flow. There were riot police EVERYWHERE and sounds of shouting and general
chaos.

I love the French so I do: if they’re not
striking, they’re rioting. As a nation, they really
care
about things.

At this stage Seán Ferguson was a sweaty
wreck but nothing would divert him from his plan, so somehow – and God knows how exactly
he managed it – he persuaded Caitríona to go down to the Seine. Himself turned to me,
extended a gentlemanly arm and said, ‘Care to take a stroll up to view the riots?’

Well, being an old lefty, as indeed Himself is, I
couldn’t think of anything nicer. Sadly we couldn’t get very close, what with
barriers and armed police and all that, but as luck would have it, we were standing outside the
very apartment block where Sarkovy was having his celebratory dinner (‘may it choke
him’ – Irish phrase meaning ‘Well, yes, I hope some of your dinner gets lodged
in your oesophagus because I don’t like you’) and there were 4 million television
cameras waiting outside, so we waited too and every time one of the citizens of the building
came down to put out his bin or leave a note for the milkman or give his dog his last walk of
the evening, the crowd thought it was the right-winger and alternately cheered and booed (me and
Himself booed of course. I also shouted, ‘Shame on you, you smelly right-winger. You
can’t go round calling people “scum” then refusing to apologize for it. Also
it is VERY WRONG to wear a double-breasted blazer with jeans’).

So by the time we got back to the hotel, the deed
was done, the question had been popped, the answer had been in the affirmative, a ring had been
produced, the most beautiful diamond, very, very pretty, very Caitríona, and all the
Keyesez were sitting in the lobby of the hotel drinking champagne!
Fantastique!

mariankeyes.com
,
May 2007.

I find that the best way to enjoy December is to
say no to 99 out of every 100 party invitations which come my way. In fact, saying yes but then
simply
not turning up
is even better. That way no one badgers me to change my mind and
all the other guests get so scuttered they don’t even notice that I’m actually at
home, tucked up in bed, eating Pringles and watching
Strictly Come Dancing
.

Sometimes I even think about pretending
afterwards that I was actually
at
the knees-up and saying things like, ‘God
almighty, you were in TOP form there on Saturday night.’ And because there is such a
pervasive sense of shame about everything everyone does in December, they’ll think,
‘Christ, I don’t even remember meeting her, I’ll really have to knock off the
sauce come January.’ But I am a kind person, one who has experienced plenty of shame
herself, so I refrain from that sort of cruelty.

At Christmas, inevitably all the Keyesez got
sick, and I know I’m always telling you about our familial ill health, but this is a real
blockbuster of a story and nothing short of hilarious. First I have to give you the list of
characters: Mam, Dad, Niall, his wife Ljiljana, their daughter Ema (seven), their son Luka
(six), my sister Caitríona, her fiancé Seán, my sister Rita-Anne, her husband
Jimmy, my brother Tadhg, Himself and me. (Tadhg’s fiancée Susan was in Gorey, Co
Wexford, with her family.)

Okay, so there are thirteen
of us and it all kicks off on the Thursday before Christmas when Dad suddenly started puking his
guts up. The puking continued round the clock and when Mam suggested ringing a doctor, Dad
begged her not to, as he said he was obviously SO VERY SERIOUSLY ILL that the doctor would
immediately summon an ambulance and send him to A&E, where he would have to lie on a trolley
for a month and compete for the nurses’ attention with stab victims and those sporting
gunshot wounds and no one would care whether Dad lived or died as he is an oul’ lad anyway
and is bound to croak sooner rather than later. (And they wonder where I get my dramatic
hypochondriac streak from?)

On Friday night the Praguers arrive to stay in my
parents’ house, and on Saturday Dad returns from the brink of death, only for Ljiljana and
Ema to fall foul of the lurgy and spend Christmas Eve thrun in the bed, competing for puking
space in a basin.

I should also stress at this stage that every bed
in the house was full, as the four Praguers and the two home from NY were staying with Mam and
Dad, and as Susan was away Tadhg also likes to stay (but he had to sleep on the couch because,
despite my mammy’s fondness for collecting beds, there wasn’t one for him).

However, miraculously, everyone is well for
Christmas Day … but on the following day Caitríona is struck down.

The next day – the 27th – Himself and
myself go to John and Shirley, his parents in England, and it is the mercy of God that we did,
because we would surely not be alive to tell the tale otherwise.

Parallel to all of this is that Himself had been
badly injured tending to his reindeers. For the past God knows how many years he’s had
Rudy
on the porch roof, a beautiful electric reindeer, to light
people’s way. But this year, Rudy got retired and two beautiful new reindeers (as yet
nameless) arrived and took their place on the porch roof. But they kept falling over and Himself
kept having to lean out the window and pick them up again, and in one of those leaning-out
sessions he badly bruised his rib and is still not able to cough or laugh without intense pain.

At John and Shirley’s everything was well
and civilized and peaceful, and when I rang home on the 28th for a little chat, I discovered
that all hell had broken loose in Ireland. They were being felled like ninepins,
ninepins
,
mes amies
. Caitríona was still sick, Dad had relapsed, Seán
had succumbed, Rita-Anne had it so bad that Jimmy had to cancel his flight to Cheltenham to see
his family, then when it seemed that R-A was well enough for Jimmy to leave, Jimmy was struck
down and had to catch the plane dry-retching and carrying a bag to throw up in. Then Niall got
it and had to cancel their New Year family trip to Dunmore East.

But worse, far worse than the puking, was the
cabin fever. There were ten of them in a house designed for far fewer people, and competition
for bed space and puking opportunities was intense. I have it on good authority that they all
‘turned’ on each other.

In the midst of it all, my mother and Rita-Anne
deserted the place and moved in down the road to my house, where they savoured the peace and
quiet and germ-free air with much relish.

Also, oh I totally forgot about this – I
LOVE this, this is my very favourite! On Christmas night Luka accidentally drank a bottle of
cough mixture (he thought it was Lucozade, which doesn’t make any sense to me) and he had
to be forced to drink gallons of water, which made
him
puke.

In one of my phone calls home I asked how Tadhg
was doing, as no one had mentioned him for a couple of days, and there was this startled little
pause and they said, ‘Tadhg, God, you know, now that you mention him, we haven’t
seen Tadhg in a
while.’ But no one was particularly worried as it was
assumed that his disappearance was drink-related, and sure enough, didn’t he turn up in
Siam Thai on the evening of the 29th, tucking into a beef curry and acting as if nothing was
untoward.

So there we are – is that not impressive? I
am upgrading our title to Sickest Family in the Whole of Ireland.

mariankeyes.com
,
December 2007.