Cracks in My Foundation, Page 8

  Himself refuses to go into Victoria's Secret

  Just point-blank refused. He didn't even say, "Please don't make me." He just stood at the door, looked at the prairies of underwear within, told me no power on earth would make him go in and that was that. I told him he 'd look more like a pervert hanging around outside, but nothing doing.

  I was keen to see what all the fuss was about; in the ads I'd got the impression that Victoria's Secret was a class act but when I stood too close to one of the nightdresses and it crackled and stuck to me, I wasn't so sure. All the same I bought a couple of bras—one pink, one lilac. Later when I told my sister about the visit, she said in disgust, "Oh my God. You didn't buy anything, did you?" I fessed up the coloredy bras. "Well," she advised, "just don't stand in front of any naked flames."

  The psychic assistants in Bloomingdale's

  Anne-Marie told me the assistants in Bloomingdale 's were psychic and I thought she meant that they were so knowledgeable they were almost psychic. So myself and Himself went into Bloomingdale 's looking for the Eileen Fisher range and—not expecting any joy—asked an assistant if they stocked it. Without missing a beat he not only confirmed that they carried it, but gave me the exact coordinates (third floor, two thirds of the way back, bordered by Marc Jacobs to the north, Aqua to the east and DKNY to the south). Bearing in mind that Bloomingdale 's is the size of a small country, I thought he was having a little joke at our expense, but went to the third floor anyway. When we got off the escalator, we stood for a nonplussed second, trying to find our bearings. "Where . . . ?" I asked but got no further because a young man about fifteen feet away from us called, "Go right for twenty-two feet, then at Aqua go left and you'll find Eileen Fisher on the third island." I stared at him nervously. "Go on," he urged. Uncertainly, with much looking back over our shoulders at him, we followed his instructions and found that the stand was exactly where he 'd said it would be, but how had he known what we were looking for . . . ? Walkie-talkies was the only thing I could come up with; perhaps the man downstairs had radioed up and told him to expect us? Or maybe Bloomingdale 's just send their assistants on courses to develop their psychic skills.

  Being laughed at by the Clinique girl

  I approached the altar of cosmetics—tier after tier of silvercylindered loveliness—and explained my mission. I wanted brow highlighter. My sister had some, I'd admired it, she 'd got it from Clinique. But the glossy-faced girl knew of no such thing and I told her I thought it was called Sugar Sugar. "Oh! Sugar Sugar!" she said. "Oh yeah, I remember that." Momentarily, she was overcome with silent, shuddery mirth. "That 's a trend item."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It is so, like, OVER."

  The scary woman in Prada

  I love Prada. Not so much the clothes which are for malnourished thirteen-year-olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Prada handbag, I'd dither. (I am not proud of this. I'm only saying.)

  Anyway, in myself and Himself go to the limestone palace on Fifth Avenue and up to the second floor to look at the accessories. I want to fling myself on the floor and sob at their beauty, but Himself reminds me of the Miu Miu debacle and I manage to contain myself.

  Then I saw it. The handbag. The handbag. THE handbag.

  Reader, I bought it. A Russian woman called Elena was my assistant and I think it must have been the quickest bit of commission she 'd ever earned. Then I was kind of getting the hang of things and decided to see about matching sandals. But they didn't have them in my size. Undaunted, Elena brought them anyway. It was no go, so she brought sandals that nearly matched, then sandals that didn't match at all. And didn't fit either. But she could not be faulted for leaving a stone unturned and reluctantly she let me go only when it was clear that I really wasn't going to buy anything else from her. Downstairs I stopped and idly admired some luggage when Elena suddenly popped up again, two inches from my nose. Somehow she 'd managed to insinuate herself between me and the holdall. "You would like to buy?"

  I told her no thanks, that we really were leaving, but then we noticed that there was a menswear department in the basement. Down we went, Himself picked up a shoe and a handsome young man approached and asked if he 'd like it in his size. I had just opened my mouth to reply (Himself is too scared to speak in these places) when out of nowhere Elena appeared, did a ten-yard skid across the floor of menswear, shoved the good-looking man to the margins with her palm over his face and arrived in front of us wearing a shark's smile, not a hair out of place. "You would like to try?"

  Nothing bad ever happens in Tiffany's

  Oh, Holly Golightly, how could you! You try telling that to my credit card. See, what happened was, I had to buy a christening present for my goddaughter. But once I got into the cool gorgeous halls of Tiffany, something happened. I'm at a loss to describe it really, except that there were all these beautiful things. Pendants and bracelets and watches and earrings and little silver hand mirrors and cute chunky key rings. Suddenly it made perfect sense to buy presents for everyone I knew for the rest of their lives. I decided to buy my sister a silver wedding anniversary present. Even though she 's not actually married. Or engaged. Or going out with someone. Then I wanted to buy my son a watch for his twenty-first, and it didn't seem to be any impediment whatsoever that I don't have children.

  Eventually I got away with the christening present, a "piece" for my sister's Christmas present (it was April) and a birthday present for Himself, five months hence. And then the wrapping began—an intricate and deeply soothing process, like watching delicate skilled hands produce the finest origami. First they put the item in a little black velvet box, then in a duck-egg blue suede pouch, then in a matching Tiffany box, tied up with a white satin Tiffany ribbon, and finally in a Tiffany bag. I've never seen such beautiful wrapping. I felt so overcome it was a bit like the part in The Great Gatsby when Daisy weeps, "I've never seen such beautiful shirts."

  Out in the street, it was like waking up from the most pleasant dream. Except that I had all these duck-egg blue carrier bags and a great dread of receiving my next credit card bill.

  First published in Cara, September 2002

  The Great Outdoors

  Let 's get one thing straight: I'm not an outdoorsy type. If I was offered the choice between whitewater rafting and being savaged by a rabid dog, I'd be likely to tick the box marked "dog." The reasons for this: One, I have terrible hair. Four seconds in the rain makes it all bulk and frizz up so that I look like Sideshow Bob. Two, I am very short (five foot one) and haven't worn flat shoes since 1992. As a result my calf muscles have got so used to being held up by fourinch heels that they've shrunk to the point where if I put my heels on the floor, my toes lift up. Three, I am almost life-threateningly lazy. See? Not outdoorsy, not outdoorsy at all. So how come I'm marching along at the crack of dawn, in (almost) flat boots, a mountain looming on one side of me, an atmospherically spooky lake on the other, with hailstones pinging off my face like gravel and—the weirdest bit of all—I'm not even crying?

  A little background is necessary, I think . . .

  Here 's how it is: I love spas. More than life itself. I've become so dependent on them that I've completely lost the ability to relax by myself. I also love my husband and I like to keep him about my person at all times, rather like a good luck charm. But my husband— who happens to be a man—doesn't like spas, he fears and mistrusts them. So how to reconcile the two?

  Enter stage left, the Delphi spa and mountain adventure center. I already knew about the adventure center: a hellish place featuring macho, Snickers-eating, hair-frizzing, kayaky stuff. A place where young men stood around in luminous raingear and urged each other on to fling themselves off cliff faces. Right? But I knew less about the spa—until it started winning awards. The Observer included it in its "ten of the world 's best spas." Mariella Frostrup, doyenne of spas, described it in the Mail on Sunday as "a world class
spa." Now, wait a minute—a world-class spa in Ireland? Surely some mistake. We Irish do other things well—the chat, the charm. But spas? Since when?

  Well, since now. Thrilled that we had found the perfect combination—I could stagger from treatment to treatment, he could look death in the face in a variety of ways—Himself and myself set off for Delphi. It 's in the west of Ireland, in Galway. Or possibly Mayo. I never managed to establish which—both are keen to claim dominion because Delphi's the kind of property which would add kudos to any county's portfolio. Either way it 's one of the most beautiful places on earth. The farther west we drove, the more soaring the peaks became, the narrower the roads and the wilder the landscape. Silver streams hurtled down the steep-sided mountains to become noisy, fast-flowing roadside brooks. Purple shale and blue-toned limestone broke the surface of the fields and the only living beings we saw for miles were the hillside sheep, colored luminous orange and pink.

  Finally, we arrived. Delphi is in a valley, surrounded almost entirely by mountains which manage to be magnificent without also being stern and intimidating, like a head nun humbling you for not doing your homework. It 's so beautiful, it 's almost shocking.

  The first sign that these Delphi people knew what they were doing was in the architecture. Visitors to Ireland, especially those poor Dutch and German who love "the nature," get terribly upset about the rash of "bungalowitis" which afflicts much of rural Ireland. Primrose-yellow mini-ranches aren't exactly sympatico but there was no fear of that here. It was very sympatico—a unique building made from glass, local wood and stone with funny rounded roof windows so that it looks vaguely like a biggish hobbit dwelling. None of Delphi spa is actually underground, but if it was, with grass growing on the roof for hobbity cattle to graze on, you wouldn't be at all surprised. It kind of has that magical Bilbo Baggins thing going on.

  We stepped out of the car to be greeted by the best smell in the world—turf smoke hanging in damp air—and in we went.

  With the interior architecture it 's as if they've tried to bring the outdoors indoors. Everywhere there are massive windows to maximize the views of the surrounding landscape; natural woodlike beech and bog oak (no nasty orange pine) is used for flooring, doors and walls; the curving oak reception desk is supported by slabs of slate, like a mini-Stonehenge; a double height chimney breast looks like a dry-stone round tower; everything is curved, undulating, sinuous; a stream on the property flows through the hallway (covered over with thick glass, you can amuse yourself by jumping up and down on it to see how much weight it can take. Answer: a lot. I did it one night after my sixteen-course dinner—more of which later—and it didn't even squeak). But it 's extremely comfortable. There's no point in having all that natural stuff if it 's not, otherwise I might as well just stay in a tent in the field over the road. The brochure describes Delphi's style as "contemporary-luxury in a wilderness setting" and that sums it up beautifully.

  And so to the treatments! The list contained all the usual suspects— facials, massages, wraps, etc.—with more interesting stuff like reiki, Hopi Ear candles and sound wave therapy also available. But I was starting with an aromatherapy massage—or so I thought. Due to a misunderstanding on my part, I'd inadvertently booked myself a wrap and I'm not a wrap lover. (For those who don't know, you're smeared in smelly stuff and wrapped with your arms clamped to your sides in a heated tinfoil blanket and left to sweat it out for forty minutes or so. Some people swear by them. Not me, however.) I expressed my dismay and right away the caliber of the staff became clear. Sympathetically, calmly and quickly, another treatment room was found and my massage was back on track within minutes. In fact, over the few days I was there, it seemed like all the therapists—a mixture of Australian, British and Irish—have diplomas in advanced kindness. They were warm, intelligent and compassionate, the effect of which is priceless. Technical proficiency counts for nothing if you feel your masseur is sniggering at the state of your thighs.

  Which brings me to food! Everyone knows that you get fed well at spas—the days of wringing hollow laughter out of a diet of lemon juice and lettuce leaves is a long-gone cliché. But nothing had prepared us for such quality. Dinner was a four-course extravaganza featuring organic vegetables from their own garden, locally caught seafood and any number of added extras—amuse bouches, palate-cleansing sorbets, homemade bread, etc.—it was fabulous!

  The following morning Himself went off to learn to surf (it was

  November, can you imagine!) and I put on my white robe and took up position on a lovely padded lounger yoke in the Health Suite and stared out dreamily at the ever-changing light on the mountains, as I waited to be called for my treatments. It 's all so beautiful that at busy times the area can get a little crowded with towel-based reserving of loungers that is positively Germanic.

  The Health Suite also has a steam room, a sauna and a roomy Jacuzzi with more stunning views. However, because high expectations are simply resentments under construction, let me make a couple of things clear: there is no pool and no gym. Purists might recoil in horror, but frankly, I was delighted. Whenever I go to a spa I bring my trainers (after first blowing off the cobwebs) and even as I'm packing them, I know they won't see the inside of the gym. Nevertheless I'm always bothered by a vague, naggy guilt for the duration of my stay so a gym-free spa was a giddy relief. The general manager explained that the Delphi ethos is to persuade people to try something different from their usual regime. Instead of forty-five minutes on an incline on the treadmill, they might try a two-hour hill walk—on a real hill.

  I nodded in agreement as all this was explained to me, but I was thinking, They'll never get me out there, think of the hair. Instead there was a great choice of indoor activities—meditation, Tai Chi, Pilates, relaxation and yoga (hey, it 's just like Parrot Cay!)—and I decided to do Pilates. Lying on the floor, in a beautiful peaceful room, doing tiny quarter-inch movements, seemed easy-peasy. Until the next morning when I found it so hard to get out of bed I thought I'd had a stroke in the night which had paralyzed me. I wasn't making that mistake again so next day I went for the relaxation class because I thought it would be the usual lying on the floor imagining myself bathed in beautiful gold light. Instead we were taught new breathing techniques—prana something or other, which involved snorting like a horse over and over. The three of us in the class were high-pitched and giggly with mortification and as I left I decided I would never do a relaxation class again: it was way too stressful.

  Meanwhile Himself was having the time of his life, having Snickers-eating, near-death experiences twice a day. His brushes with mortality included abseiling, rock climbing and surfing although he could also have tried high ropes, kayaking, water skiing and all kinds of other terrible, terrible stuff.

  The funny thing was that although I'd fully intended not getting dressed from the moment I arrived to the moment I left, the place worked its magic. It was just too beautiful not to get out and about. Local highlights include nearby Killary, Ireland 's only fjord, but instead I went to Doolough, a nearby lake, overlooked by jagged peaks with an icing-sugar coating of snow along the top. It was like experiencing the Himalayas, without any pesky inoculations or jet lag, and so breathtakingly wonderful that I didn't even mind the consequent hair shame which, let 's make no bones about it, was extreme.

  First published in Cara, February 2004

  The Real Thing

  You know on some crappy cable channel, there are shows where a load of swizzers stand on a stage and "deliver" messages from the dead to the poor schmucks in the audience? The swizzers spend a lot of time with their hand cupped around their ear as they "listen" to the otherworldly voices and they call everyone "my love," especially when they make people cry. (Example: "He forgives you, my love, so you must forgive yourself.")

  Yes, well, I admit to a certain fascination with them. One half of me is watching with my lip curled scornfully, and the other half is thinking, But what if it's true?

  Then one day, I read
a review in a respected broadsheet of a live show one of these swizzer women—we 'll call her Angela—had done; they reckoned she was the real thing. They also said she did one-to-one readings, and all of a sudden I was excited.

  Research, see. I was thinking of writing about a woman who can't stop looking for answers and attends all manner of swizzers. But, handily enough, I was going through a bit of a bad patch myself and I was interested in what messages from beyond the grave Angela might have for me.

  Possibly as a result of the piece in the paper, Angela was very hard to get hold of. I sent an e-mail, which wasn't replied to for months. When she finally did get in touch, she offered me a half hour reading over the phone in two months' time. But first I had to send a check for twenty-five euro—which, in all fairness, wasn't an astronomical rip-off.