. . . . on sisterly love
MY OLDER SISTER Rach, I’m nearly sure she won’t mind me telling you, goes exceptionally red in the face from about two-and-a-half minutes of any form of exercise. And when I say red, I actually mean red. I am talking ripe tomato, Manchester United, fire engine red. It’s not even fitness related, either. Even if she were fit enough to keep up with, say, Usain Bolt, her visage would still erupt in a riot of redness. It’s quite the sight to see.
The subject of her tomato face arises when she announces she’s going to run the Dublin City Marathon later this year. I have no reason not to believe her. When Rach says she is going to do something she gets this determined look in her eye and you just know the thing she has said she is going to do will happen. I, meanwhile, am the empress of saying I am going to do things and not doing them. Driving. Running. Losing weight. Getting out of bed. I fail to do things I’ve sworn blind I am going to do at least twice a day.
In many and varied ways we couldn’t be more different, Rach and I, but at least we understand each other. I see that look of hers and I know immediately there is no point laughing in her face or questioning her ability to run a marathon, even if all the exercise she does at the moment consists of running around after three children and being the boss of a busy company. If Rach says she is running a marathon this makes it not the blatant spoof it would be coming from my lips so much as an indisputable fact.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t questions to be asked, plans to be made. “What about your tomato face?” I ask with genuine concern and some accidental laughter. “After the first kilometre people will think you are going to have a heart attack. You know the way some people wear T-shirts with their names on in marathons so that the crowd can cheer them on? You are going to have to wear one saying: Leave me alone. I don’t need medical attention. This is just my exercise-related tomato face.” She’s tiny, but she’ll need an extra large T-shirt to fit that many words. I really don’t think she has thought this thing through.
We are in London with her daughter, my goddaughter Hannah. London. Home to hundreds of phone boxes as red as my sister’s exercise face. We are here to see Wicked pretty much on the basis of one song from the musical called Popular which Hannah and I know off by heart. We sing it to our cab driver as we drive near Buckingham Palace on our way to the theatre. He wears a pained expression perhaps concerned our squawking will irk the queen, but it’s okay, she’s not there, the wrong flag is up. Phew.
We had an early flight and I didn’t get much sleep the previous night and my travel companions are fond of walking quickly around cities, whereas I like to either (a) stroll slowly or (b) hail a rickshaw. The upshot of all that is when I sit down in the theatre and Wicked starts I do the unthinkable, given how excited I am to be here and how much West End tickets cost: I fall asleep. I awake to a poke from Hannah during a quiet scene in the musical. I can’t help asking the question even though I don’t want to know the answer. “Was I snoring?” I whisper. “Yeah,” says Hannah, a smile on her face as wide as the Thames. Even though I miss the first 10 minutes, Wicked turns out to be incredibly, astonishingly good. Between that and the kimchi burger from Hawksmoor in Covent Garden, it’s been a brilliant short hop to London.
I’ve worn the wrong shoes for tramping around this city though. I drag myself along after the others, sighing loudly every time they suggest doing anything that doesn’t involve sitting down. Good job I don’t have red-face syndrome, I think, puffing my way past Pineapple Dance Studios, which is full of people throwing themselves around in a disconcerting manner.
Later that evening, choosing a bowler hat for Hannah from a market stall near Soho, the marathon subject comes up again. Hannah wants me to buy this bright red top hat I’ve inexplicably tried on. The annoying thing is that it suits me. The other annoying thing is that I feel too old to wear something as keraaazzzy as a red top hat around the streets of Dublin without also somehow securing a job in the circus, no matter how good it looks on my head. I distract my goddaughter by mentioning how the red top hat resembles almost exactly the shade her mother’s face will turn two minutes into the marathon. I’m feeling quite pleased with myself.
Then Rach, watching me huff and puff towards our final destination, where I hope there will be lots of sitting down not to mention plenty of drinking and eating, says something really frightening. She says: “And, by the way, you are doing the marathon with me”. I’d laugh my head off except for one terrifying thing: she has that look in her eye.
In other news . . . readers interested in the language website memrise.com which featured in last weeks column might also like to know about the Conversation Exchanges in libraries around Dublin. Brush up on your chosen language by chatting to native speakers in everything from German to Japanese. The Central Library in the Ilac Centre has several planned. Tel: 01-8734333