Open Writing

Hooray, it’s almost here! I love the festive season. A chance to display my talents at the carol concerts. If my sopranic tones are not discovered this year, I swear I shall go contralto as I am growing dangerously near the voice breaking age.

The get-togetherness of family celebrations and parties, are all a big excuse as my husband puts it, to indulge in my favourite pastime – talking.

It’s true I love a good old grumble around the Christmas presents. Such a change from the daily dog and plant chat and if only I can remember to pause occasionally, I get replies. Yes, I talk to anyone who will listen, and at parties, they haven’t much choice.

But after a brief coffee-break glance at one of the Christmas glossies I admit there’s a chilling gust of envy wafting on the air. How marvellous to be able to overwhelm other partygoers in best magazine tradition, to pause exquisitely on the party threshold watching them choke with gall, instead of hiding in sour-grape attitude behind the escort or having the door slammed in your face while everyone admires his new jacket.

How rewarding to arrive with hair in the same style as you left, face faultlessly engraved in stunning make-up, attractively painted lips succulent as uncooked liver and an up-to-the-minute creation gracing the flabless curves. It must be gratifying to have such an entrance.

My party image has not caused much of a ripple up to now. Could it possibly be a reflection on the lack of preparation I feel bound to ponder, trying to hide my latest oven scars, which stretch from the top of my cuffs to the base of my newly nibbled fingernails.

One can only imagine the elaborate build-up that precedes some of the glamorous results such as a strenuous morning under the hairdryer, followed by an afternoon reclining under the eye-pads.

I was a fool to think a casual hairstyle would be easier to maintain. What a mistake! It has to be washed lifeless twice a week, resurrected with conditioner, casually glued back with a can of hairspray, and it still refuses to look ‘natural’ - I have to torture it with electric curling tongs. Any success with these means the hairstyle has to be lowered another inch to cover the nasty burns on my frayed ears.

Perfume is supposed to transmit some sort of message to the other sex. Considering that I bathe in male bath lotion, smother myself in talc belonging to one daughter and one with an unpronounceable name belonging to another, plus liberal dabs of something which my husband says smells like almond paste, and top it all off with a squirt of cheap hairspray – my message must be rather confusing.

If Cinderella could escape to the Ball immediately she is ready it might help. But after a desperate search for his missing cuff link, a comb with a full set of teeth, a Disprin for the insecure reluctant who always becomes feverish at the sight of anyone else’s party dress and the dreaded farewell speech, my appearance tends to unravel.

‘No, we shouldn’t be too late,’ we ad-lib gaily, trying to avoid the pleading eyes, and carefully re-arranging the bribes on top of the television. I have learned not to be quite so fluent with telephone numbers. The last time we left one to be used in case of fire, flood or an act of God, one daughter had me palpitating all evening.

I was about halfway unwound when I was summoned to our host’s telephone. Picturing three children (a) fighting desperately among the flames and (b) fighting desperately against the flood or (c) just fighting desperately, I waited anxiously for the message.

The feverish voice of our twelve-year-old trembled over the line, ‘Where is the suet?’ she asked.

But after instructions to the eldest regarding the big television switch-off, another edited fairy story for the youngest and an indigenous threat of a salary reduction to the middle one, we are eventually off. Thanking our lucky stars and a certain clinic that the breast-feeding era is over and there is no danger of mother arriving in her ‘off the bosom’ creation at least not this year anyway!

My husband always jokes about my garrulous qualities but he fails to realise that sometimes I am so exhausted when we finally get there, if I stopped talking I would probably fall asleep. Also, when and if I ever do pause for breath someone is sure to ask ‘you are quiet tonight, not feeling so good, eh?’

*

Today's fabrics are certainly easier to maintain. In my ‘debutante’ days the layers of net and taffetta creased up if you coughed. At a civic reception I attended once it took me two waltzes and a quickstep to straighten out the crumples wrought by a taxi ride.

When at last I emerged from the cloakroom, my escort took one look at the wilted pale green net and ushered me in to supper. As I entered, a large lady councillor poured a cup of coffee all down my diamante. The dress and I shrivelled up like a leaf of last year’s lettuce and we left. Unfortunately the dress belonged to a friend, who was also very bravely sitting in for us.

Does anyone remember the Town Hall and Cambridge Road Baths weekly stints with a celebrity band, a bottle of pop and boyfriends thrown in, all for three and sixpence?

I used to hate the precious dancing time wasted hanging round the cloakroom waiting for my ‘peacock’ friends. Wishing I had the courage to attack my hairstyle the way they did theirs. Then after all the grooming for the ‘lads’ - the haughty refusals when they asked for a dance! Well my mates shook their curls, but my gratitude was such that I could hardly reach the parquet fast enough.

During the coming weeks, party professionals will be out en force. Some searching for love, some for trouble, but most of us will be looking for a little light relief from the daily grind.

The last event I supported, one young man seemed really exhilarated by my chat. I felt ten years younger until I discovered he was making eyes at the glamorous slinky over my shoulder, just using me as a ‘front.’ Another conversant seemed to regard me as part of the wallpaper until his wife came into view, whereupon he laughed heartily at the tragic tale I was unfolding.

I have always had an unrequited passion for false eyelashes. If I didn’t think my spouse would die of embarrassment, I would love to part the cigar smoke with one stroke of extravagantly long sweeping lashes.

Once I had the pleasure of conversing with a Cypriot girl at a party – her conversation was all Greek to me but her false eyelashes were fascinating. She was obviously short-sighted and had myopically fixed them a tenth of an inch above her own. The double set of upper eyelashes adorning each eyelid gave her an unusually sinister appearance that I found quite hypnotic.

But who wants to look natural, anyway, except perhaps Elizabeth Taylor? I get tired of being described as ‘a scream’ and yearn for some other title. What about ‘breathtakingly beautiful’ for a change?