Spring is here: rutting season for the young but a time of terror for the ageing Celtic woman. Time to expose my White Irish Legs, those delicate appendages that have wintered shyly under layers of wool and now resemble a pair of celery stalks or a brace of blanched asparagus laid out for appraisal on the garden rug. They are not ready for summer streets or beaches; it would be too cruel. The sight of bronzed young limbs would make them scurry into the nearest fabric shop to hide under bolts of hairy tweed
I would have to take them home in a blanket.
A therapist would say that my problem is not my White Irish Legs but my low self-esteem. But that is not it. I know what my problem is. My problem is that I live in an American college town renowned for its liberal, New Age ideas and for its perfect limbs. (The two seem to go together. You don't see goose-pimpled flesh bobbing around in the hot springs on Big Sur.)
Bray in May
Everything was all right when I was growing up in Bray. Well, not everything. But the limb question did not arise. Bray in May was the proud home of the White Irish Leg. The first fine day on the seafront signalled the great unveiling of putty-coloured body parts, some imported by rail from Dublin, most of them locally grown. Mass exposition was preceded by the ceremonial towel dance, a wriggling, hopping ritual that required participants to hold their towels in place with their teeth while removing underwear that flashed briefly with a conjurer's flourish in the left hand while the right stealthily introduced the appalling togs to the startled White Irish Legs - legs that did not stay white for long. Chilly sea water, blowing sand and vigorous towel rubbing saw to that. Soon everything turned red. And red, we knew, was the best we could hope for.
We called it "getting a lovely colour." Nobody could imagine bronze.
I am ill equipped to confront the American gold standard - those radiant, smooth, hairless legs that canter into view so suddenly and so confidently each May. Where have they spent the harsh New England winter? Do these students marinate their lower bodies nightly in huge vats of tannin while deconstructing their oppressed women's literature texts? Bombarded by such perfection, an Irish person can become paranoid.
People say "I love your accent" and you swear they've just asked "What's wrong with your legs?" Mutely you reach for your security blanket.
Yes, I'm a grown-up. I know the tricks: Sunbeds. Florida. Dye. But Florida gave us George Bush and sunbeds give us cancer. And dye? Where does skin dye go when it fades? Into the air? I don't think so. Straight to your lymph nodes, I'll put money on it.
Take charge
But spring has no time for my "mists and mellow fruitfulness" shilly-shallying. This is a primary colour, take charge season. It says: "Shape up and take your pick. You're either a woman who Lets Herself Go or a woman who Takes Steps." I don't know. Earlier this year I met a woman who had Taken Steps, the first surgically enhanced female I had ever encountered. Perhaps there had been others; women mercifully reconstructed after radical surgery or artfully restored after disfiguring accidents. But their alterations were not apparent to me. The hostess of one of New York's most elegant Irish-American fundraising dinners was, on the other hand, striking.
It began with her neck, rising tanned and unnaturally smooth from a pearl choker, its Adam's apple apparently relocated to her chin for added definition. Above it, her incongruously pouting lips barely parted to speak, never smiled, and her cheekbones could have sliced the trickiest cheese. I was informed in an undertone by my dinner partner that our hostess had recently had some work done, perhaps a little too much. This explained her permanently alarmed expression and the unnerving blankness of her gaze. As the evening wore on and as the Irish visitors turned pink, then red (getting a lovely colour), our hostess remained impervious. The litmus paper of her skin registered no change.
Botox parties
So I don't know. A face-lift is one thing. But Taking Steps has just become even more frightening. Now there is Botox, a paralysing chemical that banishes wrinkles and erases the frown from the range of human facial expression. Smiling is also a problem if Botox makes it to your chin. But in that case you won't have much to smile about because you won't be able to eat. You also need to keep it away from your eyes unless you want them to pop out.
With Botox, the "target area" is critical. This is, after all, a cosmetic weapon originally brought to us by the US Army. Back then they called it botulin, a potent neurotoxin that caused botulism, a usually fatal form of food poisoning that would wipe the smile off any enemy face.
So far, almost a million people in the US - most of them female - have had their foreheads injected with Botox, a practice most of them will repeat every three months. This season, Botox parties have become the rage in the Hamptons and other chic resorts where socialites sip a little Chablis or Evian before reclining on Victorian day-beds while an attending physician sticks needles in their heads.
I think I'll just Let Myself Go.