FIDELMA COOK

STAYING in a hotel in Aveyron the other week, it seemed that every way I turned in my hotel room there was another full-length mirror. By the end of the few days, bruised from closing my eyes when passing or crawling by them, I finally faced the one whose position also revealed my back and side view from other mirrors. 3D. Sweet god in heaven. Somewhere under the flabby, saggy, wrinkled outline I knew I still existed, because my mind told me so. Well, the essence of me, the memory of me still existed, but the physicality of me had gone; fled into dissipation, indolence and too many days of wine and roses.

I’m becoming convinced that the new bulge around my mid-riff is my engorged liver and pancreas fighting their way out like the alien in John Hurt’s stomach.

Under the unsparing reflections in the harsh light I checked my eyeballs for signs of yellow signalling jaundice, my cheeks for the burst capillaries of abuse. Nope, all clear. Only a hair or two sprouting under my chin.

Continuing my examination I confirmed that I now slump forward like a misshapen gnome and shuffle like a 90-year-old, carefully placing my feet in front of me. Hours of hunching over the Mac and the accident of last summer have contributed to this as, I suppose, has the lung damage from the years of smoking 40 fags a day.

And if you end up with the face you deserve then God help me – I’m going to Hell.

Stupidly I speak to my son, the very last person in the world I should call for empathy and sympathy. When will I learn?

“I’m trapped in a hotel room,” I tell him.

“What?” he yells, for once surprised at something I say.

“It’s got full-length mirrors and I’ve seen myself and I’m never going out in public again.

“I’m fat. I look ancient.”

There is a sigh. “You always look the same to me. Let’s be honest – you are flabby because you’re not toned or exercised.

“You don’t stand up straight, so your posture is dreadful, and you do nothing.

“You sit at the computer all day and you drink too much wine. What do you expect? Are you doing the squats I showed you?”

(Inside I’m shrieking: Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.)

“Fine,” I say curtly. “Thank you for your support. I’m hanging up now.”

Of course he’s right and I cannot entirely blame the accident for bringing me to this pretty pass – I was indolent long before it.

Right at the start of all this, I recall writing a column where I recognised the dangers, particularly to someone like me, of la vie francaise or rather life in La France Profonde. I realised that without a structure and with the opportunity to now pick and choose my work I could quickly go feral, as indeed I did.

It started gradually. No makeup, no nail varnish, no more heels, no smart clothes. There were no people to be smart for, no places to go, no planes or trains for which to be packed. Plus I was tanned.

It didn’t help that, to see myself fulllength, I had to stand on the lavatory seat, leap into the air in front of the bathroom mirror and catch a glimpse in the brief descent. Hell, everyone looks good in freefall.

And then, with the feeling of being on permanent holiday, it seemed wrong not to drink wine with meals or even between meals.

So far I still stick to coffee at breakfast.

Where once I raced around cities, the idea of walking for pleasure in unpolluted air amid sweet smells and birdsong left me cold. Why would you do that? To go from A to B and back?

Once, if I pinched an inch I would starve. Simple. Now, as you know, if I lose a tooth, I just give a gappy smile.

And always being on call in a fulltime journalism job, I couldn’t risk too much of the vino on a school night. Suddenly there were no more school nights. No reason to get up if I didn’t actually want to.

And it dawned on me that all the busy expat women dashing off to market, holding drinks and dinner parties, heading fortnightly to the hairdresser and walking the dog were finding structures to keep the abyss at bay. They daren’t ease up or they’d become, well, like me.

Merde. But then the problem was/ is, I don’t want to be like them.

Anyway, the point of all this is not my fear of a further descent into fullblown alcoholism instead of mere lushdom. Rather, I have a question to ask. I am finally turning my bathroom into a shower room. Imagine: I’ll no longer have to climb into the bath and hold the shower over my head in the French way. Oh bliss.

I’ll be able to soap my armpits without spraying the ceiling.

So, should I make one wall a mirror and shame myself daily into becoming the woman I once was?

Or has the woman I once was long gone with each year that passes?

Answers on a postcard, please.