Last Tango in Toulouse (22 page)

I don't recall seeing many glamorous women swishing around.
the supermarket looking as if they have been freshly botoxed, but I take her word for it.

‘I'm having botox myself in a few weeks,' she adds with conspiratorial delight.

I stare at her flawless young face, devoid of even a suggestion of a line or wrinkle.

‘Why on earth would you do that?' I ask.

Immediately, she scrunches up her brows into an artificial frown. ‘When I watch television I wrinkle up my forehead like this,' she says. ‘My dad has a really wrinkled forehead and I know I am going to have the same thing. It's genetic. The botox is being used to stop me from frowning so I can never actually develop the lines. It's what they call a preventive treatment. I am really excited about having it done. I can't wait,' she adds with a beaming, smooth-faced smile.

I am horrified. The concept of injecting botox, which is ‘a purified form of botulinum toxin Type A', into a youthful, line-free forehead seems decidedly bizarre to me, but I reserve my judgement.

I make an appointment for a facial the following week with one of the older and, I hope, more experienced consultants. On the advice of my young friend I am tentatively booked for ‘dermabrasion' but I insist that I would like to discuss it further. It all sounds a bit drastic.

On my next visit I am taken to another private room and given a gown to change into. The beautician, an older and wiser woman, appears and examines my skin carefully. She comments on the red capillaries that are obvious just below the skin surface. I have always had these fine red veins that become apparent when I get hot. She confirms what I feel myself.

‘Your skin is extremely sensitive and is certainly not suitable for anything like dermabrasion. In fact, even a facial massage is too invasive. It will just stir up all those fine red veins. A cooling treatment with moisturisers is all your skin type is suited to.'

I am glad to avoid the sandpaper; I'd have ended up looking like a lobster. But I am still curious about the botox. She tells me a Sydney doctor comes once every three months to do botox and collagen injections for local clients. I make an appointment.

David is horrified that I am even contemplating it, and I must say I am still less than convinced that it's a good idea. I rationalise that it's just my curiosity – and certainly the ‘before' and ‘after' photographs in the colour brochures do show a dramatic difference in facial appearance after treatment. For several months David and I have an ongoing debate on the botox issue; he doesn't soften even slightly in his vehement disapproval. So I decide to drop the subject and not tell him when I am going to see the ‘cosmetic specialist'.

I am told to get to the beauty parlour at least half an hour before the appointment so that I can have ‘anaesthetic cream' applied to the areas to be treated. I explain that I haven't finally decided to go ahead with treatment yet but would prefer to talk to the doctor first. However, they still want me to have the cream applied so I won't need to hang around longer than necessary should I decide to proceed.

Lying on the massage table, I am greeted by a smiling Louisa, who is the wife of Dr Paul, as he is called by all those working in the salon. ‘Do you have any questions?' she beams.

‘Yes, plenty.'

And I bombard the poor woman with questions about the
various treatments, how they work and possible side-effects. I mention that I loathe those ‘Julia Roberts lips that look as if she has just been punched in the mouth'.

‘You mean like mine?' she says, pouting. And I realise that that's exactly what her lips look like – swollen and distorted.

‘Well, yes, now that you mention it. Did you have yours done with collagen?'

‘Yes,' she replies with some pride. ‘I just love this look, but you don't have to have it done like this. You can just have the fine lines on your upper lip smoothed out with tiny amounts of collagen. I had it injected into the body of the lip to change the shape. It's just a matter of personal choice.'

When I look closely I realise that Louisa is a walking advertisement for her husband's work. Every line and fold and crease, except for the very fine lines around her eyes, has been ‘smoothed out', as the brochure says.

I shiver a little and wonder what I am doing here. Might be too late to back out now.

It turns out that I can't have collagen (phew) because I have to be given an allergy test for it first. A tiny quantity is to be injected into my arm to see if I have any allergic reaction. But I seem to be locked into having my forehead done. The numbing cream has taken full effect and it seems a bit churlish to back out now.

Dr Paul finally wanders in, all smiles and good humour. I talk to him briefly about botox, but he seems more concerned about the likelihood of pain. His wife prepares to hold my hand but I reassure them both.

‘I've given birth without pain relief. I think I can manage this okay.'

Nevertheless, he further numbs my skin with blocks of ice and asks me to ‘give him a big frown' so he can see where the lines are. This will guide him on where to insert the needle with the toxic bacterium that will paralyse the muscles between my eyebrows. I can't really believe I am doing this, but what the hell. I tell myself that I am just dipping my toe in to see what happens.

To distract me from any possible pain, I suspect, Dr Paul chats brightly during the few minutes it takes to botox my forehead. ‘Men aren't very good at pain,' he says. ‘I do my own botox in the mirror, but I have to stop all the time because I just can't stand it any more.'

The mental image of Dr Paul fainting in front of the mirror while botoxing his own wrinkled forehead appals but also delights me. It's just like that episode of ‘Mr Bean' where Rowan Atkinson manages to paralyse the dentist, then proceeds to drill the holes in his own teeth in the mirror. It's almost impossible to watch such a grotesque performance.

I confess to Dr Paul that I haven't, as yet, told my husband what I am doing.

‘I wouldn't worry about it,' he says dismissively. ‘I'd estimate that 90 per cent of women who have work done never tell their husbands or boyfriends.'

‘But, surely,' I protest, ‘these men must notice a change in their wife's' appearance if, as you say, the treatments make an appreciable difference?'

He snorts. ‘Men don't look at their wives.'

I am left wondering just who the women are doing it for. Themselves, I suppose. That must also include me. I am aware that David thinks it totally unnecessary. He has said so dozens of times. And I suspect that the man from Toulouse would also
think it a rather pointless exercise. It's not as if I look a lot older than my years. Realistically, I look exactly what I am – a woman in her early fifties. It's just that I don't want to look like a woman in her early fifties. I want to look five or even ten years younger, and if I can achieve that with some relatively innocuous injections, then why not?

‘All done,' he says. ‘You were a model patient. If I had a jelly bean, I'd give you one.'

Bloody expensive jelly bean, is my only thought. $350 poorer plus $80 for the collagen allergy test. I ask the good doctor about the young girl in the salon who was planning a botox treatment, but he can't seem to recall having ‘done' her.

‘About the youngest patient we see is thirty,' he tells me, ‘unless people are having it for genuine therapeutic reasons.'

I wander from the salon. There is no pain and the muscles between my eyes still work perfectly if I choose to frown. He says it will take two days to work and should last from four to six months.

Over the next few days I spend a lot of time looking at the small triangle of flesh between my eyes, wondering if there is any difference. Three days after the treatment I realise that I can't frown, even if I try. Frowning is an unconscious muscle movement and we rarely try to frown deliberately. Thus I don't walk around feeling numb or as though I have lost any facial sensation. However, when I look in the mirror and deliberately try to crease my brows by frowning, I can't. And the area looks smooth. So I suppose it has worked, but I wonder if it is worth it in terms of time, trouble and cost. Do I look any younger? I doubt it. But perhaps after the collagen in my lips . . .

For several years now I have been leading treks into remote regions of the Himalayas, taking groups of people to see alpine plants in their natural environment. It's not so much a job as a passion, and I decide, now that I am no longer tied down by the television program, to take a few extra tours every year to the northern hemisphere. Jan and I have planned a detailed itinerary for an autumn walking-cum-eating and drinking tour of the region of France where we both live, and I have also agreed to take a tour group to northern France and southern England in the spring, to look at gardens and visit the Chelsea Flower Show – a highlight in any garden lover's calendar. This means leaving the farm unattended, because David has plans to visit the Cannes Film Festival, as he does most years. We have decided to meet up and spend time at the house in Frayssinet. It will be our first time there together and I am looking forward to it, even though the spectre of the man from Toulouse is looming.

Our son-in-law's father, John, has agreed to come and house-sit for seven weeks and take care of the animals. John has recently
retired as an army captain and then music teacher, and has been travelling around Australia in a campervan on an extended sabbatical. He is looking forward to having a roof over his head for a couple of months, and being on the farm means that he is close to his four grandsons, whom he adores, and who adore him. Originally English, his preference is for a warm climate, and for the past eight years he has been living near Bundaberg, in Queensland. The shivering cold of the climate where we live will be a shock to his system, but we feel sure that he will cope. John is such a special character that I have written a children's story about him as a bit of fun for our mutual grandsons. The story is about John's uncanny knack of getting the children off to sleep by reading their bedtime stories in such a monotonous voice that they simply cannot keep their eyes open.

We run through all the practical things John will need to know about keeping the fires going, looking after the poultry and fixing the house pump if it should break down. David and I head off in different directions, leaving John and Floyd, our dog, standing at the top of the long driveway, waving. David flies to Nice en route to Cannes while I head off to Paris with half my tour group under my wing. The others will meet us when we get there.

People who go on gardening tours are usually earthy people with no pretensions and a great sense of fun. This group is no exception, although they hail from vastly different backgrounds, and when we all first get together I wonder how the chemistry of it will work out. I refer to this style of expedition as a ‘twinset and pearls' tour, because it's all highly organised and comfortable. Air-conditioned buses, top-quality hotels, and excellent meals in the evening. A bit of a contrast to my adventure treks,
where we sleep in tents and walk uphill for seven or eight hours a day. Women usually outnumber the men on both types of tour, exactly as they do in garden clubs, but on this tour I have two blokes to help balance the equation. Richard is a middle-aged man who is the ‘travelling companion' of Margaret, an Englishwoman who runs an antique shop in the mountains. The other man is Colin, whom I have known for many years, a professional horticulturist with a string of award-winning gardens under his belt. He has never been on a plane before and his excitement at the prospect of visiting so many famous international gardens is palpable. There are other knowledgeable gardeners on this trip too – a young woman called Heather who operates a wholesale citrus nursery in a nearby country town, another Margaret, who owns one of the best garden centres in New South Wales, and several garden club members, including Pam, with beautiful gardens of their own. Then there's Debbie, nearly six foot tall and gorgeous with spiked blonde hair and a loud and very broad Australian accent. She's outrageous, and I wonder how she and the more quiet and conservative members of the group are going to get along.

Apart from anything else, it's my role to keep the travellers happy and harmonious – a bit like being the mother of a large family – and I sometimes wonder if I am just jumping back into that old familiar role again of looking after everybody else. There is a certain skill in making everyone feel good about the trip, especially people who come from different backgrounds and have different expectations of the experience. It's a bit of a juggling act, but I have had so much practice within my own family that keeping the atmosphere light and happy is second nature to me now. Whatever, I always have a lot of fun on these
tours and bond so closely with some of the participants that we become friends for life.