Joan Collins, of Dynasty not Dáil fame, avoids the sun. It's a fact of her glamorous life that has been surfacing in a dual publicity push for her skincare range and her novel, The St Tropez Lonely Hearts Club, in which a beautiful and filthy rich heroine looks for love on the beaches of the Côte d'Azur (rather than, say, on Tinder).
Joan hasn’t exposed herself to “harmful rays” since the age of 20, she says, which surprises me, as when I picture Joan Collins, born in the sun-worshipping 1930s, she is 100 per cent of the time reclining in an inflatable pool armchair with 1980s cordless phone in one hand and a ridiculous cocktail in the other.
Every year I suffer a summer-related amnesia and forget that this is not my reality either. I forget that if I did sit out in the sun, it would be on an Ikea chair I’ve squeezed onto a cage-like balcony overlooking one of Dublin’s finest dual carriageways, and that I will never truly relax in this position thanks to a high risk that cigarette ends from the apartment above will sail down onto my chilly midriff.
I’m not ready to turn my body into an ashtray, not yet, so when I come to terms with real life, I remember to stay off the balcony, and out of the sun like Joan. I note, however, that she does of course have a house in the south of France, and she did drift across its pool in sunglasses, scarf and wide-brimmed hat last summer. Unfortunately, the inflatable chair overturned and she had to be rescued from underneath it by Julian Clary.
Summer, as this story proves, is complicated. Even in Joan’s novel, paradise is disrupted by bad oysters and a fatal wasp sting. In Ireland, as forecast-watchers who struggle with feelings of bitterness and bafflement will tell you, we do not choose the sun, the sun chooses us. Blue skies in this country are like sporting triumphs, or abortions – they happen, yet there’s no legal right to them.
As I write, there’s a nuclear drabness to everything and the city is in a state of pre-rain. People in possession of telescopes say the sun has been busy entertaining Mercury, which was passing by. Whether or not to try for a Vitamin D top-up is a dilemma as academic as “how soon would a Lotto jackpot win wipe the office computer login details clean from your mind?” or “which potentially habitable exoplanet looks the most promising for retirement, Kepler-186f or Kepler-452b?”
By the time these words are published, the clouds may have vanished offshore like the financial assets of the not-so-beautiful and filthy rich, leaving behind democratic weather meant for cracked heels and beer drunk from plastic cups. I love summer. It’s an excellent time for hay fever, other people’s public displays of affection and not being at Glastonbury.
And after 2015’s effort fell, for me, into one extended dizzy spell – the result of an ear malfunction, not the external temperature – I’m determined to make the most of this one. Yes, I’m really going to make a proper weekend of it. Because how many summers are there left? I’d ask Danny Healy-Rae for clarity on this, but I’m not convinced he exists. The answer, in any case, is not enough.
With all due respect to the guy who just shipped a Boeing 767 up the west coast from Shannon to a Sligo holiday site, I don’t want to spend one minute of my remaining summers glamping in the fuselage of a decommissioned aircraft. That feels like apocalyptic behaviour to me.
What I would like to be able to do is be comfortable again with the idea of sunshine on my face, and not be so paranoid about ageing or getting burnt. I would like the luxury of complacency about the sun. For this, alas, I suspect I might have to time-travel back to the innocent sunbathing clubs and lido crazes of 1930s London, which were all going so marvellously until the war.
This year, at least, I will not be uttering the words “I’m more of an autumn clothes person”. I’ll be reading up on those parts of Ibiza that are quite nice, actually, and maintaining that it is not at all foolish to expect bliss from blow-up furniture.
For deeper inspiration on how to approach summer, I’m coming down to earth and getting in the sea. At this year’s Olympics, open swimmers are being asked to compete in waters infested with raw sewage. It is hazardous beyond sense. But elite open swimmers have been known to battle through all kinds – floating animal corpses, stinging sea-creatures and rivals given to “underwater boxing” – with only goggles, thin wetsuits and thick skin to protect them.
I wouldn’t fancy it myself, but it feels like an appropriate metaphor.
Róisín Ingle is on leave
