Let me tell you about my friend Kate. She was an Irish beauty in her mid 70s, and the sort of woman you could hear her coming 15 seconds before she entered the room, just by the chiming of her golden bracelets and the heady scent of Giorgio: a distinctly 80s brew of gardenias on steroids.
Kate wore her joy like her chunky ruby glass necklace and matching oversized drop earrings. She would fill every room she sashayed into with her aura - as vibrant as her bright geometric scarves and scarlet lippy . With green eyes sparkling, her voice would boom and
soar with a laugh that burst out of her in a direct line from her heart. She sported a hairdo as big as her personality in blazing red with matching nails. Yes, Kate was Dynasty & Dallas final episodes rolled into one.
The first thing I noticed was the hospital grade disinfectant as it jarred and spiked my nostrils. Kate lay motionless, like a balloon deflating. Was it her? Her face was ashen and eyes glassy, and, with her sallow sunken cheeks, she looked like a ghoul, a skeleton already. Kate was almost absent. In a stiff white hospital gown, only the red nails told me it was her. Her breath hissed and her chest hardly moved. She feebly lifted her hand half an inch and beckoned me to come closer. Trembling I sat next to her bed and took her frail hand, cool and boney, and sandwiched it between mine, in an attempt to give her a life force infusion.
With all the strength she had, she pulled me towards her so she could whisper in my ear:
“I love your jacket”.
I was wearing the leopard skin that day…and I wore it as I sang at her funeral a week later.
My extraordinary friend Kate, She was a dazzling GlamourPussy to the end…
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