I was so wild like Lucy... now all that's missing in my life is a baby
Parties, hangovers, endless diets and all-consuming quest to find Mr Right. The life of a twenty something working girl is all too familiar to novelist Marian Keyes. Indeed, her best seller Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, which burst on to our screens this week, is based on Marian's own carefree days in London flat-shares. The days when she, too, used to work hard, play hard and drink far too much. "I loved my single life," she said. "I used to work to live rather than live to work, just like Lucy and her friends." Though the hilarious antics of her three heroines - played by Letitia Dean, and newcomers Zoe Eels and Sam Loggin - hark back to those giddy years, today Marian is living the happy ending her fictional characters can only dream of. Her lowly-paid job as an accounts clerk has been replaced by a £710,000 salary as one of Britain's top writers. Home is a cosy cottage in her Irish home town, rather than a messy north London flat. And, to top it all, she is now happily married and even admits to feeling "seriously broody" - the cardinal sin in her singleton days. It has not been an easy transformation. To achieve it, Marian had to battle against alcoholism and a crippling self-doubt - a battle which spiralled uncontrollably towards a suicide attempt. Only four years ago her love life was in tatters and her job going nowhere. Her only joy was scribbling down the odd short story. Marian's impulse to send off those musings to a publisher proved a turning point. Another was her stint at "drying out" clinic - today she never touches a drop. And then, of course, there was Tony, the man she met six years ago and whom she describes as her "constant strength". Today, he is her husband and business manager and the pair work from home together. "We are very happily married," she says. "We give each other a lot of space." Marriage, a mortgage, and longing for motherhood ... Marian, now 36, has to pinch herself when she realises how dramatically her life and her attitudes have changed. In her London days, when her good time pals moved out to live with boy friends or marry, she mocked them for growing old before their time - and poured herself another double vodka. "I was just happy to be young and a little irresponsible," she says. "My job was likeable enough and I worked with some lovely people, but I didn't really have any ambitions. I sat my accountancy exams but I never thought I would make it career of it. It was a fun period, but by the time I hit 30, I wasn't very happy."
By then, though she is loath to admit it, she was also drinking too much. After-work drinks became lunchtime drinks, then mid-morning drinks. Alcohol became a crutch. "Everybody is different and I think it did take me longer to accept my responsibilities. To take charge of my life," she says. "Maybe I had to go right to the end of the road to grow up. I don't regret my youth. I had some fabulous times and the twenties are the best. It's a life that cannot go on forever, though" There is a side of you which becomes more conventional. I still feel attached to the world of late nights, but I only do it once a month instead of four times a week. "With motherhood yet to happen, Marian's books are having to serve as the outlet for her creative urges. She is launching her latest, Last Chance Saloon, clinching a Hollywood film deal for her third, the semi-autobiographical Rachel's Holiday, and writing a fifth. Her live-for-today philosophy pervades Last Chance Saloon, a tragic- comic novel which interweaves the hilarious shenanigans of two thirty-something women with their gay friend's battle against cancer and is heading straight for the top of the bestsellers list. But, trying as she might, there's no escaping that longing for a baby. Marian is clearly delighted, if a little bewildered, to find herself at the mercy of her hormones. "I just can't stop looking at babies," she admits, her greeny blue eyes twinkling with maternal urges. "I mean, I'm dangerous. If I see a baby in the supermarket, I want to stop for a coon and an ogle. It's terrible." She finds it ironic that, despite their efforts, pregnancy hasn't happened. "As Tony said, if we were in your twenties, met on a blind date and then got blind drunk, I would be pregnant like that," she says, snapping her fingers to demonstrate. "But because we're married with a lovely house, four bedrooms and a lawnmower, it's not happening. Life's funny isn't it?"