“He’s filling a god-shaped hole with aloe vera”

MY SISTER, whom I am visiting in Sligo, has been embarrassed into attending a “unique social event” by a male work colleague.

Ever since I arrived at her house, she, in turn, has focused her energies on embarrassing me into attending with her.

So it is that we find ourselves sitting side by side in her colleague’s house, with nine other resigned strangers.

I watch him set out products on a table and wearily anticipate a night of “wily pyramid selling” — a term much better suited to the reality than “unique social event” — in a state of mute, polite submission.

I tell my sister she owes me big time. Then her colleague introduces himself and thanks us all for coming.

“My wife and I have invited you here tonight to talk about a revolutionary health product called aloe vera,” he begins.

Aloe vera: a species of succulent plant, originating in northern Africa 1st century AD. Not lingerie or sex toys, then.

We watch his eyes flash with pontifical zeal around the room. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” he says. This avowal sounds much more promising than it feels.

“Most people know that aloe vera can be applied externally,” he pauses, “but not many know that it can also be taken internally, in the form of powders and liquid preparations.”

“I think that’s the little secret,” my sister whispers.

He swings his arm over the products on the table in front of him. “Our aloe vera products are 100% natural,” he says, “and this is a property which enables it to heal. To really heal.” He pauses, eyes flashing again. “Aloe vera,” he says with some ardour, “can change your life.”

He reels off a long and improbable list, comprising all the ills and ailments that aloe vera can smite with its mighty fist. It’s a list his wife augments with anything he forgets, which he does a lot, because she interjects quite often.

“Once you’ve used aloe vera,” he says, “you’ll find it becomes central to your health and to life itself.”

This is when I think, with absolute certainty: “there can be nothing more counterintuitive, in the entire field of human communication, than the efforts of this man to convert me to the miracle of aloe vera”. My sister is puffing out her cheeks; I think she feels the same.

It strikes me that of all the things we have as touchstones in our lives, those central points around which our lives pivot, like family for example and love, food, earth, water, wind and fire — that aloe vera is the very, very dullest.

“…central to health and life itself…” he repeats for greater emphasis.

His wife interjects again, “It really can be life-saving!”

At which point I think, not for the first time, that people who attribute life-saving properties to such things as Bach Flower Remedies or extract of geranium tend to be those who have never sat in the back of an ambulance or a hospital bed.

I find now that a thought has finished forming itself inside my brain: “This man has a god-shaped hole in his life and he is stuffing aloe vera into it.”

I’m familiar with god-shaped holes. I know many people who have them. And they stuff all sorts of things into them; iridology, let’s say, and homeopathy, angels, the candida diet, reflexology or absent-healing. Then there’s mindfulness, unani, spiritual healing and tantric yoga. And let’s not forget aromatherapy, helio-therapy, gem-therapy and colour-therapy. I’ve even met a man who lived in a polytunnel with his veg, who swore by auto-urine therapy (the use of one’s own urine as an immune- system booster, sometimes called ‘your own doctor’).

While the man’s wife demonstrates different aloe vera products to the room (“forty-three euro for the small Aloe Vera, fifty for the large”) my thinking gets quite spirited before arriving at its end point: “I don’t mind what people stuff into their god-shaped holes but I’d rather they didn’t try and stuff their stuff into my god-shaped hole. I’m quite happy with what’s in mine, thank you very much.”

My sister’s thinking has arrived at its end point, too; she puffs out her cheeks again and then quietly says “horseshit” on an out breath, in the direction of her shoes.