The Feel of Steel

by Helen Garner

  Graziella comes barging through the floor-length curtains, with the bride and the bride’s sister in tow. Three gorgeous girls in their twenties, funny, frank-mouthed and free, with big dark nails and thick hair and lots of ear-rings, they plonk themselves down in the fitting room, scattering smiles in all directions, prepared to wring every ounce of fun out of whatever is going to happen.

  ‘Dju go to the solarium?’ the bride asks Graziella.

  ‘No,’ she says, pulling a pair of pretty, very high-heeled sandals out of the box, ‘but do you think I need to? I’m so nervous? And I’m not even the one getting married?’

  Electrified by the sandals, I whisper, ‘Where do those come from?’

  The three of them burst into a paean of praise for an establishment called Santino’s in Sydney Road: ‘You can get shoes made or dyed however you want!’ cries Graziella, stripping, as she speaks, to her matching orange lace bra and knickers, and a pair of knee-high sheer socks. She slides into the sandals and is suddenly tall.

  ‘ ’Scuse me, how I look,’ she says to me cheerfully. ‘I need this?’ She pulls a girdle out of a plastic bag, steps into it and yanks it up over her smooth brown haunches. ‘ ’Cause my stomach’s bloated?’

  ‘Where’d you get that girdle?’ asks the bride.

  ‘I got it ten years ago?’ says Graziella, smoothing her curvaceous hips. ‘Everyone’s worn it but me?’

  Their energetic discussion of girdles, where you buy them, what brand is best and how much they cost, is cut short by the appearance of a dark-clad minion, carrying the dress: silk, strapless, full-length, and of a most delicious and intense shade of rose pink. Graziella eases herself into it. Vanessa zips her up behind. A pause.

  ‘It’s too long, isn’t it?’ says the bride doubtfully.

  Graziella turns to look at her own back in the mirror. ‘I always get this, my pimples at the back? If it’s too tight, I don’t want the fat coming out heeya?’ She points to the danger spot, where upper arm brushes against glorious bosom, and the top of a strapless dress can cut an unsightly line. ‘Am I very booby? Do I look very chesty?’

  ‘Nooooooooooh!’ chorus the others.

  ‘Busty,’ says the bride’s sister from the corner, ‘is when you’re coming right out at the top. Josie, for example – there was a stage when she was like out.’

  ‘V’you seen the guys’ suits?’ says the bride, sitting forward in her chair. ‘The guys look faaaaaan-tastic. Tony calls me from the shop. He goes, “We look fuckin’ great in ’em!” I haven’t told him yet my dress is strapless.’

  They all laugh with glee.

  Graziella seizes the top of the dress and hoists it up higher on her torso. This alters the whole hang of it. Vanessa gets down on her knees and elbows, and begins with slow precision to adjust and pin the hem.

  While she works, the three young women chatter in low, urgent voices, reeling off strings of first names, plans to have dinner at this one’s house and that one’s, details of who owns what car and which man will drive whom where. From their talk I build up a picture of a vast, seething, devoted, self-absorbed family, busy keeping itself entertained and fed and wed and reproduced, caring for itself, keeping itself vividly alive. They are irresistible, these three highly coloured beings, with their sweet roughness of speech, their self-teasing take on things, their unabashed assessment of their bodily imperfections, the exuberant pleasure they take in being women.

  Seeing me writing in my notebook, Graziella says, ‘Sorry to bore you!’

  Bored? I wish I could lounge here unnoticed, with my back against the mirror and bask in their merry company all day long.

  By six o’clock, exhausted from the hours of suppressed anxiety – just watching has worn me out – Vanessa and I collapse in a nearby bar and call for a couple of stiff drinks.

  Over the past few months, Vanessa’s right arm has developed repetitive strain injury. This relatively peaceful afternoon, when nothing went wrong and nobody got a fright or threw a tantrum, has been her last fitting. But her skills are just as much psychological as they are physical. Her personality is perfectly suited to the task. She is a very calm person. Haste seems foreign to her. Her voice is thoughtful, her movements quiet and smooth. She may have given up the job, but whenever things go badly at the temple of the brides-to-be, surely Vanessa will be the trouble-shooter they call.

  I imagine her swinging on to a tram and gliding serenely along the silver rails. She alights near the salon, pauses in a coffee bar for a fortifying espresso, and strolls through the portals into the high, hushed space. From her leather bag she draws a yellow tape measure and slings it round her neck. She pushes aside the long calico curtains and steps into the fitting room.

  A semi-circle of angry, panicking women stands facing the mirror in which they see reflected the big white problem, in all its minutely puckered, infinitesimally lopsided dismay. The unflappable fitter in black – patient, elegant, mature – takes her place beside them. They shuffle along to make room for her. She stands quite still, not speaking, barely smiling, her eyebrows up, her head on one side.

  And something about her presence alters the temper of the air. Hysteria breathes out. The mother unclenches her fists. The bride wipes away her tears with the back of her hand.

  An expectant, hopeful silence grows, in the curtained enclosure.

  Perhaps, after all, everything is going to be all right.