The Lingerie Designer

by Siobhán McKenna

Mark took hold of Helen’s other hand. “You don’t have to, Helen.”

  But Fred wasn’t letting go.

  “Oh, what the hell! We’re in Hong Kong. What goes on tour stays on tour, right?” she said, allowing Fred to drag her towards the dance floor.

  “Here, take a sip.” Mark handed her a drink as she left the safety of the couch. “You may need some Dutch courage.”

  Helen and Fred started a “Bohemian Rhapsody” duet. Back to back, mikes in hand, they chorused their way through the song, until it got to the guitar solo. Then it was time for air guitar and head-banging, despite Fred being follically challenged.

  “I think I’m in love!” Sarah overheard a young British guy say as he watched Helen do her Freddie Mercury impression.

  “I didn’t think women like that existed in real life – and a lingerie designer!” his friend added, as they continued to drink and stare.

  “Actually, I work with her,” Sarah interrupted.

  “Shut up! There’s a team of lingerie women here?” the first guy asked.

  “Yes, Helen and I are the top designers at Eden,” Sarah said coolly.

  “Eden, that’s the shop with that Czech model, Krystal, in its windows?”

  All attention was on Sarah now.

  “Yes, that’s us,” she said. “What has you in Hong Kong, boys?”

  “Hong Kong? I thought we were in heaven!”

  The lads nudged each other, laughing.

  “We’re on holidays,” the other said when he had managed to compose himself.

  “Does that mean you get to meet the models?” his friend asked.

  “Yes, and dress them for the photo-shoots.”

  The guys’ eyes bulged.

  “Come, sit. I’ll tell you all about a day in the life of a lingerie designer.”

  Helen felt dizzy as she returned to the couch. She wasn’t sure whether it was the effect of the alcohol or her impromptu performance.

  “Who knew you’d make such a good Freddie, Helen!” Fred said, elbowing her over. He was out of breath – his shirt wet with sweat. He wiped his brow on a chocolate-stained napkin.

  “Excuse me, Fred, before you get too comfortable, I need the ladies’ room.” Helen tried not to slur her words but she failed miserably.

  Fred moved his legs to the side but didn’t stand, so he got a face-full of Helen’s bosom as she wedged passed him, stumbling slightly against him.

  Free from the din of the music, Helen climbed the stairs to the loo. It was occupied. A sign indicated there were more facilities on the next floor. After jigging around for a moment, she made her way along the dimly lit corridor and up a narrow stairway.

  She pushed open the door to the ladies’ room. Someone inside forcibly slammed it shut again, catching Helen’s hand with it.

  “Ouch!” she cried out and grabbed her hand in pain. Her fingers throbbed. Stunned, reactions slowed by the booze, she stood staring at the door for a moment.

  Yes – it definitely had the outline of a woman on it, complete with triangular skirt, but she had caught a glimpse of a man inside.

  “Get off me!” Helen heard a woman’s voice through the door, followed by what sounded like a scuffle.

  The fog in Helen’s head cleared. She banged her palm rapidly against the door. She thought of fetching security but didn’t want to leave the woman either. She continued to pound. “Is everything alright in there?” The door wasn’t locked but the man had his weight pressed against it. Helen forcibly pushed it with her shoulder. This caught him off guard and he stumbled, freeing the door.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she glared at the man. He was short, stubby and wore a brightly coloured tie. She recognised him as one of the men she’d been commenting on earlier. She turned her attention to the Asian woman. “Are you okay?”

  Cheeks streaked with mascara stains, the woman said, “Yes . . . yes.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Please, I just want to get out of here.”

  Helen stood back to let her pass. The woman paused briefly, saying, “Thank you,” then bolted.

  The man held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, honest mistake! I thought she was my woman. They all look the same to me.”

  “You racist moron!” Helen shouted.

  He sneered at Helen, looking her up and down. Nodding as if to say he knew her type. He made a point of craning his head forward to look at her bum. Then he laughed but his laughter held no mirth.

  Ignoring him, Helen continued, “How dare you treat any woman like that?”

  “Mind your own business – fat ass,” he said, as he pushed past her and started to walk away.

  “Short ass,” Helen tutted as she turned back towards the ladies’.

  Without warning, he swung around and lunged at her, knocking her against the doorframe. He pushed her inside and into a cubicle, pinning her shoulder to the wall, using his elbow as a hinge. With his forearm across her neck, he held her other shoulder back with his hand. His wedding ring caught a low beam of light.

  Adrenaline coursed through Helen’s veins.

  “Let go of me,” she said, her tone low and even. She held eye-contact. She didn’t blink. Inside she felt like jelly but she couldn’t let him smell her fear. She was taller than he was but he was strong and her body wasn’t propelled by the hatred levels his was high on.

  He bared his teeth – his breath smelt of stale whiskey and cigarettes.

  “I’ll have you hauled off by the Hong Kong cops. Explain that to your office – your wife,” Helen continued, holding his stare.

  Something flickered in his eyes. A moment of clarity perhaps? He loosened his grip. “I wouldn’t touch a fat-ass like you anyway!” he spat out but he was backing away. “Fat ass!” he continued to taunt as he stepped out of the doorway into the corridor.

  Helen seized the opportunity to slam the door shut behind him, quickly bolting the lock.

  “Fat-ass bitch!” he shouted through the closed door, banging it with the heel of his stumpy hand, getting the last word in before scurrying away.

  Helen pressed her back against the door. She could hardly breathe. Her throat was constricted – her stomach somersaulted into her chest. There was a basin and mirror within the confines of the toilet. She pressed both hands onto the cold ceramic of the sink to steady herself. Her knees were about to buckle, she was shaking so badly. She looked in the mirror and she saw herself in a way that she hadn’t in years. Behind the make-up, designer clothes, the laughs, the deal-making, she saw a frightened little girl, carefully hidden in the archive of her soul.

  “What the hell are you doing, Helen?” she asked her reflection.

  Slowly, her heart gave up its struggle to escape from her chest. Her hand steadied enough to allow her to let go of the sink.

  She splashed her face with cold water and used the loo before making her way back downstairs. Despite what had happened, or what could have happened, she couldn’t stop the same thought playing like a broken record in her head: Is my ass really that big?

  “Helen, drink?” Fred used sign-language over the crowd.

  She knew better than to tell him she was leaving. She motioned that she was going outside for a smoke. She didn’t smoke but Fred was too pissed to argue.

  As she waded her way over to where her host was sitting, she looked around for the suit but couldn’t see him. What would she say to security anyway?

  He was in the ladies’ toilet.

  He said my bum was big.

  He threatened you, Helen! He almost raped the other woman.

  She looked around again – she couldn’t see the woman either.

  Already she was wondering if she had exaggerated the situation in her mind.

  Then she spotted him.

  Not the creep from the loo – the guy from the airport, Mr Spiritually Enlightened, just walking out the door. Why hadn’t she spotted him earlier? It was his straw briefcase that had caught her eye, just as he was leaving.

&n
bsp; “Are you alright, Helen?” Mark asked. “You look upset?”

  “I’m fine, Mark. Thanks for a lovely evening.” She tucked her jacket under her arm so that Fred wouldn’t spot it and realise she was leaving. “We’ve an early flight to the mainland in the morning. We’ll see you the day after tomorrow – right?”

  “Sure. I’ll walk you to the taxi rank.”

  “No, you’re grand – it’s just down the hill. Sarah, are you coming or staying?”

  “Staying.” Sarah barely looked up, her attention focused on the young English tourist who was chatting her up.

  Helen deftly managed her escape through the heavy velvet curtains of the bar’s entrance. She wanted to catch up with the man who’d just left. Surely it was too great a coincidence? Not usually someone to believe in synchronicity, it just seemed unlikely that this man, who’d guided her to buy a book on the significance of coincidence, would appear in her bar. Could the world really be that small? Was this a sign to trust the Universe? I’m going after him, she thought. In her eagerness to get out, she smacked straight into two men who were on their way in.

  “Whoa! Are you okay?” Jack Taylor said to the woman who’d just run into him with force.

  Helen looked up at him, this polite stranger she’d nearly mowed down. Their eyes met for the briefest moment before she mumbled an apology and looked away, her eyes searching for something else, the man with the straw briefcase whom the Universe had conspired that she meet, she was sure of it. But he’d disappeared from sight now, valuable seconds lost by bumping into someone else to say nothing of the encounter with Mark. She looked back into the bar and wondered if she should stay. The man she’d bumped into was still smiling at her. If someone whacked into her as she had him, she doubted she’d be as forgiving. She decided to keep on going and soon melted into the throngs of people drinking on the street.

  Chapter 14

  “Wonders will never cease – there are a couple of free seats at the bar,” Tom said to his nephew.

  The two men sat and ordered beer. A pretty Asian woman sat alone at the end of the bar. She held an unlit cigarette between her scarlet-painted fingernails.

  She smiled at Jack.

  He smiled back.

  She held up her cigarette and tilted her head as if she was asking him if he had a light.

  He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head – he didn’t smoke.

  “Excuse me,” he called to the bartender. “I think that lady needs a light.”

  The bartender looked at him, unsmiling.

  “Jeez, Jack, will you stop encouraging the hooker. They’re impossible to shake off, once they spot an easy target,” Tom moaned. “I’m surprised at you – being a man of the world, you should know better.”

  “Oh.” Jack reddened slightly. “I’m really not tuned into women, or so I’m told.”

  “Why would you want to be? Just let them think you are. Their brains don’t work rationally, you see. It’d be easier to tune into Andromeda using a kitchen spoon than tune into the female psyche.”

  “Andromeda – as in our neighbouring galaxy in the universe?”

  “That’s the one – two-and-a-half million light years away. Now that I think of it, that’s probably where women are from too – a different species from outer space.”

  Jack thought that for once Tom could be right.

  “Whatever happened to that girl? Weren’t you engaged to her?” Tom asked, popping some peanuts into his mouth.

  The question was unexpected and knocked Jack back.

  “Amy.” He said her name and survived it.

  “Was she the one with the great rack?”

  “She was my only proper girlfriend. And yes, the one with the great rack. It didn’t work out.” Jack drew a line in the condensation of his beer bottle.

  “Slept with someone else, did she?”

  No wonder Dad calls him Tactless Tom. “Something like that.”

  “Figures.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jack pushed his stool back to look at Tom full-on.

  “A girl who looks like that is always on the hunt for something more. More status, more wealth, more handsome. Beauty – it’s a curse, you know – for those that fall in love with it anyway.”

  “So you’re saying all beautiful women are shallow, insincere gold-diggers?”

  Tom thought for a moment or two. “Yes.”

  “You’re incorrigible, Tom.”

  “I’m just saying what I’ve seen. Screw them by all means – just don’t marry and procreate with a Playboy bunny.”

  “Amy doesn’t look like a Playgirl! She’s tall for a start, and she’s . . .” Jack thought about the right word, “she’s refined.”

  “Trust me. Paint the lips redder, and make the heels a couple of inches higher – it’s the only difference – she has the basic canvas.” Tom popped more nuts.

  Jack was peeling off the label of his beer.

  “From what I remember of her, that is,” Tom added. “Trust me – you’re well shot of her.”

  If Tom was trying to console him, it hadn’t worked.

  “So, how long are you in town for?” Tom asked.

  Safer ground.

  “A little over a week, but I’ll probably head across to Mainland China for a few days of that. Then I’m hoping I can fly on to Phnom Penh from here.”

  “Cambodia! Have you been drinking the Kool-Aid? Why on earth would you want to go there?”

  “I’m kind of hoping it’s not too spoilt by tourists yet – I’ve always wanted to see Angkor Wat.”

  “Shanghai – go there. As an architect, you’ll love it – not some crumbling old ruin. Besides, you’ll have to get all sorts of injections against the god-awful diseases in Cambodia. Do they even have proper hotels there?” Tom’s lip curled involuntarily.

  “I got all my shots last month. It’s not the buildings I’m going for – it’s the culture, the experience.” Jack ignored Tom’s expression.

  “I’m telling you – book into the Peninsula in Shanghai, or Beijing if you want more culture. Order room service – tune the plasma TV to the National Geographic channel. Experience all the cultures of the world via remote-control.”

  “Nah, it doesn’t matter about the hotels, I’m backpacking. And I’ll go wherever I can get the best-priced flight to. I’ll figure out my way once I’m there.”

  “Jack, I’ve seen the world and managed to have white cotton sheets, cable TV and a hotel bar everywhere I’ve been.”

  “What you mean is – you’ve travelled the world. You can’t say you’ve seen it until you step out of your comfort-zone, off the tour bus and mix with the locals.”

  “Who’s talking tour buses? I’ve always been chauffeur-driven.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “Or at least a taxi,” Tom conceded. “Would you even consider Shanghai?”

  “Sure, I’d like to see Shanghai, probably more for the old town though.”

  Tom raised his eyes to heaven.

  “And the super train – I would like to travel on that,” Jack added.

  “Thank you! I was beginning to think you weren’t a Taylor at all.”

  “I’m just not like you and Dad.”

  “Correction – I’m nothing like your dad either.”

  “What I mean is, you and dad live and breathe construction. You with your architecture, Dad with his engineering, Dubai is your wet dream, but I just don’t feel the buzz anymore.”

  There, he’d said it. There is more to life than big boys’ Lego.

  “You know, maybe this few weeks off is a good idea after all.” Tom paused. “You’ll be chewed up in LA unless you get your ‘buzz’ back and quickly. Most people would kill to have your job.”

  Jack knew Tom was right. Sometimes though, he wondered, if he hadn’t come from a family of architects and engineers, would he have chosen a different career?

  If he hadn’t started dating Amy in high school, would he have experienced
more of life? He’d always taken the safe road. Always was the good son, the class captain, devoted boyfriend – hardworking, reliable.

  He could see his tombstone now: Here lies Jack Taylor, Grade-A student, exemplary employee, lovingly missed by nieces and nephews. No children of his own because women are from Andromeda and he couldn’t leave the office long enough to get there. Died of boredom, age forty – RIP.

  Chapter 15

  “Is Helen not back yet?” Fred enquired, returning from the bar.

  “Gone,” Mark said flatly as he stole a glance at his watch.

  “Like hell she is,” Fred said, putting the drinks on the table. He took his mobile out of his jeans pocket, pressing speed-dial. Helen’s number rang out – he dialled it again and then again.

  “She mentioned you all have an early start tomorrow,” Mark said.

  “Never stopped her before,” Fred grumbled.

  He checked the phone for texts – nothing. Maybe he could still catch her – talk her into a night-cap at the hotel bar. He swiftly bade the others goodnight and disappeared through the velvet curtains in pursuit of his target: Helen Divine.

  Party revellers thronged the narrow streets of Lang Kwai Fong. Waiters pushed through the crowds with pitchers of beer and vodka, a popular option that maximised drinking time and minimised wading-to-the-bar time. Music flowed from the pubs’ outdoor speaker systems into the hedonistic night air. Beer flowed down the cobbled street. Fred, who’d normally want to be in the thick of the action, now found it irritating, his dash to the taxi rank impeded. A group of young women dressed in saucy nurses’ uniforms slowed him momentarily.

  “You want a shot, mister?” one of them asked. She raised a giant vial, shaped like a surgical needle – it was full of a clear-coloured alcohol like vodka or gin. Fred hesitated for a moment until he remembered you always pay premium rates to drink with a view, be it of a harbour or an over-exposed silicone cleavage. He kept going.

  “I’ll take it!” a British woman shouted, dashing forward. She wore a cheap cotton sleeveless T-shirt that exposed a functional white bra-strap and an expanse of belly-flab. Bingo wings jiggled as she broke away from her friends and ran towards the fantasy nurse. The woman and her friends all looked to be in their late forties, maybe early fifties. They held tankards of beer and cocktails. Some were clumsily stepping side to side, to the beat of the music.