The Private Parts of Women

by Lesley Glaister

  I could not remember the night before. I remembered the morning and some of the afternoon, but I could not remember the night.

  When I removed the gauze from my thigh I found a thick black scab, hairy with stuck threads. It was the size of half-a-crown and as thick. I did not touch it. I could not bear to imagine what this body had done. I left the scab and put on the uniform and I did my work. My face, my smile, the same as ever. I looked sinners and fellow soldiers in the eye and all the time above the top of my thick lisle stocking there was the wound that burned as if the Devil had branded me with a fiery horn. All day my fingers longed to go to the place and touch. All day I prayed and fasted to punish my body.

  In the shelter that evening, I sat with a dying man. He was not more than fifty but his body and mind were pickled with strong drink. His skin was red and coarse, traced with the hectic purple of broken capillaries, his nose was swollen and strawberry-pitted. Between their lashless lids his eyes were watery blue. I tried to look at him with compassion, tried not to smell the sour reek of his breath and skin, not to mind the dampness of his hand that clutched mine as I prayed for him. I sat with him almost all night. I prayed and softly sang to him. He seemed to like the childish choruses. Perhaps a memory from his childhood stirred in his dying mind, a memory from the time before Satan with his tobacco, his spirits, his gambling, his traps of flesh, had won his soul away from God. He opened his mouth and I swear he said ‘Jesu’, that is the last word he said, I am almost sure it was that, as he slipped into his last sleep. And only I knew, as I walked home through the last of the night, that as I had prayed for his soul the Devil had been there in me, in the burning under my skirt, the hairy, devil-print on my thigh.

  That day I really lost heart. It did not happen all at once; it was the beginning of a peeling back, as if the petals of a chrysanthemum – that many filaments of hope – were peeling back, falling and dying, one by one.

  I did not touch the place. I did not let my fingers travel there. I lay with my hands outside the sheets and prayed for the soul of the dying man. I knew I should not let myself sleep, that that was weak. I should have spent the rest of the night on my knees in the chilly room. But even while thinking that, I did fall asleep and my dreams were filled with choking horror: the taste of a man’s flesh, hot compression, an obscene stuffing of the senses. When I woke I got out of bed and fell straight to my knees, terrified of the heat in my body, of a strange wet heaviness. It was late and the sun laughed through the curtains with the Devil’s glee.

  ‘My dear,’ said Mary coming into my room. ‘Are you not well?’

  ‘I have slept so late!’

  ‘I came in and looked at you,’ Mary said. ‘I did not wake you. I thought you ill, your face flushed, tossing and turning, muttering. And yesterday you appeared so pale and strained. I noticed that you did not eat. And then up all night …’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Get straight back into bed and I’ll bring you tea and toast,’ she said. She knelt down to light the fire. ‘You must rest this morning. And that’s an order.’ She sounded kind enough but she had not looked me in the eye and I was hurt by that. I wanted her to look at me in the old loving, approving way. The burning place on my thigh pulsed.

  ‘I should get dressed, I should return to the shelter.’

  ‘Later, Trixie. Mr Petit died this morning, peacefully an hour after you left him.’

  ‘Oh … I should have stayed.’

  ‘You should have done no such thing. You were up nearly all night. Nobody could have done more. Trixie, I believe you won a soul for Jesus last night. God doesn’t require that you make yourself ill in His service. What earthly use would that be?’ She stood up and brushed her skirt. ‘There, that’s lit, now I’ll fetch your breakfast.’

  Before I returned to bed I shook out my rumpled sheets and blankets as if shaking them free of the sinful dreams and as I shook, a crust, black as a beetle’s shell, jumped on the white sheet. I flicked it on to the floor as if it was a poison thing. I picked it up in the folds of a handkerchief and threw it into the flames. When I dared to look at my thigh … oh I cannot express how I felt, how my voice welled in my throat sour and sick as curdled milk. For there, on the top of my thigh, on the whitest, smoothest part was a red rose, risen and inflamed, a crude and ugly tattoo, a picture of a red rose.

  I thought it was a sign. A sign that I was damned. It is there still, an old rose now, creased with the folds of my old skin, an old brown-red rose, the Devil’s stain.

  ADA

  Call me romantic,

  but still I maintain,

  I was born to lo – ove.

  When Frank said he wanted to make me his, how could I refuse? A ring, he said, a ring you can take off. He took me to be tattooed. I did think of Trixie, and afterwards I was sorry for the terrible shock it gave her but … well maybe I thought, why should it be only Trixie’s body? Maybe I, too, like Frank, maybe I wanted to make my mark.

  I remember it was night, Frank drove me to the place. It was a narrow shop in Golders Green. The tattoo man stripped to the waist and I gasped and Frank laughed at me. He pinched my arm with his hard fingers. ‘Let’s choose,’ he said. I had gasped because the man seemed more dressed in his coloured skin than he had in his plain shirt. His skin was hairless and every inch from his wrists to his collar-bone was covered in the tiniest of tattoos.

  ‘My showcase,’ he said. It was as if he was wearing a most elaborately patterned garment, woven neat and smooth as skin itself. There were alphabets and elephants, flowers of every kind. A tree grew from his navel, the roots disappearing below the waist of his trousers, the branches spread across his chest laden with every kind of bird and fruit. Adam and Eve stood beneath the tree and a serpent with a red eye curled around the trunk. Eve held an apple in her hand with a bite taken from it. The more I looked, the more I saw. He turned around, there, on his back, was an eagle like the big eagle on Frank’s back. He rolled his shoulder-blades and the bird seemed to fly and all around it trembled other creatures: rabbits, tortoises, wolves, lions and unicorns.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ he asked. I thought for ages, touching the warm skin beneath the designs. I liked the eagle, I thought perhaps an eagle like Frank’s but tiny, but he said no and decided for me. He chose a rose, red to signify our love.

  I had to sit on a chair and lift my skirt. My thigh looked so white, the purest thing in the room. The man knelt before me, between my legs and swabbed the place, the inside of my thigh above my stocking-top with a disinfectant that left a yellow smear. Frank stood behind me, his hand a weight on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, frozen in a mixture of fear and excitement. The tattoo man had cold fingers and he smelled of smoke and hair-cream. On top of his head, the hair was slick with grease. His breath came out in little sighs and grunts as he concentrated on his task. He pressed his fingertips into my flesh to keep it taut. I bit my lip against the pain of the needle. When I opened my eyes and looked down I saw the blood risen in lines of scarlet beads. I felt faint and sweat rose on my upper lip. I could hear a buzzing in my ears, but Frank was behind me, he made me strong. He lit a cigarette and a drift of ash fell on my skirt.

  That was near the end.

  Next time I saw him it was through Trixie’s eyes.

  Next thing I knew he was dead.

  SWIMMING

  I sin, she called me. And is it a sin to leave one’s children? I posted Richard’s card last night. Walking back past the telephone-box I hesitated, itching to ring to hear their voices, but no. Now I have sent the card I must wait. There are things I must do. I’m going to buy some brown hair-dye so I don’t look too strange and shocking to the children. I’m going to put a mud-pack on my face and shave my legs. I look a sight. But I am almost better. I went to the Lateshopper last night and bought a frozen lasagne and a custard tart, also a can of Guinness, since that’s supposed to be good for you. And I bought a birthday card for Trixie, an old ladyish sort of card, red roses and cu
rly gold writing. A sentimental verse. I slept well and woke early, full of nervous energy. By now, Richard’s card will have been collected, it may even have been sorted, it may be on the train to London already. Tomorrow morning he should get it. Perhaps tomorrow I will ring.

  When I woke early this morning, I drank a mug of strong coffee before I went up to my darkroom. I sat for a couple of hours watching Trixie float into existence over and over, the drunken Trixie, lipstick smeared, wig askew, eyelashes coming unstuck so they curled up like little grins, independent of her lids. And Mr Blowski’s serious monkey face, his chaotic white eyebrows and the dark lip prints on his withered cheeks. The photographs made me smile and then laugh, and that is an almost forgotten sensation, a bubbling tickle in my diaphragm, the air jolting staccato from my lungs, a smile on my face to match Trixie’s.

  I’ll ask again if I can photograph her as she usually is, her everyday self. She enjoyed yesterday’s session so much, I’m sure she’ll agree. I want to put the photographs side by side, such a contrast but both true. Two facets of the same woman.

  The laughing made me want to see my children more than ever, it freed something in me, something natural that is love. But I must have will power, I must be strong. If I move too soon it might all be ruined. I am unfurling a tendril towards them and it could easily be withered. What if Pauline answers the phone? Because most probably she is there in the space I have left. I would be, am, grateful to her, but still if it was Pauline who answered the phone I don’t think I could speak. I would have to put the phone down without a word and she might guess it was me. It might make things worse. No, I will wait for tomorrow night, for the card to have arrived, for Richard to be home.

  When Richard answers the phone, what will I say? ‘Hello stranger!’ or ‘Guess who?’ or ‘Surprise, surprise!’ No, no, no. Flippancy is inappropriate, though he would know it was fuelled by anxiety. He would understand. Still, better to say, quietly, with no inflection. ‘It is Inis’, or simply, ‘It is me.’

  Sometimes Robin picks up the receiver first, he loves to answer the phone. ‘Who are you?’ he always says. If it was Robin it would be all right. ‘It’s Mummy,’ I would say. Oh God, I’ve almost forgotten his voice.

  When I went down for a refill of coffee, I saw Trixie in the garden, the usual Trixie in her brown nylon housecoat, her white hair all flat against her head. She was moving very slowly and stiffly. Hungover, I expect. She was moving like a sleepwalker. I should have gone out and said hello. I don’t know whether to show her the wonderful photographs of her birthday, what will she think? Surely she would love the one of her and Mr Blowski together, radiating fondness. They are the best work I’ve done. I can’t wait to show Richard, to explain to him that something good has come from this terrible thing … something good for me at least. But is that selfish?

  Why wait? Why telephone? Why not go straight home? I could be there in a few hours. But my heart squeezes, panicky at the thought. I am not ready. I have to clear up the loose ends. I have to explain to Trixie, and I don’t look ready. I can’t go home feeling like this. I want to look good and be good. Maybe I’ll go to the hairdresser’s and get my hair done properly, dyed chestnut, my own colour, trimmed. I wonder what Richard will say, I like it short – but he’s always loved my hair long and when I’ve talked about cutting it before, he’s sulked.

  So what about the colour! Me, a peroxide blonde! What would he say to that? There’s this woman, one of Richard’s patients, always up at the surgery with this and that, and worse, always calling him out at night for nothing, for the most trivial things. And he always bloody goes, like a spaniel or something obedient. I wouldn’t have gone, I would have told her where to get off, but Richard was conscientious. What if, he always said, what if this time it really is something. So he always went – but one night he came back in a filthy mood. She’d called him out with some story about her ears, and when he got there he found it was because she couldn’t get her earrings out. At 3 a.m. Ignorant fat peroxide blonde, he called her.

  I loved it! I loved him for that, for letting that slip. Dr Right-On Goodie. I lay beside him grinning into the dark, long after he was snoring.

  Looking at the prints of Trixie’s old face made me think of my granny who died when I was ten. I loved her. She was the one who took me to the kennels when I was seven to choose Bonny. The children should grow up with a dog. Why don’t we have a dog? I can’t think. When I get home I’ll take Robin to get one, a black labrador, like Bonny, or a golden one.

  I remember when my granny died. Hers is the only dead body I have ever seen. In death her breasts had slid down her sides under her nylon ruffle-neck blouse and her mouth was set in a smirk. I thought how awful to be dead and have people stare at you, come up close and stare at you like that, right up your nose even.

  Richard is always seeing bodies. Mostly old, but sometimes not. Once a child with meningitis whose mother failed to call him out in time, a little girl who died. He was depressed after that, depressed and angry in turns. That was when I was expecting Robin. I was good then, I was supportive. For a time, maybe the only time, I was the strong one.

  I said to Richard, how awful to be dead and have people staring at you up close when you have no defences. He laughed. But you are dead! he said.

  If I had not left I would have hurt my children.

  I said, ‘If I die before you, don’t let anyone look at me, have my lid nailed down so no one can look.’

  When Billie was crying, the day before I left, I caught myself looking at a pillow. I caught myself thinking how easy it would be. How easy to shut her up.

  Nobody would ever have guessed because they trusted me. Just because I am her mother they trusted me.

  For weeks before I left, the newspapers, the radio, the television screamed stories at me, about people who hurt their children: fathers, stepfathers, mothers, others who beat their babies, scalded them in hot baths, threw them down the stairs, burned them with cigarettes, poisoned them, starved or strangled them.

  Mothers like me. It was a warning.

  I can’t plunge back in until I’m ready. I am nearly. The thought of plunging reminds me of the seaside, the way my parents would both run down the pebbly beach and hurl themselves into the cold brown sea, right under, and come up spluttering and laughing, my dad’s hair all sleek with wet, my mum’s yellow swimming-cap with its white rubber daisies glistening and Bonny’s head bobbing between them.

  ‘Come on Inis,’ they’d call, ‘don’t be a baby,’ and Bonny would yap but I could not go right in at once. I had to go forward one step at a time and let the water rise up my thighs, tip-toeing up from the waves. I thought if I dived straight in my heart would stop with the shock. If they splashed me I ran out again, they had to leave me be, let me take my time.

  Robin is just like them. With his water wings he is a slippery daredevil diver, he terrifies me, but Billie clings and cries, her chubby legs clamped round me, her skin marbling in the cold water. Perhaps she is like me.

  I wonder if Pauline has taken them swimming.

  Even thinking about it makes me cold.

  IVY

  If Mary had not been humiliated by Harold’s feelings about me, if she had not been jealous and bitter, then she would not have been real. Because she was a woman and not a saint. What a fool Harold was to believe otherwise! Did he really think he could tell her he loved me, desired me over her, that he wanted to ask me to marry him and when I said no, that she’d go back to him herself like a grateful little lamb and we could all remain the best of friends? He was an utter fool.

  It was not me that ruined our friendship, that ruined everything, my life included, it was Harold. It was not my fault. I did my best but when Mary came back there was this formality, this awkwardness between us that had not been there before. I never met Harold’s eye. Mary rarely met mine. She came less to my room. Soon after Mary’s return their engagement was announced. They seemed happy together.

  I felt
like something dirty and devilish, a temptation overcome.

  Something else too, another disappointment. I’d made an application for officer training. I’d talked to Mary and Harold about my plans. ‘Are you sure, Trixie?’ Mary asked. ‘Of course I am, why?’ I was surprised she was not more encouraging. But I was turned down at the first stage of application. There was no explanation. The disappointment was crushing. I could not understand, I worked as hard as anybody, harder, I lived my life in holiness as far as I was able. I prayed every morning on waking and after each meal. At 12.30 each day, like Salvationists everywhere I paused to ask God’s blessing on The Army all round the world. I worked till I was fit to drop in the shelter, glad to help the degraded souls; I sold papers; I collected money. I attended several meetings every week, always staying behind for the prayers. I lived simply, frugally. I did everything I could do and it was not enough.

  But whoever knows what God has in store for them? What tests he will devise. I should not question His wisdom but I cannot help it, sometimes I cannot. Sometimes I scream at Him, I shake my fist, I shake my tambourine. I scream and I cry, It is not fair. I tried. I tried and tried but I could not be good enough. Dear Jesus listen to me. It is not fair.

  What tests. A few weeks after Mr Petit’s death in the shelter, there was a letter, a blunt-pencilled note rather, from a Mrs Petit in search of her husband. She had been told by someone, I’ve no idea who, that her husband had been at the Bothwell Street shelter. She’d been turned out of her home with her three children, the youngest a babe in arms, the oldest only four. She was using her last remaining resources to try and trace him.

  There was no address, no means of replying. But she said she was coming. I was glad. I felt I had let Mr Petit down, leaving him to die alone. I thought I could make up for it. I imagined a large soft woman, down-at-heel and shabby but good at heart. I planned to win her soul for Jesus.