The Private Parts of Women

by Lesley Glaister

  I felt so odd, detached. Again I had the feeling that I had strayed into someone else’s dream, or tumbled into the clutter of a subconscious not my own. I was warmer in the coat and the candles gave enough light to see by. I banged and shouted. But the noise of my voice calling like that made me more scared. Let me out … Help … Scary and ridiculous. Also fruitless. She will come in her own good time.

  I went back to the wardrobe, I was fascinated by all those old clothes, shoes on the bottom, crammed shelves at the side. I took the garments out, one by one, to look. The dresses were nearly all black: chiffon, velvet, lace, and many of them were torn. One was of a dark crushed velvet, like red wine. I wondered what Richard would think if I was to wear anything so sexy. It has a low neck. I couldn’t work out how it would fit, where the shoulders would come. I thought I’d try it on. She’s locked me in. I’ve nothing to do. I should keep myself occupied. I’m swimming in gin and quite numb. My fear, the thought that I’m trapped, has receded. The image of my children in a bright balloon of domestic light at the end of a telephone wire bobs there, somewhere above me, but separate.

  I took off the coat and shivered out of my jeans and sweater. I wriggled into the dress, the velvet clammy against my skin, slowly warming. I had to take off my bra because the dress has no shoulders, it scoops round the top of my arms. When I looked in the mirror, I almost laughed I looked so preposterously sexy. I looked, despite my awful hair, quite stunning. I’ve never worn anything like it, it is a film star dress. It clings to my body, emphasising the line of my hips and thighs, the round slope of my belly. My breasts glimmer white above the low neck and my shoulders look lovely, I have never noticed my shoulders before. How round, pale and smooth they look above the long tight-fitting sleeves.

  Trixie is so big how could she ever have worn it? Though she is not so tall … not much taller than me, just solid. Once perhaps it might have fitted her. The dress is very old, a bit rotten under the arms, one of the side-seams coming undone showing a peep of white skin through a dark velvet slit.

  I picked up Trixie/Ada’s wig and pulled it on over my own hair. It is warm and slightly scratchy. Black hair makes my face look even whiter, with the mass of hair I appear frail, my face tiny and … what is it? Piquant. I went through the collection of caked lipsticks till I found a usable one and filled in my lips with vermilion. I smell of animal fat, grease and old perfume. And gin.

  I am frustrated that there is no one to see. I want Richard to see me. I look so sexy I turn myself on. A shivery, scary excitement. I can feel my heart beating against the velvet of the dress. On one of the wardrobe shelves I found a tangle of fine stockings, real silk with seams at the back, and a suspender-belt. I’ve never worn stockings, only tights. Richard once asked me if I would, if I’d wear white stockings with no knickers when we went out so that only he would know, but I’d been angry and scornful and worn jeans instead. But here in the attic, with the sensation of pale, cool silk against my thighs, one foot up on the bed, fiddling with the little rubbery catches, I’m sorry. I’ll surprise him one day. I will be his fantasy which is also mine which I am in. Or someone else’s. I took another swig of gin and shrugged the coat back on. I posed in front of the mirror, smiling film star smiles, pouting seductively.

  But then I had the feeling that the mirrors weren’t only reflecting, they were watching too, judging. The mirrors were voyeurs. Did I really look so sexy or did I only look absurd? I went cold, the realisation of where I was and what was happening came back. I felt as if I’d been slapped.

  I went back to the wardrobe to pick up my clothes. Once again, my eye caught the brown-paper parcel. I opened it. The dust that rose from between the paper folds made me sneeze again. In the parcel were old fashioned boys’ clothes: trousers, a blazer, a shirt, a cap, all quite moth-eaten, indeed, dead moths fell out when I held up a pullover and small grey live ones fluttered towards the candle flames.

  I do not understand. Though it’s none of my business. Maybe she had a son once? Why would I know anyway? I should parcel them back up again. I should put my own clothes on before she comes back. But I am sleepy. I should never have drunk that gin. I am dizzy. What if she never lets me out? I ate some of the sugared almonds, the sugar has gone powdery and soft but the nuts are all right. I throw a few lilies out of the bed, lie down and cover myself up.

  Maybe Trixie/Ada is going to kill me.

  Don’t be silly. Why should she? But what if she was to have a stroke say, and die? Or drown in the bath? I could be shut up here forever. Oh stop it, stop it. No foe shall stay his might, though he with giants fight. I wish Richard was here with me, to see me, to touch me. He will make good his right. To be a pilgrim.

  I wish someone would let me out.

  Trixie!

  DOLL

  I hardly know where I am. I am at home. If it wasn’t for the television to keep me here … What? What now? It is dadadada-dum-dum ‘EastEnders’, that is all right. ‘EastEnders’ is finished. I know where I am then, and when. All safe by the fire in my dressing-gown, all safe.

  But why is she making so much noise? Why, when I long for the companionship of noise is she so quiet, and tonight when I cannot bear it why does she make such a noise? She is evil. She is like the Devil in my head, worming in the folds of my brain.

  Oh what’s up there in my head, no, no, not in my head in the top of the house where I do not care to go. Is the noise in my head or in my house? In the attic? That is where bad dreams live among the dust and cobwebs. Where the wardrobe is. I can almost feel its black weight above me. I never go up there. The door is safely locked. Stupid! What do I think would come creeping down those stairs if the door was open? It’s only a room full of junk.

  Still, better that it’s locked, better for my peace of mind.

  Terrible not to know where you are. That confusion when you wake and everything is strange, a split second that echoes down the day.

  When I woke at Doll’s, I did not know where I was. Or even who I was. I lay waiting for it to fall into place. Sun shone on my bed. Then I remembered the jump. I could not believe it. I might have laughed. I could not even do that right. A spectacular failure.

  The little room was hot and stuffy. I got up and at the end of my bed, found my skirt, neatly mended and ironed. I wanted to wash, to start the day. I needed to find out: what happens next.

  I opened the door and crept along the landing that was full of the smell of sleep, the sound of sighs and snores. I found the bathroom, slipped off the nightdress Doll had lent me and washed. There was a long mirror and I could not help seeing my body though I avoided my face. I could not help thinking that it was a lovely body, white as marble but for the dark nest of hair, the pink nipples, the bright red of the little rose on the thigh.

  I dressed, the uniform seeming odd in this house, pious and somehow silly. Wrong for me now. I thought about going back. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear to remember what Mary and Harold had said to me. They had as good as killed me. I thought that as I buttoned my blouse: they had killed me. I was dead and whatever I did now it didn’t matter. Trixie had jumped in the river and drowned. Now I would be Ada.

  Downstairs it was quiet. The curtains were all closed against the sun. I opened them and let it stream in so that dust glittered in the air. I could have just walked out. There was no need to stay. But where would I go? Where would Ada go?

  The thought of my house made me shudder. I could not enter that house again, the house of Trixie’s childhood, the house of shadows and fear. I could not bear the sickening soup of dread that slopped in my stomach whenever I thought of Ivy or the children. Or even Harold and Mary.

  At least I was not poor. I could do anything. Cruise to the United States. Buy myself a motor car. Learn to fly, ha!

  I made a cup of tea. The kitchen was big and dark, no sun at the back of the house, a tap dripping a brown ring in an enamel sink. There were gin and beer bottles in a box by the floor – but it was clean. Every di
sh and glass washed and put away. The wooden draining-board scoured, the floor swept. Doll was right, it was a clean house.

  I sat at the table and sipped my tea. A girl in a satin dressing-gown came into the kitchen. She gave a start when she saw me sitting there in my uniform and then laughed.

  ‘Doll’s new friend …?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Ada.’

  ‘I’m Gracie – I sewed your skirt.’

  ‘Thank you, it’s beautifully done.’

  ‘Just one of my many talents.’ She lifted an eyebrow at me as she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down. Her dressing-gown was trimmed with wispy down, pale like the hair of Ivy’s children. I couldn’t get that wretched family out of my head. Gracie’s hair was pale and smooth as butter. She looked no more than sixteen.

  ‘Hungry?’ she said, jumping up. ‘I could eat a bleeding horse. Bacon and egg?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  She clattered about with pans and lard, whistling like a man, cracking the eggs and holding them high to splat in the pan.

  ‘Doll’s a respectable woman,’ she said suddenly, turning to me quite fiercely. ‘She saved me from worse you know. It’s a respectable house.’

  The door opened and Doll came in, splendid in an embroidered silk kimono. ‘Dad, mum, tit, tat,’ she said. ‘And refer. Know what they are, Gracie?’

  ‘No, Doll. Sit down.’ Dramatically solicitous, she pulled a chair out for Doll. She wiggled her forefinger at the side of her head and winked at me.

  ‘Get stuffed!’ Doll batted her with her hand. ‘Palingdromes, that’s what, eh Ada? A.D.A.’

  ‘Yes, darlin’.’ Gracie sat down and yawned through her long white fingers.

  Doll shuffled her rump around on her chair. ‘Good night,’ she remarked, rubbing her finger in the corners of her eyes. ‘Here watch those rashers.’

  Gracie got up to attend to the frying-pan.

  ‘So has Ada here shown you her tattoo?’ Doll asked.

  ‘No.’

  I was startled. My hand went to the place.

  ‘Show her A. There’s no harm in it.’

  Well, I thought, I’m Ada now. Ada wouldn’t be backward in coming forward. I slid my chair back and lifted my skirt to show her the rose. She breathed in. ‘Ooh … that’s lovely,’ she said. She ran her cool fingers over the place and I shivered.

  ‘Can I have one, Doll, can I? Go on.’ She stretched out and her dressing-gown fell open to show her long bare legs. She opened her thighs and pointed to the shadowy hollow just below the wisps of light hair. ‘Just here. Or else on me tit. A little bird I’d have, I think, a swallow or something.’

  Doll yawned and stretched until her ribs cracked.

  ‘Do you have to, Doll?’ Gracie said.

  Doll frowned at me. ‘You’re a dark horse, Ada. I’m most perspiwhatsit, as a rule. Tell like that …’ she snapped her fingers, ‘good, bad, dangerous … goes with the job. But I can’t seem to get the measure of you. Perspicacious,’ she added with satisfaction.

  ‘Doll loves her words,’ Gracie said, licking egg yolk off her finger.

  Doll looked at me. ‘So what are we going to do with you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to do a thing.’

  ‘Seems a bleeding waste,’ Gracie said. ‘Think what our gentlemen would make of that.’ She nodded at my thigh.

  ‘Eat up,’ Doll said. The bacon was sweet and fatty. ‘We’d call her A,’ she continued through a mouthful of bread, ‘if she was to stay.’

  ‘Just think of it,’ Gracie said, giggling … ‘No,’ she held her hand up to me, ‘no harm in thinking. A. sitting there with me and Nan and Edie, all of us in our glad-rags and whatnot and A. sitting there cool as a bleeding cucumber in her uniform. No lipstick nor nothing.’

  ‘Quite a looker though,’ Doll added, ‘quite a figure underneath it all.’

  ‘When the punters come in; the gentlemen friends I mean,’ Gracie smiled apologetically at Doll, ‘what wouldn’t I give to see their faces!’

  ‘Some of them’d go for her just like that … but what if she was to slide her skirt up, show a bit of leg …’

  ‘Right up to her stocking top … show that rose …’ Gracie sucked her breath in.

  ‘Falling over themselves, they’d be,’ said Doll. ‘Still.’

  MOTHS

  I don’t think she’ll come tonight now. It must be late. The moths are fluttering near the candle flames. Stupid things. Giant flame shadows wobble about on the sloping ceiling, the shadows of the moths among them, shuddering smudges.

  There is nobody to miss me, except those who have been missing me all along. The swaying shadows make me feel sick, the stocking hanging from the lampshade stirs, the room itself seems to be swaying. The lilies are cold and fleshy and their scent is rank.

  Perhaps she had a son who died? Why else would she keep the clothes. Poor, poor Trixie. I thought I knew her but I don’t know her at all. So sad that the little clothes are moth-eaten, so sad.

  It is strange to be lying here in the redness of her bed, dressed in velvet, silk and fur and to be too pissed to move. It is not like me at all. I am thirsty, so thirsty, but there is nothing to drink but more gin.

  I’m afraid one of those moths will burn itself. What is it that attracts them to the flames? I could blow out the candles but then it would be dark. If I could be bothered to move, the first thing I’d do is shut the wardrobe, there is something stupidly menacing about the door lolling open, the dark, mothy, crammed interior.

  I want to see my babies. I’ll bake a cake for them, buy presents. It’s nearly Billie’s birthday. My baby will be one. I’ll buy such lovely things. And for Richard? I’ll be his present in stockings and suspenders, silk next to my skin, it’s the only thing, my dear, the only thing.

  Poor Richard. He tried to make me sexy. Tell me your fantasies, he said, but my only fantasy was of ten hours uninterrupted sleep. Alone.

  There was that weekend in the Peak District. We could have made love in the open air like we did in Greece. Then we found a little scoop of beach, overshadowed by pine trees, hidden by rocks and we lay on the firm sand and made love, right on the edge of the sea itself. I cannot believe we did that, Richard and me, it is more like something from a film about another woman. I can even see the rectangular edges of the screen. That holiday we did it all the time, everywhere, in the shower, in a rowing boat, in a car.

  I wonder if Trixie would give me this dress, let me buy it? No, it is rotting.

  The gurgling of the water tank is a friendly sound.

  I think she has forgotten me.

  All these mirrors. Lying down I can see myself in a mirror by the bed smudged with lipstick, she must have kissed the mirror. My roots are showing. I used to kiss the mirror sometimes too, to see what I looked like kissing, but you can’t see, it’s too close and you steam up. I look like a tart, what my dad would have called a tart, and my mum.

  I’m so thirsty and my head is pounding.

  Does she mean to hurt me, or am I only forgotten?

  I’m parched, so dry I have to sip the gin just to wet my throat. You can understand sailors going mad. All that sloshing sea. Water water all around and … all the sea was ink. No.

  I wonder what time it is? Middle of the night, that’s what I’d tell Robin if he asked. I don’t know if I’ve been asleep or not.

  If all the land was bread and cheese and all the sea was ink, if all the … something about lemon curd? I don’t know. Robin knows it.

  I want a tall glass of cold water, only that, the most simple request. One of those frosty glasses. First thing when I’m out of here, a glass of water, a pint of it, two pints. I won’t be fit for much tomorrow.

  If the moths would stop fluttering, then maybe the flames would stop fluttering. If everything was still it would be better. The shadows crawl like independent things, seem to crawl out of the wardrobe, like the ghosts of coats and shoes and frocks. Oh for Christ’s sake.
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  If the clothes in the wardrobe are her past, then she must have had some past.

  What did she mean about the police? What has she done then? What?

  I could be scared, if I let myself. I could be very scared. I can smell burning wings.

  GENTLEMEN FRIENDS

  God had left me. At the moment I jumped. Or I had left God. The Devil had caught me by the skirt and delivered me to Doll. Delivered me into prostitution. How many gentlemen friends I had in that time I do not know.

  Now I am clean. I am forgiven. Washed in the blood of the lamb. I am still shivery after my bath. Possibly I am catching that woman’s cold. I am not myself. Oh that again. I should be in my bed with a hot drink and my little bedside telly on for company. There’s a Bette Davis on after midnight. ‘A Stolen Life’. I do like Bette Davis. There is trouble in her eyes that I recognise. And something else. I know! That Inis! That’s who she reminds me of. Fancy! All this time I’ve been tantalised. Give her some curls and lipstick and that’s who she’d be. Bette Davis.

  I’ll see her tomorrow and I’ll tell her. I’ll be friendly. Cool though, cool but polite. I have to withdraw because she is a snake at heart, a snake with Bette Davis’s face sent to rob me in the night.

  Why do I not go to bed if I’m so tired and cold? A hot-water bottle or two at my feet and the lull of a black-and-white film. Instead I sit here too close to the fire, burning my shins and shivering. Some programme on the television while I wait for the film, I don’t know, some pop group with matted hair, flailing, the sound turned down. Looks like an asylum, all that thrashing around.

  What is it that is the matter? In this house there is nothing wrong. Everything is as it always is. And yet I cannot settle. It is as if I’ve left something switched on that should be off, or something open that should be shut, something undone that should be done.