Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  I think about it for a moment, my thumb hovering over the Send option, and then I press Erase. What on earth am I thinking? The wine and emotion must have gone to my head.

  But at some point before we get home I’m dreaming of kisses again, kisses and sunshine, holding hands and the smell of grass.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m in the bra department at Self-ridges when I hear from him again.

  I want a strapless bra, to go under the Barbie-pink glittery halter-neck top I have bravely bought just minutes ago from TopShop, having successfully picked my way through the plethora of child women that shop in hordes sporting exactly the same hairstyle and exactly the same fake-leather jacket.

  Between TopShop and Selfridges I have had two big thoughts. The first is that little girls today dress and wear their hair the same regardless of race or religion. This, I decide, is a leap forward in the quest for world harmony until I remember that Selin and I had exactly the same taffeta skirts with gold embroidery when we were teenagers. Mine was red and hers was dark blue and that was in 1987. ‘Maybe we led the way,’ I think. ‘Power to the child women, right on.’ I also think if I could be blessed with any prescient wisdom between the ages of fifteen and twenty, it would be, ‘Enjoy. You will never be this thin again.’ But that isn’t a big thought so I’m not counting it.

  The second big thought I have had is that my shopping habits now precisely reflect my age and financial status. My one hundredth purchase of a glittery jersey top followed up by maybe my fourth visit to Selfridges to buy underwear illustrates this. My glittery life has begun to require more and more expensive and serious support to keep it afloat, literally. And by the looks of this item of lingerie engineering I’ll be going to Rigby & Peller next.

  The fitting assistant is staring at my breasts. ‘You see,’ she says, referring to the bra I am sporting round my midriff, ‘these bras are only designed to hold you where you already are.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I stutter, working out how I can say, ‘Fuck off you stupid bitch, you’ve got no tits at all so what would you know about big breasts? Nothing! You probably think it’s all a bed of roses well let me tell you my girl …’ in a polite and rational way. But I can’t, so I hold my stomach in more instead.

  None of my friends has ever been able to understand my rant about breast size, so I have long since given up trying to make them understand. Just to clarify, having big breasts handed to you by nature is fun, sure it is. But when you get the sneaking suspicion that all the men who have ever fancied you did so only because of them, or that modern culture has deemed that the female IQ diminishes in exact proportion to the increase in bra size, you start to wonder. Or when your boss talks to them and she’s a woman, or when you pay the best part of a grand a year in supporting them and even then they don’t have the good grace to behave like plastic ones. The fact that you can’t walk down any street, anywhere, at any time of year without some idiot noticing them through two jumpers and a winter coat and saying, ‘Nice tits on that.’ And that you can’t wear the strappy little numbers your friends do. Then you do think, ‘Well, what is the upside?’ Oh yes, the hundreds of men who fancy you simply because you have big tits.

  But any time I have ever mentioned it my friends say, ‘Oh, shut up, you love it, you sex bomb.’ And I have to agree with them so I do shut up.

  ‘Oh, really? What’s the point of wearing it then?’ I smile at the girl.

  ‘You can buy it, take it home and bring it back, if you don’t like it?’ she suggests helpfully. At this point my phone rings. I pick it up and I don’t recognise the number.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve been waiting for this call – emergency, sick … cat.’ And I pull the curtain in front of her.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh hi, Jenny, it’s me?’ It’s Michael. I know that it’s Michael straight away.

  ‘Sorry, who?’

  ‘Oh, it’s Michael, Mike, who you met in the park last week.’ I think about the time I have spent framing a kind and mature reply as to why I couldn’t see him again and how he would get over it eventually and laugh about it one day. All week I’ve been waiting to deliver it and he hasn’t phoned. And now, after one barely legible text message, here he is all blasé. Some things in the male behavioural pattern must be genetic; failure to call within a reasonable time frame and the compulsive urge to kick any kind of object (including soft-drink cans) around any kind of open space (including the office) are two.

  ‘Oh, you. Hi.’ My tone is offhand, but I have to admit that inside I’m feeling a bit flustered.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry I haven’t called earlier,’ he says apologetically.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you to call me.’

  ‘Ummm, yeah, you know, after we kissed and everything.’ Candid youth. ‘Look, I’m up in town with my … I’m up in town, I thought you might like to come and meet me for a drink this evening?’

  ‘I can’t, Mike, I’ve got plans,’ I say haughtily. ‘I usually have plans for Saturday night by about four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.’

  Why aren’t I just saying that I can’t possibly see him again, as he is a child? I am letting him down gently, of course. It just sounds as if I’m disappointed and upset so he doesn’t feel so embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, OK, where are you now?’ He isn’t returning the favour.

  ‘The underwear changing room in Selfridges,’ I say, hoping to get a fluster.

  ‘Cool!’ And he laughs. ‘I’m just at Bond Street tube, so I’ll come down and meet you and we can go for a quick one. Drink, I mean.’ He laughs again. He definitely is just about eighteen then.

  ‘Well, OK, but give me twenty minutes, all right?’ It would be kinder to tell him face to face and I have grown far more compassionate as I get older.

  ‘OK, I’ll meet you in Hosiery in twenty.’ And he hangs up the phone.

  Hosiery?

  Chapter Fifteen

  I look at myself in the mirror. I can’t possibly let him down gently looking like this. I have no make-up on, or even with me. I was waiting until I got home before washing my hair and I am wearing my comfortable, but faintly whiffy – even from five feet six inches away – trainers. I’m sure when he looks back on this in a few years’ time and laughs he’d rather be picturing a sophisticated, stylish woman than a has-been in last year’s Nikes.

  The lingerie girl has won. I pull the tag off the bra, take my new top out of its bag and put it on. I study my profile, I study my back for blemishes, I decide to keep my jacket on but I feel a bit better.

  Mercifully the queue at the counter isn’t too bad. I hand the girl my ticket.

  ‘I’m going to wear it now.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard. Better is he, your cat? That’s 24.99 please.’ She smiles. I glare at her and depart, pausing briefly to pull up my bra.

  Next stop, shoes and boots.

  I am not good at designer labels, which is why I would never normally buy clothes or shoes in Selfridges. Because I’m not really sure who’s in or out, who’s hip and who isn’t, and if I do buy something by someone I’ve heard of it never has the desired effect because they are usually passé by the time I have heard of them. Anyway, I’m sure you have to be under a size twelve at least to wear anything that has ‘S’ or ‘M’ listed as the size, or ‘One’ or ‘Two’ for that matter, and I haven’t been under a twelve since 1996 so I just buy clothes in places with proper size labels and roomy trousers. But at least I’m on safe ground with a pair of boots – as long as they aren’t knee length, we all know knee-length boots are designed for women who don’t have calves. But I’m not going to get started on that with only fifteen minutes to spare.

  I see a shiny ruby stiletto ankle boot with a crocodile-skin look and a zip. I pick it up and march over to the assistant.

  ‘How much is this?’

  ‘£139.99, madam.’ She is arranging the evening party-wear mules.

  ‘Mmm … got anything around the eighty qu
id mark?’

  I finally get her attention and she briefly looks me up and down. Without speaking she picks up a pair of patent-leather granny boots with a pointy toe and laces and a clumpy heel. Like I say, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t cool and anyway I don’t like them.

  It’s time to rationalise. I have ten minutes until I meet the eighteen-year-old I want to look nice for, so that after I chuck him he can look back and yearn for a glamorous elusive older woman and what might have been. In order to achieve this I am considering spending £80 on a pair of boots I don’t like and will not be able to walk in after ten minutes. So, really, what is another fifty quid for a pair of boots I could love sincerely and won’t be able to walk in after ten minutes? In fact, it’s an economy to get a pair I at least like. I hand her the crocodile-skin-looking ones hoping they aren’t real but deciding not to check just in case.

  ‘I’ll take these in a size seven. I’ll wear them now, I don’t need a box, here is my card,’ I blurt out before I can change my mind. Five minutes later I’m approaching the escalator with some wobbly trepidation.

  Cosmetics next, Clarins counter. Genius plan on the verge of implementation.

  ‘Hello, I’m not sure if I’m using the right foundation and I’d like a makeover please?’ I smile brightly at a lady called Denise.

  ‘I’m sorry, Madam, but our makeover technician has gone home now. She will be available tomorrow though, if you would like to book?’ she informs me as she busily refills the lipstick dispenser.

  ‘Gone home? Well, can’t you do it?’ I plead.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, I’m not qualified yet. I’ve only done blusher and lips. I’ve not even started on eyes.’

  ‘Oh well, can you just give me some stuff and I’ll do it?’ I find myself saying with more than an edge of desperation.

  She leans back and looks at me. ‘You’ve got an unexpected date, haven’t you,’ she says, crossing her arms and pursing her perfectly drawn lips into a thin line.

  ‘Well. OK. Yes. In less than ten minutes … does this happen a lot?’ I am shocked, but only because I thought it was the best idea I’d had in ages and I was planning to boast about it later.

  ‘All the time. You’d be surprised, they come queuing up in here on a Saturday, don’t know which foundation to use, can’t do blusher, ya de ya de ya. Any excuse. We usually get at least two purchases, though.’ And she eyes me meaningfully. Oh well, what’s another fifty quid?

  ‘OK, I’ll buy the mascara and the lipstick but please please please lend me some foundation!’ I beg her, clasping my hands together in quite a pathetic display of neediness. It seems to work though, as she smiles at me with a pitiful look and relents.

  ‘OK, it’s a deal. Do you want me to do your blusher?’ Seven minutes later I’m done.

  ‘Thanks, Denise, you’re a brick.’ I am about to make my way to Hosiery when she calls me back. She is offering me a can of Batiste dry shampoo and a brush from her own bag.

  ‘Look, don’t take it personally, but … after you’ve gone to all that trouble?’ It is one of those moments of one sister reaching across boundaries to connect with another.

  We acknowledge one another with a silent salute and two minutes later, with my hair brushed through and a quick squirt from a tester at the Chanel counter, I am ready. It has taken over two hundred pounds and exactly twenty minutes. Ten pounds a minute. Not bad.

  I am ready. So I am definitely going to meet him. In Hosiery. Now.

  Hosiery?

  Chapter Sixteen

  As the only tall ginger-haired boy in the tights department he is easy to spot and I think I have finally found my feet in these boots by the time I reach him.

  ‘Hiya!’ I say and smile at him. He is holding two packs of black tights, one in each hand.

  ‘Hi! Wow!’ He bends and kisses me on the cheek. ‘You look really nice.’ And he goes pink. Success! He looks briefly down my top and then back at the tights. He smells of the crisp early-autumn evening and London rain.

  ‘What’s a denier? And what is the difference between forty and seventy?’ He has a kind of charming insouciance about the absurdity of the question he is asking.

  ‘Are you a teenage cross-dresser?’ I ask him. I mean, if he was it would give me another very good reason to let him down gently. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve used it.

  ‘No! No, man! Fuck, I’m not gay or anything. God!’ And he laughs a nice deep throaty uninhibited laugh. ‘No, I was up here with my mum, buying stuff for the new term and … oh fuck, that is so not cool, oh well, anyway, she forgot to get tights so I said I’d pick her some up. Opaque she said, but she never mentioned no denier shit to me.’ And he laughs again, a little dimple appearing either side of his curly grin. Well, he’s not a cross-dresser or gay, but he was just getting back-to-school gear with his mum. Keep that in mind, Jen.

  ‘Get her seventy denier and you can’t go wrong. Let’s get out of here, I’ve had enough of this shop for one day.’ I catch Denise’s eye as I’m leaving and see her eyebrows shoot so far up her forehead that they almost meet her improbably high gelled-back hair-line.

  The first thing he does is to freak me out by taking hold of my hand. I am not sure how to react so I calculate the odds of anyone I know seeing us together, realise that they are pretty low, imagine for a second the utter mortification of running into Owen with a Titian-haired teenager in tow and pull him off Oxford street and on to a side road taking deep, panic-abating breaths as I go.

  ‘Have you got somewhere in mind then? I thought you might fancy walking down to Soho and going to the Coach and Horses?’ He releases my hand and drops his arm around my shoulder. I get the impression I might be letting him down a bit too gently. But it’s a bit chilly in this halter-neck and it’s nice to have the warmth of another person nearby, especially another tall person. A tall male person with nice hands.

  ‘No, not there, there’s this really nice place down here,’ I say on the off chance that there might be. ‘It’s called the … ummm … the …’ We turn the corner into a street I have never been down in my life. ‘Ye Olde Parson’s Nose.’

  ‘Oh right,’ he says as he takes in the mock Tudor frontage. ‘You’ve got a thing about scuzzy old pubs, haven’t you? Irony, nice one.’ The irony is that he’s not actually wrong. During my life of sporadic financial security I have worked behind many a bar, and most of them scuzzy just like this one. Scuzzy pubs are nicer and also no one I know goes into them, and that is definitely a plus when one is on a letting-down-gently mission. As we approach the bar I have a brief moment of panic in case he’s asked for ID. He looks older than eighteen to me. I wonder if I look older than twenty-nine?

  ‘I’ll have a Stella, please, mate.’ He seems at ease with bar staff at least. He turns to me. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘Large gin and tonic please, ice and lime if you’ve got it, lemon if you haven’t.’ The barman nods and I see Mike surreptitiously checking the note and some change he’s got in his hand. Well, good, he should know it’s expensive going out with an older woman. Especially an older woman who has got butterflies and isn’t exactly sure what it is she is meant to be doing, who keeps thinking about the last time he kissed her and who needs a large G and T even to be here.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ he says. I follow him to a little niche in the corner and he steps aside, gesturing that I should sit down first. Instead of sitting opposite, he slides in next to me. This is bad for two reasons. Firstly, it seems as if he has far more sophisticated first-date experience than I gave him credit for, and secondly, after I’ve finished this drink I’ll probably need the loo in about three minutes and I’ll have to ask him to move. You can’t see the bar from where we are sitting and I can’t see any other customers. I think I saw this set in a German porn film once.

  He looks down at his hands so that his fringe flops forward over his eyes, and then smiles at me sideways. ‘I didn’t think you would meet me tonight. I mean, you
didn’t reply to my message or anything,’ he says and turns a little to face me. This would all be much easier if he wasn’t so my type. I really didn’t think that ginger hair was my type, but the summer seems to have lightened his with little gold flecks and I am finding the slightly almond shape of his brown eyes disconcerting, more so even than the way that he is biting his soft lower lip that kissed me so nicely only the other day.

  ‘Well, I thought it was best,’ I say. This is it. I have to do it. I have been around the block enough times to know exactly what misery and mayhem will come my way right now if I say and do the wrong thing. I open my mouth to speak but he gets there before me.

  ‘It’s just, well, the first time I met you, you were so cool and everything and you were really nice to us and you looked really beautiful even though you were mashed from the night before and I was really pissed off because you got off with that bloke who was obviously a twat.’ I couldn’t fault him so far. ‘That bloke’ was my most recent rebound fling after Owen (break-up number six), a friend of Josh’s called Danny, very pretty but a complete jerk and the cause of an embarrassed silence between Josh and me for a couple of weeks.

  ‘And then when I saw you again in the park, even though it was a year later, I thought, you know, this means something like fate or something and you’re so sexy, I’ve never met a woman as sexy as you and you looked great, even though you were a bit hungover. And after that kiss I couldn’t stop thinking about you, I thought about it all the time and I chucked Sarah last week because she kept going on about you and now her mum’s not speaking to my mum. It took me ages to get up the guts to phone you, after you never replied to my message, and then I thought you were pissed off with me when we spoke, but when you turned up looking like that, like really beautiful, I thought well maybe she does want to know me? I know you’re a bit older than me, twenty-two or something, and you think I’m a geek probably, but I think that kiss was so good that you must have felt it too and so well I want to ask you if you will go out with me?’