“None of this, exactly,” says June glancing discontentedly along a rack, “I want something more ... something less ...”
She is going to say “conventional” but blushes instead.
She does not exactly know what she wants.
“Perhaps you should have it made to order,” says the assistant, briskly.
“Where?”
“The Hideout is quite near here – number 3798.”
June wanders meekly into the sunlight again but her meekness is on the surface. Hideout adds a spice of Wild West adventure to this hunt for something she cannot yet imagine.
The place is further than the assistant suggested. Beyond a crossroads June finds she has left the fashionable district. A poorer lot of people crowd along the cracked pavement but they look cheerful in sunlight. June is no snob, all that worries her is the absence of any place called The Hideout or numbered 3798. Between 2988 (a loan office) and 4040 (a betting shop) is a long row of boarded-up fronts. She walks up and down before these, excitement cooling to a familiar disappointment till she notices a car at the kerb: a cheap little Citroën with two wavy blue lines on the side. To the canvas roof, with great ingenuity, an arrow-shaped sign is fixed. A leather belt is stapled to the sign in a loop surrounding the words HIDEOUT LEATHERWEAR. The arrow points across the pavement at a dark little entry smelling of cat-piss and leading to steps worn to such a slant that June feels insecure on them. They bring her to a landing with a plank floor and three low doors, two faced with rusty metal and padlocked, one coloured vivid orange with a handwritten label saying press hard above a bell-button. June presses it, hard.
She has gone through the shadowy entry and up these stairs with the uneasy excitement of a huntress following game into a dangerous thicket, but when the door opens her uneasiness vanishes. A bright ordinary little woman in a print dress opens it and says, “I’m sorry, come in, I can’t attend to you right now because I’m finishing something for someone but if you can wait a minute I’ll be with you in a minute. What sort of thing are you looking for?”
She leads June down a short corridor to a long, low-ceilinged bare-looking room with six dusty windows above the shop fronts on the street. A sewing machine, a rack of hangers empty of garments, a table with tools and samples on it are almost the only furniture. In a corner of the carpetless plank floor is an electric kettle plugged to a wall socket, two mugs, a jar of coffee powder, a bag of sugar, and a radio playing pop music. Beside the sewing machine sits a woman who scowls at June as if she was intruding. She is very like the woman who opened the door, though plumper and with thick black hair cut straight across the brow and shoulders like the wig of a sphinx. “I think,” says June hesitantly, “I want a ... a skirt.“ Sit down and look at some patterns,” says the woman pointing to a fat album on the table, “I’ll be with you in five minutes,” and she sits at the machine and resumes putting something through it while the other woman talks to her in a low penetrating voice which sounds conversational yet complaining.
The album has cuttings from catalogues and fashion-magazines mounted on big pages under transparent film. As June turns these pages she grows more and more frustrated. They show all sorts of leather garments, some conventional, some bizarre, but nothing June would wear in the street. She is too old to enjoy dressing before a mirror. Why did she come here? She finds she is straining to hear phrases which penetrate the stuttering bursts of sewing-machine sound and the din of pop music.
“... had her eye on me but I had my eye on her ...”
“... I said you don’t buy what you don’t like ...”
“... hotpants isn’t just her middle name it’s her first and last ...”
June shakes her head impatiently, turning the pages faster and faster until she reaches blank ones at the end. She is going to slam the book shut and leave when she sees the corner of a loose photograph protruding from those last pages. Pulling it out she discovers she is holding two black and white photographs, but for a long time the one on top has her whole attention.
A black leather skirt, calf-length and with a rear fastening of silver studs from waist to hem, is worn by a woman who is photographed from behind. It would be too tight if most of the studs were not unfastened but a few top ones are fastened to hide an arse made proud by her high-heeled shoes. The shoes and skirt are all she wears as she presses against the wallbars of a gymnasium, stretching one arm up to grasp a bar just beyond the reach of her fingertips. Then June sees her wrist is handcuffed to that bar. Her free hand grips a bar at shoulder height, her legs are braced as far apart as possible to take all the weight she can off the steel bracelet round that wrist. Her head is flung backward. All that appears of it is a white line of brow and much unbound thick black hair cut straight across the shoulders in a way which reminds June of someone near her, but the reminder is not strong enough to break the dreamy enchantment cast by the photograph. If the woman gossiping by the sewing machine (… “and I said to her, I said, I said …”) is the woman in the photograph she is more interesting, more enticingly beautiful in the photograph. Then June notices she is alone in that room, the voices are gossiping beside the front door, which slams. She hears someone approaching her and asking cheerily, “Well? Have you found what you want?”
“Not … exactly,” says June after a pause, and as she still cannot draw her eyes from the photograph or bear to lay it down she starts talking as if the skirt, nothing but the skirt is the thing she stares at, is all that interests her.
“A front fastening, I think, and …”
She hesitates, having no other ideas.
“Pockets?” asks the woman.
“Well … yes.”
“Big ones?”
“Perhaps …”
“Like hers?”
The woman takes the photograph uncovering the one beneath. It shows a tall lean woman in her early thirties, her scalp shaved quite bald, standing arrogantly astride. She wears big baggy suede overalls with the the legs rolled above the knee. Saddlebag pockets on the thighs make them bulge out like jodhpurs but more noticeable is her smile of greedy pleasure, the thin cane she flexes in her hands.
“That’s Miss Cain, our schoolteacher. Her real name is Harry – she’s an artist. Lots of goodies in her pockets!” says the woman encouragingly. June stares, then nods, blushing.
“I know exactly what you want!” cries the woman enthusiastically. She lays both photographs on the table, grabs a pad and sketches on it saying, “Like this? … and loops for the belt here … Why not a front and back fastening …?”
June finds herself agreeing to a skirt she has no intention of wearing.
Then the woman slides the photos back into the album and says confidingly “I nearly died when I saw you with those.”
“Why?”
“They shouldn’t be in that album – they’re from an album my wicked clients use.”
“Wicked?” says June, pretending not to understand.
“Not horribly wicked. But they enjoy games not everyone enjoys, so they like to be careful. I don’t blame them! I’m a bit wicked myself – that’s why they trust me. Now I’m going to measure you.”
The woman kneels and as her light fingers put a tape round June’s waist, hips, lower hip etcetera June looks absentmindedly round the room. She sees no sign of another album.
“It’s in a wee safe under the table,” says the woman, who is making notes in her pad, “You see these photos don’t just show available dress designs, they show available … people, so they’re rather tempting. Would you like a peep?”
She smiles at June who is too confused by having her mind read to say a word, but perhaps she nods because the woman shuts the pad briskly saying, “I’ll maybe allow you a peep when you come for the fitting. When will suit you?”
“Friday?”
“Sure! Anytime next Friday will do. Give me your phone number in case something happens and there’s a delay. But there shouldn’t be.”
June gives he
r phone number, asks the price of the skirt (which is reasonable) and offers a down payment.
“No need,” says the woman, smiling, “I know you’ll be back.”
“You seem even more remote from us than usual,” says June’s boss to her in the office next Tuesday.
“I feel a bit peculiar,” June admits.
“You look flushed. Take a day off.”
“Maybe I will,” says June, but she knows what her disease is. She is haunted by daydreams of a picturebook showing temptingly available victims and tyrants. Her heart beats faster at the memory. She feels – while knowing this irrational – close to a gladness and freedom she has not enjoyed since she was eleven and sex was a thrilling secret shared with a few special friends, not an anxious negotiation with a potentially dangerous adult. But that was long ago. To play truant from work and visit The Hideout before Friday and ask to see the wicked album will be admitting a sexual need. June has never in her life admitted a sexual need to another adult. She waits till Friday before returning to The Hideout, and forces herself to wait till mid-afternoon, instead of arriving like an eager little girl as soon as it opens.
And she stands on the cracked pavement between the loan office and the betting shop and stares at a space of reddish, brick-strewn gravel with a railway viaduct behind it. For a while she cannot believe the whole building has vanished. She fights the desolate frustration she feels by examining the rows of buildings on each side of the space, and going into a pub across the road from it, though it is the sort of pub where lonely women are stared at. She orders a gin and tonic and asks the barman, “What happened to the tailoring business across the road?”
“Those shops were pulled down weeks ago.”
“Oh no – they were there last Friday.”
“Could be. But nobody’s been in them for years.”
“But there was a … a leathercraft shop upstairs in one. Called The Hideout. A small woman ran it. She advertised with a sign on a parked car.”
“She couldn’t have. Parking’s illegal on that side.”
June finishes her drink then goes to the fashionable leatherwear shop which gave her the address. The only information the assistant has is a card a stranger handed in with The Hideout name and address on it.
She says, “These small firms come and go very quickly. Will I give you the address of another?”
June goes home to her room and kitchen flat, buying a bottle of sherry on the way.
She has a very hot bath, washes her hair, then sits in her dressing gown on the hearthrug, sipping sherry and listening to a record. This does not cheer her. She feels empty and old, with nothing much to expect from life. A second glass leaves her gloomier and fuddled. The telephone rings. She lifts the receiver.
“This is Donalda Ingles,” says an unfamiliar, anxious little voice, “I’ve got your skirt.”
“Who are you?”
“Donalda. We met in The Hideout last week. Your skirt’s ready!”
“I went there today and …”
“Yes, you saw what they did to us. Listen, can I bring it round?”
“Bring it here?”
“Yes. You aren’t busy are you? I mean, nobody’s with you, are they?”
“No, but …”
“Give me your address and I’ll bring it over right away, I’m sure you’ll like it!”
There is an odd, pleading note in the little voice through the receiver. After a pause June gives her address and the voice says “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
June goes thoughtfully to her wardrobe. She is about to choose a dress when she changes her mind and puts on pants, bra and white cotton blouse with the dressing gown on top. She will wear the skirt for the maker of it, if for nobody else. This decision makes her feel young again.
The entryphone rings. June presses the admission switch and goes to the door. A woman in a long waterproof coat and carrying a suitcase comes up the stairs to June’s landing and stands before her saying “Hello! Don’t you remember me?”
It is the small plump woman with black hair like the sphinx’s wig.
“Yes, but I didn’t expect you, I expected –”
“Oh Senga couldn’t come, she’s very busy from having to shift, you see, and she thought you’d rather see me anyway.”
“Why?” says June, letting the woman in and closing the door.
“Senga gets these notions. I never argue with her. This is a very nice room, do you mind if I take off my coat?” She asks this as if expecting to be refused. In The Hideout she seemed sullen and plaintive. Now she is an intriguing mixture of boldness and shyness, as if shoving herself forward against her will. When June says “Of course take it off!” she hesitates before quickly unbuttoning and dropping it on the sofa beside the suitcase, then she stands gazing at June in a helpless, pleading way. With a white silk blouse she is wearing exactly the high-heeled shoes and leather skirt she wore in the photograph, and to prove it she lifts both hands to shoulder-height and turns round till she faces June again, having shown the rear fastening more than half undone. And June knows she is being seduced and has partly wanted it. Her heart beats hard and fast, yet she is able to smile with perfect confidence at the plump, sexy-looking, nervous little woman. Though June has never been seduced by a woman before, the situation is a familiar one.
“What about my skirt?” she asks. Donalda nods, opens the case, takes the skirt out. June slips off her dressing gown and stands with folded arms before the wardrobe mirror. Donalda kneels and fastens it round her, buckling the belt, patting and smoothing the leather over waist, stomach, arse and tops of the thighs and all the time murmuring, “There, isn’t it nice? Aren’t you lovely?”
June looks down on her with some of the loneliness, some of the contemptuous superiority she always feels with people who greatly desire her, though looking at the mirror she notices wryly that her own skirt is far more challengingly whorish than the one Donalda wears.
She also sees, as well as feeling, Donalda’s arms embrace her waist, Donalda’s face press into the angle of her neck and shoulder, Donalda’s lips brush her ear and whisper, “There’s a present for you in the right pocket.”
June slides her hand under the pocket flap and pulls out the photographs which enchanted her in The Hideout. She stares at them as Donalda leads her to the soft rug before the fire, stares at them as she responds to the little beseeching murmurs and handpats by which Donalda brings her to lie down and open to her. She even stares at them while absentmindedly, with her free hand, returning some of Donalda’s caresses. Donalda sobs, “Oh you devil! You lovely devil! You don’t care for me at all, do you? It’s her you wanted Senga to send!”
“I’m not sure,” murmurs June, looking from the photo of the tempting victim to that of the exciting tyrant. Which does she like best? Which would she like to be? She really does not know.
Much later June lies with closed eyes, half satisfied and half dissatisfied as she always feels after lovemaking. She is conscious of Donalda’s body against her back, Donalda’s hand resting on her thigh, Donalda’s small voice explaining or complaining about something. “You haven’t once asked who I am or how I feel or what I want in life – I think you care for nobody but yourself but I must tell you about me. I come from a really big family, three older brothers and three younger sisters and I had to help my Mum look after the lot of them. I really loved my Mum, she was a really good woman who never thought of herself, she made herself old before her time slaving from morning till night for all those men and young lassies who never gave a damn for her. Well, when I turned fifteen I couldn’t take any more – I was sick of helping her so I left home, I suppose because I’m wicked. We all have wicked dreams, don’t we? And unless we bring one of our wicked dreams just a wee bit to life we live like zombies – the living dead – slaves like my Mammy, right? Right? Answer me! Please!”
“Right,” says June, who feels too tired to disagree or think much and has begun to find Donalda Ingles a b
ore.
“I want to ask you another thing. Have you any arrangements this weekend? Are you going to see someone or are they coming here to see you?”
“I’ve made no arrangements,” says June, and to stop Donalda suggesting one adds, “I like weekends to myself.” “Anyway,” says Donalda, after a pause, “When I left my Mammy I got into big trouble. I won’t go into details, they would only sicken you – I had a baby and all that. It was Senga who saved me. She’s not much older than me, we were pals at school, but she’s as sure of what to do as my Mammy is, though my Mammy is a slave and Senga is definitely a boss. When I help Senga I’m helping myself because … don’t laugh … Senga is a fairy godmother who makes dreams come true. She’s so good at it she earns her living that way. She told me to do this with you, please let me, it won’t hurt,” says Donalda, “Just turn over a bit.” June turns obediently over. She hears nothing now but the unfastened skirt and the belt, which has several straps and buckles. June lets Donalda draw her wrists behind her back, cross them above the belt and loop a strap round them. The pressure of the strap suddenly becomes almost painful and June finds her wrists fastened there.
“And now?” she placidly asks. Donalda stands, goes to the kitchen and returns with three clean glasses. These she lays on the table and fills from the sherry bottle.
“What’s happening?” asks June, puzzled. Donalda dips into the suitcase and brings out a radio telephone and a wide strip of adhesive bandage. She says, “A couple in a car downstairs have been waiting to see you so I’m asking them up. If you start screaming I’ll gag you with this bandage.”
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012 Page 29