of those peasant blouses? Nonne?
Somehow I had accumulated a pile so huge I kept tripping over the trailing skirts as I made for the changing rooms.
‘No more than five,’ said the assistant. She had big panda eyes circled with glittery black shadow, and was chewing gum. I began to untangle my armful of clothes, trying to decide which ones to take in, which ones to leave outside.
The curtain of the communal changing area whipped back. Poppy and Trish came out. Trish thrust her bundle of clothes, all inside out and crumpled, at the assistant. ‘Naff,’ she said. ‘Cheap and nasty, the lot. C’mon, let’s try and find somewhere they sell better stuff.’
I gave my armful to the assistant, trying to convey that I, too, had suddenly noticed the shoddiness of the material and the crooked stitching. It must be very sad, I thought, having to work in a shop where the clothes were so poorly made, and as I handed them over I mouthed, ‘Sorry.’
She ignored me, chewing her gum and staring straight over the top of my head. I hurried after Trish and Poppy.
‘Tell you what,’ said Trish, when we were out in the street again, ‘let’s go and try on bras. I need a new one.’
‘Marks & Spencer’s is at the other end of town,’ Poppy objected.
Trish gave her a withering look. ‘You don’t buy your bras at Marks, do you? Mum takes me to Jolly’s.’
‘Well, so-rree,’ said Poppy. ‘Pardon me for naffness.’
‘There’s a much bigger range,’ said Trish, reddening.
‘And much bigger prices.’
‘Your mum can afford it, can’t she?’
Poppy shot a glance at me. ‘M & S is better value,’ she insisted. ‘They’ve got some really pretty ones too.’
‘Jolly’s is nearer.’
Poppy gave in, flicking another glance at me.
I was about to set foot on the white and gilt staircase in Jolly’s that led to the upper floor when Trish caught my arm. ‘Not that way. Lingerie’s on the ground floor.’
Lingerie. I had never felt the word in my mouth, languid and foreign and erotic. I said it quietly to myself, under my breath, elongating the jjjhhh sound as I followed Trish and Poppy through the department store. I wore pants–that was what my dad called them, his voice pushing out the word so briskly and dismissively I knew he was embarrassed by it. The airing cupboard’s full of your pants, Katie, can’t you put them away? Or drawers, that was what Mrs Owen said. Get them drawers hung out on the line, Katie, to let a bit of fresh air into them. But here they were ‘briefs’. It said so on the price tags. A simple, discreet, elegant word. Something slipped on by lady lawyers with long shapely legs in sheer black stockings. Or loose and silky, like 1930s film stars wore, when they were called ‘French knickers’.
What would it feel like to wear those? I imagined they would be cool and slithery. You would feel deliciously naked as their wide legs wafted fresh air towards your secret bits. I wouldn’t dare go out in them, I thought. It would be like going out with no pants at all.
Trish and Poppy were by the bras. Poppy was looning about putting one of the bigger sizes on her head like a cap. The sales assistant, formidably bosomed herself, shot us a disapproving look, and Poppy hastily put the bra back.
‘What’ve you got?’ asked Trish, not looking up. The bras rattled on their plastic hangers as she riffled through them.
‘Nothing yet,’ I said. ‘I can’t see anything in my size.’
‘What size are you looking for?’ asked Poppy, waving a froth of coffee-coloured lace at me. ‘This one’s really pretty.’
‘I usually get thirty-two A.’ Usually? I had one bra, and I only wore it on special occasions. It was plain white cotton and it had come from the starter-bra section at Marks & Spencer.
‘Poppy,’ said Trish, from behind another rack, ‘can you see anything decent in a thirty-four C?’
C? Trish was a C-cup? I tried to get a glimpse of her chest through the rows of bras. She couldn’t have grown that much, could she, in the week since we’d last crowded into the changing rooms at school to strip off for a swimming lesson? Surely–num–she wasn’t that much bigger than me?
Trish emerged from behind the rail, holding three or four black ones, and a really racy plunge bra in scarlet. ‘Come on. They’re going to close in ten minutes.’ She disappeared into the fitting room, closely followed by Poppy carrying the coffee-coloured lace and another in pink.
I snatched off the rail the first two bras that came to hand, and dashed after them to the fitting room. But this wasn’t like the communal changing rooms in Miss Selfridge and Top Shop. There was a row of slatted wooden doors, like in a Western. I could see Poppy and Trish’s legs beneath one, and started to push my way in.
‘Hey,’ said Trish. I caught a glimpse of her breast, a luminous white arc tipped with pink. ‘No room. We can’t all three get in. Find your own.’
‘Trish’s tits are taking up all the space,’ said Poppy.
I shoved my way into the next cubicle. The doors clattered behind me like those of a Western saloon after the town drunk gets kicked out.
‘I think that one’s a bit tarty,’ came Poppy’s voice from next door. ‘But a good fit. Gives you an enormous cleavage.’
I hauled off my school dress. Reflected in the mirrors on two sides I watched my own bare chest revealed. My breasts looked to me like a story I’d made up. They were hardly more than pimples.
‘I’m going on a diet,’ I heard Trish say. ‘There’s a grapefruit-and-egg diet Mum used to do when she had to slim down to model underwear.’
‘Your mum modelled underwear?’ said Poppy.
I resolved to go on a diet too. Maybe if my waist got smaller, my breasts would look bigger.
‘No, not the pink,’ said Trish, behind the wall. ‘Clashes with your hair. But the coffee one’s good.’
‘Shame it has to go under clothes,’ said Poppy.
They sniggered.
I put my arms through the shoulder straps of the first bra. It was a horrible fleshy shade, the colour of old ladies’ surgical stockings. Even on the tightest hook, it was miles too big. The cups sagged like wrinkled balloons.
‘How’re you getting on?’ called Poppy.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Good fit. Fine.’
One of them must have lost their balance because there was a great thump on the fitting-room wall, then a gust of shrieks and giggles.
‘Get off,’ said Poppy.
‘Get off? It’s you fondling my tits.’ More laughter.
I undid the bra, picking it off my chest like a scab.
‘Hey, Katie,’ said Trish, between snorts of laughter, ‘Poppy had a really brilliant idea on Saturday.’
‘What?’ I had a headache coming. My stomach hurt too.
‘She said …’
‘It was your idea, Trish, I just thought of what we could say.’
‘She said we should write a letter to Gary Bennett.’
‘A letter?’ I hooked the bra back on to its hanger. Was there really any point in trying on the other?
‘A letter saying one of us is his mystery admirer, and offering to meet him. An assignation.’
‘That’s a stupid