Carol’s bra is spread-eagled in the hedge like a monstrous, albino bat. The wind has blown it off the washing line and tossed it onto the wispy finger-tips of the leylandii where it reclines in a sprawl of wire, hooks and corralling lace. Despite her best efforts, she can’t reach it. Her washing basket is full of dry laundry. She has removed the pegs from the line and placed them in their little bag. But she can’t go back indoors until she has retrieved the fugitive bra. People might see it.
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Earlier on, she hung the little peg bag from the washing line and listened to the pegs crackle as she slid it along. Some people place washing on their lines in an untidy jumble, without even pairing the socks, but Carol hangs things out in an orderly manner, beginning at the far end of the washing line with undergarments and tights. These are followed by blouses, skirts and cardigans, and finally larger items, such as sheets. Sheets are her favourite. They wriggle and flap, squirm and wave until they are marinated in the season. Summer sheets are best. Their dusty warmth reminds Carol of sandy beaches and she brims with nostalgia, recalling the selected highlights of seaside trips with her sons. Sandy sandwiches, sun burn and fear of death by drowning have been consigned to the dustbin of memory.
Carol looks around the garden for something to help her reach and dislodge the bra. The tools are locked in the shed, and she doesn’t want to go back into the house while her bra is exposing itself to the neighbours. Her happiness is stacked in slender, ordered discs, like a packet of Rich Tea biscuits. Unexpected events upset her. Every day she does a wash. There is always plenty to fill the machine because almost everything in her house is covered in washable fabric. The toilet roll is masked by a knitted pig, the toilet lid is embraced by a cross stitched cover and the bottom of the bath is concealed by an antibacterial, machine washable, anti-slip mat. The carpet in the lounge is hidden by a beige rug, the dining table lurks under a daily rotated cloth and the sofa is veiled by a patchwork throw. Hot water bottles are wrapped in furry animal cases, hard boiled eggs wear knitted warmers and even her occasional bottle of wine must get dressed in a seasonal sweater before standing on the table. Plates are buried under lacy doilies and the teapot is insulated by a cosy, while Carol’s arms and legs are consistently wrapped in cardigans and flesh coloured tights. Today’s wash is white, full of underwear and table cloths. It has dried quickly in the wafting breeze, a fact that would usually make her happy.
Next door Sophie and Louisa lie on parallel beds, Swiss-rolled by duvets and yawning like lions. They’ve slept through breakfast and lunch, and landed somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. Louisa unravels herself and kicks her duvet away. She knuckles her eyes and remembers the whispered conversation that kept them awake so long. Her friendship with Sophie is new and needs the reinforcement of disclosure. Last night they exchanged confidences like gifts, feeding each other small nibbles of truth: ‘I used to fancy Matt Jones’, and ‘I used to suck my thumb’. Louisa hasn’t told Sophie about what happened with Matt Jones, yet. She hasn’t said anything about following him into the garden at a party, about the way his tongue slugged in and out of her mouth, the way his spit dribbled down her chin. She hasn’t talked about not knowing how to breathe or mentioned his busy hands patting her down in a way that reminded her of the time she’d been body-searched at the airport. Eventually he uncoupled himself with a great slurp.
‘What’s up with you then?’ he said. ‘You frigid or something?’
Louisa kneels up and crawls to the end of the bed where she can lift a small corner of curtain to eye the weather. Outside April is blustering about, swiping at trees and giving her mum’s washing a walloping.
‘Come and look at this, Sophie,’ she giggles.
Sophie is lost in the swirl of a chasmal yawn. Her hair orbits her head in an orange cloud. She waves a hang-on-a-minute hand at Louisa.
‘Come on. Quick! You’re going to miss it.’
Sophie gets out of bed and shuffles to the window.
‘Look!’ Louisa points. ‘It’s Mrs Evans, from next door. Her bra’s blown away. It’s stuck in the hedge.’
Sophie crouches next to her friend so as not to be seen. The tips of her bright curls tickle Louisa’s cheek. They stare at Mrs Evans for a moment, watch her reach up and fall short.
‘Look at the size of it! It’s enormous,’ Sophie giggles.
‘She’s got massive bazongers, that’s why.’
‘Bazongers?’ Sophie laughs.
‘Bazookas, hooters, knockers!’ Louisa sniggers. ‘Tits, baps, breasts!’
She can feel herself beginning to unravel; a coil of Matt Jones related worry starts to spin out of her chest like cotton from a bobbin.
‘Airbags, torpedoes, jugs!’ she continues. ‘Boobs, melons, speed bumps.’
‘Stop it,’ Sophie gasps. ‘I’m going to wet myself.’
Mrs Evans reaches up again and both girls are mesmerised by the scalloped sway of her upper arm flesh. Louisa glances at her own, tightly wrapped arms.
‘I am never going to have arms like that,’ she announces confidently.
‘I bet it’s the first time her underwear’s ever been in a hedge,’ Sophie says.
And they burst into a fresh whirl of laughter.
A long time ago, before bras were allied to absence and excavation, Carol might have been amused by runaway underwear. Back then, she used to read romantic fiction. It was a habit that began when the boys were small and there seemed to be more ever after than happily about her life. She would pop into the charity shop on London Street and buy the second hand romances for a few pence each. Then she would lose herself in an exciting world of millionaire business men and exotic holidays. She didn’t tell anyone about her romance habit. She was embarrassed of the stories’ heaving bosoms and thrusting manhoods. She hid the books in the bottom of her wardrobe and, after a while, in bin bags in the loft. She was more bored than unhappy. There was only so much housework she could do, and as the boys got older they required less and less mothering. She filled the gaps with romance.
Boris was a good husband. He was kind, straightforward and a hard worker. But he referred to making love as ‘how’s your father’ or ‘slap and tickle’, and he would say ‘weyhey’ and ‘phworrah’ if he happened upon her in her underwear, even after the boys had left home. He commentated on their sexual relations like a football pundit until she told him not to – his Yorkshire accent stopped her from pretending that he was sheik of an imaginary country in the Far East or an Italian Count – and he had to be content instead with a post-match report, sitting up in bed afterwards like Des Lynam, smoothing his moustache and reviewing his selected highlights. Sometimes she enjoyed going to bed with him, but she always felt shy about it afterwards. The next day she would watch him glugging soup at the dinner table and remember his enthusiastic harrumphing, the meaty, schlepping report of his penis, and it all seemed rather ridiculous.
Once he said, ‘Kiss me like you’ve never kissed me before – go on, say it to me.’
‘Oh all right,’ she replied. ‘Kiss me like you’ve never kissed me before.’
She closed her eyes and waited for his kiss. A tiny part of her imagined the possibility of being swept into his embrace, stretched over his arm and kissed with a passionate, but tender fury she had only read about. But he clamped his mouth around her nose and wormed the tip of his tongue into her left nostril. She pushed him hard in the chest and he stepped back, laughing.
‘Bet you’ve never been kissed like that before,’ he said.
Occasionally he did something romantic. Once he copied ‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?’ into a greetings card and wrote, ‘That’s you that is!!’ underneath. A week before she had her left breast removed, he wrote her a letter. She keeps it in the drawer of her bedside cupboard. When she reads it, she can’t help but picture Boris; the idiosyncratic underscores sit like moustaches underneath the words he chose to emphasise.
Dear Carol,
On the radio this morning they said that no-one writes love letters anymore, so I thought I’d have a go. Even with one headlight out, you’ll still be smashing. You keep everything so clean. Your Yorkshire puddings are the best I’ve ever tasted. When I come home and you’ve been baking, the house is warm, you are in the kitchen and your face is a bit pink - it makes me want to kiss you.
Love,
Boris.
After the surgery she stopped reading romantic fiction. And she stopped taking her bra off in front of Boris. The usual ‘how’s your father’ forays occurred, but she always kept herself covered. Perhaps it was around that time that she started covering up other things too; it helped to keep her crocheting, knitting, sewing hands busy. She got used to the scar and the rucked up pucker of her freshly soldered skin. It was the other breast that bothered her, dangling jollily, as if it didn’t know yet; it left her feeling unbalanced, it was about as much use as a solitary shoe and, although she tried not to, she wondered if there were lethal secrets concealed in its ducts and lobules.
Boris retired a year after her operation. Not long later, he booked a surprise, off-peak break in Cornwall. On the last evening they went out to dinner. Carol wore a pretty, halter-neck dress with a mohair cardigan to ward off the chill of autumn. Afterwards, they drove to the coastal path at Gunwalloe. It was a dark night. The moon was covered by a constellation of cloud, but the walk was an easy one, down narrow lanes, tunnelled by tall hedges.
‘Look love.’ Boris cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been thinking... I’m not very good at this sort of thing. So I thought I’d borrow someone else’s words. Let me not to the marriage of true minds,’ he began.
As he delivered the poem, Carol tight-roped between laughter, and a spiky emotion that poked her throat. Once she got over the urge to laugh, she recognized that his recitation was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard. She felt as if she was in a scene from one of the novels she used to read, even though they never featured plump, middle-aged, single-breasted women. When he finished, she didn’t say anything. They stood together in the darkness, listening to the sea break in the distance, and then he kissed her. As she kissed him back, he slid the cardigan down her arms. She was a little surprised when he slipped a finger into the side of her dress, and under the edge of her bra. She stood very still as he explored the knotty verge of scar tissue.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.’
Standing in the garden, Carol wishes Boris could see her bra, stranded in the hedge – it would make him laugh. She cases the area once more, in search of a solution and notices the washing line prop.
The girls watch Mrs Evans fishing for her bra.
‘She’ll never do it,’ Sophie says. ‘Is there someone who can help? Does she live by herself?’
‘Her husband’s dead.’ Louisa shrugs. ‘He died ages ago. It was like, seven years ago or something, at least.’
‘Was he fat too?’ Sophie asks. She tucks a spray of marigold curls behind each ear in order to better observe the old woman’s struggle.
‘Not really. But he had a big, fat, moustache. Like a hairy caterpillar.’
‘Gross. Imagine being kissed by someone with a moustache.’
Louisa thinks about being kissed by Matt Jones: the thought is definitely grosser than Mr Evans’s furry moustache.
‘I can’t imagine her kissing anyone, can you?’ says Sophie.
Louisa considers Mrs Evans for a moment.
‘Not really.’
‘Maybe she had a sexless marriage.’ Sophie laughs. ‘Perhaps she’s never done it.’
‘She must have. She’s got two sons. They come and visit her sometimes.’
‘Ew. Can you imagine?’ Sophie uncrouches and strikes a pose in front of the window. ‘Oh, Mr Evans, don’t rumple my apron! I’m trying to wash the table cloths! Stop it, you’ll ladder my pop socks!’
‘Get down! She’ll see you,’ Louisa hisses.
‘No Mr Evans, you may not remove my slippers. I’m frigid –’
‘Don’t be tight.’
‘Oh, come on. Look at her! Mr Evans, you’re creasing my pleats!
Louisa is suddenly unsure about Sophie.
‘I bet she wasn’t frigid when she was younger. People just say stuff like that for the sake of it.’
‘Get you! Sticking up for that –’
‘Stop it.’
Louisa’s words unfasten their tentative friendship, leaving it in two pieces like a split end.
Sophie moves away from the window. ‘I’m going to the loo,’ she huffs.
But Louisa stays on the end of the bed, peeping out through the gap in the curtains. She watches Mrs Evans retrieve the bra and quickly bury it in the waiting washing basket. Then she crawls back into bed and snuggles into a spool of duvet. She closes her eyes and imagines kissing a boy warmly, expertly. The imaginary boy brushes her jaw gently with the tips of his fingers, just like sexy men do in films. And Louisa smiles as she hides under the covers.
Carys is a PhD student and associate tutor at Edge Hill University. Her first collection of short stories will be published by Salt in November 2012.