‘She seems very young for corsets.’
‘After all, they’re nuns, they don’t want young women going round . . . sticking out.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘It says “girdle in house colour”.’
Words came into my mouth and stuck there: backed up against my hard palate. I knew these girdles were the kind worn by princesses in distress. They were the kind you used to tether a unicorn, or to throw a lifeline to a gallant knight some ogre had cast from a tower. They were not whalebone, they were not elastic, they were more like ropes or strings, sewn with seed pearls or knitted from your own golden hair.
‘You can really only get white,’ my mother said. ‘Or flesh.’ She sucked her lip. Ankle socks white, winter knee socks grey. Underwear as regulation – the approved outfitter will be pleased to advise. ‘They don’t want to go into detail,’ my mother said. ‘Not in print. You can understand it.’
Winter hat, grey velour
Summer straw, school colours
Hockey stick
Tennis racquet
TENNIS RACQUET! I said
In summer, white gloves will be worn.
I was precipitated into Constantine & Co. by a push in the small of my back. I was in for a slap when I got home, this had been made clear to me: ‘Giggling and fidgeting like that in the bus; you ought to know better at your age!’ My mother was wearing a very big daub of Tan Fantastic, which Karina had been mocking. She was wearing a costume with a tight skirt, and pinned to the jacket her best brooch, a gilt wheel of big deep blue stones, deep as the sea. Karina’s mother lurched through the swinging glass doors behind us. Her coat came nearly down to her ankles and as usual she was lugging her tartan shopping bag.
This was the first time I had ever been taken to a shop for clothes. Everything I had needed until this point had been manufactured by my mother. I looked at Karina to see if she was any more at ease in this situation. She was standing with her eyes closed, breathing in the deep scent of leather and polish. A saleswoman dressed in black minced towards us over the polished floor, like a panther who has spotted something juicy: like a panther who has spotted something slow.
My mother unclasped her handbag with a big snap and withdrew the uniform list, folded in four.
‘The Holy Redeemer,’ the saleswoman murmured. She seemed to curtsey as she took it from my mother’s hand and opened it. Her fingers brushed her smiling throat as she ushered us towards the curtained cubicles of her choice. The room was built up to its lofty ceiling in glass cabinets and deep wooden drawers, some of which other salesladies slid open enticingly, to reveal stacks of stiff shirts bound in Cellophane; from which they lifted jerseys with their arms strait-jacketed by cardboard, in every size from dwarf to gross.
‘In here if you please,’ the saleswoman said, as if she were threatening us. The curtain swept behind her. I was shut up with my mother in my own cubicle, at dangerously close quarters. But she was all simpering smiles now: for the duration, I was her darling. She took off her coat and hung it on one of the hooks supplied, and at once her woman smell gushed out and filled the air: chemical tang of primitive deodorant, scent and grease of Tan Fantastic, flowery scent of face powder, emanation of armpit and cervix, milk duct and scalp.
I removed my clothes. I was pale as paper, my body without scent or flavour of its own. Each of my ribs could be counted; each vertebra was accessible to a casual eye. Around my nipples was a puffiness which looked like a disease. I had been worrying that I would have to undress in front of Karina, who was in advance of me, gently but definitely swollen. I knew I had to get a bosom, but I hoped it wouldn’t come on too quickly, because when it did I’d need an ‘A’ cup, size 32 broderie anglaise bra. And my mother would say, All this costs money, and as we are scrimping and saving for your education . . . The flatter my chest stayed, the cheaper I’d be.
The items required for the Holy Redeemer were brought in one by one, stiff on their glossy wooden hangers, by the saleswoman in black. Only the winter tunic was an exception; she carried it across her arms, palms spread beneath it, as in certain statues and paintings Our Lady bears the weight of the body of her crucified son. The tunic was clay coloured, a stiff deep grey-brown. In the uniform of the Holy Redeemer this colour predominated, but it was offset by a solid purple-red called maroon: and sometimes where you would least expect it, these two colours would collide and form stripes.
I slid my arms inside the chilly sleeves of a cream shirt blouse. My mother twitched the stiff collar into position and began to button it up; she was attending to me as if I were a three-year-old, impressing the saleslady with her maternal skills. When the blouse was fastened it came to mid-thigh. The cuffs hung below my hands as if I’d climbed into the body of an ape. ‘I’ll move the button,’ my mother said. The saleslady made an approving noise, and picked up the tunic. She dropped it over my head and it engulfed me. Daylight vanished. I took a breath inside its clay folds. My arms moved outwards as if I were trying to swim. My mother tugged, and the daylight reappeared. I stood with my arms out from my sides, looking down at my feet, which were visible under the tunic.
‘She’s bound to grow,’ my mother said. ‘Bound to.’
‘You’ll find,’ said the saleslady, ‘that they have very strict requirements about length at the Holy Redeemer. We may have to adjust a little, upwards.’ All three of us stared at my feet. ‘Indoor shoes.’ the saleslady said. ‘I shall be but one moment.’
She came back with a box. On the outside of it was a picture of what looked like a coracle. ‘We call this “The Diana”,’ the saleswoman said. ‘Wonderfully durable and absolutely recommended.’
When the shoe was revealed and lifted from its tissue paper, even my mother was taken aback: even she, who for the next seven years would hear not a word spoken against the Holy Redeemer and its dress codes and rules and strange demands. ‘Well, it is old-fashioned,’ she said, taking it unwillingly from the saleslady’s hand. The saleslady smiled, and showed one tooth. The shoe was brown, its toe was round, it had a bar across like an infant’s shoe. It had a sort of shelf around it, a running board; its sole looked an inch thick.
‘Sit down,’ my mother said. She grappled with my ankle. I wanted to curl my toes like a baby, squirm my soles so she couldn’t ram them into The Diana. When I stood up again I felt as if the floorboards had been fastened to my feet.
We heard, from outside the cubicle, a rush and clatter as an adjacent curtain was drawn back. ‘Show Mary,’ my mother said. She manoeuvred me out under the cruel strip lights. Karina and I stood side by side. We were clad, we were uniformed. We did not look at each other. Karina’s hands were bunched at her sides.
Karina’s mother said, ‘She must have vests.’
