The Lingerie Designer

by Siobhán McKenna

  “To new beginnings!” Fred said, clinking glasses. He looked into Helen’s eyes.

  She smiled back at him – she was feeling warm and kind of fuzzy.

  Suddenly, Fred lunged forward, kissing her hard on the lips. Helen remained in her upright position, her eyes still on the ceiling. Her brain froze but her lips responded as Fred’s tongue began exploring her mouth.

  Was this a reflex reaction, alcohol inaction, or attraction?

  “Helen, sweetheart, I’ve dreamt about this for so long – I know you have too,” Fred gasped. Years of running a lingerie retail business had its benefits, because with one hand he seamlessly unclipped her bra through the thin fabric of her blouse.

  This was bad. Helen’s brain defrosted and sprinted to catch up with her body.

  She pulled back. “I feel a little woozy – I’d better use the bathroom,” she said, straightening herself up.

  “You okay, pumpkin?”

  “Fine, it’ll just take a moment.” Picking up her handbag, she made her way across the room, without looking back.

  Fred checked his teeth, horse-like, in the reflective surface of the coffee table. Women and the way they had to fix themselves up first – he’d never understand them. Maybe she was checking her bag for condoms . . . He smiled as he unbuttoned his shirt. Perhaps she’d reappear, languishing against the bathroom doorframe, in just her underwear and high heels. Oh happy, happy days!

  The stark light of the bathroom was a jolt after the dimness of the bedroom. Helen’s head spun. What was she thinking! She soaked a washcloth with cold water and pressed it to her face. Unfortunately, it was impossible to avoid looking at the mirror. She bore a striking resemblance, albeit blonde, to a beehive-haired songstress, with black eyeliner anywhere but the eyes.

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said to her reflection. She refastened her bra. Mentally, she practised the speech she’d give Fred. Time for damage-limitation.

  But re-entering the bedroom, words failed her. Fred lay prone, on his side, head propped up with his hand – in all his naked glory. She didn’t know if he was completely naked as the champagne bottle obscured the view of his manhood. A picture of Julius Caesar waiting to be fed grapes popped into Helen’s mind.

  “Feeling better, cupcake? Here, I’ve poured you another glass of bubbles.” Fred began to get up.

  “No! Don’t move!” She waved at him and swung away to spare herself the sight of a rampant Fred. “I mean, I’ve got to go, I’m so sorry – I don’t know what we were thinking.”

  “You’re just a little scared, peach. We can take it slowly – after all, we’ve waited this long.”

  She didn’t turn around as she made for the door. If she had she’d have seen him grab up an ice bucket as he approached her.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, Fred.” Helen didn’t know which planet Fred was on – just that it wasn’t far enough away from hers. She opened the door, light from the corridor signalling her escape route.

  “Okay, pancake,” Fred said, close behind her.

  “Goodnight, Fred.”

  “Au revoir, pumpkin! Until tomorrow,” Fred said stepping into the corridor to watch her go, ice bucket positioned to preserve his honour, bum cheeks facing the fire exit.

  Tomorrow – Christ, a three-hour plane ride, with Fred. Where’s my parachute?

  Chapter 18

  Poppy closed the door behind the last client of the day. Her body ached. She was packing in more clients than ever, working harder for less money. Local beauty salons had cut their rates – so had she.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked Lily.

  Lily was sitting on her bed, typing on her laptop. The TV was on but the volume was turned down as Poppy had been working. Couldn’t have people come for a relaxing massage with strains of the CSI theme-tune filtering through the floorboards.

  Lily looked up and lifted one ear of her headphones. Poppy could hear the din of rock music from where she was standing.

  “What?” Lily looked agitated by the interruption.

  “Food. Have you eaten?”

  “Yeah.” Lily replaced the cushioned pad to her ear, indicating the conversation was over.

  Poppy was too tired to argue. She’d massaged fifteen people that week. The last lady was, well, rather large to say the least, so it took a lot of muscle to knead through the layers of fat. Poppy rubbed her wrists – they had started to swell.

  In the kitchen, an empty pizza box indicated what Lily’s dinner had been.

  “Wonderful parenting, Poppy,” she said to herself and opened the fridge door.

  Nothing appealed to her. The familiar whirl of her Swiss cuckoo-clock began its hourly routine. The doors edged open, the bird’s beak appeared: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” Traditional Swiss dancers swung around in a circular dance, the only way the wooden figures could move. The bird continued to cuckoo, nine cuckoos.

  Poppy reasoned it unhealthy to eat late and reached for a bottle of white wine instead. Um, probably not the healthiest option either. Just have one glass and take your vitamins – genius, she thought, happy with herself.

  Milkthistle to detoxify the liver, vitamin C to replenish what the alcohol depletes and Omega 3 for healthy skin & hair. What’s this one for – selenium? She couldn’t remember, but added it to the stack for good measure. She downed all the pills with one gulp of wine before she settled in front of the TV.

  She flicked through the channels – nothing caught her attention. She landed on a re-run of a cookery programme. Helen’s favourite: Gordon Ramsay. What did she see in him? The screen flashed a shot of the celebrity chef’s hairy chest and Poppy started to see the attraction.

  Gordon jumped up and down as he talked. The camera took a side-angle shot of him while he prepared his puddings. Buns of steel too, Poppy thought admiringly. Wouldn’t mind getting those buns up on my countertop.

  She checked her watch and tried to figure out what time it would be in Hong Kong. She felt the urge to share with Helen the fact that she could finally see the charms of the craggy-faced Mr Ramsay. But first, to the kitchen. Looking at all that food was making her hungry.

  Poppy returned to the couch with a bag of crisps, a packet of Tuc crackers and a block of cheese. She set up the picnic in front of her and topped up her wineglass: the salt of the crisps made her thirsty. The cookery programme went on ad break as she made a tower of crackers, cheese and crisps. It’d be five thirty in the morning in Hong Kong, was that right?

  She started flicking again. Each station she clicked on featured couples. Couples laughing, couples kissing, couples looking happy. She demolished the food tower and settled on vintage Emmanuelle – a couple making out. Boobs bop up and down. She’d be a granny now, Emmanuelle, Poppy thought. She wondered would the Emmanuelle actress keep the archives of her videos, with other family moments, captured on celluloid – visits to the zoo, weddings and christenings. “Look, Junior! There’s Granny – star of the blue screen!”

  Emmanuelle started to climax, well, that’s what the camera led you to believe anyway – all you could see was her pleasured face – either that or she was having a pee, after holding it in for ages.

  “Mum?” Lily yelled, coming down the stairs.

  Poppy fumbled with the remote, anxious to change the channel before Lily came in. “In here!”

  “I need a tenner for school, tomorrow.” Lily walked into the TV room. “Since when did you get interested in fishing programmes?”

  On the screen a man in a tweed hat held a giant fishing rod.

  “It’s rather interesting actually.” Poppy pretended to be engrossed in the TV. “You off to bed?”

  “Yeah, night.” Lily disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared.

  Poppy missed her daughter’s goodnight kisses. When she thought about it, she realised she missed any kind of kiss actually. She picked up the bottle of wine – there was only a dribble left.

  Poppy thought about Helen, having a bloody fabulous time in Hong
Kong. Helen would be having fancy dinners, expensive wines – not drinking the Deal of the Week, from Chile. She’d probably met some tall dark stranger, in her five-star hotel, and they had made mad passionate love. She’d be lying there now, in her big luxurious bed, in his arms – or, knowing Helen, on her own, in a blissful post-orgasmic sleep because she had kicked him out already, saying she had an early start, she’d email him. Little did he know his contact details were already in the wastebasket. Poppy enjoyed the imaginary soap drama playing in her head, especially as there was nothing happening on the box.

  Most of the time Poppy wished her friend would stop running from commitment. Right now she admired it. Free, no ties, plenty of money and pretty.

  The fisherman was filleting his catch, Poppy changed channel again, this time landing on Animal Planet. Two bobcats were mating.

  It’s not fair – everyone is getting laid!

  Poppy decided to text Helen, to see what was happening in Asia but her eyes felt heavy and she closed them, just for a moment. How did you get here, Poppy, half-wasted, watching TV alone? Next Lily will move out and you’ll end up with a cat. You’ll be a cat spinster, smelling of cats.

  She began to drift, back to a time – the first of September 1978, to be exact. She was unsure how much of it was her own memory, or if they’d each recounted their version of the story so often all details fused. Whichever it was, she still remembered the feeling when she met Mary and Helen Devine for the first time.

  Chapter 19

  1st September 1978

  “Isn’t this exciting Helen, your first day back at school!” Mary Devine straightened her daughter’s navy polyester tie, its elastic backing hidden under the stiff starched collar of the white cotton school shirt. The little girl’s bottom lip trembled – she fought to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill. How could she tell her mother that no one liked her?

  “What does your daddy do?”

  The words had haunted Helen all summer. The prettiest girl in the class, Natalie Porter, had asked her the question, knowing full well the answer. There were giggles and nudges from the others sitting at the table.

  “My daddy is one of God’s angels,” Helen had replied, without looking up from her drawing. She thought it was a very cool answer.

  “Well, that’s no good, is it? How will you do tonight’s homework – ‘My Daddy’s Job’? My dad is a pilot – I’ll have lots to write. Karen’s dad owns lots of sweet shops and –”

  “Deadly! Does your daddy really own sweet shops, Karen?” a girl interrupted from the next table, pausing to wipe her nose on her jumper sleeve. “That’s so cool!”

  “Yes, he does!” said Karen. “And my mummy says it’s my daddy’s hard work that keeps single mothers and their snotty-nosed brats in clothes and a house!”

  Helen didn’t understand, but something told her that in some way the Devine family weren’t good enough.

  “May I have that thingy, please?” Helen held her hand out for the sailing-boat stencil.

  “It’s not your turn! Who will you give a Father’s Day card to anyway?” was the girl’s caustic reply.

  “My mummy.”

  More sniggers and nudges came from around the table.

  Helen waited. She left a space in the middle of her picture, big enough for the boat – she could colour around it later. She chewed her lip as the group of friends took their time drawing around the cardboard cut-out before handing it on to each other, making sure she was by-passed.

  The teacher called from the top of the class. “Alright, boys and girls, it’s nearly home time! Finish up your Father’s Day cards now, please, and make sure you put your name on the back.”

  Helen’s cheeks flushed red and she feverishly started to draw a sailing boat free-hand.

  That was last June – it was the first of September now – but still Helen hesitated at the hall door. She turned to her mother. “I don’t feel very well, Mummy.”

  “Now, love, we’re not going to start all that again this year. Just you wait and see – this year will be better.” Mary Devine licked her thumb and rubbed a non-existent spot of dirt from the child’s face. “Oh my, look at the time! We don’t want to be late on your first day! Come on, Helen, put on your coat.” The young widow held out the gabardine coat with both hands, shield-like. Her own breath quivered.

  Becoming a widow at the age of twenty-five was not something she had got used to. She wanted to hold her little girl, tell her she could stay at home with her forever, because Mary didn’t want to let go any more than the child did. So she did what she did best – earlier that morning, she had distracted the two of them from the task at hand by brushing Helen’s hair, plaiting two little pigtails and scrubbing her clean to within an inch of her life.

  It was times like this that Mary missed her family. Had she made the right decision to move to Dublin when Jim died?

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mary, I really am. That war, ’tis an awful thing, shocking. James died way before his time, he did,” Mary’s brother had said. “But it doesn’t change the fact you walked out on our family. Ma and Da needed your wages.”

  “I was always going to send money home, Liam, you know that. I dreamed of a better life for all of us!” Mary had protested into the black mouthpiece of the telephone she held so tightly.

  “Better for all of us, don’t make me laugh!” Liam spat. “Saving money behind all our backs for a one-way ticket to America! How was that better for all of us?”

  “I’d have made it on Broadway, Liam, and then all our troubles would have been over. Acting was all I ever wanted . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off, as she felt the cold feeling of failure creep through her veins.

  “You were away with the fairies, Mary. Fame, my arse. And where did all your fancy notions get you, tell me that?” Liam didn’t wait for an answer. “Pregnant, out of wedlock, at nineteen years of age – not in some fancy starring role. Leading-lady of the whorehouse more like.”

  “Jimmy and me, we were in love,” Mary said. “We got married in City Hall, New York, before the baby was born. But you already know that.” Although her voice was defiant, the glimmer of hope she’d had when she dialled home had faded with the mounting anger she could feel coming down the line.

  “Look, Mary, the facts are you and James Devine ran off together – two rats jumping ship. You’d crazy notions above your station of being a famous actress. Ye left us here to face the gossip and shame. Neighbours whispering and laughing behind Ma’s back. She stuck up for you, you know, to the point where Da stopped talking to her altogether. When you sent news of a child born, out of Catholic wedlock, that just killed him, Mary, and, well, you know the rest yourself. As far as I’m concerned, Ma didn’t die of cancer, she died of a broken heart, caused by you, Mary. I will not let you do the same to Da, my da. Goodbye to you and your bastard child, you’re dead to us.”

  With a click, the line went cold.

  Poppy Power was so excited about her first day at her new school she had set two alarm clocks – just to be sure not to sleep it out. She had needed neither of them as natural adrenaline had woken her with the dawn. She had laid out her navy uniform over the back of a small wooden chair in her room. She put on each layer with care. A white cotton vest, then next came the shirt. The collar was frayed and, being her older brother’s shirt, it stopped just above her knees. She tried tucking the shirt into her knickers, but that just made it look as if she was wearing an oversized nappy. Poppy frowned when she looked in the mirror. Next, she pulled the navy pinafore over her head and finally the woollen jumper with the school crest embroidered on it. The jumper was a bit bobbly from the previous owner’s wear. But Poppy didn’t care when she looked at her reflection. All she saw was the fancy school crest – the school to which she now belonged. Her heart soared with delight.

  “Mam, get up, we’re going to be late!”

  A grunt and a waft of last night’s alcohol greeted Poppy.

  “Plea
se, Mam, just today, bring me in. I promise I’ll get the bus after today.”

  Poppy placed a mug of milky tea on her mother’s bedside table. Beside it she carefully placed two painkillers. Just shy of eight, she was well versed in her mother’s needs.

  “I’ll leave this here, Mam. I’ll be downstairs.”

  Her mother didn’t stir.

  Unable to wait on her mother any longer and with no sign of her father, Poppy decided to make tracks. She pulled the door closed behind her. Making sure she had her copybooks and pen in her bag, she began walking along the laneway that led to their workman’s cottage.

  A minute later, she was startled by a familiar voice.

  “Hold up there, kiddo, where you goin’ without me?” Poppy’s mother hollered out the window of her battered Volkswagen bug as she flicked a cigarette butt onto the gravel.

  A grinning Poppy climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You look great, Pops – you’re a real treasure, you know that?” Her mother affectionately brushed her thumb across her daughter’s cheek.

  “Thanks for coming with me, Mam – I know you’re not feeling well.”

  “Ah, baby girl, you’re a gift from the angels. Where would I be if I didn’t have you? Now let’s go to this den of repression and brainwashing you’re so keen to be a part of!” She pushed her foot on the accelerator.

  Poppy had no idea what her mother was talking about but it didn’t matter – they were on their way.

  “You can’t sit there!” The girl stretched her hand across the Formica desk to emphasise her point. All six sets of eyes around the octagonal table stared up at Helen and Mary Devine. It was unusual for the kids to be mean in front of a parent and they waited with bated breath to see what would happen next. Another mother saw what was going on, but decided to ignore it and continued chatting – it wasn’t her child who was being excluded.

  “Okey-dokey, how about this chair?” Mary Devine smiled and pulled out another free chair at the same table.