‘Costume/Jewellery’
7 or 8 years old, or thereabouts.
I was visiting my grandmother in Barrhead, near Glasgow, and had wandered off, bored, while she and my mother were talking or watching TV in the next room. There were two bedrooms in the flat and I went into the one I slept in, the one with all the furniture and drawers full of old clothes and things. Opposite the bed was an old, dark wood dressing table with wide heavy drawers and the klunky, brass-style handles on hinges. You had to pull them both at the same time to get the drawers open, and usually the drawers would wobble a bit squint on their old runners. As well as due to the weight of stuff inside, especially the top drawer. In that one was the now-famous ‘button box’ - a large round tin which had once held chocolates or something, but which was now filled with old buttons, safety pins, small gadgets, magnets, hair ties, and things. Some of the buttons were old, and a few were fascinating. But I didn’t want to play with magnets and pins, or make puppets out of the hair bobbles and other bits, this time. There was also ladies’ stuff in there which I’d been thinking about for a while, since the last time I’d been rummaging in the box. Ear-rings, in fact. The one I eventually found was round and blue, maybe the size of a modern 5p coin, and shaped like a Smartie. It had a clip which snapped into place, and I think I had once used it as the head of a robot puppet character I’d assembled from hair clips and what-not previously. But now, it was going to be used for what it had been designed for. My hair was long and wavy and had always covered my ears, much like the popular style at the time. But now I was at the dressing table – where ladies got dressed – I had decided to change that. The mirror had two hinged wings, one each side of the main central one, creating a triptych image from three different angles, meaning you could see yourself from the side as well as the front. The hair got pulled back behind the ears, something I had never seen on myself before, but had seen on ladies on TV or in the street. Something snapped into place then, like the clip on the earring I was holding. I recognised something new, yet familiar, in that tripartite image. I could see both my own ears at the same time, for the first time, but I only had one earring. I suspect I would have put it on the right ear, being very strongly right-sided, and that blue Smartie clipped hard onto my delicate lobe. It nipped, like a finger and thumb tweaking me, but I put up with it. The change that was happening in front of me was more important than feeling, even if I had just realised that women had to put up with a lot of discomfort in order to look good. There were other earrings in the box, but they were irrelevant – one was enough, that one, that special blue one, the one which stood out so clearly against the pale skin and dark brown hair.
I brushed the hair to the side and pulled it over one eye, allowing the blue clip earring to come into full view. I didn’t want to move it – it was perfect where it was, transforming not just one ear but my whole head, me whole self, into someone or something else. My clothes were ostensibly ‘boy clothes’ but were in fact unisex – blue pull-on jeans with no zip, and a skinny-style T-shirt. No real women’s clothes in the flat would fit me, so I would have to make do with what I had. I pulled the shirt up past the navel, exposing the midriff which I’d always found so fascinating whenever I saw it in a film or magazine. I wanted that kind of form, that anatomy, for myself, to be able to wear a bikini like Farrah Fawcett or skin-tight black gear like Olivia Newton-John in ‘Grease’. But I didn’t have enough of that special area of skin on show – I wanted, needed, to see more, and so the jeans had to be slipped down to the hips. That, then, was the image, the moment – the point where I realised not what I was, but what I wanted, or needed, to be; the culmination of all the thoughts, dreams, fancies, I’d ever had about women (never girls – they were boring and silly). My lack of upper body anatomy didn’t mean anything – I had never been especially focused on breasts before. It was the overall look, the sensual clothing, which had always held my attention, for as long as I could ever remember, and in that triple image I was able to become. My grandmother had often remarked that I looked a lot like a girl she had once known. Had she seen me in that moment, I wonder how much more like her I might have appeared.
Take 2 - a less direct, more artistic interpretation
‘Costume/Jewellery’
fragments of a moment
a moment, held in time
a personal revelation, an encounter with something new, someone I had only dreamed of, fantasized
about, seen in films, TVs, posters in shops, in magazines
a girl, who was me, and yet not me, who I fell in love with at first sight
the girl in the mirror, with the blue earring
swaying her hips like the ladies on Top of the Pops, tight blue jeans just about holding up
not a ‘real’ girl like the boring ones at school, but one who wanted to be a pinup, an actress, a stripper
she moved like all of them put together, knowing her audience
but the blue earring...it held my gaze, it made her ‘her’, made me stare at her, made me want to be
her, for ever, wanting to join her on the other side of the mirror forever
the earring from the ‘button box’, my grandmother’s special stash
a trove, a hoard of treasures, small treats of playful excitement to be eagerly raked through, rattling,
scattering
brass and plastic and elastic and steel and tin and thread and magnets
did I find her in that box, through that earring, the pretty blue thing I picked out one day?
when I first looked at it, could I have imagined it would suit her so well, enchant me, draw me in,
trap me in the mirror along with her
I couldn’t leave without losing her, so I had to stay, stay in front of the triple looking-glass, check
her from all angles
the front, the smooth belly and hips
the side, the curve of thighs, the shadow of ribs, those areas of interest on any James Bond girl or
bikini model
teasing her hair, sweeping it back, behind her ears and over one eye, puffing and pouting
knowing she was in control, playing along, being everything I had ever wanted her to be
I was no longer myself, lost in her, lost in the mirror, two bodies now one, joined by glass yet also
separated by it, twins who both understood each other’s needs
she dressed just like me, but did it better, wearing a bit less, showing pale skin I would never like to
reveal to anyone else beyond that mirror, beyond that bedroom
she was for my eyes only, she was special, she was unique, not to be shared or shown
yet she was brave, bold, showing me her belly, skinny and flat, copying the covergirls and the
models
she was definitely going to be a pinup, an actress, a stripper
she loved it, and I loved her for loving it
was I telling her what to do, or did she already know?
how did she know how I wanted her to be, everything I could never be,
doing things I would never do – I was shy, after all, so I was told
but she wasn’t, wasn’t shy at all
so not-shy that I could never let my parents or grandparents see her – they wouldn’t know what to
make of her, and might even put her away –
the button treasure box might be confiscated, taking the blue earring away and her with it
no, she had to stay where she was – in the mirror – with me, and only me
the two of us, made for each other, making each other, giving and taking
flashing her blue earring, that little thing which made her not just a girl but the girl –
the brassy bendy clip which snapped shut when you pushed it together
nipping your earlobe like a brat at school pinging you with his finger for laughs
but worth the ping, the soft snap when it fixed in place, ready to be flashed, shown off, when the
shiny dark hair was swept back
the sky-blue coloured blob, round and hard, a blue Smartie that you couldn’t eat or suck…
but much better than any sweet
you couldn’t get a girl out of a cardboard tube
it made my ear throb, made the blood rush, but it was worth it,
though sometimes I had to unclip it and move it up or down a bit,
and practice getting it off in a hurry to hide it in case an adult came by,
opening the door, finding me with her and not knowing what to say or do
and my face turning as red as the bottom of my ear
but it made her the girl, the girl, the first one I had ever met who I wanted to know more about,
to see her again,
what would she look like in a dress?
I would find out soon, after I took off the earring and put it back in its place in the box, the box back
in the drawer, me back in the living room – everything back where it belonged, for the moment at
least,
me now changed, transformed, knowing I had her to return to, when I was able to
when I was alone, and could escape – alone but never lonely
until next time I got to meet her again, to see her, to be with her, to be her,
the girl with the blue earring
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