I smile at him, very widely. ‘Now you,’ I say.
‘You what?’
‘I’d like you to look . . . stunned. Like you can’t believe how quick your mobile fixes are. Combine astonished and impressed in a facial expression. No one will want your services if you look bored and gormless. Go on, give it a try.’
Wouldn’t you know it, he doesn’t like this at all. ‘No need to burn your bra about it. I was just being nice.’
‘I’m also being nice, giving you a bit of free marketing advice. Now, do you want me to further your career by popping into that phone shop to let them know you’re harassing women on street corners?’
‘Mad bitch,’ he mutters, the sign flaccid in his hand.
‘You’re very welcome,’ I say, and move on.
Putting plenty of distance between me and mobile man, I move along the row of shops, waiting to be enticed by something wonderful. Fate decrees that today I will meet The One – The Dress that calls to me, will transform me, echoing the transformation within. Come to me, Dress of My Dreams, and together we will take on the world. If you could also have pockets, then that would be ideal.
I catch sight of it in the window at the end of the row. It’s deep forest-green, with a loose raised waistline and a long swishy skirt that ends in a ruffle hem. Alleluia, it’s glorious. In the absence of a bustle, a ruffle will do. With a celestial chorus echoing in my head, I gambol into the shop, already doing a little dance, because I’ve needed a wee since I left the gallery. I meant to go in Little Donkey but my barney with Grotbags made me forget.
‘Madam. Can I help you?’
Madam. Such an insidious term. The manager in Avon House used it in the same way – to convey the sense that you don’t deserve to be there and should leave immediately. But whereas the Old Clover would cower and retreat, this one is as assertive as her curls. I look down my nose at the shop assistant, even though she’s taller than me.
‘I’d like to try on that dress, please.’
She glances at the mannequin. ‘That one? I’m afraid that’s the only one we’ve got in stock.’
I really do need a wee. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of others that will look delightful on her.’ Then I just stand still in silence, until it gets awkward, which is hard because I want to jiggle to stop myself leaking. Why is everyone an arsehole today?
Finally, she relents, and heads to the mannequin. I browse the other stock in order to keep moving, feeling like I’m about to burst. After gestating and giving birth to twins, my pelvic floor is not what it was, but the dress is mostly off the model now and I don’t want to waste my opportunity to try it on. The assistant hands it to me and I bear it off to the changing room reverently. By the time I’m down to my underwear in there, my bladder is bulging like the vocal sac of a bullfrog. Throwing the dress over my head, I shimmy my way in, wincing at the answering twinges in my lower abdomen. It contains a suspect package, and if I don’t do something about it, it’s going to explode.
Briefly distracted by my appearance, I stare at myself in the mirror. With the ringlets and the high waistline, there’s a Regency feel to the look – Elizabeth Bennet, if she’d been a forty-six-year-old TV producer living in twenty-first-century Bristol. Like many women, I have an ambivalent relationship with my face and body – while I accept that there’s nothing horrific about either of them, we’re frequently at odds. I have very little control over my features or my figure, despite my best efforts, and sometimes when I see myself in a photo or catch sight of my back view in a mirror, I’m unnerved by how . . . weird I look. Unfamiliar, as if I’m inhabiting a stranger’s frame and we’re fighting for the upper hand like cats in a sack. I guess what I’m saying is I’m not comfortable in my own skin, which isn’t a huge surprise when you consider I’ve had decades of my mother saying things like ‘I don’t understand why you didn’t get my cheekbones; it’s a real shame.’ Over the years, she eroded my confidence until I was just a shapeless bag of nerves. But now, for the first time, it’s like I’m seeing myself, what I could be, if I just embraced the weirdness; the heightened, cartoon quality. I want to look different today – it’s quite important – but I didn’t expect to enjoy the change, or to want to keep it that way.
Jesus Christ, I need to pee so badly I might . . . pee. I shuffle out of the changing room, keeping my legs crossed.
‘Excuse me!’ I call out to the frosty assistant, who’s now steaming a new dress on the mannequin.
‘Yes?’ She looks me up and down without commenting. Does the snooty cow even want a sale?
‘Do you have a toilet?’
She purses her lips. ‘No.’
‘You don’t have a toilet?’
She hesitates. ‘Not for customers.’
More facilities that can’t be used. ‘OK, but I’m really desperate. Like, really.’
She waves the steamer wand – that dummy is getting more attention than me. ‘There are public toilets in the shopping centre.’
I shake out the folds of my skirt. ‘But I’m wearing this. Can’t I just nip into a back room or something?’
‘Against company policy.’
‘I won’t tell.’
She shrugs, passing the wand back and forth. I stare at her for a second, weighing up my options. ‘Right.’ Stuffing my old clothes in my bag, I shoulder it, and march towards the exit.
‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’
I start, feigning surprise. ‘You told me there were public toilets in the shopping centre. So, I’m going there.’
‘But you’re wearing that!’ She puts down the steamer and points at my lovely dress.
‘Yes, I just told you that, and you didn’t seem very interested.’
‘You can’t go, you haven’t paid for it.’
Obviously, in normal circumstances I would agree, but as I’ve said, today is not normal, and now I’m really pissed off, not to mention full of piss. She could have made things so much easier and friendlier, but she chose not to, from the very beginning, and now I feel like she needs to be taught a lesson in customer relations. In fact, it would be really good for her and her future sales if I outlined a few key areas of improvement. I turn around, slowly, my hand on the door.
‘I’m afraid it’s my company policy not to pay for items when I’m about to wet myself. You’ll just have to wait.’
Putting her hands on her hips, she inhales sharply through her nose. ‘If you leave the premises, I will call the police.’
‘I’m only borrowing it. Think of it as a sartorial test drive. Back in a sec.’ I can’t wait any more, even for banter, so I exit and walk as rapidly as I can in the direction of the toilets. Unfortunately, that’s not very rapid, as my pubic area is now under such intense pressure that it’s hard to walk at all. It’s a sort of limp/stumble towards the ladies, which feel perilously far away, even though it’s only a few hundred metres. Then they turn out to be those ones where you have to pay 20p to get through the turnstiles, so I have to scrabble around in my purse, desperately trying to find the right change, as my nether regions pulse painfully. To spend a penny, I need twenty of them. Of course, I haven’t got a fucking 20p, just pound coins and a euro I kept in case I accidentally end up in France. This is unbearable, I must pee immediately. Desperately, I look around for help. Another woman is about to go in, has a precious coin ready. Lucky, lucky lady, to have that coin. I wonder if she has another?
‘Excuse me, you haven’t got a spare 20p, have you?’
Jealously clutching her magic heptagon, she studies me suspiciously. ‘What for?’
What for? To play heads or tails to decide who serves first?
‘For the toilet.’ I gesture to the turnstile, convulsing with the urge to urinate. I’m suddenly aware of water around me – a hose being deployed outside, the drip of a tap inside, an abrupt flush as some fortunate shopper concludes their evacuation.
She sighs like I asked her to mint it herself. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Could you look? I’ve got a pound.’ I brandish it for reassurance.
Her expression brightens at the prospect of an 80p profit, and she starts digging around in her purse.
‘Hmm . . . I don’t think . . .’
She delves, muttering to herself, while I fidget and squirm in agony, proffering my pound with a shaking hand. What if I just let rip and flood the ladies’ entrance; would it be so very bad? My usually heightened sense of embarrassment and shame is noticeably absent today, but I draw the line at public micturition. Plus, I’m worried about volume – it wouldn’t be a leak, more of a torrent. Please let her have a 20p.
‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t got one.’ She glances at my pound coin regretfully, mourning its loss.
She’s dead to me. I whirl around, searching for another saviour. ‘Has anyone got 20p?’ I bellow, holding my reward aloft. ‘I will give you this!’ Then, thinking better of it, ‘No, all these!’ I grab the remaining pound coins in my purse. ‘Four pounds for 20p!’ My kingdom for a horse.
Within thirty seconds I have three potential 20ps in return for my four pounds. The dilemma then is which offer to accept. Despite the thrumming of my groin, I find myself dithering over it, before finally taking my piece of silver from a sweet old lady who has ‘basic pension’ vibes. That extra £3.80 should keep her in tomato soup for a bit. Gibbering my thanks, I cram the coin into the slot and barge through. Please let there not be a queue, or I’ll have to start handing out fivers to jump it.
