She tried on an electric-blue blouse with frills down the front in what her mother would have called chiffon: she loved it immediately and with passion. It had that derisory edge of ugliness without which nothing ever looked truly good; it managed to be ironic and flattering at once. In it her glance was sharp and dark as a knife; she was veiled, mysterious; she burned with a cold fire. It was the least practical garment she could have found to spend money on, money she didn’t even have. It was transparent, too, she would have to buy something to wear underneath it. But it was already indispensable. Without it now she would not be complete; this self that had only arisen for the first time in the changing-room mirror would never get to walk the earth with the gift of her powerful veiled knowingness.
* * *
WHEN SHE came out of the shop with the blouse in a bag it was like emerging blinking back into light and focus from the underground dark of some debauchery. She felt so ashamed she even considered putting the bag down somewhere and leaving it.
She thought Tony would like her in the blouse, though.
Mostly, Tony was a problem. He didn’t want to meet her children, and he didn’t want her to move in. She was on the edge, the very edge, of being desperate about him, of stepping off from the safe ground of her self-possession. Yet last night, in the chaotic front room of his flat, among the boxes of books he’d never unpacked since his last move, he had put on for her version after version of Miles Davis playing “So what,” and had written something with his finger in wine on her throat (he wouldn’t tell her what it was), and had said to her that if once he let himself go he might fall for her so heavily that he would never be able to stand on his two feet again.
She stopped in the rain and looked around for a phone box so she could call him. She felt the need to reassure somebody that she had survived: even though there hadn’t actually been any disaster.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO Shelagh Weeks and Deborah Gregory, for reading and helping. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues at Bath Spa University College, who love writing and take it seriously. Thanks to Richard Francis, who was not only generous with his time but also knew what to do next, and to Caroline Dawnay, Joy Harris, Dan Franklin, and Jennifer Barth, in whom I trust.