Oggbashan Stew Pt. 02

"Outfits, Samantha?"

"The organisers thought the small ponies could be ridden by Hansel and Gretel. The whole theme is fairy tales. I and the others are going as Princesses and Neil as a Prince. We'll be walking most of the route but we have a fairy tale carriage if my ankle won't survive. It should. I can walk on it but how far? I don't know."

"I didn't think Hansel and Gretel rode horses..." I said.

"They don't, but the organisers thought it would be different if they did."

"That sounds as if you don't think much of the organisers, Samantha."

"I don't. They're pains in the ass, but those of us who are taking part are trying our best to sort them out."

"If I'm going to ride, I ought to have tried the horse, and preferably have met Gail," I said.

"True. The horse? Would Sunday morning be OK? You'll have met Gail the evening before, and..."

"...and?"

"The ballet tomorrow evening. That's Wednesday. I need to try these skirts on the others. I could do that on Thursday evening. Could you come then, Gordon?"

"I think so."

I checked the diary on my phone.

"Yes, Samantha. Thursday's OK. I'll just add tomorrow evening to the diary, and book tickets for the ballet."

"While you're doing that, I have a hem to finish by hand, and then we can eat. OK?"

I nodded. I was busy with my phone. I couldn't get my usual seats. I chose a pair of seats in the centre of the back row, and hit confirm. I sighed.

"What is it, Gordon?" Samantha asked.

"The seats for Giselle tomorrow night. I usually book months in advance so that I have a reasonable view. That's one of the disadvantages of being so short. If I'm behind someone tall I can't see. I was going to go with my girlfriend before she became an ex. We argued and split just before I would have booked the seats, so I didn't."

"Don't worry, Gordon. If there is someone tall in front of you I can swap seats with you, or..."

"Or?"

"You could sit on my lap, Gordon."

"You're sure? For the whole performance? Wouldn't that be too much, Samantha?"

"No, Gordon. I like having you on my lap. We can whisper head to head, and..."

"And, Samantha?"

"Kiss and cuddle."

"Kiss and cuddle? Our seats are in the back row, Samantha."

"Perfect! We can kiss and cuddle as well as watch the ballet. But, you don't like sitting on women's laps generally, Gordon, do you?"

"I don't mind with you and your friends, Samantha, but no, it makes me feel diminished and sometimes it can be very embarrassing."

"You need to meet Gail. She could sit on your lap."

"If we get on. Size isn't everything."

"I know Gail very well. She might be even smaller than you but she's a great person. Wait and see until Friday evening. But now, I've finished the seam, time to eat."

We sat down at their dining table for a casserole. While we ate we talked about the Easter Parade. There would be historical themes to the parade. Our friends were to be Victorians, which is why Samantha was working with massive skirts and hoop petticoats. Angela's hoop was huge. It had to be to match her height. Apparently a rough rule of thumb for hooped skirts for dancing was that the diameter shouldn't be greater than the woman's height, but for a parade they could be larger. Angela's would be nearly three metres, and the others two and a half metres.

I said that I was concerned about Gail and I appearing as Hansel and Gretel. Surely, if the parade was historical, fairy tale people shouldn't be in it. Could we be someone else, another couple who had existed? What I really meant, of course, but didn't say, was that I didn't want to appear as a child. I might be small, but I'm adult.

Samantha and I didn't reach a conclusion. We left it for Friday evening when we could discuss it with Gail. Samantha wasn't averse to changing the committee's direction, but if we did, it would have to be a fait accompli. We would turn up in costume, on horseback. Then it would be too late for the committee to object.

When we arrived to see Giselle on Wednesday evening the cinema was fairly full. I wouldn't have seen much but Samantha sat me on her lap. We had a couple of odd looks before the lights went down. My head was beside Samantha's. During the interval we kissed.

We both enjoyed Giselle. We discussed the plot while walking back to the women's apartment.

"I think Hildebrand didn't deserve to die..." Samantha said. "He loved Giselle and wanted to help her. The Prince? He was an asshole. He lied to Giselle. He might have loved her, but he was already engaged. He didn't deserve her love."

"That sounds as if the story meant more to you than to me, Samantha."

"It does. My last boyfriend was like the Prince. He was lying to me all the time. He had argued with his fiancée and he used me until they made it up. I didn't know about her. She still doesn't know about me. I hope she finds out what an asshole he can be, but I'm not going to tell her myself. I don't know her and she lives over a hundred miles away."

Samantha pulled me into a hug.

"You and Neil are great for all four of us. You are friends who make no demands. Whatever we want from you, you give it if you can."

"We're not that altruistic," I protested. "Neil wants Angela. I want..."

Samantha lifted me into a kiss. My legs waved in the air.

"A girlfriend. We know, Gordon. Gail might be a possible. She wants a boyfriend. But it depends on whether you like each other. Wait until Saturday evening. If it doesn't work out you could still lead the parade."

+++

I was slightly concerned when I went to the women's apartment on Thursday evening. I wasn't sure that being around while four women dressed up would be as innocuous as it might appear. I was right. Angela had an idea for teasing Neil.

I kept the four of them supplied with coffee and kept an eye on the casserole cooking in the oven. Much of the time I spent watching from the living room doorway as they put big dresses over massive hoop skirts. Something seemed wrong with all their dresses. The material at the back trailed on the ground unlike the rest of the skirt which sat an inch or so above the floor when they were wearing heels.

Samantha and Angela were working on adjustments mainly around and above the waist so I assume they would start on the skirts later. When I came back from the kitchen with more coffee Samantha took the dressmaking pins out of her mouth.

"Gordon, Angela has made a bet with Neil about these dresses," Samantha said.

"She has?"

"I have," Angela replied. "we were talking about the massive size of these skirts. I said that I could hide even Neil underneath my hoops. I can. We've tried. But the bet was that we could hide you underneath our skirts and make you disappear."

"Disappear? That sounds difficult. What did you bet, Angela?"

"Bet? It's a silly one. I bet Neil that if we could make Gordon disappear, after the parade Neil would have to wear this dress for an evening. If I lose the bet, I have to wear it all night, even in bed. It doesn't really matter. It's a bit of fun between Neil and I. I'd like to win. But -- and this is important -- the bet is cancelled unless you are willing to be disappeared."

"And what would I have to do, Angela?"

"Ladies? Can we demonstrate for Gordon, please?"

The four of them, wearing their big dresses, faced me as I stood in the doorway. All four bent down, grabbed a handful of the dress and hoops, and hauled them up to show their legs. All except Angela were wearing six-hooped bell shaped petticoats. Angela's had eight hoops.

"See, Gordon," Samantha said, "our legs and the inside of our hooped petticoats are visible. If you had been hiding underneath, raising our skirts like this would reveal you. Agreed?"

"Yes, Samantha. I couldn't be hidden like that."

"But there is plenty of room for you inside while our skirts are lowered, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"Try, under mine."

Samantha continued holding her skirt up. The other three dropped theirs. On my hands and knees there was ample room for me inside Samantha's hooped petticoat.

"Now, Gordon, try crawling left so that you are under Angela's dress, if possible so that my skirt isn't moving if watched from in front."

It took me a couple of tries before I could get from under Samantha to under Angela without bulging either skirt. If they stood with their skirts touching, I could crawl out the back of one and into the back of the other.

With some more practice I could move along the line from one end to the other without disturbing any of the four skirts as viewed from in front. I was enjoying the sight of some very nice legs and panties.

"Out you come, Gordon," Samantha asked.

I stood in front of them.

"Nice though that was," I said, "I wasn't disappearing."

"No, you weren't," Angela admitted, "but that would do for a version of the shell game. Neil can watch you get under one skirt and then try to guess which skirt you end up underneath. I think we can trick Neil with that, and then make you disappear. We haven't got our full costumes on yet. Samantha?"

"We are going to be Victorian Ladies when the crinolines were at their largest, about 1865. Before then, they were circular, like the hooped petticoats we are wearing now. But around 1865 they spread out backwards. I'll show you on Angela. Chloe, Janet?"

Chloe and Janet lifted the back of Angela's skirt. Samantha brought what looked like half a hooped petticoat, not quite a semicircle, but an arc.

"This became a bustle later on in the 19th Century," Samantha said, "and we should have had hoops that extended backward. We couldn't find any so this is a compromise."

She wriggled her hands around Angela's waist tying the top of the bustle. She then tied the sides to loops sewn on the original hoops. The effect was to provide a large D-shape at the back of Angela's hoops. Chloe and Janet pulled Angela's skirt down over the new addition. Now the train of her skirt sat at the same level as the rest, barely above the floor.

"Once we are wearing the bustles," Angela said, "if we lift the front of our skirts as we did before, all that can be seen is the inside of the main hoops. The bustle doesn't show."

Angela showed me. She was right. As she lifted the front hem of her skirt and petticoat it looked exactly as before.

"But if you crawl from under the main dome to under the bustle, Gordon," Angela continued, "you will apparently disappear, and I will win the bet. Please try for me."

I did. It was harder not to make her skirt stay still, and the room inside the bustle was restricted. I had my head pressed against the back of her hooped petticoat as I knelt, Angela lifted her skirt at the front while the others looked. I was invisible.

I had to try again and again as the other three had their bustles attached. The space inside their bustles was less than inside Angela's but I apparently disappeared each time. I wouldn't want to stay inside long but I could for a minute of two while Angela won her bet with Neil. I still couldn't understand WHY she wanted such a bet, and why she wanted Neil to wear her dress, but I was willing to help her win it.

+++

Story 028

Last Christmas

I always think of Great-aunt Alice as a late 19th and early 20th Century version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath. Alice was known as 'Great-Aunt' but her relationship to me was actually Great-Great-Aunt. Our parents' generation used her as a warning to their daughters.

"Don't show your knickers! You'll end up like Alice."

We young women thought Great-aunt Alice wasn't an example of the wages of sin, but of the advantages that could come from using your body and your sexuality. She loved men. She seduced men. She lived from relationships from men. She made a fortune from men.

Shortly after her 18th birthday she had some unspecified gynaecological problem. She saw several specialist doctors whose unanimous verdict was that she could never become pregnant or have children. For a woman of her generation that could have been a disaster. Most women wanted a husband and a family.

Alice accepted the verdict. She lived with it. If she couldn't become pregnant in a time that contraception was awkward and not very effective. If she couldn't become pregnant? She could have sex often, knowing there would be no consequences. She used that.

She became an actress and courtesan. She was more courtesan than actress. In her early twenties she worked her way up the social scale by accepting almost any gentleman who wanted her. She progressed from stage door Johnnies to titled noblemen. It was even whispered that she had been laid by Royalty. She was famous or notorious. She went everywhere as arm candy and available mistress. But her transactions were for cash in hand. Jewels, furs, apartments? They were nice but if a man wanted Alice she wanted money preferably in gold coin.

When I first became aware of her she was already old, possibly in her late fifties or early sixties. Yet she was still attractive and still desired by men who would pay for her favours. She turned up at family events wrapped in expensive furs and wearing wonderful jewellery. Compared to other women of her age in the family Alice was a revelation. She was bold, brassy and wholly unrepentant of her successful life as a grande horizontale.

Great-aunt Alice is one of the people I remember so clearly.

+++

Memories? I have my memories but I won't keep the memory of this Christmas for long.

They had meant so well. But I had felt like the skeleton at the feast. Why not? I'm so old I nearly am a skeleton. My body is gradually wasting away. In a few more months it and I will be no more. There will be no 'next Christmas' for me. I know it. My family know it.

They had tried so hard to make it a happy Christmas for me. My grandson Andy, now driving me back to my nursing home in his car, had assembled as many of the family he could. All my children were there, those that are still alive. Most of my grandchildren were there with my great-grandchildren.

But I was an embarrassment. I can only totter a few paces with my walking frame. Much of the time I'm doubly incontinent. I have no sense or feeling below my waist and not much above. When I'm wearing my thick-lensed spectacles and my hearing aids I can see and hear, but not very well. Conversations are difficult. It is easier for me to write and read notes than to listen and respond. For a while a great-grandson had helped with his tablet. He could speak to it and it would put his words on the screen in large print. That was nice but he soon got bored of his great-grandmother. Why not? He's only eight years old.

I try to look out of the car's window. I can't see much. It's dark outside. The street lights flash past but they, or my eyes, are too dim for me to see much. I would have liked to see some countryside but the late December days are so short. If Andy had taken me back in daylight I wouldn't have had long with the family. He had collected me after breakfast, had driven to his house, and unloaded me and my wheelchair. There was no point in taking the walking frame. The house was so crowded there was no room for me to use it.

I had sat in my wheelchair in a corner of the living room. I had been wheeled into the dining room for the Christmas lunch. I hadn't disgraced myself by spilling anything but Anne, one of my daughters-in-law, had had to cut up my food carefully. She is a retired nurse. All my children and their partners are retired -- or deceased. Those that are left look old, even to my weak eyes.

What I miss most is being to share experiences with people of my own age. There aren't many of us left and most that are still around have lost their marbles. I may be frail and incontinent but my brain still works. I know what I had for breakfast. I know the names and ages and relationships of my large family. I know things they would prefer I didn't know. I know exactly where we are. I don't need Sat-Nav. We're about five minutes from my nursing home on a dual carriageway. Two hundred yards ahead is the beginning of the 30 mph zone. Three hundred yards further is the traffic lights. Andy will turn left, then take the second right. I know the street names...

+++

I will be pleased to be back in my own familiar room at the nursing home looked after by people who know my frailties so well that they anticipate my needs. Seeing my family assembled for the last time before my funeral might have done something for them. It didn't do much for me except remind me how little time I have left. Maybe some of the older great-grandchildren will remember me in years to come. They have photos and videos of me from the last ten Christmases. I think the earlier ones when I was less frail might be better reminders. Once those great-grandchildren are dead? No one will remember me. Or perhaps, thanks to my granddaughter Joan, they will.

Joan wanted to do some research on the history of the family. It started as a small school project for her daughter, my great-granddaughter, Amelie. Joan came to see me when I was still living alone in my bungalow. She brought a tape recorder. Joan asked me to go through the family photo album and identify all the people in it. We made a simple family tree, more than enough for Amelie's project. But Joan became more interested than the project needed. She started researching our ancestry more seriously and has now been doing it for over twenty years. She spent more and more time with me, so much time that her long-suffering husband sometimes protested.

We moved on from the tape recorder to a video camera recording on cassettes. Those recordings were later converted to DVDs. She and I became better organised. We would record everything I knew, could remember, or could discover from paperwork, about every member of the family I had ever met. My younger brother Edwin had still been alive when Joan started. She persuaded him to contribute video interviews as well. Edwin didn't know some of the aged great-aunts I had known. They had died before he was born. He knew different things about some of our cousins -- those closer to him in age.

Joan and I soon decided that we had to separate the public information from the private. Secretly we recorded the things I, and sometimes Edwin, knew that were embarrassing or too overtly sexual. Joan's stack of DVDS were in two groups. The main group was recordings of information that anyone could know and could be uploaded to Ancestry. The smaller group would be kept within the family, only to be seen by mature adults. Extracts from that group is what I am going to write now.

Write? Yes. I'm writing this on a laptop. Some of the staff and many of the residents are startled that I can use a laptop. Why not? I've been typing for over eighty years. A simple wordprocessing program is well within my remaining capacities. I can enlarge the font so I can see it but I have to close or move the screen so some of the staff won't see what I'm writing.

They know I'm writing family secrets and that some of them might be embarrassing. They know that only Joan is to have access to my files and will collect my laptop when I die. Beyond that? I'm grateful that they respect my privacy. They're good kids really. Kids? The oldest member of staff is much younger than my children.

+++

My parents met because my father, George, loved my mother's Great-Aunt Alice. He didn't tell me about meeting her until about my twenty-first birthday. In the mid 1920s he was doing some post-graduate research on the Victorian theatre in London and someone told him about Alice. He arranged to meet her in a theatre bar. She was performing a bit part in a detective thriller but was free from the interval onwards, having been murdered in Act One.

"Actress?" Alice had said. "George, dear boy, I wasn't really an actress. I was described as one. The media at the time couldn't use an accurate term for my profession. I was a successful whore. I still am even if my patrons are now elderly gentlemen who talk more than they actually do, if you know what I mean. They like having me around to show that they're not past sex, even if they are. I don't care as long as I get paid in cash or cash-convertible assets."