The Coming of Age . June. Part 2.

9th June.I must have some new summer clothes though. I would like not to be invisible I decide. I am going to be extravagant and buy something flaunty. Wearing comfortable shoes I take a bus next day to nearest large town well furnished with department stores.

By 2.30 I am exhausted and have not purchased a single item. Not only have I not bought anything, I haven’t even tried anything on. I am in despair. The shops are full of remarkably similar if not absolutely identical garments in identical colours none of which suit me and designed, it seems, only for teenagers. How can they afford it? I never had any money as teenager and wore clothes that my mother chose for me: twinsets and woollen pleated skirts in the winter and floral frocks in the summer. Clothes weren’t supposed, at least in my mother’s opinion, to flatter, but were meant to cover you so that you looked respectable, and no one noticed you.

In later teenage years I did graduate from head-to-toe black and then, with motherhood, to jeans and t-shirts. Now that I am far too old for the gypsy girl look, with bare midriff and ruffles, or the Annie get your gun style with suede and fringes (fashionistas among you will realise that this was written sometime ago) and don’t wish to wear clothes that look as if they have had a terrible experience in the washing machine, there is nothing I want to buy.

Where are the clothes that decently flatter and cover the mature woman? I eventually find a pair of jeans that fit round the waist but do not look like jodhpurs at hip level but I am scarred by the experience. I am on the margins of society.

Think about my friends. They all wear clothes and must get them from somewhere. Jean always looks smart and so does Julia but Julia only wears black, Poppy is a bit too flamboyant, I don’t think I could carry off those short skirts.

I ring Jean and ask her where she gets her clothes from.

‘I haven’t bought any clothes for years’ she says. ‘I just keep wearing my old ones. Why?’

‘I’ve just had a horrendous experience trying to buy some summer clothes. Mine are all too tight and anyway...’

‘You could diet,’ she said, briskly.

I feel depressed enough. The thought of dieting and adding to my miseries, is not what I want to hear.’

‘What about that friend of yours, the tall one?’ I say, ‘She looks like I would like to look.’

‘She buys her clothes in America,’ says Jean, ‘or that boutique in Cloudsley Shovell. But it’s very expensive.’

I didn’t know there was a boutique in Cloudsley Shovell. I must ring Val as she knows that village.

Ring Val and pour out my troubles.

‘You look all right to me’ she says.

'No I don’t. I want to look chic and elegant like those women Julia and I saw in Italy.’

I drive over to Cloudsley Shovell and find Fay’s Boutique. It’s very discreetly situated I wonder how Fay can make a living until I see the prices of the garments. Then I know. I go boldly in and try on almost everything in the shop in my size and have a wonderful time. Fay is a little bewildered.

‘Is Madam buying a dress for a wedding or an outfit for the golf course?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

After all, there are no other customers. What I am looking for is something that will do for every occasion and transform me at a stroke from a bulgy English matron that no one ever notices to an elegant femme fatale. I can’t tell Fay that of course. It sounds a bit silly. I can imagine what my mother would say, or my daughters come to that.

I say ‘I want something becoming to wear for dinner parties, but I do not want to look like mutton dressed as lamb.’

I flick through the racks again. Somehow the draped silk dresses don’t look like me. I can see they are clothes for mature lady-like women. My mother would like them. I know that I am not mature or lady-like.

I go to the separates section and find a linen jacket and a pair of trousers that will go with it. I buy them at vast expense. Fay is happy. I am a little bit happy. They fit and they are quite smart but I still haven’t got anything to wear to dinner parties.

On my way back, see next door neighbour, counsellor Fran. She is wearing a politically correct hand-woven tent thing probably from the ethical cotton shop. I do not ask her where she buys her clothes. Think later that I would probably look better in large tent.

10th June. I see Mavis coming out of her house. She is wearing a strange floppy hat and a droopy skirt and looks like a pagoda that has been left out in the rain. I can hear her sneezing. She has hayfever which she gets every year. She tells me that she can't go anywhere, a statement which she follows up with'Keith and I went to Brands Hatch yesterday.'

I suggest that she starts taking tincture of echinacia. 'You can buy it in Boots', I say helpfully. She looks doubtful under her hat. I don't know why I bother really. She never takes my advice.