Ciara Geraghty - Rules of the Road

Outside, it’s overcast and close. And I have to shop. For clothes. I hate shopping for clothes.

There’s no Marks & Spencer. There’s a Tesco Express. And a Starbucks. I buy a toothbrush and toiletries and a takeaway cup of decaffeinated coffee.

The clothes shops are boutiques with bald, angular mannequins in the windows and no price tags on anything. Then I spot a Sue Ryder charity shop across the road.

I’ve never bought anything in a charity shop, although I’ve contributed many black bin bags of the girls’ toys and books and clothes over the years. Not that I’m blowing my own trumpet or anything. It’s just, like I said, I hate waste, and Hugh said not to bother posting the girls’ clothes because his wife wasn’t big on hand-me-downs for Isabella, and besides, the price of the postage to Australia would negate the advantage, wouldn’t I agree?

Hugh’s wife – Cassandra – is a funny one. Not funny exactly, just a bit … aloof perhaps.

The last time Hugh and Cassandra came home, little Isabella was only two, so it must be, oh, five years ago now. They left Isabella with Brendan and me, while they stayed at the Merrion Hotel. They said they didn’t want to discommode us and they didn’t think the Merrion was really suitable for children. Besides, they knew I’d love to spend as much time as possible with my niece.

Which was true, but maybe not at four o’clock in the morning, which was the time she woke, what with the jet lag and the strange surroundings.

She ended up sleeping in my bed every night. Brendan slept in the spare room. He said he didn’t mind.

This must be a swanky part of London because the charity shop is like a proper boutique with an accessories section and an immaculately turned-out young woman with terrifying eyebrows behind the counter and a bright, fresh smell that has no bearing on old, discarded clothes and worn-out shoes.

The young woman eyes me, and I brace myself.

‘Can I help you?’

I always say, No. Thank you. I always say, I’m just browsing.

‘No thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m just browsing.’

‘What are you browsing for?’ asks the woman. Her name badge – handwritten in large, flamboyant print with a love heart instead of a dot over the i – says Jennifer .

‘I kind of need … everything,’ I say.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘You’ve come to the right place. I’d say you’re a …’ She looks me up and down, ‘ten?’

‘Yes, I—’

‘And I’m going to say, given your height, you’re a size seven shoe.’

I nod. She studies my breasts with great concentration.

‘34B?’

‘Yes. How did you …?’

Jennifer shrugs. ‘I’m just doing my job,’ she says with grave conscientiousness. ‘I’m going to step beyond my remit now and tell you a few things about yourself,’ she says, and I am suddenly terrified that she can see right inside me. That she knows everything.

Jennifer narrows her eyes at me. ‘You’re a reluctant shopper.’

‘Eh, well, I suppose you could say th—’

‘Yes or no is fine.’

‘Oh, em, right then, I … yes.’

‘You usually shop in Marks & Spencer.’

‘How did you kn— Sorry. Yes.’

‘You have no interest in style.’

‘Eh, well …’

‘Yes or no?’

‘I suppose not, no.’

‘You like comfortable clothes.’

‘Yes.’ That’s an easy one. Who doesn’t like comfortable clothes?

‘That you can hide inside.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t—’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Well … I don’t … Although I suppose I—’

‘Today’s your lucky day,’ Jennifer tells me, pointing to the fitting room. ‘Get in there and take your clothes off.’

‘All of them?’

But she has swept away and is already pulling various garments off hangers and – worryingly – talking to herself as she does.

My fear of being rude overrides all else and I do as I am bid. I leave my bra and knickers on. She didn’t mean me to remove them? Did she?

No. I’m sure she didn’t.

Besides, they don’t sell underwear in charity shops.

Or maybe they do now?

But no, they couldn’t. It’s all second-hand stuff isn’t it?

Even I draw the line at hand-me-down knickers.

‘Eh, I don’t need underwear,’ I call from behind the heavy velvet curtains that separate me from the sales assistant.

She does not respond, although I know she heard me because she paused in her conversation with herself.

‘Are you decent?’ she is good enough to ask, and I am about to tell her that I am standing here in my bra and knickers, only so that she is prepared for it, when she flings back the curtains and surveys me. While the bra and knickers are Marks & Spencer, they are fairly old. Even Marks & Spencer’s underwear gives out eventually.

Mine haven’t given out exactly. They’re just … a bit tired looking.

‘Let’s start with this skirt and top,’ Jennifer says, looking at me in the mirror. I look too and see what she sees. My tired old knickers and bra, my sagging breasts and stretch-marked belly and pasty skin and hairy legs. I see it all. The full glare of me – long and skinny with mousy hair and washed-out blue eyes – in the full-length mirror cruelly lit by bright, Hollywood-style bulbs.

All the better to see you, my dear.

I wrestle myself into the skirt (dry-clean only) and a run-in-the-wash top even though I’ll never buy them because they’re not my colour – a raucous green and purple – and they’re not my style – the skirt’s too short and the top is too, I don’t know, too green and purple.

Still, at least I’m covered up now.

‘Well?’ asks the young woman.

Something sharp on the waistband of the too-short skirt digs into my skin, and the V of the top’s neckline turns out to be a very long V so that I would spend all my time looking down, checking that I am still decent.

I feel a panic-buy coming on.

‘I’ll take them,’ I say. I need to get out of here. I know it could be worse. I could be in one of those awful boutiques where the women comment on my height and say, ‘I know just the thing,’ even though you’ve already told them that you’re only browsing and the just the thing turns out to be a scarf for eighty euros that you won’t ever wear because you don’t ever wear scarves.

Jennifer folds her arms and examines my face. ‘Why would you take them?’ she asks.

‘Eh … I … because they’re lovely?’

‘No they’re not.’

‘Then why did you give them to me to try on?’

‘It was a test.’

‘Oh.’

‘Which you failed.’

Jennifer smiles, and I notice a speck of bright-red lipstick on one of her front teeth which makes me feel a tiny bit better.

‘Okay,’ she says, unfolding her arms and rubbing her hands together. ‘We are going to practise, okay?’

I nod. I’ve no idea what she means.

I suddenly wonder if this is one of those television programmes where they make fools of people like me. But she’s looking right at me so I can’t scan the shop for hidden cameras.

‘I’m going to show you an outfit, and you’re going to tell me exactly what you think of it. And I’ll know if you’re lying.’ She glares at me like I’ve already told a lie, so I say, ‘Okay,’ and she smiles then and there’s the speck of lipstick again, and so we begin.

If it were a quiz, it would be the quick-fire round.

She holds up outfit after outfit. She’s calling them ensembles. They’re not just tops and skirts or tops and trousers. She adds jewellery. Belts. Hats. Shoes. Jackets. Arranges me so that I’m facing the full-length mirror and holds the first ensemble against me.