The Sequinned Bodice

It was hot inside the giant Faberge egg. Being the smallest member of the cast they had cajoled her into it with promises of a fancy white feather headpiece and diamonte accessories. She crouched backstage in this bizarre prop for what seemed like hours, her face pressed close to the side of the egg hoping that her make up would not smudge and that the trail of feathers attached to her bottom would not snag as she made her grand escape. Her breath was calm and steady as she waited for her music to start. The sound of the band and crowd intimidated her, protected as she was by only a thin wall of lacquered papier mache. The silver sequinned bodice scratched her arms and the matching sandals cut into her feet as she crouched . Lilian couldn’t imagine how she was going to pull this off. The music stopped and the lights dimmed and as she waited in the dark egg ,the chattering and clinking of glasses became unbearable. Eventually her music filled the room and she hatched with effortless elegance onto the stage and outstretched her slender arms . The unsteadiness she felt in the high heels, the sctratchiness of the bodice and the butterflies in her stomach ceased to exist as she bloomed in an incredible and sublime moment. She held still like a magnificent star on a cold night, a point of precise and dazzling light. It was a moment of perfection as she stood proud in her quivering ostrich feathers white as hard snow, the sequins singing and winking in the lights. For a second she lowered her eyes and slowly caressed her raised, poised arm. The theatre was still. She could only hear the sound of her own breath. She had entranced them. Slowly she raised her eyes and paused before the lights became warmer and the sudden notes of the brassy jazz blasted out a cue for the dancing girls to join her on the stage.

She performed that routine from theatre to theatre for a whole season. The bodice began to smell of her sweat and became stained with powder. The sequins cracked and the occasional one hung loose on a thread dropping onto the stage as she shimmied. After a season of wear it was good for nothing but trimmings yet she packed it away with care as though it was brand new. Tonight as she held it close to her cheek it no longer smelt of her but of age and dust. As she lifted it to the light it fell apart in her hands, the silver sequins cascading onto her lap. She felt ashamed, ashamed of her pride and of the fact that even her special thing was no longer special, just rotting and useless like herself. She brushed the sequins off in a huff and stuffed the garment into a plastic bag filled with cigarette butts and last night's dinner and unceremoniously threw it into the rubbish shute.

Not Moving to Eastbourne- Exerpt 1

Lilian came to London dreaming that the streets were paved with gold, now her lungs rattle under the pressure of too many cigarettes. Tonight is her last night in London, by the morning she will be with her dead lover. She is leaving through choice, before they put her onto a machine or even worse into a home. As she smokes her cigarettes she dreams of her death away from the city, away from the box she lives in, away from her wheezing body. As she smokes she closes her eyes to the pains in her chest. She knows she shouldn’t as her lungs are beginning to constrict, every breath now is difficult and walking is becoming even harder but Lilian is seventy five and alone and they are her habit, her treats, her consolation. And so as she waits for the kettle to boil, she pulls the gold packet from her dressing gown pocket, the lighter from its place on the shelf by the tea caddy and lights a cigarette. She coughs and it disgusts her the way the phlegm rattles. She is coughing so hard that she can no longer enjoy it, her whole body is convulsing and she drops her cigarette burning a hole in her jade, silk dressing gown. She begins to cry hard, desperate tears as the cigarette lies smoking on the floor.
“It’s only a hole” he would have said , “ no harm done, no point crying over things that don’t matter”.

Everything matters to Lilian now. Every stick of furniture, every shoe and stocking reminds her of the past, she is living in her own museum and this dressing gown is catalogued under a time when she was happy.