‘Jessica,’ Grandma says with a calmness that seems to take a great deal of effort. ‘Undergarments are the fashionbeneaththe fashion. They will streamline your silhouette.’
‘My silhouette? What’s up with my silhouette?’
Grandma looks me up and down and purses her lips. ‘You are a littlewiry. All that running, I suspect. I would like you to appear softer, more curvaceous. This − ’ she holds up a piece of elasticy cream-coloured material that looks like some kind of Spanx skirt − ‘is a Spirella 206 girdle. It will smooth out your shape, in particular lifting the derrière. And this − ’ she hands me what looks like a very wide belt − ‘is a boned waspie. It will create anillusionof curves, giving you a twenty-three-and-a-half-inch waist.’ Grandma says this casually as if she’s not just suggested something anatomically impossible. ‘I had a twenty-three-and-a–half-inch waist on my wedding day,’ she adds proudly.
‘Yeah, well, Kylie Minogue has atwenty-three-inch waist,’ I retort. So there.
‘Twenty-four, actually,’ Grandma replies promptly.
How does she know that?
I step into the girdle and watch forlornly as Peach and Grandma struggle to roll it up over my hips like a too-small condom. When it’s finally in place, Grandma takes the waspie and wraps it round my waist.
It’s a bit tight, actually. Really quite tight.
‘Fuck!’ I yell as they tug at the corset and I realize that my breath is being taken from me against my will. ‘I thought you said I need the illusion ofmorecurves?’ I groan through the pain. ‘This is stealing all my curves!’
‘A Good Woman does not use such coarse language, Jessica,’ Grandma says impatiently, pulling at the waspie. ‘You will get used to it. It will be worth it. Beauty is often painful.’
Normally I’d agree – I’ve got eyelash glue in my eye on more than one occasion − but I feel like this is a wrong thing.
‘Now we are going to hook it at the top,’ Grandma says, panting with the effort of yanking and pulling the corset. ‘Peach, I’m going to need your help. It needs to be just a little tighter.’
‘Hook it? Tighter? It’s not fastened yet? Oh, Jesus.’
‘If we had more time we would have had a few practice runs to get your ribs used to the pressure.’
‘Ugh. This kind of restrictive shit says a lot about why I’m glad I’m a woman today. I shouldn’t be wearinganythingthat my ribs have to get used to.’
I feel myself go pale as Peach and Grandma tighten the waspie and hook the final eye, squidging my body into a shape it was not designed to be in.
‘A bra too?’ I huff as Grandma hands me the final piece of fabric – an odd, pointy sort of bra. ‘Surely nothing on earth is as good as my Wonderbra?’ I indicate my brilliantly pushed-up cleavage, so pushed up that it looks like I have Harry Hill and Harry Hill’s twin brother comfortably tucked inside.
‘This is not just a bra,’ Grandma says, sounding vaguely like the woman who voices the M&S adverts. ‘This is an original Delightex firming, lifting bullet bra.’
‘Sounds dangerous,’ I grump, still twisting with rib pain.
‘It served me well for many a year,’ Grandma says, a look of happy nostalgia flitting across her wrinkled face.
This isGrandma’sbra? Ew. No. I cannot.
‘You don’t even know if it will fit!’ I protest, eyeing the weird cone-shaped bra with horror.
‘36C,’ Grandma declares with conviction. ‘All Beam women are.’
She’s right. Iama 36C. God, please no. This is so wrong.
I reluctantly unclip my beloved silver Wonderbra and they turn away to give me my modesty, which I never have and don’t currently require. I pull on the weird pointy bra and clip it at the back. As I turn back round, I seem to lose all spatial awareness regarding my breasts and knock Peach into the wall with my left boob.
‘Oh mah goodness.’
‘Shit, sorry, Peach. I’m all uneven! Let me look – I need to see this.’
Surely I must look like a member of the circus by now. Boobs like road cones and a waist circumference smaller than my thigh circumference.
‘Just a little longer, Jessica, dear. Your look has to be perfect. A Good Woman is apatientwoman.’
Grandma takes a suspender belt from the big drawer and clips it round my waist. Man, there are so many things wrapped around me and I’m not even dressed yet. Grandma unzips the dress bag and pulls out a white cotton summer dress with a pale blue polka-dot pattern on it. The skirt is huge − all pleated and sticky-outy.
