The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2535 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad

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Cindy came early on the Saturday morning and after feeding little Lizzie and having breakfast, I took Cindy and Danni together with Trish and Livvie into the department stores to look for a suitable easy dress pattern and material. It took over two hours before we got both and finally Danni was happy with the design of the dress and the pattern on the material. We were working with cotton polyester because it’s fairly easy to machine.

The last time I’d been home to Bristol I’d brought my mother’s dressmaker’s dummy. Getting it from the loft brought back memories. I used it once with her and she’d shown me how to adjust it for size, bust, waist, hips and also height. It was a good one and a birthday present to her from my dad about three years before she died.

Mum was quite a good seamstress and she showed me the basics of using a sewing machine, hand stitching and a little about various fabrics. Anything knitted like jersey can stretch or pucker, especially on a machine. Silks and satins tend to slide, so if sewing two pieces together make sure they feed through together at the same rate. I learned the hard way, making cushion covers—she told my dad she needed me to help her do them, we had visitors coming or something. It was a fib because she could have made a dozen in a day, but we didn’t, instead we made four—or I made four under her tuition, and learned a lot about sewing. To think I actually protested to my dad about having to help her because I wanted to swot. He told me to do as my mother said—then went off to play golf.

The following week, he thought we were still making cushion covers when he went off to golf. So did I. We weren’t, she showed me how to measure, adapt a pattern, pin it to the material, mark the material, cut out and tack together. Finally, we did darts, zips and buttonholes.

We were of a similar size in height though she was a little bigger in bust and hips, unsurprisingly. She chose her time carefully. Dad was involved in a golf competition over in Chepstow and it ran all weekend. I didn’t know this as I tended to avoid him so I wasn’t being criticised or scorned all the time. On the Saturday, we did all the cutting out of the dress and tacked it together. I was surprised he wasn’t coming back for dinner, but she told me he was away so I had to make the meal and clean up afterwards.

Then instead of settling down to watch telly, her usual Saturday evening occupation, sometimes with her knitting, we continued with the dress. She’d asked Dad to phone when they were on the way home and she’d put the meat in the oven—it seemed we’d also know to clear up the evidence.

Under her guidance I sewed the dress seams together, then did the darts under the bust—how was this necessary for a boy, even one living on his own? But we did it. Next and it took a couple of hours, we put quite a long zip in, or I did, pinning and tacking, finally machining it. I was a bath of sweat after that.

We put it on the dummy and so far so good. The next day we put the sleeves in and stitched those on the machine. “Right, go and slip on the underwear you usually wear when you wear your schoolgirl uniform.”

“What?” I stood there like a zombie.

“You heard what I said, hurry, we don’t know when your dad will be home.”

I ran upstairs and did as she asked me, back down again and feeling very self conscious, I took the dress from her and stepped into it. She zipped it up behind me. I wasn’t sure what I felt as the zip tightened the material around me. She walked around me and bid me twirl while she watched and checked everything. “How’s it feel?”

“Fine,” I said in a small voice made squeaky by the frog in my throat.

She helped me take it off and told me to throw some boy stuff on top of my lingerie in case Dad came home early. Then we checked it for length on the dummy—it was above my knee, measured pinned and hemmed it. The last thing was pressing it before she bid me try it on again. Once more she checked it.

“Right, next time you play Charlotte, you’ll have something different to wear. You’d better go and change—and, Charlotte, we’ll keep this between just you and I, yes?”

I pecked her on the cheek and agreed, running upstairs in a dress I’d made I nearly collapsed in joyfulness. I didn’t get to talk with her about it, my dad arrived home and normality returned. I wore the dress once—I don’t know what happened to it, but it disappeared along with anything else I’d worn as my schoolgirl stuff. We never did speak of it—well that’s not quite true. I challenged her when she was defending my dad for his demanding I pretend I was a boy.

“So why did you show me how to make that dress, if you don’t believe I’m a girl?”

“Charlie, your dad shows you how to fix your bike, dig the garden and put up a shelf, it’s what he knows. I know how to keep house, cook and bake and sew. He’s passed on what he knows, so I’ve done the same. The fact that you can sew and cook doesn’t make you a boy or a girl, rather a more capable boy or girl. It’s called teaching you life skills.”

“I’ll bet no other boy in my school had made his own dress and worn it.”

She shrugged, “Pity, it might have saved their poor mothers some work. I washed your school shirts and trousers, you can iron them tomorrow.”

I always thought I was being used as slave labour, being too stupid to really appreciate what was happening. I was probably the only boy who had to iron his own uniform, frequently wash it as well. It did help me respect my clothes—I’d be less likely to damage or dirty them if I had to wash and iron them. My dad swallowed it. Me dirty my stuff—only when I got beaten up. Then she made me repair the holes and tears in it. Dad assumed it was a punishment for fighting—yeah, I was the school punch-bag most of the time.

Looking back, I realise she was teaching me her skills as a housekeeper. Did she really do it just to share her knowledge? Or was there a much deeper understanding of what was almost inevitable, that I would one day transition? I’ll never know for sure, but part of me likes to think there was. Dad liked to think he was cleverer than she was. He had a degree and was probably more academic she was more practical in lots of ways—he couldn’t sew on a button or do more than very basic cooking. When she died he had to get someone in to look after him until he had the stroke and I had to help him as and when I could.

“Come on, Mummy, I wanna get started on my dress...” Danielle broke my reverie. Did she know, was she operating below the radar? I guess I’ll never know for certain.