Written by Lucy Babidge.
A dress form, standing to attention. A needle winking, sewing fabric into a blank, smooth, body, which doesn’t bleed under its sharp point. A flat canvas births edges and corners that soften, cling and breathe shape into the lifeless form. The fittings move from block to body, and the movement starts, incessant taking out and letting in. A pin prick pools a tiny drop of blood, creating a mark which will be carefully folded into the seams. Her initials are carefully stitched into a small label, while stray hair, a fallen eyelash, trap themselves in rivers of thread, spelling her name along the bias and drape and my form. All to be worn just once, so carefully, then wrapped up in fine pink paper, alongside stockings and a pair of gloves. Kept at the top of a cupboard, I wait to be remembered, for an occasion that never comes.
From this shelf to another, pulled down and up and down again, till rough hands decide, what’s old can be new again. Cream turns to blue in a bathtub, a spot missed here and there from the phone ringing, a voice calling from the hall. The colour bothered her, as if she could see the pale skin and sadness rippling underneath the linen. Pins scatter all across my bodice, marking tiny holes which will never close. The old initials are unpicked and replaced by a label, soon ripped out as well, too childish. I can feel so many new sensations brushing past, the heat of an iron, a cigarette burn, a hand slipping in the bodice, underneath the skirt. Sometimes these things trap themselves between threads, get stuck in the zipper, or they just blow right through, rustling my fabric like a breeze. It’s not long before the blue becomes too bright. She thinks, I’ve worn this too much, not able to remember just why she picked me up in the first place.
Years later, I get picked up off the rack of an old charity shop; colour faded slightly, half zipped, bottom all crumpled like a gesture. This one thinks, maybe, the shade goes with her eyes, or she can sense it, you know some can, the way time buries itself in the darts and the creases. Not long and I’m out at a dance on a cool night, the kind that ices the cheeks but makes you sweat like nothing else. I can feel it, the heat trapped between her skin, me, the jacket. It’s spring, just after the first thaw, and a girl plucks a daffodil from the side of the path, gently pushes it into the buttonhole at the top of my bodice. Soon discarded, slid into the bedroom floor in a blue heap, I cradle the flower in between my folds. As her lover sleeps, she creeps over, picking it out, gently fingering the petals. She knows it will die before morning. As night passes the petals wilt and curl against me, leaving behind only a fine dusting of pollen, which slips its way into the grain.
Some things are filled with the intent to be lost. A button, second from the bottom, hangs to me by a thread. Teardrops from turned faces fall and bury themselves in the creases of my lap. The smell of perfume (she never asked its name) stains my collar. And through and through, pressing up through her chest into me, I can feel the warmth and speed of her beating heart. Here an imprint which joins others, all resembling, melting into one and another. Traces upon traces which hang in the air around me like a rumour. Memories tend to fold themselves into the orbit of objects, when there is nowhere living left to go.
Hanging in the back of a cupboard collecting dust, I know, soon I will go back into a bag, off to a friend or at least someone who thinks –– how nice, something new to wear. To be reborn is just to carry on the same, and find again the beaten track, but never at its start.
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