Mannequin

Photo courtesy of Lorraine Margaret.

Barbara Millicent Roberts wriggled her toes into her high heels, smoothed her pencil skirt over her slim hips and leaned into the hallway mirror to reapply her lipstick. Squinting at her reflection, she smoothed an arched eyebrow and gave a self-satisfied smile.

“Not bad for an old gal,” she murmured in a sassy but still respectable mid-Western drawl.

Though she’d never confess her age or give in to the demands for comfort her body made as the years went by, she couldn’t help thinking back to her New York debut as a teen model back in 1959. What a knock-out she’d been, with her bouffant hair, chevron striped bathing suite and high heeled mules for poolside elegance. She still was, she noted with pride. No sensible shoes or baggy trouser suits for her, thank you very much.

Mincing into her all-pink vanity suite (nothing so pedestrian as a bathroom), she stooped to place the tell-tale Tena packaging and tube of varicose vein cream at the very back of the cupboard, far beyond where Ken’s prying but increasingly myopic eyes would reach.  A tress of platinum blond hair escaped its bobby pin as she stood up, but she decided to leave it untamed, to give her a gamine look she knew men loved so.

Ken liked to find her looking ‘natural’ when he got home after a long day on the golf course.

He also expected a perma-grin and smooth forehead on the face of his loving wife of all these years. Fortunately, Barb had that taken care of – thanks to monthly visits to that nice man down town with the syringes. A frozen expression of pleasantry was a small price to pay, wasn’t it?

A white Angora cat twirled figures-of-eight round her elegant ankles as she entered the all-American, fully equipped kitchen. Barb opened the door to the garden but was met with a malicious stare from the feline. She got the message, opened a tin of tuna and scooped it into the bowl on the floor. As she did so, a discreet ladder ran unfelt up the leg of her pantyhose.

Time to prepare dinner. Ken liked his meals to be ready on the table when he walked through the door. Barbara tied a frilled apron round her neat waist, smoothed the material against her heaving (yet strangely still pert) bosom and opened the door to the freezer. Tuna casserole or chicken pot pie? Running a manicured index finger along the spines of the neatly stacked TV dinner boxes, she counted how many were left of each tasty selection (wouldn’t do to give her man the same meal two days running, would it now?). Tuna casserole it was then. With just the merest of tremours, she removed the tray from its packaging, delicately pierced its membrane and placed it reverently in the microwave, ready to zap when she got the call that Ken was on his way home.

Meanwhile, it was time to gather in the washing from the line in the back yard. She sighed as she spotted her neighbor, Crazy June, sitting in her sun lounger with a scandalous Long Island Tea in her hand. With her shapeless shorts, ludicrous sunhat, and weather-beaten wrinkles, June was everything Barbara tried so hard not to be. And yet, she always had a glint of mischief in her eye and a big grin on her face. And she was always trying to rope Barb into some escapade which would certainly chip her nail polish.

Plastering a plastic smile on her lips, she gathered her laundry basket and tippy-toed out into the yard. The clack of her heels against the crazy paving betrayed her presence and June looked up from her book.

“Hey, Barbie girl,” she cawed, leaping up and galloping to her open kitchen door. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She emerged with a second tall glass of the lethal amber liquid tinkling with ice and handed it over the picket fence.

“There’s a Woodstock Reunion at the Seniors’ Club in a while. How about you and me dig out our old love beads and hit the scene?”

Barb managed to hide her sneer of distaste at the sight of June’s greying brassiere strap as her too-big t-shirt slipped off her shoulder. She smiled sweetly and took a sip from the glass, hiding a shudder as the strong taste of alcohol hit her palate like a block of concrete wrapped in a slice of lemon. She remembered the late ‘60s – she still had the psychedelically-patterned bell bottomed and teetering platforms to show for it – but had no desire to re-visit those days. June, on the other hand, probably didn’t remember much of them at all.

“I don’t think so, June,” she said. “Ken will be home soon and you know he likes us to spend our evenings at home.”

She turned smartly, and headed towards the perfectly hung laundry now dry on the line. In her haste to escape her friendly but slovenly neighbour she snagged her skirt on a rose bush (pink, of course). Gathering in the linen, she smiled coldly, took her drink with a promise to wash and return the glass and headed inside.

The phone was ringing. It was Ken. Still at the golf club. He’d run into an old friend and wouldn’t be coming home til late.

“Don’t wait up, honey,” he cooed down the line. “You need your beauty sleep.”

That was it. Five innocent words. But words that made the usually rose-tinted Barb see red.

She downed her drink in one swig, swiped an angry tear from her immaculately made-up eye, took the tuna casserole from the microwave, dumped it on the floor and stormed upstairs. Five minutes later she came down, resplendent in bell bottoms and love beads, and called out the kitchen door.

“June! I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go, sister.”

But not before she took her pink ballpoint and wrote a note to Ken in looping letters on the message pad on the refrigerator:

Dear Ken,

Your dinner’s in the cat, and I’m finally having a life.

If you have a problem, you can kiss my plastic behind.

Barbie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Barbara Millicent Roberts was last seen getting into a camper van with a Joe Cocker lookalike after her on-stage Joplin homage at the West Sweetings Seniors’ Centre. If anyone knows of her whereabouts, please call Ken Roberts on the Pink Alert hotline, sponsored by Mattel, on 555-……

Gargoyle

From here, I can see the whole city spread out before me like an ant’s nest stamped open by an angry boot. 

Tiny figures scutter to and fro below – hungry for power, thirsty for revenge, or just trying to reach the end of their day in one piece. Some happy, some hungry, some in despair, some plotting - and all utterly unaware of my existence.

From my position high above the Square, I watch them, observe them, feed off them.

It’s what I - and my kind - have always done.

Once, our grinning grimaces could only be found high on the spires of churches – supposedly as a momento mori that the wages of sin were death, and worse in the ever after. But we’re living in an increasingly secular world, so we had to branch out to get our sustenance.  

Now, we grace the citadels of capitalism and churches devoted to greed and consumption. The pickings are much richer.

From my spot atop the city’s most exclusive hotel, I survey the big house where lawmakers talk endlessly, stage petty theatrics and issue edicts that most of them will never obey. 

The building itself is of no interest to me. Its energy is dulled by a miasma of damp, flaccid words floating over its roof.

But the Square in front of it, that’s a different matter. Emotion bounces off it like a manic pinball machine, like the ones I spent hours playing during my misspent youth. Before I became.

Sometimes, when music or laughter fills the air, my clawed feet shrink back and connect with the ground, like they did back them, long decades ago. Other times, the red mist of outrage takes my transformation one step further.

Last night was a good night. Anger was already buzzing in the air as the Square filled with the disillusioned carrying home-made banners and chanting their frustration like a mantra. I licked my stiffening lips in anticipation.

A rush of excitement as a group of black-clad men with flags on suspiciously thick flagpoles marched in. A shift in the air, like a haze of hate, hit me from the street below, bringing with it the metallic scent of violence. My nostrils twitched, and I felt a flutter beneath my bent-over shoulder blades.

A new scent joined the cocktail. A blaze of light and heat exploded at the feet of armoured police snaking their way across the Square.  My spirits soared as the fires of hostility burned brightly and angrily. And although their flames and anger dissipated after a while, it was not before I had drunk my fill and grown stronger than before.

Yes, last night had been a good night. I had fed well. 

A few more nights like that, and I could finally be strong enough to spread my leathery wings, release my grip on the marble precipice and break free.

Just a few more nights…

When words fail or flounder…

I never thought that I, of all people, would say it, but lately there are just way too many words. 

We’re bombarded by them on all sides. 

And yet, none of really them seem to say anything.

I’m in Athens, for heavens’ sake. The stage against which an epic saga of betrayal, ruin, dashed hopes, possible redemption, crime, punishment and the flaying of the human spirit is being played out before our very eyes, pages and screens. 

Where stereotypes speak louder that facts, and the roar of incensed coffee-shop debates drown out the buzz of summer’s cicadas.

But, instead of wallowing in the soup of syllables, I find myself in a state of linguistic paralysis.

You’d think that one of the benefits of these ‘interesting times’ we’re living through would be plenty of material for a word nerd like me. 

The problem is that there so many talking, shouting, screaming, pontificating about the situation here in Greece that I’m reluctant to dive in and add my few drops to the raging maelstrom of comment, analysis, observation, drum-banging, agenda-pushing and downright propaganda.

What, after all, can li’l ole me add that hasn’t already been done ad nauseum (in most cases) or much better (more rarely) by so many others?

That’s why, dear readers, things have been rather quiet over at Shemeanswellbut… Central lately.

That paralysis has even crept itself into my story-teller alter-ego. Like some kind of spiteful incubus sitting on my shoulder, whispering sour nothings in my ear about why anyone would want to read the narcissistic burblings of a mid-life scribbler. 

Assuring me that no idea I have ever had is original and that if I were to bump into Stephen King or Victoria Hislop with a sample of my stories, they would urge me – no, BEG me – not to give up my day job but to cast aside any creative writing delusions I may have.

I’m ordinary, boring, with nothing new to offer the world of readers, according to the hisses of that fiendish imp. 

About as fresh and exciting as a Marks & Spencer six-pack of white cotton high waist knickers. 

Practical, certainly. Functional, for sure.  Comfortable, probably. 

But comfortable is the last thing that anyone with literary pretensions should aspire to, surely?

OK, you can relax. I’m not about to launch a literary assault of fetish thong proportions to rival ‘Fifty Shades’ (even us cotton briefs of the linguistic underwear drawer have standards – and they’re about quality of writing, not salaciousness of subject material).

But, there is a little part of me that is thinking of 'going commando' for the rest of the summer. 

Instead of gathering my words safely together under the secure caress of cotton comfort, I’m thinking of letting them all hang out and damn the consequences.

I’m going to need your help, though. 

I need YOU to give me the push, the prompt, the shove, the challenge.

Give me a word a day, and I’ll try to repay with a few hundred, hopefully arranged in the kind of order that might make you laugh, cry, nod in agreement, shout in protest - or even just think a little bit.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about the ‘commando’ bit.

June is busting out all over!

One of the down-sides of being a girl is that every now and then you have to make a foray to the shops for 'the perfect bra'. Not just the perfect bra (and the perfect fit) for our own individual assets but also the perfect bra for every outfit, every occasion, every season, every mood.

In the summer, that usually means strapless.
And that means wading through a series of contraptions that make you look like you've got a pair of padded pyramids, ice cream cones or a couple of ballistic missiles strapped to your chest.

Though I am a well-rounded lass in every sense of the word, my boobs are among the better-behaved parts of my body. They're still sort of where nature originally placed them...   well, they're still closer to my chin than my waist anyway. I'm not used to being especially busty. They're definitely there, no denying that, but not in any high-profile in-your-face sort of way.

These days, I find the ever-growing array of FFs & GGGs et al (you know, the ones that look more like highly ornate crash helmets for Siamese twins)  a little scary. I don't recall there being so many of them when I first started shopping for something more than just moral support, but now the frillies section of your local M&S is swamped with the things in a variety of shapes, colours and a titillating selection of designs that bear no relation to the 'sensible' support we were urged to opt for way back then (good news for naturally well-endowed girls, of course). 

I find myself bewildered at the sheer range of colours, patterns and frills being thrust in our faces the minute we enter the lingerie section.

Maybe I'm just boring and too well advanced in years, but all I really want is something that will hold everything where it's supposed to be, make sure they stay there for most of the day and not cut off my circulation in the process.

Wooing my man with frills and flounces? Well, let's just say His Nibs has been with me for more than a quarter of a century and he has seen my underwear collection at its very best (racy black and red lace basque) and its very worst (thousand-times-washed, once-white-but-now-greying utility melon tamer teamed with saggy knickers).
So far, he hasn't run for the hills yet.

Most of the time, I just want something that will sit discreetly beneath my shirt, not day-glowing through the fabric to shout out its design and features, but just do its job and hold the girls in check. A bit of a challenge in these days when we're spoiled for choice.

Another thing, can anyone tell me whose boobs most of the moulded cups are modelled on? I was under the impression that most breasts were round-ish (mine certainly are). So why, oh why, do so many bras seems to have ambitions in the conical direction? Most off-putting. Madonna and Jean-Paul Gautier have a lot to answer for.

Whether you are super-sized or a bog-standard C-cup, it can come as a bit of a shock to my system to look down when wearing one of those shaped, padded bustenhalters and nearly poke your eye out on one of your own boobs!

If you're not used to it, it's very weird to feel like your breasts enter the room 5 minutes before you do. You feel like your body has been invaded by Jessica Rabbit or you've morphed into a reincarnation of Jayne Mansfield. Not a bad thing in itself, but definitely unnerving when you’re not used to, or keen on, being defined by your mammaries.

I could just slap on the strapless, get dressed, walk out the door and get on with my life without a second thought. And, believe me, that's what I try to do - until I catch a fleeting glimpse of myself in a mirror or a shop window, and then it’s like "What the...? Where did they...? How the hell did that happen!?"

But, there are advantages. On those days when you just don't have enough hands to do everything at once, you can simply wedge your frappe (iced coffee) glass into your heaving cleavage (bbrrr!), add a long straw - and hey presto! You're free to get on with things and enjoy your caffeine-kick at the same time. Look Mum, no hands!

Summer is coming (at least here in Greece - he, he, he!), and with it the strapless, backless etc. tops that let the warm breeze tickle your pasty flesh after the long winter under wraps.

Let's face it, most of us girls need all the support we can get.

Come what May?

May is usually one of my favourite months of the year - but as its last few hours tick away on my oversized kitchen clock that thinks it belongs in a 1950s rural railway station, I must confess that I'll be quite happy to see the back of it.

I spent most of the month immobile, sprawled on the sofa, hobbling about on crutches and later limping around pathetically. 

It's not my natural state.
Usually, despite the evidence of my bulky bod, I'm in a state of fairly constant motion - getting up frequently to attend to some forgotten chore, striding down the street with a camera in my hand or hands in my pockets, plodding doggedly away on the treadmill most days in a bid to to ensure I'm healthy (if not hot) before the dreaded Big M hits. 

But that's just what landed me in the state I found myself in. 

It was the first Monday of May, and I was halfway through my morning commute from one of Athens' northern suburbs down to the port of Piraeus after a restful long weekend. 

The sun was shining, birds were singing, there was still a fresh spring chill in the air, and I was ready for the week ahead. After taking the Metro down to Monastiraki, I made my way up to the platform for the electric railway line down to Piraeus, to see the train doors closing. After a split-second inner debate, I decided not to throw myself at the doors at the last minute, but wait for the next train to come along.

But then, the doors opened again....

....and I decided I could make it after all.

There's a reason why most middle-aged women don't run for the train. 

There's also a reason why they say "Mind the gap".

I did. And I didn't.

As I sprinted those last couple of metres to the train, my left foot failed to land on the platform, or the carriage floor, and landed firmly in the gap, sinking up to just below knee level as the forward motion continued taking the rest of me forward.

I can now attest to the fact that those stars and exclamation marks you see in cartoons do exist. They make their appearance along with an exclamation of pain that explodes somewhere in your body.

But it was probably my pride that was hurt the worst - especially after some kindly fellow-travelers helped haul me to my feet and I managed to take the few steps to the seat one had helpfully vacated for me.

"Well, that made me look like a prize idiot," I thought as I rubbed my shin and assured those around me that I'd be fine. "If I could walk on it, I can't have broken anything."

By the time I reached the office, I wasn't so sure. 

An hour later, I couldn't even hobble to the toilet or bend my knee, and I was starting to worry that I had done some real damage. Cue a phone call to the long-suffering Ovver Arf begging him to come and get me.

Like a knight on a white charger (well, actually in a slightly grimy car) he arrived 90 minutes later, having battled Athens' Monday morning traffic, looking suitably concerned. He whisked me off to our local hospital, only to be told that A&E wasn't working that day and directing us to the hospital that was accepting patients. Another couple of hours passed in which I was steered round a maze of beige and green corridors in a wheelchair kindly offered by a porter to various admins, doctors and X-ray techs, then back to the first doctor for the verdict.

I was lucky - by some miracle (perhaps because my body can be as stubborn as my mind), no bones were broken. I had, however, suffered a nasty trauma to the knee and shin, and all I could do was rest it, ice it and medicate the pain.

On finding out I'm from the UK, my friendly doctor couldn't resist teasing me that I of all people, coming from the land that first said "Mind the gap", would fail to do just that. I smiled, I laughed, I looked suitably sheepish - and I said a little prayer of thanks under my breath that I wasn't going to be out of commission for six months. After all, I'd only just paid a year's subscription at my local gym.

So that was my May. A little different from the usual late spring riot of walks, al fesco coffees and maybe even a dip in the sea. And a lot more boring.

But June's just around the corner. The crutches have been gleefully cast aside. Though still slightly swollen and limping a little, I'm walking normally. And I'm even planning on getting back (gently) to the gym.

And at least my mangled limb will give me an excuse to hide my chunky legs under long dresses as we welcome the summer.

Leaving home – or coming home?

Ever wondered what awaits those real-life Shirley Valentines who leave a life of expected conventionality and comfort for the unknown of a foreign land with a different language, very different habits and a squiggly alphabet?

Rebecca A. Hall’s debut novel “Girl Gone Greek” will give you some of the answers – from the point of view of Rachel, a young English woman who escapes familial judgement and the accepted mores of her homeland to become the newest English teacher in a Greek village. With nothing more than a sprinkling of Greek words to get her by. And in the midst of the worst economic crisis the country has seen for decades.

What Rachel discovers after arriving in the grimy capital and taking the bus out to the Peloponnesian village confirms some of her expectations, but defies most. Peopled with colourful characters, almost incredible but somehow entirely believable for anyone who’s ever had any contact with ‘real’ Greek society, Rachel’s tale is one of love for the country she discovers tinged with frustrations and confusions of the culture clash that awaits her.

The story is written in an easy, familiar style that had me nodding in recognition and chuckling in sympathy throughout. It’s like being told the tale by a good friend over a week of afternoons featuring delicious, sweet baklava and strong treacly cups of Greek coffee.

It’s a voyage of discovery of the Greece beyond the glossy pages of the holiday brochures and the alarmist headlines to reveal the reality of ordinary life for its people – their hopes, their dreams, their struggles, their dichotomies and, most of all, their lust for life. But perhaps, more than anything, “Girl Gone Greek” is Rachel’s tale of self-discovery as her time outside England removes her from the comfort zone that always felt vaguely like a straitjacket.

It finishes as her first year in Greece comes to an end, but somehow, you know that she’ll be back – perhaps taking delight in introducing her hyper-judgemental sister to the delights and frustrations of Greek life. And, as I finished the final chapter, I found myself urging Rebecca to get working on the next chapter of Rachel’s adventure.

You can order “Girl Gone Greek” as a paperback or Kindle e-book from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Gone-Greek-Rebecca-Hall-ebook/dp/B00YHQHQ14/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433008834&sr=8-1&keywords=girl+gone+greek

By George!

So, today is St George's Day. A day when about one-third of the Greek population celebrates their Name Day, and every red-blooded Englishman or woman proudly boasts his or her heritage.

Or not.

Old George is a popular fella. In addition to being England’s patron saint for some reason (more on that later), he is also celebrated in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia (the clue’s in the name), Greece (of course), Herzegovina, Romania and more, as well as in cities like Genoa (Italy), Beirut (Lebanon), Qormi and Victoire (Malta) and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Getting back to England, it has always struck me as strange how apathetic many of us (including me) are about our patron saint. Let's face it, despite the fact that he slayed a dragon, for goodness sake (no mean feat even in those heroic days of old), we English treat poor old St George a little bit like an embarrassing relative. Like the loopy old aunt you invite over for Christmas dinner ("She's got no-one else in the world, poor dear") who then proceeds to suck all the chocolate off the brazil nuts before putting them back in the box for other guests to enjoy. It's as if going around slaying dragons is really not the "done thing".

Like dear old auntie, St George is acknowledged, even loved, but we English aren't going to go out of our way to advertise his existence.

Not for him the revels our Celtic cousins put on for their saints. Just take a look at St Patrick's Day parades - and more - around the world on 17 March, or heady celebrations in honour of St Andrew by those from north of the border on 30 November. Even the Welsh wave their daffodils and leeks with gusto for St David on 1 March. As for the English, when 23 April rolls round, we read in the paper that it is St George's Day and say "Oh yes, so it is" before going back to the crossword.

That's not to say that English patriotism is dead - it just tends to be most visible at sporting events (at least the ones we manage to win) or by rabid isolationists with a sometimes shaky understanding of history.

Maybe that's the problem? Perhaps patriotism is now seen as the domain of hooligans, and demonstrative English pride is considered rather unseemly in polite society? I suspect that patriotism has been hijacked by those who flaunt their indigenous "British-ness" as a justification for open bigotry and thuggery, making it something rather inappropriate for ordinary moderate-minded folk.

I'm not hugely patriotic - and I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a Union Jack, Cross of St George or any other flag for that matter - but I am very proud of certain things about the English: our sense of humour; our tolerance (or even celebration) of eccentricity; the inexplicable rules of cricket; that our history has woven so many diverse cultural threads into the fabric of society; rolling green fields; Radio 4; our willingness to make fools of ourselves for a good cause; a decent cup of tea.

But as for going nuts in honour of a dead bloke on a horse, it just doesn't happen.

History shows that St George has no real link with our green and pleasant land. He was a soldier of the Roman Empire from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), who came to be venerated as a Christian AND Islamic martyr. According to legend, when an edict was issued in 303 A.D. authorising the systematic persecution of Christians, George was ordered to take part in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticised the imperial decision. As a punishment, he was tortured and decapitated, and became a martyr of the early Christian church….

….Hold on a minute, I hear you cry. What about the dragon?

What indeed?

The story of St George slaying the dragon probably first emerged during the Crusades, raising the romantic profile of a saint already revered in the Eastern Church. Apparently, a dragon had made its nest at the spring that provided water to the city of Cyrene in Libya. To dislodge the dragon from his nest for a while to gather water, the citizens had to offer a daily human sacrifice, chosen by lots. All was well, until it was the turn of a princess to be fed to the hungry dragon. Then, out of the blue, came St George (just passing through at a time when the life of a nobly-born maiden was in danger), who slayed the dragon and rescued the princess. The grateful citizens abandoned their ancestral paganism and converted to Christianity....
....and they all lived happily ever after.

Not a smidgeon of a link to England to be found anywhere in the legend.

I'm willing to bet that if it were not for the media reminding us, most English would not remember the exact date of St George's Day. Probably about as many of us who know it was also (very conveniently) the birthday of someone England can justifiably be proud of: good ole Will Shakespeare.

So, do poor old George a favour today and don't just raise a cup of luke warm tea to the Patron Saint of Apathy.

Instead, dust off your rusty schooldays Shakespeare, mutter "Once more into the breach, dear friends", and really think about where you’re going to put your all-important X when (if?) you visit your polling station on 7 May. 

Cast your oh-so-English apathy aside, and don't "Vote for change" (possibly the world's most over-used campaign slogan), just "Vote, for a change".