(For Katie, who knows all)
" Do it yourself," I said when my aunt asked me to re-pin the flowers in the buttonhole of her jacket. I could see my mother's startled look. Though she disliked my aunt and knew I was difficult to control at times, she had thought that on Aunt Kitty's wedding day, which at last looked like passing off without too many recriminations, I might have behaved myself. But I had been awkward at the church, difficult at the meal and had refused to dance with the groom's brother afterwards. The groom was in his sixties, pale and ill-looking after my aunt had nearly danced him off his feet to the guitar, bass guitar and saxophone trio hired for the evening. My father had originally refused to accept the idea of this marriage, because of the groom's advanced age. Only relentless pestering by my mother had caused him to submit and turn up to give his sister away. As her eighteen-year-old bridesmaid, I was being much too obvious about being angry with my aunt Kitty and the funny thing was that I wasn't quite sure why I was angry now.
I had been sent down from Dublin a couple of days early to help my aunt get ready. It was hot Indian Summer weather nearing the end of August and we were sitting on deck-chairs in the garden of her cottage just two days before the wedding. I was wearing shorts and a light top and Kitty had on the old print dress she used for working in the garden.
She was a short, stocky woman with a rather masculine face, a square jaw and strong, straw-coloured hair. She must have been nearly forty and I didn't see her as particularly feminine or attractive. I had never stayed with her on my own before and normally my sister Jennifer would be there too, and Kitty ruled us strictly and made us mind our manners. I felt maybe in the last few days she and I were a bit closer that we had been before. That particular day we had been to Dublin in her car, visiting an expensive lingerie shop called "Madame Claire's" although I had been made wait outside while Kitty made her purchases.
"You've never been a bridesmaid before," she said now, "but I'm sure you know the procedure."
I nodded wisely.
"The bridesmaid has to do everything the bride wants. It's not lucky otherwise."
"Of course," I said. "That's what I'm here for."
"Good," Kitty said, smiling and patting my knee. She had strong but quite pretty hands with short, square-cut nails.
The sun was still high enough and she took up her straw hat from the grass and put it on, casting her face in heavy shadow.
"I'll want you to help me dress, of course, on the big day," she said.
"I'd love to do that, Kitty," I said.
I was dying to see her new outfit. Because of her age she wasn't having a white wedding and would be getting married in a jacket and skirt she had already shown me in her bedroom wardrobe.
"I never showed you the stuff I got today," she remarked. " Some of it's for the honeymoon, of course, but I need to check nothing shows through the suit."
"Yes, I know," I said, pretending I had a certain amount of experience in these matters.
In her bedroom she opened the expensive blue and purple bags from the lingerie shop, pouring out on the bed four stunningly beautiful white bras, two black ones and a couple more that were still in their boxes. She then produced half a dozen packets of expensive stockings and a blue silk garter. There were also a dozen pairs of panties, both plain and lace and a sort of light corset or basque in an exquisite black lace. "I put on a couple of pounds since I bought my suit," she said, "that's why I think I'm going to need this."
She held up the garment by the narrow shoulder-straps. It had high-cut legs and four dainty elastic and lace garter straps with delicate pink lace roses where the garters snapped shut.
"It's called a merry widow," she said and laughed, "Maybe that's what I'll be soon - he'll probably have a heart attack when he sees it.""
I couldn't imagine Aunt Kitty in these pretty things, but I said, "They're so,...adorable."
"I knew you'd love them," she said,"Mmmmmm" bending down and kissing me on the cheek. She'd never done that before and, without thinking, I gave her an answering peck on the side of her rough, tanned face.
"Before I try everything on," she said. "I'm going to get in the bath for a good soak."
"Okay," I said.
" Like to give me a hand?"
"What?" I gulped.
"Help to soap me?"
"No, Aunt Kitty, I couldn't," I said.
"You ARE my bridesmaid," she said. "wouldn't you like to wash me completely from head to toe?"
I was stunned.
"Please, Aunt Kitty," I said, "I'm VERY grateful to you for asking me, really I am..."
She reached out to me, smiling.
"Come on then."
"No," I said, panicking, "I mean, grateful to be your bridesmaid, but..."
Call it my background, if you like. Nuns had educated me. I had never seen a naked adult before, and I hoped I wasn't going to start now. I sometimes had fantasies about my brother and had spied on him a few times and he didn't know I'd seen him masturbating naked once. Sometimes, in my most secret thoughts, I'd thought I'd like to see my friend Edna naked, or Siobhan, the Head Girl we'd all had a pash on at school, but NOT Kitty.
Kitty looked a bit annoyed as if I was stupid or something, but she made a face and just grinned.
"All right, come back to me in half an hour," she said, pulling a towelling robe from the wardrobe. "I want you to check my seams for me and also that my hem is right at the back."
She collected some cream and a shampoo from her dressing-table and went out to check the water was hot enough in the tank in the airing cupboard.
For a few moments I fingered the exquisite undergarments, feeling a surge of envy that Kitty, normally a wearer of dowdy dresses and the cotton Aertex "unmentionables" I'd seen on the washing line, would wear these next to her skin. For half an hour I dozed in the armchair, watching the wisps of steam flick out thorough the half-open bathroom window. Last time I had been here on a day like this was in May and the Mayfly had been hatching on the lake half a mile away. They only lived for one day, mated and died, Kitty told me - the males anyway. That day they'd clung to the walls of the house in a black mass of wings and spidery legs and sometimes they lay in the yard where we crushed them accidentally underfoot. I remembered the strong, fishy smell they gave off, particularly because Kitty had said it was like the smell of sex. Kitty generally maintained the prudish demeanour of women of our culture, but I had begun to guess there was a more earthly side to her. I could hear her singing now in the bathroom. She had a good, rather masculine voice.
