Boutique Mystique

By .GERDA

L. COHEN

Wtrtt infinite relief, I crawl under my um- brella; winter is soon here, thank God, to provide an excuse for not prolonging the ordeal. It began four years ago, when my bathing cos- tume faded until people said it was like tobacco leaf disease. A new one must be bought, urgently. After several months, I realised that in shop- ping, as with gardening, you begin backwards. Accordingly, December found me plunging on the summer models, but by the time I'd mastered their system of multi-coloured tags everything had gone except a doubtful polymer. The year after, I went back to hunt for a mauve hanger, but efficiency experts had improved the whole system out of all recognition. New Year's Eve impelled me inexorably towards the 42-inch- hip section. When a female lion-tamer bought the only one which fitted me—could there be any more doubt? I was psychologically unable to buy a bathing costume. Some infantile mishap at Brighton had evidently created an impediment.

Then our charlady, who wears exquisite tailored slacks and wouldn't be seen dead in an apron, gave me fresh courage. 'Ducky, you're bats to go within smelling range of a shop. Shops are too impossible. I'll let you have an introduction to my boutique.' She warned me not to use the word 'inexpensive.' Ask for budget models, ducky.'

The boutique had a Kensington address which turned out next door to a pub in Fulham. 'Have you got any bathing costumes?' I was confronted by someone with blue hair and no chin. 'Madame would mean . . . swimwear?' a thin smile vanishing into her neck. She led me to a cur- tained shrine. Her heels dug interesting perfora- tions in the carpet. 'I suspect,' eyeing me with coy venom, 'Madame doesn't know quite what she wants?'

'Oh, something plain,' I sketched a boat-like shape in the air. She took out an object no bigger

than an envelope. I felt it. cautiously: 'Does it er . . . expand?'

Instead of replying, she gazed at my hem (too high or too low?), then beckoned to another debutante, presumably from an inferior stud. 'Miss Champer, would you attend to this client?'

Miss Champer was at least eight foot high, with hair like shredded wheat. It kept on catch- ing in her teeth.

'Haven't a clue about swimmers,' she con- fided the moment her chinless colleague had gone, 'I'm in jhods, actually.' She yanked out a gar- ment of yellow canvas, wide enough to win a yachting race, I hesitated, 'Isn't that too large- ] mean outsize?' For heaven's sake,' she begged, 'we never mention outsize. Only Young Matron.'

Twanging the elastic of a lilac bloomer : 'Here's a divine thing. Wonder what it turns into?' Miss Champer loped about to find a cubicle, behind gowns for expectant mothers labelled 'mother- hood modes.' Just when we had organised the bloomer suit, a marmite-coloured dog burst into the cubicle, snapping at Miss Champer's leg. To my relief, it ignored me completely. 'Hell,' she said, 'it's the Hon. Violet's beagle. Always manages to pick up my scent.' The beagle attacked my synthetic fur boots, so Miss Champer inter- vened. 'Down Anthony, down! The Hon. Violet,' she told me, 'calls her pack after Tory front- benchers. She was a terrific Suez rebel, of course.' A dull roar swept through the maternity gowns. Anthony quivered. 'Hell, that's her inquiring for jhods. Must dash, come on, Anthony.'

Quiet at last, I put on the bloomer suit. Took off my snow boots to cultivate the right mood, and did a breast-stroke in front of the mirror.

The effect couldn't have been more appalling. When I reached backwards to undo the zip, it stuck. I tried to wriggle out, but the costume had a built-in undercarriage which would not budge. Lying prone on the floor, 1 attempted to peel it off. What about undoing a seam in the crotch?

Only a contortionist could get out underneath. Finally, I reclined on the rug to wait for Miss

Champer. With a radiator full on, it was pleas-

anter than the Costa Brava and more select. Pity I had no tan lotion, but someone had left a copy of

the Fruit Traders Gazette. Midway through an article on prunes, a welcome hand ruffled the cur- tain. Feeling gay and naturist, I called, 'How are the Hon. Violet's breeches?' The debutante with no chin thrust her blue perm inside. .

'Madame is quite suited?' Oh yes, of course,' stammering out my predicament. She laid an icy claw on my back, and the zip parted like the Red Sea. 'Madame has an account here?' 'No ... not yet.' I wrote out a cheque, cunningly planning to cancel it at the nearest bank.

'We do not deliver to your part of Kilburn,' she told me, patting her methylated tendrils. 'Madame will take it with her?'

Outside the boutique, I looked for an exit to return the goods without her trapping me. The carrier bag smelt unaccountably of aeroplane dope. I held it out, and saw drops of lilac glue oozing through the paper. It must have been that radiator.