The Eleventh Birthday Suit

On the evening of her seventy-seventieth birthday, Ella Rose, stands naked, in front of the ancient wardrobe. In the mirror her reflection grimaces. Ella sticks her tongue out at it. She’s never been comfortable with her body shape, and usually doesn’t view herself naked. But humans renew their skin every seven years. It’s time to shed this cycles casing. The mildewed mirror, warps the image, making the frown on Ella’s face more desperate. Pinching a roll of flab at her midriff, she hears her mother’s voice echo from the past, ‘if you dwell on your imperfections, you’ll be there a long time.’ The voice has laughter in it, but Ella had never found the words amusing. Thank goodness she’d met someone like Myrtle who’d appreciated her, whatever. But seventy-seven isn’t something Ella wants to celebrate. There’d been no party this year, she’d not even opened a bottle of wine. She hasn’t felt like celebrating, not since Myrtle died. The wardrobe creaks as Ella opens the door. Taking a step back, she coughs as wafts of dust, smelling of time, wrap around her. As the cloud clears, from the gloomy interior of the wardrobe, she can see her previous ten birthday suits hanging. The wardrobe is large and had once seemed cavernous but now the suits fill it, hanging like shrouds. She brushes her hand across them; they tremble beneath her fingers, clinging like cobweb. Gripping skin flaps above her ears; slowly, being careful not to tear the fabric, she peels off her eleventh birthday suit. This year’s is greyer more fragile than the ones before. She rolls it down over her shoulders, then her chest. It catches as it pulls the scarring on her right breast bone, making her gasp. She removes the covering from her arms and fingers, peeling the skin away like evening gloves. Her flesh appears to have been dragged downwards, with each passing year. It circles her waist like a rubber ring, making her sigh. But she’s got used to the scar where her breast had been, not like at seventy when it made her cry, comparing it to her sixty-three-year suit. That suit isn’t beautiful either but still has the swell of two breasts. Finally, she removes the membrane from her feet and steps out. Lifting the new addition up, she tries to straighten it on a hanger but it remains wrinkled and greying. Her seventieth suit appears hunched as if trying to cover the scar across the breast. The scar is bumpy and rough under her fingertips, when she touches it. Tears well in her eyes as she remembers her last days with Myrtle, how she had caressed that damaged place. Myrtle had loved every inch of Ella’s body. Not minding the changes. Always less critical than Ella at wrinkles and blemishes. ‘They all add up to you,’ Myrtle said. But now she isn’t here. Some days Ella has difficulty getting up in the morning and carrying on. She’d met Myrtle later in life, in her fifties. An amazing, unexpected happening. A magical coming together, as if Ella had been waiting for the meeting all her life. Unlike the others, the fifty-sixth birthday suit, carries an air of happiness about it, as if ready to leap from the hanger and dance. Ella hardly recalls her early years. The first suit hangs there like a mini alien. It doesn’t have the curves of a chubby child, but that’s what Mother had always called her. ‘You’ll never get a husband if you’re a fatty.’ Her mother had been stick-thin, and had a husband once, Ella’s Daddy, but he wasn’t there when Ella was growing up and she’d always felt different from her friends, even at seven. Her teenage suit, has a couple of scrapes on the knees where she’d fallen off her bicycle. ‘Don’t make a fuss,’ her mother said, as Ella had cried at the sting of antiseptic. There were chicken pox pock-marks on the forehead. Mother had scolded Ella for scratching the blisters but she hadn’t been able to stop. To Ella, the pock-marks had seemed like craters. When Ella complained about the disfigurement, Mother tutted and told her not to be vain. Ella touches the forehead of the teenage suit, shuddering at the anxiety those marks had once generated. As she reaches out to touch the twenty-first suit, a shiver chills her fingers, the suit resisting her touch, almost retracting. Much as if wanting to blend into the back ground as Ella had when she reached adulthood. A perennial wall-flower. She remembers that awkwardness; wanting to hide. Lifting the suit’s hand, she smoothes the blade slash ridging on the wrist. Then lets it drop, rubs her renewed seventy-seven-year-old wrist, feeling the scar like a bracelet, even though the mark is now barely visible. The twenty-eighth suit, has a purplish tone and slumps unhappily. Her heart hammers, pounding in her chest as she notices the bloom of bruising imprinted there. The heat of embarrassment flares through her, as memories flood at her stupidity. Getting together with a man in desperation, rather than face being, ‘a pathetic spinster,’ according to Mother. She’s erased his name, but memories haunt her, buried deep as the tattoo-like discolouration marking that carapace. Those desperate years are exposed in the thirty-fifth suit which hardly exists. A lace of sepia tissue, shrivelled compared to the others. She’d starved herself, trying to disappear from the world. Tears fall, she gulps a breath, overwhelmed by the sadness of that time. She’d rebounded from those years into a workaholic. The next suit is almost rigid, the shoulders wide as if wearing the power dressing jacket of the era. Ella had taken up running as well, no spare tyre then, the abdomen firm, the calf muscles swelling. The following suit is similar, but has an edging of rusty guilt. Mother on her deathbed, croaking in accusatory tone, ‘My biggest regret, is that you never made me a grandmother.’ It’s a regret for Ella as well. She places her palms on her barren belly, and chokes back a sob. The sob becomes a chuckle, though it catches in Ella’s throat. She fingers the fifty-sixth suit sensing its different texture to the others. The memory of meeting Myrtle, always cheers her up. Ella was speaking at a business meeting in Rome. Even after years, she hated public speaking. She’d worked hard to avoid looking terrified. Her fingers had trembled as she collected her papers, putting them carefully back in her briefcase. The thought of how she would spend another lonely night in a foreign city made her stomach hollow. She always avoided eating before a big speech and hunger gripped her insides like hands kneading dough. Audible rumbling emerged and Ella had looked up, her face pink with embarrassment, when she realised somebody was watching her. Myrtle was a rainbow vision in kaftan silks, smelling of patchouli. Ella expected some derogatory comment about her speech, and pursed her lips in preparation. But then Myrtle beamed at her, the smile enveloping Ella with warmth, as she announced, ‘Miss Rose, I am taking you for dinner.’ She’d put a warm hand on Ella’s arm, each finger heavy with sparkling rings. Ella’s mouth had been so dry with the shock of the proposal, that she hadn’t been able to respond. For the next three days, Myrtle played tour guide. They’d visited the Colosseum, Pantheon and Forum. Myrtle had regaled her with stories of Roman life, which may or may not have been true. Myrtle’s voice was deep and smooth, like a fine red wine. She made Ella laugh. Their laughter complemented each other’s, Ella’s a higher pitch, so together they blended into a beautiful song. Ella couldn’t remember ever being so happy. In the evenings they’d walked by the river, watching starling murmuration drift in the air like shifting gauze. They’d eaten in trattoria and restaurants tucked away in cobbled side streets, places which Ella would never have discovered on her own. For years she’d not bothered about food, cooking for one, a chore. She licks her lips, thoughts of those meals in Rome making her salivate. Remembering candlelit dinners, sharing a spoon, the slip of gelato on her tongue. Every morsel had filled her with delight. On their final evening, they’d made love. It had felt like being renewed from inside out. Ella leans into the fifty-sixth suit inhaling the scent of patchouli still captured there, allowing the odour to fill her. This skin feels softer than the others. Tears dampen the membrane as she remembers Myrtle. They’d had twenty wonderful years together but then Myrtle died. An embolism, wiping her out as swiftly and unexpectedly as she had arrived in Ella’s life. She’d appeared like a fairy godmother, but had gone just as suddenly. Ella grips the wardrobe to keep her upright, her knuckles white against the mahogany wood. Aware of a cloud of loneliness encircling her, the dust from the wardrobe a smothering cloud. Squeezing the breath out of her. She wipes her arm across her face, smearing tears away. Takes a deep breath. Mother would have said, ‘Pull yourself together,’ and then continued with a, ‘Count your blessings.’ And Ella knows she should be thankful for those special years with Myrtle. She fingers the suit she’s just hung up, memories of Myrtle’s touch remaining, penetrating even deeper than scars. As Ella closes the door, she looks at her body in the wardrobe mirror, sighs and shakes her head, grey hair tickling her face. She grabs her satin dressing-gown from the floor and slips it on. But she doesn’t move, because she’s certain she hears a voice. Myrtle’s voice. The low silky tone, resonating as the fabric rustles against her skin. ‘Still so beautiful...’ it whispers. In the mirror, Ella’s reflection smiles.