by Shirley Pendlebury
She’s standing with her back to me when I come out of the Folk Café in St James. On her T-shirt, between her shoulder blades in faded lime-green capitals, I read: Unlock the power of clothing. Shapeless white T-shirt, baggy brown shorts, grey Crocs and a floppy khaki hat—I ask you, where’s the power in that? She’s thirtyish, skinny with black bobbed hair and a sallow skin.
I’m a people watcher. They don’t watch me. I’m old, therefore invisible. Although less so since I close-cropped my hair and dyed it purple. Not the blue-rinse kind but the neon purple hair I see on tattooed girls in backless dresses with skimpy skirts. My hair gets attention, especially from coffeeshop waitrons. No more gesticulating and yelling for them to see me and take my order.
I walk through the railway subway to the tidal pool for a dip before wandering home along the catwalk. A wrinkled man stretches full length on the sand, his slack cock turned sunwards beneath his scants. He’s a regular. Below the beach huts, another regular, a young woman in a tanga, steadies her head between her hands, rises to a perfect yoga headstand. Three veiled women sit arm in arm on the pool wall, dabbling bare feet where schools of tiny fish dart and glint. I float on my back, gazing into a lucid sky.
“Unlock the power of clothing.” What can she mean? There’s no power in her clothing. It’s in the slogan. An invitation to an unlocking. Unlock the padlock that guards your body like a medieval chastity belt, firing desire and leaving it all the while unsatisfied? The very thought sends a thrill running between my breasts down to my navel, as I pull on my beach wrap and lace my sneakers to walk back home.
Words spawn ideas. From my damp navel, I drift to images of naval officers in crisp uniforms. Navy blue, though sometimes white, with badges and bright brass buttons. No need for unlocking here. Police, soldiers, nurses, surly officials at Home Affairs, even bank clerks and Checkers cashiers—all uniformed to lord it over us, to demand obedience. Remove the uniform and what’s left?
My mother, long dead, once told me that whenever she had to face up to her boss, she pictured him in his underpants. Stripped down to size.
Have you ever watched surfers wriggling out of their wetsuits? My friends and I used to have sunset suppers at Lucky Fish, where we sat facing Surfers’ Corner. The three Ps, our neighbours called us: Paula, Penny and Prue. Ridiculous name, Prue. I’m neither prudent nor prudish. From our perches at Lucky Fish, we watched as dripping men opened their car boots and tried to dry and change discreetly. First, a towel rubbed to wet hair, then sleek wetsuits peeled down to show shoulders then, further down, the tip of a bum slit. Upper body rubbed dry. A towel wrapped at the waist to prevent a full Monty revelation. This was our moment. With mouths full of slap chips, we three old women waited for the titillating slip of towel. When it happened, we cheered.
I don’t see them anymore. They’re both in frail care. Paula in Durban, where her daughter lives, and Penny just a short walk from me. I don’t visit her. Too depressing. She wouldn’t recognize me anyway. I’d rather be dead than be Penny. She’s off her rocker. Gaga. Lost her marbles.
Sometimes I think I may be losing mine. I go to a room to fetch something, then wonder why I’m there. Once I found myself putting my laptop into the fridge. A precise word or phrase vanishes just when I need it. I catch myself trotting out one of my grandmother’s clichés instead. Rein in the clichés, set them up in train like so many of Santa’s reindeers. Of course, my lapses of memory are nothing more than a scattered mind. Doing too many things at once. Daydreaming. Being in a dwaal.
“Nothing wrong with my cognitive functioning!” I tell Jim, repeatedly.
*
Jim’s still snoring when I set out to St James for a Sunday morning dip before the holiday crowds take over the beach. No such luck. They’ve made an early start. Minibus taxis from Khayelitsha are careening into the East Beach parking lot, chockablock with exuberant women and children. And an occasional man. By the time I reach St James, tents and umbrellas are up. Family groups are passing round flasks of coffee and tubs of syrupy koesisters. A swarm of ragged children is paddling under guard of a vast woman in a cerise sundress tucked into her bloomers to display her ballooning thighs. These are the summer crowds. In the winter, Sunday morning is the time of communal baptisms, when white-robed men and women walk waist-deep into the pool for a blessed saline dunking.
That girl is here again. This time barefoot, up to her ankles in the tidal pool and without her shorts. Her T-shirt, the very one, hangs halfway to her knees. As I wade past her, I read the slogan aloud and ask: “What does it mean?”
“Excuse me,” she says, turns her back on me and walks away. She gathers her shorts and shoes from the steps below the beach huts and disappears into the subway.
So, my questions go unanswered. Can anyone do the unlocking, or are the keys only available to the slim, tall, toned and young? Is it the wearer or the watcher who unlocks? And what will an unlocking release? Pandora lurks. Open her box, flee the consequences.
On my way back along the catwalk, I cross paths with a couple carrying prayerbooks. I’ve seen them before on a Sunday, going into St James Catholic church. He’s spiffy in a royal blue velvet jacket with tan leather elbow patches that match his shining head and polished shoes. She’s all African elegance in a patterned orange sheath with puffed sleeves, and orange pumps tied at the ankle with polka dot bows. I catch snippets of their conversation. French, I think. Must be refugees from Cameroon or Congo.
I’m hatching an idea. A way of testing my hypothesis about the slogan. Actually, I have two hypotheses. One: the girl is a sandwich board with an understated advertisement for something extravagant. Like the Cape Met. The Met’s theme for 2025, Couture Unleashed, dares racegoers and fashion mavens to dazzle and defy convention. Unleashing high fashion like a dog let loose at Zandvlei to dig after mole-rats or canter through shallow water, dragging coils of kelp to shore. Fashion unleashed while reins keep mares and geldings on track for the race.
Who will be the reigning queen among this year’s fashionistas? Keoagile Pheleu, described as “a first-time racegoer from Kimberley”, reigned as best dressed woman in 2024. Sunshine yellow frock, strapless with a plunging heart-shaped neckline and a wide short skirt like an open umbrella. An online photo focuses on her hat, a pale-yellow organza fascinator topped with what look like butterfly wings or the blades of a helicopter about to take off. None of that ‘let’s pretend we’re royals at Ascott’ stuff you used to see in The Sunday Times photos of the Durban July in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
I set aside the first hypothesis. Sure, I can dream up some dazzling apparel, but I have neither the cash nor the dash for the Met. My other hypothesis—or, rather, an idea that’s been brewing since I first saw the slogan—is one I can test. The thing is to do this without Jim getting wind of it.
Jim’s my husband. Or whatever they call them these days. Life partner? Significant other? My life’s peripheral presence? He’s a retired mining engineer and spends his days tinkering with cars, taking them apart, rebuilding them, collecting spares, leaving oil spills in the garage. He’s shorter than I am, not much hair left on his head. I’m tallish. Not your sweet little moppet of a woman. We still share a bed. Without a familiar body beside me, sleep is not easy; I’m forlorn, restless. Mostly, we go our own ways unless Jim suspects I’m up to something. Like cropping my hair and dying it purple. A vintage car may get some new spit and polish but not a vintage wife.
Clothes have long been an obsession for me. Not that I’m stylish or fashionable now. It’s what clothes do to other people and their bodies that interests me. These days, denim jeans, a soft shirt and sneakers are my daily dress. Still, I’ve kept my clothes from the years when style (my style) mattered to me. My wardrobe and two trunks in the spare room are packed with flouncy frocks, body hugging satin sheaths with thigh high slits, geometrically patterned miniskirts, shweshwe panel skirts, silk shirts and scarves. Plenty there to choose from for the test. Trouble is I don’t have the right underwear.
Never owned a piece of lingerie in my life. Cotton bikini panties and plain white bras don’t count. They haven’t the allure of lingerie, the luxurious intimacy of lace, silk or satin, cut and shaped to flatter, arouse or intrigue. Lingerie lingers in the space where fantasy confronts reality. Think of Victoria’s Secret or La Senza. Cape Town’s own Luna Intimates announces its Golden Hour Collection as one that captures “the ephemeral beauty and radiant glow of that fleeting moment when the sun kisses the horizon”. Each piece is “an ode to self-love and confidence”. So, is capture the key to an unlocking?
I browse online while Jim is in the garage with the loves of his life. I chance upon a YouTube of Ravel’s Bolero with two dancers. The repetitive melody and sinuous, teasing movements of the dancers fit the intimate fantasies that lingerie purveyors try to evoke.
I make my choice. Not for me the “captivating palette of shimmering champagne, luminous pearl, seductive satiny blacks” that the Golden Hour “unfolds”. (All these ‘un-’ words: ‘unlock’, ‘unleash’, ‘unfold’, ‘undone’, ‘unhinged’, ‘undressed’!) Passionate crimson best fits my plan. I place my order and request a special delivery date and time, on the day when Jim is going to Belville to visit a newly discovered auto scrapyard.
*
The Courier Guy hands me the package at the gate. As he drives off, I see Jim turning into our street. Damn fool coming back early when he’s always late. Inside the house, I ease my treasures from their box and hide them, still layered in tissue paper, in one of my trunks of old clothes. The box, I squash and slide behind my wardrobe.
Later when Jim comes in for sundowners, he asks: “What was that Courier Guy doing here?”
I hand Jim his whisky on the rocks. “Cheers!” I clink my glass to his. “Courier Guy? You mean the delivery company? Oh, the driver had the wrong address …wrong spelling of a street name …or something…”
“That’s odd. They’re usually smart about deliveries.”
“How was the scrapyard?” I ask. “Anything useful?”
“I didn’t go. Too much traffic. Mổre is nog ‘n dag.”
“But you will be going to Timour Hall this Sunday to that Classic Car Show?”
“You bet! Saturday for modern classics and Sunday for vintage. Come with me, Prue. It’s fun. We don’t need to be there before ten on Sunday so we can sleep in.”
I don’t answer.
*
At sunrise on Sunday morning, I creep out of bed to dress in the guest room where my movements won’t waken Jim. I check my image in the mirror. Perfect. Only my walking sandals spoil the effect.
As I close the front gate, Jim comes out in his pyjamas. “What are you up to, Prue?”
“I’m not up to anything. My usual Sunday morning walk and swim.”
“In that get-up?”
Raising the hem of my dress, I twirl, giving Jim a glimpse of my knees. I lean over the gate and peck him on the lips.
“See you later, alligator! Have fun at the motor show.”
At the end of the street, I look back. He’s still standing at the gate. Silly man.
In the parking lot at East Beach, the seasonal fruit-sellers are setting out their wares: A mound of watermelons, boxes of peaches, nectarines, green grapes, and litchis. The boss whistles as I walk past. “Nice dress, my la-dy!”
It’s an old party dress, in a silky viscose, with swirling patterns in turquoise, amethyst, sapphire and opal. The calf-length skirt flows, flirts and clings, taking direction from the wind, the rhythm of my stride and the feel of my first time-ever lingerie. An off-the-shoulder, plunging neckline displays what’s left of my once fine collarbone and my still fine cleavage. Tiny mother-of pearl buttons from cleavage to knees keep the dress closed and decent. A button locking.
I hike up the dunes. At the top, where dunes meet the raised promenade to the pavilion, a small brown boy, in a sky-blue sparkly uniform, poses next to a tall silver vessel. He’s wearing white boots with silver spats and a silver helmet with a long purple plume that sways in the wind. I pause to watch as a man attaches his camera to a tripod, adjusts the zoom lens and instructs the boy to look into the distance, no smiling. Neither of them takes any notice of me.
An unlocking needs a gaze, the more intense the better. The more numerous, the greater the power unlocked, I think. Watching for gazes. I follow the promenade along the beach, around Surfers’ Corner to the start of the catwalk.
It’s not just my cropped purple hair that makes me visible now. Clothing brands us like cattle, with the marks of ownership. Not self-ownership. We belong to the brand. My usual clothing brands me as a wandering old woman. To be ignored, humoured, patronised. Not so today. I sashay along the catwalk, past the lusting eyes of fishermen casting their lines from the railway embankment over the walkway, down to the waves.
Trudging ahead of me is a stocky woman in a rugby shirt. “Go Bokke”, it yells in bold white letters outlined in black against a dark green background. A springbok outlined in gold and white leaps diagonally across her broad shoulders. Clan clothing. Only a roaring crowd can activate its power. A uniform of national pride found in a winning game, along with brandewyn-laced naartjies and boetiedom, whatever your colour or stripe. All it takes is a winning world rugby cup to make us one. Wragtig?
*
Today the tide is pounding into the pool. Waves dash against the seaward wall. Children shriek in the turbulent water. What was it I came for? What am I doing here, leaning against a faded nautilus mural on the railway embankment?
A breeze plays at the hem of my frock, flirts round my legs. Ah, yes! That’s it. I loosen my sandals. Kick them off. Pause. Scan the beach. Close my eyes for a moment. Switch on my head. Wait for the first beats of ‘Bolero’ to pulse through my limbs. Then, tiny button by tiny button, I open the dress, glide it off my shoulders and set it free.
I step down onto the sand, watching to see who will respond to the call of my crimson lingerie. I unleash my allover lace push-up bra. Bare my ample bosom. Play on Bolero. I writhe to its quickening beat.
Two men in khaki uniforms walk towards me. Their trousers are tucked into calf-high boots, their holsters belted to their waists. Ignore them. Just watch me! Undulating to my mind’s music, I untie first the right, then the left satin ribbon of my side-tied lace thong, and let it fall to the hot sand.
“No, Mama,” says one of the uniformed men. He steps closer.
The music stops. Except for the wash of waves and cry of gulls, the beach is silent. The second officer picks up my dress. With his eyes averted, he tries to wrap it around me.
A third man—shortish, with a balding head and pressed white chinos—takes my dress from the officer. “I’ll handle this,” he says. He eases my arms into the sleeves, straightens and buttons the dress. He coaxes my feet into my sandals. He gathers my intimates, shakes out the sand and stuffs them into his pocket. The cheek of the man!
*
“Come Prue, let’s go home.”
He takes my hand and leads me through the subway. As we emerge, we meet that girl coming down.
“Excuse me,” she says as she passes us.
I turn to look at the back of her T-shirt. There it is: unlock the power of clothing.
“I did it!” I yell after her.
Jim squeezes my hand. “You stunned ‘em, sweetie.”
“Don’t you sweetie me.”
I feel his arm go round my waist. His warm fingers nudge the side of my stomach, as he guides me across the parking lot to the passenger seat of a car I’ve never seen before. A red convertible.
Jim’s looking mighty pleased with himself. He switches on the ignition. “Like it? It’s a Mazda-MX-5, first generation.” He rolls down the roof and we’re off.
Shirley Pendlebury lives, walks, writes and paints at the edge of Cape Town’s False Bay in South Africa. Since retiring from academic work and, later, freelance writing and research for non-profits, she has returned to an earlier love, writing short fiction and poetry. She also experiments with how creative approaches – verbal and visual – can enrich scholarly research, and vice versa
