Photo by Sara Puig Sanz on Pexels.

Writing inspired by the following Sunday Writers’ Club prompt:

Tell the story of mending clothes.

Tell The Story Of Mending Clothes

by La Ruche

Grandma slowly took her old, gold-rimmed glasses and put them on even more slowly, if slower than that was at all possible, on her nose. Then with trembling hands she lifted the beautiful dress Victoria had brought to her for repair. The elegant mid-calf dress was a piece of history grandma was holding in her trembling hands – no, not only a piece of fashion history but an important piece of their family history. This dress was a masterpiece of body decor. While some people reduce clothes to a means barely for covering or uncovering one’s body, others, especially people with some refined taste in fashion, know that clothes, if examined closely and made well, are a way to adorn human bodies. So-called old fashion is a marvellous example of how meticulously and thoughtfully clothes were made long ago. The buttons, the ribbons, the laces, the beads and many other embellishments when sewn together in beautiful patterns elevated the wearer’s elegance and aura to scandalous levels, which is clearly unattainable in today’s era of mass production fashion.

This dress also had all the characteristics of its epoch – the dress was of royal blue colour. Its raised collar had frills, and then laces of the finest craftmanship were going round around the neck, slowly descending and increasing in size until the bust. Around the waistline, the dress was modelled in such a fashion that it shrank narrowly, which gave a perfect contour to anyone who wore it – something every woman secretly wished for – and then it suddenly splashed out and opened like an umbrella. The waistline had beautiful bead work which served as a decorated belt. Around the hem of the skirt were laces again – precious ones.

Grandma examined the dress in great detail, for the work that was bestowed upon her was a thousand times more difficult now than it was many years ago. Anybody in their mid-90s can relate to grandma’s difficulties, as in how once menial tasks such as sewing can become monumental at her age. Nevertheless, Grandma took up the challenge Victoria had thrown at her. She started examining carefully what work needed to be done because her granddaughter said there wasn’t much to sew. The first thing grandma saw was the waistline where the stitches had come loose, and the pleats had popped out. Turning the dress around more and feeling with her hands, she found more places where the dress was ripped and had dried soil dust around the damage. Upon a little more inspection, the blue laces attached to the hem were also found detached and hanging loose.

“Oh dear, this dr-ess ne-e-ds many- a- work! How d-i-d you ha-pp-en to te-ar it in so ma-ny pla-ce-s, Vic da-r-l-ing?” said Grandma after about half an hour of thorough inspection. “You we-nt for bu-ll fi-gh-t-ing o’ so-me-th-ing li-ke th-ey do in Sp-ai-*?”

Victoria chuckled, and in place of a response she decided to offer her beloved granny something else completely.

“Shall I make you a cup of tea, Granny?”

There was no response as Grandma was completely absorbed in checking the dress still.

Victoria tried again, slightly louder this time. “Shall I make you…”

“Oh dear! By-all-means.” Grandma interposed. “Vic da-rl-ing, you don’t ne-ed to sh-out. My ea-rs are per-fec-tly fine.” None of us, until we get to this age, would ever understand the difficulty for us humans in admitting our aging limitations.

Victoria stood up and walked towards the kitchen. When she had achieved a reasonable distance from her grandma’s sewing table, she paused and turned around to take a good look at her grandma. There was her grandma, a chubby plump lady like all grandmas usually are. Her figure, her big figure, was a message that Grandma was a robust woman – or that’s how Victoria interpreted it – a big ship which took time to turn but hard to be destroyed. And that she was the mother of her mother. Grandma beautifully took up that place and space in the physical world too.

Grandma’s face was always bright and friendly. She was always calm and patient. There was an overall feeling of some old pleasant times in Grandma’s demeanour and her old house. Victoria loved coming here, especially when her heart was trouble as a young girl or as a young woman. It stands the same today. This woman who is now old was her only best friend and the longest lasting relation. Victoria, who wasn’t particularly good at making friends or relating to people, suffered with her situation since her childhood. She was often lonely as a young girl partly for her inability to make friends and partly for her parents’ decision to not give her siblings. Granny was always there, however. Grandma was her rock.

Now as a 30-year-old young woman, Victoria’s existing problem has not only failed to find a solution for itself, but has decided to make itself bigger instead. She has now taken upon herself the task of finding a suitable match. Unlike her childhood days when she lacked the courage to approach somebody, anybody – or the preparation to engage when approached by. She now considered herself, or faked it, that she is not the same person that she was. She isn’t the quiet shy girl who lacked confidence. Instead, she deemed herself full of confidence. Even though every dating rendezvous has had the same torturous effect on her body and spirit. It always started with her heart. Her heart palpating violently like a ship’s small flag fluttering violently in the ocean storm, non-stop. Heart has all the right to behave such, since it is the protagonist of any love affair. But what was incomprehensible was the rest of her body.

By the time she would receive the first message from the handsome candidate – or at least he looked so on his dating profile – Victoria had dropped her phone a million times, thanks to her hands that turned unsteady under such immense pressure of socialising. Not only her hands, but her brain also acted unsteadily by now. The reply to this invitation to meet from this handsome candidate always took so many attempts of writing, deleting, rewriting that after hours of labouring she would finally retreat to, like previously, two or three words: ‘Great. When and where? Victoria.’

Once the date was set and the place had been declared, the torture came to the day of meeting. On the meeting day, Victoria would go through another set of problems: her legs are weak and her palms wet. Her make up, especially on the day, wouldn’t agree with her. The worst of the villains was always her hair. There is something with women, their hair and the big days. On a lazy Sunday cleaning day, the hair one ties up carelessly into a loose messy bun looks perfect, beautiful and gracious. Effortlessly. But the same gracious hair, in the history of women population, could and would be never achieved on any big day of any woman’s life.

Victoria was no exception to this hair law. No matter how many times she would try, her hair would refuse to look agreeable on any of her rendezvous.

However, amidst the chaos and stress, there was one thing that always gave her the assurance she needed: this dress that she brought to her grandma for mending today. Every time she slipped into this dress, she looked unbeatable in her appearance and elegance. Though, she had used this dress on many other occasions before, it never needed any mending. For none of her encounters, or failed encounters, went beyond the first meeting.

Victoria returned to reality with a sweet smile on her face thinking of her last encounter. She looked at her grandma again. Grandma hadn’t started working on the task yet. She was tenderly touching the dress with her wrinkled hands, meanwhile looking out of the large window where the sewing table was set. Victoria could see her grandma was somewhere in a distant world, perhaps reminiscing of the times when she fit perfectly in this dress.

“Vic da-r-ling, is eve-ry-th-ing OK?” came Grandma’s voice, out of nowhere due to the silence from the direction of the kitchen. “Wh-at is ta-k-ing so lo-ng to ma-ke the tea? Sha-ll I co-me and he-lp?”

“Nei, granny. I will be as quick as I can.” With these words Victoria hurried to the kitchen. Tea was promptly brought to the sewing room and set on the little table next to the sewing table. Granny took the first sip and turned to Victoria.

“Da-rl-ing, you st-ill didn’t te-ll bout how the dr-ess got rip-ped in so ma-ny pla-ces.”

Suddenly Victoria lowered her eyes shyly and her cheeks blushed. Granny put her cup down on the side table and gently touched Victoria’s chin and lifted up her face. Victoria was so shy that she couldn’t make proper eye contact with her grandma.

“Co-m-on love, te-ll me. Ha-f you me-t some-one sp-e-ci-al?”

To this Victoria nodded her head in affirmation.

“Oh my ch-ild, wha-t a wo-nd-er-ful th-ing it is! Gr-an has be-en lon-ging to se-e you with so-me-one. Te-ll me all,” said Grandma with the most grandmother-like cheerfulness. As the conversation started, so had Grandma started working on the dress. She decided to first fix the laces that were hanging loose around the hem.

“Grandma, it is not yet time to say anything. Though, he has asked me to go out with him again next week.”

“Oh dear, that in it-self is a go-od sign. How do-es this ‘he’ lo-ok? Do-es ‘he’ have a na-me, or is ‘he’ his na-me?”

“Harry.”

“Oh, wh-at a lo-vi-ng na-me, lo-ve-ly to my ears. Go on. Do you li-ke h-im? Do-es he li-ke you?”

“My grandma, it is very difficult to answer such questions coherently these days. Today’s circumstances are very different, especially in big cities like where I live. In big cities, people meet and then they say things to each other that they don’t always mean. Speaking the truth is considered rude in today’s culture, Grandma. Lies are polite. Many such polite people then distance themselves from the other without any proper reason or explanation.”

“Oh de-ar, how aw-ful! Ke-ep away fr-om su-ch pe-ople, my ch-ild,” said Grandma in a worrying tone. And then she took a long deep breath and continued, still focused on her sewing task. “Whe-n I was a yo-ung girl, and wh-en I met yo-ur gran-dad – he was su-ch, su-ch a gen-tle-man. I wo-re this dre-ss on ma-ny occ-a-sio-ns for he es-peci-ally ask-ed me to co-me in th-is ve-ry dre-ss ag-ain and ag-ain.”

“So did Harry, Grandma. Harry has asked me to wear this dress again for our second date. Now you know Grandma why mending this dress is so urgent.”

“Tha-t’s is so be-au-ti-ful of the you-ng ma-n, de-ar. Ho-w did the la-ce co-me lo-ose?” Grandma asked, placing the lace neatly on the same place where from it came loose, with a subtle smile as she knew there was a story to come forth.

Victoria timidly responded, “Harry stepped on my dress unknowingly, Grandma.”

“I re-ck-on-ed.”

“We were sitting very close to each other on our picnic mat. Actually, it was his idea to go for a picnic on our first meeting. Harry’s arm was softly rubbing against mine. Oh, Grandma, I felt something so gentle and pleasant inside me.”

“Butt-er-fl-ies a-re wh-at you fe-lt. In yo-ur sto-ma-ch, we sa-y.”

“Grandma, stop teasing me. Anyway, we sat there for a long time. We laughed about silly things. After some time, I got up and I gave him my hand to help him lift himself up too, and that’s when we heard a tearing sound. He let go of my hand in panic and I fell straight down on him in his arms,” Victoria said laughing. “The sound was of the laces, Grandma. He was stepping on them.”

Grandma was thoroughly enjoying this narration. The excitement and the interest rose in Grandma, clearly reminding her of her youthful days and her own unspoken romantic encounters.

“And th-en wha-t ha-pp-en-ed?” asked grandma, completely in the story.

“And then nothing.”

Grandma stopped sewing the laces. She needed fresh thread in her needle. Handing the needle and the reel to Victoria without saying anything, which Victoria promptly understood: Grandma could no longer pass the thread through the needle.

Grandma said, “O-h Vic da-rli-ng, ‘ no-th-ing’ can-not be the an-sw-er. Yo-ur dr-ess is ri-pp-ed in ma-ny oth-er pla-ces too.”

Victoria focused on passing the thread through the needle and having accomplished it, immediately returned the whole console to grandma and said, laughing and throwing her head backwards in the air, “Harry is naughty, Grandma.” And she covered her face with her hands. After a few seconds, she came back. “Was Granddad naughty too?”

Now it was Grandma’s turn to blush. Grandma’s plump face indeed turned pink-red.

“Yo-ur gran-dd-ad was ve-ry nau-gh-ty. Le-t me sh-ow you so-me-th-ing here. He-re, he-re ar-ou-nd the zip-per do you see th-ese sti-tch-es? Th-is was yo-ur gran-d-ad. He wa-s so clum-sy in op-en-ing zip-pers and oh so im-pa-ti-ent th-at he rip-ped the dr-ess here. My gra-nd-ma, yo-ur gr-eat gr-eat gra-nd-ma, men-ded this. Yo-ung men are ve-ry im-pa-ti-ent in su-ch ma-tt-ers, my de-ar chi-ld.”

“Oh Grandma, how you know them so well. As I fell on Harry, he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and gave me a couple of turns. And the waistline came off in these flips, Grandma. There is a little work to be done on the waistline, Grandma”

“Ya, ya – I already saw it,” said the grandma as she had now moved on to mending the waistline. She carefully put the pleats back in the little opening where it was torn open and started sewing it back.

“And Grandma, finally when we had stopped rolling, he was on top of me. He put his index finger in the ripped waistline and tickled me. We both burst into laughter. The red wine he brought for the picnic is definitely to be blamed for all this, Grandma.”

“In-de-ed, my ch-ild, in-de-ed.” Grandma looked at Victoria lovingly and nodded her head in disbelief. “Ne-er-mi-nd the wai-st-li-ne as it is ge-tt-ing fi-x-ed. Yo-u can te-ll Ha-rr-y he ca-n ri-p it as ma-ny ti-me-s as he wi-sh-es, for Gran-d-ma will al-wa-ys me-nd it fo- yo-u.”

Victoria laughed and stood up from where she was seated and walked to Grandma, and stood behind her. Then throwing her arms around her grandma, and her cheek on Grandma’s cheek, she said, “Grandma, the rest of the tears on the dress are also from the park, for we were like little children chasing each other, and we fell many times over each other. There were stones and dried things everywhere which poked through the dress”

“Vi-ct-or-ia! Vi-ct-or-ia,” was all that Grandma could say laughingly.

“Grandma, I think this is going to be something.”

“I be-t it is, my chi-ld. Bu-t the yo-u-ng ma-n has to le-a-rn ho-w to be ge-nt-le wi-th my gi-rl. If on-ly yo-ur gran-dd-ad was al-ive, he wo-ul-d te-a-ch the yo-un-g la-d.

And both grandma and Victoria looked out of the window lost in their own worlds.