I Work as a Mannequin at Lucie’s

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I do for old Mrs Weatherby who lives in the big house next to the station. The poor dear’s all by herself now and can’t manage even the most basic cleaning. Tuesdays and Thursdays I work as a mannequin at Lucie’s. I have my regular spot in the smaller window next to the side door. It’s only me and one other girl in the display. It’s usually Clara, though, of late they’ve been pairing me with a foreign girl. Paola, I think her name is. There’s no chat out of her. Not that we’re allowed to talk in front of the customers. Oh no, Miss Mills has it drummed into us. Still as statues please young ladies. We’re not even supposed to sneeze whilst on display.

You get used to it after a while. The first week I was dreadfully twitchy. I couldn’t seem to keep my face still. But I’ve been a mannequin for several months now and I can assure you it gets easier. I’ve learnt how to utilise every second of my window time. I can blank out the customers. I’m still looking at them. I’ve my eyes wide open, (though if I’m modelling a pair of sunglasses you’d be hard-pressed to know). I look directly at the customers as they pause in front of my window. The women ogling whatever outfit I’m selling this week. The men imagining what I might look sans cardigan, sans frock, sans everything. At the same time I’m not looking at them at all. I’m staring straight through their dull fishy faces, their damp hairdos and battered raincoats. I’m watching the little trails they leave behind as they move off down the high street.

Everyone leaves a trail. I’ll bet you’ve never noticed before. Most people don’t take the time to look. They clock a person’s face as they pass, perhaps note that they have a particularly odd way of walking or a distinctive sort of smell. They don’t hang around to discover what this person is trailing behind them. Maybe they prefer not to see. It’s amazing what you can not notice when you put your mind to it. I’m not like most people. For two days each week I’m paid to watch the people who pass by Lucie’s. I can stare without raising suspicion. I can stand here in my patent leather heels and my mother-of-the-bride frock, all made up like an extra from Easter Parade and I can stare and stare for hours on end. I’ve grown rather good at it.

It didn’t take me long to notice the trails. At first, I thought they were loose threads or pieces of yarn dragged from a fraying hem. They snaked behind each person’s back as they passed; so slight and delicate they’d dance in even the faintest breeze. I called them trails because they reminded me of those slim rivers of slime a snail will leave in its wake. I’ve always thought snail slime a rather beautiful phenomenon. Not so, the human trails. Human trails are ugly things. Each one is uniquely constituted, though it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discern a pattern. The trails are formed from those elements the person has been unable to leave behind. A lost child. A harsh upbringing. A dismissive partner. A dose of psoriasis otherwise hidden beneath a sweater or blouse. The sort of small hurts and losses a person is inclined to drag with them throughout life. Perhaps no one else notices. But these trails are cruelly apparent to me.

I got to wondering what I might be trailing behind me. I suspected it might be related to John, or perhaps my father, who would often humiliate me in front of my brothers and their friends. I knew enough to know I would not be able to see my own trail in a mirror or glass window and so asked Clara if she’d ever noticed anything coming out of me. She did not understand what I meant. She thought I was referring to something medical and went scarlet with embarrassment. I had to explain everything, quickly and quietly, with very little movement of the mouth for we were, as always, standing in the store window. Clara said she could not be sure whether I left a trail or not because she’d never seen me move. This was a fair point. I wondered then, if it was better to stand still and hold my hurts, silently within me, or drag them up and down the high street for any wide-eyed eejit to see.

Inspired by Agatha Christie’s 1931 novel, The Sittaford Mystery

Dropped at the Eastside Visitors’ Centre, Belfast on 29th February 2020