Club Foyer>Chillout Room>Depositions
“The secret of being a bore is to tell all”
Voltaire
Because rain had always been there , off and on, I must have taken it for granted – until my teenage years.
As puberty arrived, so did many other things, like appreciation of fashion and, of course, the women who wore what. And when.
When the sun shone, as I caught the bus to work like nearly all the rest of the world then, half way through last century, I'd appreciate the girls in their thin summer frocks, but I also started to notice, how when it rained, or threatened to, they would be wearing cotton rubberised mackintoshes.
At first I thought it was merely the woman herself, who had to be attractive in any case, but as time went on, I realised that the mac enhanced the woman inside it. This seemed, to say the least, strange, but the slight shock it continued to cause could not, and cannot now, be described as unpleasant.
So, in my naive teenage way, despite a love of sunny days, I almost hoped for rain, so I could, discreetly, spot a particularly comely girl catch the bus two stops further on from mine.
When, one morning, it was raining, slightly, I saw her at the bus stop, I managed to catch her eye and smiling, made to move as if to give her room, an invitation, yes, to sit next to me.
I was bewildered. There was definitely something special about her in her crisp blue mackintosh, not only the sight of it, but the sound as she moved in it, and its bouquet.
Smooth conversation does not, initially, flow easily from teenage lips, but I was anxious to get to know this girl.
“Hello, it's rain again”, I said. I might have blushed slightly. She certainly did.
“Yes. Where do you work then?”
“At the Crosville Bus depot. It's at Rock Ferry. I have to change buses at Birkenhead”.
“Oh, I work in Liverpool. I have to get off at Park Station, then catch the train; under the tunnel," she said”.
By now the ice was broken but, even at sixteen, I was far too well-behaved to let my attraction for her rainwear to be too obvious, yet it was deeply exciting to have her sitting beside her.
We talked with increasing warmth for twenty minutes until she had to get off. Her name was Valerie. I told her mine and we would see each other again on the bus.
Two weeks later, we agreed we should go to the pictures and I was to meet her off a bus. Near the cinema. I prayed the weather might be indicating rain and although it was not, she was wearing her lovely mackintosh, as if she had realised my unspoken liking for her dressed in it.
For the short walk to the Tudor Cinema, and for the first time, we held hands. It was most pleasant. Inside, of course, she had to remove the mac, though we found a back seat. I remember the seats were 1/9d. Of course it took only a few minutes before we were kissing each other, indefatigably, on and off for the next two hours – it was a mediocre film anyway.
As the film finished, she put on her mac again, then, another first, I put my arms round her, and she did the same and the fourth of the six senses came to me. The feel of her, cocooned inside her rubber mac, to add its delicious sound and sight and odour.
After we had parted that evening, walking home alone, I wondered what it was that affected me so much, not only about Valerie, with whom I'd become totally infatuated, but about my extreme liking for this strange new THING, which I'd been far too shy, almost ashamed, to disclose to her.
The romance didn't last very long, as romances often don't at that age. She then must have changed her job and used a different bus from mine. Then I joined the army: only saw her once more, in the distance across a large ballroom floor and I didn't dare approach her because I was inarticulate from teenage excesses of alcohol. Yes, I had other weaknesses too.
It wasn't until many years later, long long after rubber mackintoshes ceased to be, commonly, a fashion item, that I began to realise that I was not alone in my proclivity. Certain Sunday newspapers, the 'serious' ones too, advertised them, almost clandestinely, and by now a man versed in marketing, I knew that there would be a not inconsiderable market in such garments to make them viable. And nowadays, in the years of the Internet, I discover that there's a huge and respectabe website devoted to those having this leaning.
But, why, why, why?
I suppose that if certain people like tall leggy blondes while others prefer fleshy brunettes, some prefer one perfume much more that others; while some women chose to have their favourite film stars that others don't appreciate and there are those who are only attracted to strong partners, whereas others can only take to the meek and obedient – if ever such aspects of the human condition exist! We all differ, thank goodness. And mercifully much about these motivations can not be fully explained
And I have not told all, thank goodness !
Bryan
Dear Bryan
A touching memory, thank you so much.
I think with a few details changed many friends will read it as their own.
You are puzzled as to why. But I have come to think once we realize Freud and that lot were completely on the wrong track it's not difficult to understand at all! You know what happens in synesthesia - sounds are experienced as coloured, crossovers like that. Signals that are usually interpreted as sounds by the old brain somehow get on the wrong track and switch on circuits that usually deal with vision. It's not difficult at all to think that the brain might make little slips like this from time to time! The mystery is how such a terrifically complex system manages to work so well for most of us most of the time! So we get turned on by a certain smell!
It's the brain with a glitch. Getting all worked up when the smell of rubberising of all things wafts into our awareness may not give us the edge in the battle to fill the world with our genes, but hey! let's make the most of it!
Also, Bryan: how on earth do you know that film was mediocre? You mind was clearly not wholly on the job...
Very good of you to share your story with us - thank you.
Lorraine