The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (8 page)

The Wall and the Door

It was a very hot autumn when I first arrived at my Catholic girls' school, aged thirteen, non-Catholic, clueless, never having faced a nun before in my life. Why I was sent there has never been made clear. This is the kind of thing that passes for a joke in my family. And during that very hot autumn, the order lost one sister a week for the first five weeks of school, as if on schedule. Every week, we were taken to the chapel to see them. We knelt and said prayers I did not know directly in front of the bodies of people I had never met in life. I'd only seen a few dead bodies in my life, so five was a lot. That they were all nuns was deeply disorienting. And for a while, it looked like this was how things were always going to be at our school. Someone was going to die every single week. But it wasn't. It was just a bad five weeks, and it earned us the name the Freshmen of Death.

I felt that this was a bad thing, in that distant way that you do when you hear about the death of someone you do not know. You do not want anyone to die. You do not want people to be sad. But when you do not know the deceased, it can be hard to truly engage in what is going on. The five deaths that greeted our arrival almost seemed to fit the strange new surroundings I was in.

There were constant reminders that we were mortal, we were all going to die. There were prayers about it, songs about it, rituals to aid us, statues that depicted it. We said the Hail Mary every morning and before every class, imbedding the words ‘now and at the hour of our death' into my brain. I said it in three different languages every day. There was a giant painting by the front door of our school showing nuns of our order bravely standing up to Nazis, and being mowed by machine guns and falling into a mass grave. That was how we greeted you. I had never seen so much death before. It was like I had arrived at Death Prep.

But there was life as well. Potential. We were constantly being told that we were blossoming young women, young and fertile. Too many comparisons were made to flowers. Our bodies were the source of constant commentary. It started before we even got to school, at our mid-summer uniform fitting before freshman year. We were sized not according to our current shape and person, but to the blossoming young woman we would become.

By this, I mean our chest size. See, we wore these tight vests. Well, they were tight in theory. They would be tight when the blossoming had happened. But as pre-freshmen, our petals still closed, it was hard to tell just how much lily there was to gild. And your vest had to last you for four years – you didn't get a new uniform every year. Which is why they employed the Amazing Breast-Size Guessing Nun.

The A.B.S.G.N. would take one look at us, spin us around, and then proclaim our fate in the form of our vest size. She would proclaim it VERY, VERY LOUDLY. ACROSS THE GYM. Because, of course, the sister taking down the sizes was sitting all the way across the room. Why? Why not! It made it more fun for everyone.

‘SMALL!' the A.B.S.G.N. would yell, as a tiny girl curled into a ball and prayed for someone to come and kick her away. ‘SHE'S FLAT! THIS ONE'S PRETTY MUCH DONE.'

No breasts for her. But not so for the early-blossoming next girl, who was probably already wearing what my grandmother used to call an ‘over the shoulder boulder holder' and was probably very aware of it. And now, thanks to the A.B.S.G.N., so was everyone else. Including my dad, who had taken me for my fitting – probably expecting, as most sane people would have, that it would be done in a room somewhere, privately. The flowers may be delicate, but the gardeners rarely are.

Over the four years, we were expected to
fill that vest
. It wasn't like they would kick us out of school if we didn't – it was a silent expectation. The mountains would come to Mohammed (or Mary – Catholic school, after all). But once they were there, the school had very conflicted feelings about them. Cover them! Deal with them, girls,
they've arrived
!
They
were there, like some invaders from another planet we've always been grimly expecting.

I had to read the Bible cover to cover in school too, which contained passages such as this one, from the wise Solomon and his provocative Canticles – which I felt very well summarized our school's position as well:

I was one of those girls who never thought about the boob question much. I never really cared what size they were. I just shoved them into a bra in the morning and forgot about them. This, I suppose, is a luxury. Some people have massive ones that hurt their backs or keep them from seeing their shoes. Others feels inadequate. Mine were … enough? Basically there? I was much too busy trying to shred my indestructible polyester uniform and trying to understand the mysteries of Catholicism to care much about them. I had, in my opinion, Bigger Problems.

But I did notice that some people did care a lot, and I never quite grasped why. Why the attraction and shame and terror and pride. So much expectation and fuss over a few pounds (or ounces) of floppy meat and milk bag, as I would have sexily described them. And as an adult woman, I am excited to report I have never figured it out. I'm excited to write for a book about boobs, because it actually made me stop and wonder about the wonder.

And sure, the boobs are about as literal a symbol of life-giving power as you could hope to find. And the mixed range of emotions – lust, disgust, practical acceptance, comfort, annoyance – that the funbags contain within are certainly impressive. But in me, there is still an angry teenager in polyester who wants the freedom to take her shirt off in public, yet doesn't want the bother of dealing with the attention of taking her shirt off in public … who wants not to care about boobs. I'll get them mamogrammed and put them in a holder if I feel like it and feed a baby, but at the end of the day they are mine to ignore in favor of more interesting body parts. Like the hand. Or the head. Or the poor, undervalued spleen.

Perhaps the Amazing Breast-Size Guessing Nun actually gave me this gift of general apathy toward the entire subject, and for it, I thank her. For I am a field, and not a tower or a wall or a door. So are we all. And our flowers come in many sizes.

I used to be as flat as a pancake. While all the other girls secretly loved seeing the vague outline of their first bra through their blue school shirts, I was still sporting an M&S thermal vest. It was hell, and every night, without fail, I'd pray that I'd wake up with enough boobs to fill even an AA cup! Things hit an all-time low in Year Nine when I took to wearing a very stretchy elastic around my back so that there was something there that the boys could twang! Needless to say the only twang I felt was searing pain, having endured that tight elastic for seven long hours. In a nutshell, I was a violin-playing, ‘boobless' geek. While some of the more ‘developed' girls in Year Nine were complaining of sore boobs after netball practice (although, clearly exaggerating) I was only concerned with whipping my age 11–14 vest on and off quick enough in the changing rooms so that nobody would see my childlike body.

My boobs were late, as were my periods. I was stuck in perpetual girlhood waiting for life to begin. Then it happened. One beautiful morning at the end of June, circa 1994, a week or two after our GCSEs, I woke up and there they were. Two wonderful, fully grown breasts. I was officially a woman. Along came a well-needed dose of confidence and a posture change. There they were, two new friends who I'd waited so long for. And they grew and grew and grew. It was like the biggest ‘boob explosion' of all time. I was finally blessed with a lovely pair of 30Es that I've treasured and loved dearly ever since. These days, they're not quite as pert as they once were, but we are working together to resist the pull of gravity. They're wrapped in a supportive sports bra during exercise, moisturised on a daily basis to try and ward off any stretch marks and ensconced comfortably in pretty underwear on my more organised days. They were a long time coming, but I've loved them every day since they arrived. They signalled becoming a woman and together, we have had a pretty exciting journey.

Years later, when I was all grown up, a friend told me that when she was a teenager she used to stuff her bra with tissues and I was both cheered and a bit miserable. At least someone else had been at it – but
tissues
! What difference would tissues make? Me? I had a pair of socks. In each cup.

Oh, it was terrible to be a flat-chested teenager!

Every teenage girl thinks their chest is too small (except for those few who fear theirs is too big) but mine really was non-existent. I looked like Iggy Pop. (See the cover of
Nude and Rude.)

At fourteen I was full of yearning and longing and I was desperate for boys to fancy me. Breasts are very very powerful creatures, perhaps the most powerful things in the universe, and I had none. Also I felt my bum and thighs were way too big (they weren't) and I needed a proper chest to balance them out. I was
all wrong
.

Magazines urged me to do the pencil test – if you can hold a pencil between your breast and your ribcage, then it's time for a bra. I'd no idea what they meant. My boobs were like bee-stings. All the same, I found a pencil and gave it a go and watched the pencil fall to the floor. I tried again. And again. And eventually concluded there must be something wrong with the pencil.

If I'd been allowed to have a breast enlargement when I was sixteen, I'd probably have gone entirely overboard and done a Jordan on it. I'd have got them so big that I'd never have stood up straight again. But it was Ireland and it was 1980 and there was no such thing as breast augmentation back then. There weren't even padded bras.

So anyway, socks. Socks became my friends. Socks gave me the appearance of a chest. But it meant that I couldn't let anyone (read, boys) get too close.

When I landed a proper boyfriend things got awkward. He was keen to ‘proceed' with matters and I was aware that there was a marked discrepancy between the boobs I had on view to the outside world and the boobs that were really there. I had to sit him down and say, in a serious talk sort of way, ‘I have something to tell you.' I broke the dreadful news and I was mortified – but he wasn't a bit surprised. He'd known all along. Apparently socks don't have much bounce in them and it seemed I'd been a little delusional.

I knocked off the socks.

But still my boobs didn't grow. I came to the end of my teens and there was still no sign of them. And on into my twenties and still they stayed away. People told me I was a late developer, but I tried to make my peace with the fact that I'd be flat-chested forever.

Now and again I'd read a shock story about how every woman should get her chest measured because ninety-nine per cent of us don't wear the right bra size. Well I do, I thought gloomily. I was 32AA. We were all agreed on it. In fact I was afraid to be measured in case I transpired to be actually
smaller
than 32AA.

A well-meaning type told me how lucky I was to be flat-chested because when I got older I wouldn't have them swinging around my waist. I cannot tell you how little comfort this was to me at twenty-one.

Occasionally I'd read about girls who'd had to have operations to have their knockers reduced for health reasons, back pain and suchlike, and I'd be baffled – the ingratitude! Who cared about agony? I'd have been delighted with that sort of agony! Or those girls who complained that due to the size of their knockers, men only ever spoke to their chests, that they were objectified. Frankly, I'd have been
delighted
to be objectified!

But despite my abnormal flatchestedness, I did have boyfriends and eventually I even got married. In my early thirties suddenly I had a few quid and I could have afforded to have a breast enlargement and to my surprise I decided that actually I couldn't be bothered – I was fine as I was.

Then guess what happened – it turned out that I really
was
a late developer. Around the age of thirty-four, I suddenly grew boobs. I'm now a 36B. Okay, so I'm not Jordan, but would I want to be?

Boobs, breasts, jugs, norks, mammary glands, whatever you called them, they were not welcome in my life. I spent my childhood years as a bona fide tomboy. I could climb all the trees down the green in my housing estate, I rolled with an all-boy skate crew, ollying my way up kerbs on my brother's old fibreglass skateboard, I played up front on the school football team, the only girl dribbling around the knobbly knees of a pitch full of pre-pubescent boys. I never dreamt of getting married, I never collected Barbie dolls, I was going to be a marine biologist or a set designer for the theatre when I grew up. Womanhood was an enigma, something I knew was inevitable but still very much a faraway mystery that would be solved YEARS down the line. Not until Tracey O'Connor took me into a toilet cubicle at lunchtime in 6th class and told me she had her period did the reality of impending puberty come crashing down on my happily oblivious existence. It was all hushed tones, talk of tampons and bleeding. Ominous stuff. Then we had the sex education class in school and I looked on, confounded, struggling to equate my body with the biological model of a cervix that was in front of me. I chose to ignore it all … until I came home from school one day to find my mother waiting for me in the kitchen with a book explaining sex. I burst out crying and ran out of the room. That's how I felt about sex at eleven. Two words. Not Ready.

The boobs came around the age of fourteen. There was the purchase of sports bras, worn as social armour, as a sign to say, ‘Look! I'm grown up!' rather than out of any necessity. There was nothing there to support. Eventually, when my breasts started to grow, they grew lopsided. My left breast was noticeably bigger than my right. There were many traumatic hours stood in front of the mirror with my hands above my head, desperately willing my right breast to grow more. Oh what a turbulent and heightened time those early teens are, with everything growing out and up. I thought I was the only person in the world going through all this profound confusion; I was going to have lopsided breasts for the rest of my life!

My bathroom pleas were granted and my breasts finally balanced out. As the school years edged by and my skirt length edged up, they felt the crude groping hand movements of my various boyfriends. With a sex life came a pale pink box with the word ‘Celeste' written across the front in delicate lilac letters. The contraceptive pill resulted in inexplicable mood swings. In tandem with the tears and turmoil there was the rapid and rather alarming swell of my breasts. A whole cup size in a matter of weeks! I went on and off the pill throughout my twenties and my breasts ballooned in and out, inflating and deflating in direct correlation to my sexual experiences.

Mid-twenties, a serious relationship and my first attempt at cohabitation meant routine and regular exercise for the first time in my life. I lost all my puppy fat and became a streamlined version of my previous pot-bellied self. My breasts shrank and have remained a very normal 34C, until now. Now, my body has changed wholly and completely. A blue cross on a white stick five months ago means I have become a vehicle. A tiny wriggly thing, fists clenched, eyes squeezed shut, is squirming in my uterus. I can feel it kicking. My belly is stretched and taut, my breasts swollen into huge fleshy pendulous receptacles, and my mind boggles with the miracle of my physiology. They are going to feed my baby. My own breasts are going to feed my baby. It is yet another chapter for them and me to get through. When I write it all down, they tell my story very well.