I went to my wardrobe today. Not a visit I have made regularly in recent memory under the current circumstances. Pitt-Quickly – my ex-cohort of blessed times – had convened a virtual meeting of the City Oiks for his own purposes and I wanted to clad myself in an old Twerpps nearly 100% Liberian cotton shirt in remembrance of times long gone.
When I examined the contents I was horrified to discover that most of my clothes have gone the same way as mother’s antimacassars…. namely they had disappeared under the Mitzification of my whole life and all my goods and chattels.
Outraged I summoned my persecutor and demanded an explanation. Mitzi just shrugged and said:
“I make masks…”
Masks? Masks! What kind of depths of depravity was she sinking too in order to keep her sordid business afloat? I demanded more by way of detail and in response she threw open the spare bedroom door and ushered me inside…
That put the wind up me I can tell you. I have been ravenously curious about the goings on in her den of vice, but I have long ago learnt that most of life’s mysteries are better left unexplored and I suspected Mitzi’s virtual activities would be one such somnolent canine that should be left unpoked.
But at her urging I put my best foot forward, or rather I shuffled nervously into my former playroom and the sight that met my eyes won’t go away however hard I try.
There on mother’s old Singer Sewing table was a pile of all my best clothes – suits, shirts, coats and trousers all in a big heap, and all completley cut to shreds.
‘What have you done?’ I asked slowly, picking up what was left of my ‘Snots of Jermyn Street’ blazer.
‘I make masks…’ she repeated, picking up a blue serge face mask, for the NHS. You know Pee-pee…’
‘PPE…’ I whispered. The enormity of it all wouldn’t quite sink in to my startled head. I had to spell it out.
‘SO you have cut up all my clothes to make face masks for the NHS?’
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘I make 250 in 2 days. It bloody hard I can tell you…’
‘But I thought you were in here working – you know – making sexy for the punters. When did you start doing this?’
‘When everyone giving it away for free… no money in sex, no more. I make masks – sell to NHS. Make money, buy new clothes.’
I could just see the NHS procurement team falling over themselves to buy some dubious face coverings made of Saville Row cloth by an itinerant sex worker on a sewing machine built when the Romans came to Britain.
A thousand things flew around in my head – none of them helpful – but one question levered itself out of the general confusion.
‘Why didn’t you ask me first?’
‘You were asleep and you don’t wear these things anyway – only moths use them. I make masks, make money, buy you something more modern – more your age…’
I suddenly felt very tired.
So all those strange noises coming from here weren’t those of Mitzi giving her all to the insatiable virtual punters, but the sounds of light industry as she worked her fingers to the bone turning a lifetime’s City wardrobe into unsaleable and unusable accessories for a group of people who needed more than barathea between them and the deadliest plague since the black death.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mitzi just looked somewhat crestfallen at my lack of enthusiasm for her enterprise.
‘Never mind’, I said after a sudden feeling of compassion spread unexpectedly over my mood, ‘If the NHS won’t buy them maybe Ann Summers will put in an offer…’
What Ann Summers might do with them was anbody’s guess…
Bulk and The Devil 