The weather outside was frightful, but the fire was so delightful it took me a minute to realise the doorbell was ringing. And ringing.
“Ah,” sighed the MOTH (Man Of The House). “Another milestone. Sweet Pea can reach the buzzer.”
Our granddaughter, aged four (and ¾, if you please), had come to stay while her mother went shopping.
That she’d dressed herself for the occasion was obvious. She was wearing a warm jumper and leggings, and a furry polar bear hat with long earflaps.
Yet it didn’t stop there. Ever the fashionista, she had pulled on a blue satin princess costume, complete with a tulle train, over the winter clothes. A tiara perched, rakishly, on top of the furry hat.
“Well, hello, Princess Anna,” I said. “I’m not Anna! I’m Elsa,” she said with weary patience. She knows I can’t keep the fabulously Frozen princesses straight.
I thought back to the time I took Princess Elsa’s mummy, Flynn, and her older sister, Reagan, both teenagers, on a shopping for clothes marathon.
I suggested a large variety store in a lower price range. They were appalled. Careful to look noncommittal (adolescents can smell enthusiasm a kilometre away), I pointed to a well-known department store.
They gave me The Look – mouth screwed upwards (to show disdain), eyebrows raised (to show disbelief).
They headed straight to a boutique with thumping music so loud I could feel my liver vibrate.
For hours, my girls tried on small black things and smaller black things until, at last, they found exactly what they wanted – the same dress. I tried to fix the problem.
“Same dress – different colours.” No. “One dress – you take turns wearing it?” NO! “Two dresses – don’t wear them at the same time?” No. “Two dresses – one of you leaves home?” No. “Two dresses – both of you leave home?” No.
By this time, with my feet killing me, I had a great idea. “We go home. The dress stays here!”
Things were a little different when I was 12 years old and growing up in blizzardly cold Canada. My mother told the shop assistant, “We’re looking for a winter coat that is sensible and hard-wearing.”
“And pretty,” I added, hopefully.
The shop assistant marched us past racks of red coats with soft grey fur collars and bright blue coats with shiny silver buttons until we reached a rack of blankets. The sort you throw over horses in cold weather.
“Harris Tweed coats,” the shop assistant said, waving her arms expansively along the rack. “They are that little bit more expensive, but they go with everything! You have the blue/grey/brown/green tweed, the grey/brown/green/blue tweed, the brown/green/blue/grey tweed or a lovely green/blue/grey/brown tweed.”
I struggled to tell the difference. She plucked a coat off the rack and held it out for me to try.
It was the green/blue/grey/brown one. Or so she said.
“It’s water-proof, stain-proof and flame-retardant! You can let it down every year as she grows. She will never need another coat,” she said, triumphantly.
My mother had to work at a time when most mums didn’t. There was no money for frivolous, pretty things. I needed a coat that could withstand Arctic gales blowing down from Hudson’s Bay.
All the right buttons had been pressed. Especially the one that said, “Last coat ever!” I wasn’t getting a coat. I was getting a life sentence.
Mum could go to work every day confident that not only was I warm and dry, I was unlikely to catch fire.
The first day I wore the coat to school, one of the boys in my class told me about an English mountaineer. “Did you know that, in 1920, George Mallory climbed Mount Everest wearing a Harris Tweed coat?” he asked. No, I didn’t.
I think he wanted to cheer me up, which was nice. We watched the other girls in the playground, flocking together when the bell rang like bright red and blue birds – with fur collars.
I wore my Harris Tweed coat every winter for five years and, for five years, I couldn’t wait for spring.
“Harris Tweed is Scotland’s secret weapon,” I said to the MOTH when I told him the story. “And all this time I thought it was whiskey!” he mused.
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This story originally appeared in the June 2015 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
