RELUCTANT PRESS

sitely lipsticked. I have never ever seen her without stockings on and four or five inch heeled court shoes. She received VOGUE by subscription and 'believed' in haute couture the same way some people believe in religion. At least she never looked like a 'dog's breakfast' when 'on parade' in tow.

"God, darling. I can't stand that dreadful haircut they have given you. I always adored your longish unisex hair style; that cropping doesn't suit you AT ALL! You look like a bloody convict and I cannot bear it. All the same, I still love you and you can kiss me if you like."

So saying, she turned her face toward me and I dutifully plunked a chaste kiss on her damasque cheek. Painstakingly lipsticked mouths were not meant for mussing up!

"Mainly I just want to get out of this ghastly 'hair shirt' for thirty-six hours," I said with some fervor.

"I think 'Auntie' can arrange that," she said archly.

Aunt Helen knew that I had taken the part of a girl clarinetist and had come down to London especially to see me en femme. She positively screamed with delight and giggled and crooned over me whenever I had time to sit at her table. She insisted on knowing what undies I had on and how I had acquired them. When you go in for a caper of that sort you have to go the whole hog if you are going to be taken seriously and use a padded girdle with hips and derriere, waist clincher, everything, from head to foot. Naturally, it also aids, abets and bolsters one's female psyche. As I said, I was never read once and the disguise was gorgeously successful, four nights a week for three months.

The other players in the band knew about me, of course, and were all sworn to secrecy. The other five (we were a sextet) thought it all a whale of a lark and were endlessly amused by it. Happily, I was well liked by the other players and managed to go to bed with three of them; in one case I was actually invited.

Sorry if the girls are coming through so anonymously and mistily but it would be a bit caddish to refer to 'Merle' or 'Cynthia' or whatever in the light of what I just divulged. It is next to impossible, of course, for five people to keep a secret

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JOYCE'S GIRLS

BY JOYCE

of that sort totally under wraps all the time. They were all very human, just like the rest of us, especially me. I find it very hard to keep secrets that I find especially amusing!

There was the night when one of the boy friends came up to me and said, sotto voce, "Kerisst, I sure do envy you, mate," grinning all over his face.

On another occasion, the parents of one of the girls invited me over to their table for a drink and the mother said how convincing I looked and asked was I 'thinking of having a sex change?' The 'old man' looked mildly embarrassed and didn't say much except, "Frightfully clever, old man, frightfully clever. I had a cousin like you once who could simulate his mother's decolletage in a low cut gown with a piece of elastoplast and two tennis balls." He laughed in a deep, macho, mannish way, ' har! har! har!' and then went 'hrumph, cough, cough.' A real dormitory trick if ever I heard one.

By this time, we were pulling into Aunt Helen's driveway, a pleasant semi-detached row where all the driveways were on the left hand side, if you were approaching from the west, that is. She turned to me and said, "Aubrey, darling, does that bag in the back contain all your mufti that you intend wearing this weekend?"

I affirmed that it did, silk shirt, worsted flannels and all. "Right," she said crisply and masterfully. "We will confine it all to the locked boot of this limousine and you will do exactly as 'Auntie' tells you understood?"

Here was Major Strickland all over again and I wilted. A sort of 'conditioned reflex' had established itself. "Yes, Auntie," I said meekly, puppy feet waving in the air again. "But I just want to be out of this 'hair shirt'. My neck is quite raw and tender. I feel like a sand-papered tomato."

"You poor dear. I know I couldn't stand it myself. Your weekend, from this Moment onward, my darling, is going to be but totally, and utterly different. You will eat off real china, drink from Dresden demi-tasse cups, and have silks and satins next to the skin and to sleep in. Now into the house with you while I park the car. Start taking off everything you are wearing everything understand? I used to

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