Uniformity

Thanks to the high standard of living in the Occident and the perfection of mass-produced Western fashions, an untrained observer must have the impression that every woman is dressed exactly alike. I do not know the origin of this modern form of modesty, which has swept through the feminine population from San Francisco to Paris, and which seems to cause all women to want to resemble each other – even though at the same time they are spending more and more on clothes, cosmetics, and hair dressers! But if you really enjoy being dressed exactly like everybody else, then your future is rosy. Uniformity is the natural by-product of an automized society, and – who knows? – perhaps one day individuality will be considered a crime. In the meantime, you can always join the Army.

We don’t dress for who we are, so much as who we would like to be.

In London, different streets and different parts of town have different uniforms. Soho has a dress code just as much as the City or the Kings Road. And then there are places where these worlds collide. The theatre is one of them.

A really hot production will have an audience as mixed as they come – conservative businessmen, aging Sloane rangers, hippie chic students, Notting Hill boho’s, Prada and Armani clad minimalists, gay, straight, young, old, all mashed in together and yet as clearly defined as if they’re wearing big labeled T-shirts.

It’s a Friday night in early June. I’m sipping lukewarm white wine, being jostled to and fro in the bar of the Royal Court in residence at the Ambassadors Theatre and chatting to my friend Sandy, who, in a Cassandra-like fit of foresight, managed to book these tickets ages ago. It’s a full house and the bar is heaving when the bells start to go and Sandy decides, the way certain women must, that two minutes before curtain up is the ideal time for a trip to loo. The throng oozes its way slowly towards the auditorium and suddenly I catch a glimpse of a profile that seems familiar. It belongs to a smartly dressed man. He’s leaning forward, listening with great intensity to what another, younger man is saying to him.

My mind is strangely blank. Yes, I do know him but from where?

And then that thing happens that sometimes occurs in great and dreadful moments where everything falls away – the crowd, the noise, the bells, and there is only the horrific, curious detail of the moment.

I do know that man.

It’s my ex-husband.

I stare. Mesmerized, as he turns around and laughs, slapping his friend on the shoulder.

I wouldn’t have recognized him.

Couldn’t have recognized him.

Everything about him is utterly, completely different. His hair is cropped short. Not cut, mind you, as in, I popped down to the barber’s but cropped, as in I just nipped into Nicky Clarke’s. And dyed. Pale, honey-coloured highlights. He’s wearing a pair of fitted dark brown velvet jeans and a Hugo Boss pale blue turtle-necked sweater with the neck worn slouchy and high, as if he’s just this moment pulled it on over his head. Slung casually over his arm, is a softly tailored black leather jacket and his feet are adorned with a pair of Camper bowling shoes.

He isn’t just dressed; he’s groomed, styled.

Here is the man whose wardrobe consisted of shirts his mother had bought him from Marks & Spencer for Christmas, worn without being pressed, cuffs frayed and tattered until they literally fell off his body. Who found it physically painful to buy a new pair of shoes. And now he’s transformed, floating butterfly-like over to the crowded bar to leave his glass, and wearing this season’s hot item—the blowing shoes—without so much as a glimmer of discomfort or a trace of irony.

He’s a changed man but one I recognize.

It’s the uniform. I know it. I’ve seen it before.

My head is a vacuum, imploding. If I don’t move, he won’t see me. So I freeze, standing so rigidly that even the tables and chairs look animated in my presence. And I watch, holding my breath, as they press their way into the auditorium, chatting easily, completely unaware of my existence. He moves with unexpected fluidity, almost gliding up the stairs. I’m sick and fascinated at the same time.

Suddenly Sandy is by my side again, searching for the tickets in her wallet, panicking that she doesn’t have change for the program seller, wondering out loud if she should fold her coat and put it under her seat or if she should pop it into the coat check. And before I know it, we’re sitting, crammed next to a couple of German tourists clutching their knapsacks on their knees. The lights are dimming when I realize I’m still holding my glass of warm wine.

I can’t remember anything about the first act. Intent on locating the silhouette of my ex-husband’s head, I spent the whole of it looking through the audience, trying to discern his distinctive new haircut from the haircuts around him. I think I see him and then I don’t. And I want to see him. To stare at him. I cannot—or rather won’t—believe my eyes. So I stare into the blackness of the auditorium rather than at the brightly lit stage. The audience leans forward in fascination, laughs in all the right places, gasps during the climax, but still I can’t find him.

Finally the first act ends and the lights come up.

“That was amazing!” Sandy gushes, completely enthralled. “Don’t you think that was absolutely amazing?”

I spot them. There they are, walking up the center aisle. Laughing.

“Incredible,” I mummer.

Sandy’s standing up, brushing off her skirt. “Shall we?”

It’s his friend I’m looking at now; same cropped haircut, same Camper bowling shoes, but young, younger than I’d realized. His face has that hyper-neatness. Does he pluck his eyebrows? And he’s wearing a pair of Diesel jeans and a tight black T-shirt. They’re walking past now. I hold my breath. Sandy’s pushing me towards the end of our row and we slot in behind them. The cologne the young one’s wearing wafts around me, clean and light, and then I watch as he reaches up and places his hand briefly against the back of my ex-husband’s neck.

It’s a small gesture: quick, casual. But it stops me dead in my tracks. A kind of slow motion close-up shot of the thing I never wanted to see. I’m staring, not at the hand, but at my ex-husband’s reaction.

There is none. It’s apparently normal for him to be touched in this way.

I cannot make my feet move forward anymore. The crowd is clogging up on the steps behind me.

“Are you all right?” Sandy asks, giving me a gentle shove. But I’m glued to the spot.

“I forgot my program,” I croak, turning back against the tide, away from the bar. “I just want to grab my program.”

And I stumble down the steps, past my row, to the front of the stage, where I lean, heart pounding, against the front of the orchestra pit.

I know. I know now.

I always knew, but now I really know.

You can’t tell a book by its cover, but you can learn a lot about a person from their shoes.

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