SHORT STORY: All That Remains...

All that remains of a favorite coat I had as a child is this button. Once I outgrew the coat, my mother turned it into a cloak or cape with a fur collar, buttoned at the neck with one button from the coat.
The coat was a woolen antiquey pink colour with tiny checks and maybe a tiny blue pinstripe, and after it became a cape, I wore it to my first disco and my favorite 'hometown' at about age 6.

It turns out my mother had a pink woolen outfit made for her from which these buttons came. Which she then wore to a 21^st birthday party in NZ before coming to Australia in 1967. My mother was only very young herself, - pre 16.... Age of button? We're looking at over 40 years old and she had a set of 4 or 6 and this is the only one that remains. This story is just a work of fiction, nothing more. But it was triggered by my favorite button that I have stashed away.

Hello my dear! Another new face, another young face! My companions and I, we do wait patiently for someone to bring us out into the light and listen to our stories. For we have many to tell and rarely do we have any new companions join us! Our stories will soon be forgotten if we've no-one to tell who cars just like any thing in life.

We come from an era where ladies and their beautiful dresses still abounded in a world that was rapidly changing, from a country no longer exists as it had and we were scattered across millions of miles to every corner of our globe.

My companions that became my family and I, landed in New Zealand in the aftermath of World War II where women who had worked while their husbands, fathers and brothers were off fighting, were now wanting to dance with those who came home. They wanted pretty, they wanted feminine and most of all, they wanted us as much as we wanted you because it was you who gave us our raison d'etre. Do you know raison d'etre? Do you really know what it is to sit and wait, to be bypassed and overlooked for others while you wondered if you would ever see the light that says you have come home? That emptiness that comes with not being wanted....that sick feeling and slowly, that hardening of emotion?

Time travels slowly for those who wait. My wait was only three or four years and I and my sisters went home with a delightful little girl whose excitement was catching. Instead of having yet another hand-me-down, at 12 years old, Beth was to have a very special outfit made just for her, the first new one since forever it seemed, and she had spent an eternity searching out every little piece from the fabric to the threads and zippers and us. The fabric was a beautiful woollen pink chosen by our young recipient, in a very delicate and fine check that was almost barely there and it enhanced us in our glass beauty, raising our shine up to be as brilliant as the diamonds in her eyes. The fabric enhanced the roses in her cheeks and lips and her unruly black curls fairly danced as she hopped from one foot to another at the fabric counter. “Shhh – be still Beth!” her mother kept repeating as she double checked that she had everything she needed for the new outfit, including ribbons for that hair that to me (and her mother), seemed difficult to tame.

With such excitement did young Beth look forward to her new outfit! Being the youngest girl in the family, her clothes all tended to be hand-me-downs that had all lost their glamour by the time they reached her, no matter how much her mother changed the trimmings where possible. This was something she had never had! A brand new outfit, just for her and she already had a party to wear it to.

While Mother cut and sewed, Beth played with us and other buttons from Mother's button box, stroking us softly. Buttons from Father's old shirt, buttons from Grandpa's long retired cardigan. By far, we were the most beautiful in our soft pink, textured glassiness. We were six. One for the dress itself and four for the coat that went with the dress and just one of us a spare! I was the chosen button for the dress – I had pride of place as I would be seen the most by anyone. How our Spare did envy us but it was quite normal that Spare was all that was left of any outfit after construction. Spare was kept in pride of place with all the other Spares in the button tin – kept safe and sound until the day that any one of them may be needed.

Finally, after several days, we all watched as our Beth tried on the outfit so Mother could mark the places for us to sit and get it ready for hemming. For someone who had waited so patiently for Mother to get this far and to finish, Beth seemed quite...unhappy. She wriggled.....and she wiggled....and she scratched and she scritched. But she did not say a word. Instead – after removing the nearly complete outfit, she kept us buttons aside as she put all of the rest back into the button tin and played with us until Mother was ready for us then handed us to her as she began sewing us on.

Not long after we were sewn on, there was a bit of excitement in the house when an invitation was received to attend a 21^st birthday party of a cousin. These parties were a rite of passage still back then, seeing as it was more likely your 21^st would be celebrated than your 18^th, (which is so much more common these days) and all family members attended, using the birthday as one of those events where they catch up with each other. And these events were quite elegant also by comparison with best dresses and shirts and suits pulled out of the cupboard and hung and aired to drop the wrinkles out and freshen them up. And so we, attached to our beautiful outfit, were also taken out of our cupboard ready for the party. Beth would come over to her outfit and gently stroke us, reveling in our beauty....wondering about our long journey from Czechoslovakia. She still did not seem as excited as she should at the thought of wearing the outfit for which she had longed for.

But without complaint, she put the outfit on and permitted Mother to tie her hair back with a pretty pink ribbon and off we all went to the party. During the night, Beth seemed to grow unhappier and unhappier and wrigglier and wrigglier....until finally her grandmother asked her what the matter was.

Beth burst into tears and wailed into her grandmother's shoulder that she was just SO itchy. That her beautiful outfit was the itchiest and scritchiest thing she'd ever seen. She loved the colour. She loved the fabric pattern. She loved the buttons. She even loved the shiny lining in the matching coat. But she just did not love wearing the dress because it made her itch so much.

“Oh, I see!” Grandmother said because of course, she knew what the problem was. There was no lining on the dress as Beth's mother had only enough money to purchase lining for the coat. The coat could be used with any outfit and the lining helped it slide on over any other clothing she may wear, But the dress? Sadly for Beth, the woolen fabric just made the poor child itch to the point where when she was finally just had to scratch the itchy spots, she left big red welts with her fingernails.

“There, there little one” Grandmother spoke softly. “Not long now and we shall be leaving. “ Chin up, my possum!” And in fact, it was then that Beth's mother saw her daughter in distress and being fussed over by her grandmother and hurried over to see what the matter was. Grandmother just put her fingers to her lips and suggested she say her goodbyes to the hosts of the party.....that Beth was very tired and it was best they went home. Beth looked up at her Grandmother gratefully and hugged her as tight as she could.

Once home, Beth took her dress off and hung it up and went to her bed. We had never seen her face so torn between despair at something she had wanted so badly but wasn't what she had hoped.....and relief that the itchy fabric was away from her skin. She quietly sniffed herself to sleep as I hung in the wardrobe and the coat hung on the door hook.

Some time during the night, Mother snuck into Beth's room and took me from the wardrobe. A few days later, after a visit from Grandmother, I was taken out again into the light and my dress turned inside out and left in the sewing cupboard.

Over the coming weeks and months, Coat went out many times. Not once did Beth come to the wardrobe and look at Dress as longingly as she had when we were first put together. Then came the time for the church Christmas party. Mother told Beth to please go and put her pink wool dress on and bring her pink ribbons and hair brush to her so her hair could be braided back. This meant I would be seen as usually, hair would have hidden me! When I saw little Beth's face in the wardrobe looking so sad, I felt sad myself as I knew she wouldn't be enjoying me and that was all that I had wanted. But –  I had a secret!  

Slowly....snail like....Miss Beth took her day dress off and prepared to slip her pretty dress on. She stopped – a funny look on her face....she sniffed the fabric.

“How odd!” she muttered. “I can smell Grandmother!!!” Must be from last time I wore it, she thought. Then she realised – the whole dress felt a little different...heavier...but only by a little bit....and more...slippy! She looked at the dress further and it was then she saw what her mother had done. Mother had cut up an old petticoat Grandmother had given her and sewed a lining out of it for my Dress. We were then hung back in the wardrobe and left for next time.

Beth squeaked with glee as she felt the dress slip on softly, gently laying on her skin with not an itch anywhere....except for her nose as one of her hairs had managed to tickle it as the dress mussed her hair a little more. She grabbed her ribbons and brush and ran back to her mother, throwing herself so hard at her I would have thought she was going to fall. “Thank you, thank you, thank you Mummy for fixing my dress. “

Of course – Beth grew out of her dress and her Coat got lost along the way and so obviously did my the rest of us – until I was the only one left of my sisters. Even Spare had vanished from the Button Tin. The following year for the next Church Christmas Party, Mother once again took us from the cupboard. She was able to trim the Dress down and around, creating a small Capelet and add a little rabbit fur collar. Me – I was pride of place at the front of the capelet, holding it in place on her. Never was there a happier girl than our Beth when she wore her Cape.

Now – it is time to put me back in the Button Tin and skedaddle off for your dinner because I can hear your mother calling you. Thank you for letting me tell my story. I hope someday I may be made useful for you.

The End