It was 1973. Lycra hadn’t been invented then, or if it had, had not yet made its way to southern Tasmanian beaches. Myra’s bathing suit was orange, the sort that dried quite slowly, and it was laced at the chest with a white thread. If Myra had been older—a teenager, say—this would have looked quite sexy, but at eleven the bathing suit was entirely demure.
They had come to Roaring Beach for a picnic, her mother, her two brothers, Mrs Carruthers, Jean and Jean’s two sisters. It was a work day—the summer holidays—and both fathers were absent. She’d never been to this beach before. It stretched on and on in a beautiful white arc, and there was a river which they’d crossed by a rickety, wooden bridge before turning into the beach. They’d had to come through Dover but there was a coast road for going home.
All morning Myra had been excited—a chance to wear her new birthday bathers, a whole day to prance in them pretending to be a bathing belle or one of those underwater swimmers in the old black-and-white movies, pointing her toes and swirling about. White sand, too, in which she could make Robinson Crusoe tracks. Her brothers didn’t seem so excited. They were older than Myra. She thought they probably wanted to be going somewhere by themselves, not with their mother, Mrs Carruthers and Myra and her friend. Still, Jean’s older sister would be there. They ought to like that.
Myra’s family drove down in a separate car to the Carruthers’. They stopped for ice creams in Dover and then sped out along the dirt road by the sea. Myra pressed her nose against the back window, ignoring her mother’s pleas not to put sticky fingers everywhere. She felt inordinately happy and knew a lot of it had to do with her new bathers. She’d also been given some flippers for her birthday and was looking forward to wading, ducklike, with her flapping feet. She wondered if Jean had a pair of flippers, whether they could be a pair of wading birds.
‘Myra, stop breathing on the window. You’ll fog it up and make it all greasy.’
‘Myra’s daydreaming again.’
‘Stop it, Myra. Why don’t you kids play I-spy or something?’
Peter nudging her in the ribs with his sharp elbow. Tom passing judgment. Her mother joining in.
Myra was oblivious to most of it. She could see the sea and the long stretch of beach and she was imagining adventures for herself. As soon as the cars stopped Myra was out and running on to the beach. She heard Mrs Carruthers’ voice booming out at Jean and her sisters, and probably at her as well. She didn’t care. In a house that voice would pull her up short, but not here, not when there was so much open space and blue sea. She ran to the sea’s edge and dabbled her toes. It was quite cold. There were flecks of foam and white caps on the waves. Still, the sun was shining, the air was warm. Myra ran back to the others, who were carrying picnic baskets and blankets and cordial flasks.
She helped Jean carry the folding chairs for their mothers. She was secretly pleased to find out that Jean didn’t have any flippers, just her plain, blue bathing suit without the novelty of being laced at the chest. They dumped the chairs, helped their mothers arrange everything and then stripped off to the freedom of their bathers. Myra’s mother smiled at her in her new suit and said, ‘You look lovely’. Mrs Carruthers didn’t say anything, but Myra could sense her disapproval of the white thread lacing. She had known Mrs Carruthers wouldn’t like her bathers. Myra grabbed Jean’s hand, grasping her flippers in the other, and they were off. They raced across the white sand, eyes squinting, hair flapping and then sank in an exhausted heap near the river, or lagoon as Myra thought of it.
They sat sprawled in the sand, digging at it with sticks and hands and heels and toes.
‘I like your bathers,’ said Jean.
‘Thanks.’ And after a pause, ‘I like yours too.’
‘Mine are really plain and ordinary. Not like yours or Nancy’s.’
‘Nancy has a bikini on! I bet Tom and Peter can’t keep their eyes off her!’
Bikinis seemed highly risqué to Myra. More so than the white lacing at her chest.
‘Mum says you and I and Jenny shouldn’t even wear bathers.’
‘Why not?’ asked Myra, greatly surprised.
‘She thinks we’re still too little. That they’re unnecessary.’
‘But, but what about our bosoms?’ Myra said, astonished, using a word she had heard her mother use.
‘Well, we haven’t really got any, have we?’ said Jean.
‘I have. They’re growing.’
‘No they’re not! You’re flat as a tack.’
‘I’m not. I have so got a bosom.’
Jean just clucked her tongue and raised her eyebrows, rolling her eyes in that annoying way she had.
‘But what about, you know, everything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jean, starting to tire of the conversation.
Myra felt mortified for the sake of her own body, and her new bathers. They were so orange. They had such lovely white piping on the shoulders. And they had the white lacing at the chest. They made her feel very special. Like Liza Minnelli in the bits of Cabaret she’d glimpsed through the crack in the lounge-room door when she was supposed to be in bed. She couldn’t bear to think what it would be like to have to give them up.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Jean. ‘I think I’ll go and get a sandwich.’
‘Okay.’
Myra watched as her friend idled back up the beach to the dark group that was her mother, Mrs Carruthers, and Nancy and Jenny, Jean’s two sisters. Her brothers, she could see, were miles away up the other end of the beach. The allure of Nancy’s bikini couldn’t have been that great.
Still feeling slightly astonished by the conversation, Myra sat up on her knees, her legs folding back under her. She pulled the straps of her bathers down and wriggled her wrists out of them, letting them hang from her waist. She stared down at her ‘bosom’. Saw the pale pink nipples like little flowers. She touched them with her fingers, felt the flesh shrink and her nipples tighten. She cupped them in the palm of each hand and imagined what it would be like to have a proper bosom, one that protruded and spilled into her hands. She stuck her shoulders back and her chest out, pretending that she was Marilyn Monroe or Liza Minnelli. When she did this it seemed as though her breasts grew, as though there were large, creamy swellings beneath the pink nipples. She placed her hands behind her in the sand, sticking her chest up as high as it would go. She moistened her lips, let her hair swing against her shoulders, imagined she was being photographed. It was funny how doing this made you feel older, naughty. She wondered if Nancy ever did things like this in her bikini. She wished there was a mirror she could see herself in. See these new breasts, this swelling body. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she hastily pulled her bathers up again, noticing how the laced white thread seemed to be stretched over her chest, tighter, in a way she was sure it hadn’t before.
Myra stood up and wandered closer to the lagoon. She waggled her hips, tried to pout her lips, thrust out her chest. She ran her hands over her breasts, believing she could feel them grow in the warmth of the sun, under the caress of her fingers and through sheer determination. Tiring of this after a while, she put her flippers on, thinking she would be a wading bird. But after a few desultory steps she stopped, feeling that for someone growing a bosom this was very childish. She stooped, took the flippers off, then lay down in the shallow water. She decided she would loll in the water, roll around and let it lap against her skin. It felt warm and silky, like little fingers touching her all over. She ‘swam’ a little, kicking her legs and walking her elbows along the bottom, then tried to do the splits. It was difficult under water, but she liked the feel of the water, the way it seemed to caress her body. She could see Mrs Carruthers walking in her direction. For a moment of panic she thought she was coming to take her bathers. She turned over in the water again, facing away from Jean’s mother.
Suddenly, she felt the most excruciating pain between her legs. Underneath the fabric of her bathers, like she’d been stung or bitten. She stood up shrieking. Mrs Carruthers heard the cry, saw Myra and came running.
‘What is it Myra, what’s wrong?’
Myra was crying now, trying to rub the pain away.
‘It hurts. It hurts,’ she sobbed.
‘What does? What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘It hurts,’ cried Myra, ‘down there,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’ve been bitten by something.’
‘Well come here then and let’s take your bathers off. Quickly!’
Myra howled again and shook her head. Mrs Carruthers had her by the shoulders and was trying to wrench her bathers down. Myra was saying ‘No, no, don’t.’ She felt wildly upset. She didn’t want to take her bathers off, didn’t want Mrs Carruthers to see her bosom or any other part of her, didn’t want to lose her precious bathers.
So they tussled, with Mrs Carruthers getting angrier and angrier, forcing Myra to sit down and finally pulling the orange bathers off in one, long movement. She tossed them aside where they lay bright and discarded in the sand. Myra looked at them mournfully. Mrs Carruthers bent to examine her but Myra was up and running. She wasn’t going to have anyone looking at her, least of all Mrs Carruthers. She ran and ran, hearing only Mrs Carruthers’ voice ringing with sarcasm and stabbing at her like poisonous darts: ‘Such modesty! And at eleven! It’s not as though you’ve got anything to hide, Myra!’