I suppose every one of us has had at least one embarrassing moment. Doubtless we’ve all lost a knicker or two in our time. Underwear generally can create a wide variety of hazards. There are unlimited straps that go ping and, while one may not mind the occasional drifting petticoat, bras can be a great trial. It isn’t much fun when half a bosom goes thud at a party, for instance. There is a limit to how long one can go on hunching one shoulder; and standing diagonally isn’t really the answer either. Perhaps even worse is the brassiere that creeps upwards under a close-fitting dress and then stops midway up one’s chest. Bulging, painfully, above and below, I once smiled staunchly through just such a double-breasted evening.
Now that I suppose most of us wear tights, we no longer have to face that moment of truth when, leaping up from a casual legs-crossed sitting position, we found that the back suspender on one leg had attached itself to the front suspender on the other. Getting out of a room with one’s legs locked wrap-around required more verve than I could ever muster.
Shoes, too, can be a source of embarrassment. Have you ever tried on a long, long boot in one of those serve-yourself shoe shops and then been unable to get it off? Or lost a heel and had to bob casually up and down all the way home? (You can try balancing things up by walking with one foot in the gutter but it looks a bit slummocky.)
Really, looking back, some moments in my life have been a complete shambles. During an interview with a Fairly Important Person, in his flat, I managed to make a reasonably graceful exit only to discover that I had backed into a bedroom. Through the closed door I could hear other visitors arriving. I stood for a long time wondering what to do. The assembled guests doubtless drew their own conclusions when eventually the bedroom door opened and a bemused-looking woman stumbled past them and made a frenzied bolt for the front door.
Uncomfortable moments fall roughly into two categories – events which happen to us and things we do to other people. I can put up with a fair amount of the former (I don’t seem to have much choice) but I really do feel embarrassed if I unwittingly hurt others. The conversational hiatus one feels compelled to babble into. The silly, unthinking remark. The tactless act.
One acquaintance won’t easily forget moving a gate-legged table in a shop in a moment of misguided helpfulness. We all know what happens to gate-legged tables if one isn’t careful. Legs fold together. Flaps drop. So, in this case, did a small fortune in cut glass.
My own most embarrassing moment concerns a journey I was making from London to Scotland. I was to be away for some time so I packed a really huge suitcase and staggered off to the nearest bus stop. There was one other lady waiting for a bus and together we stood, for some time. Presently a car drove up and the woman driver leant out and said: ‘Going to the station?’ ‘Oh yes, thanks,’ we both said gratefully and, while my companion slipped into the front passenger seat, I opened the rear door and began, inch by inch, to slide my gigantic piece of luggage into the available space. It just fitted on the floor, leaving the back seat free for me – but of course there was nowhere for me to put my feet. So, turning round, I flung myself in backwards, landing in a horizontal and somewhat abandoned position across the seat.
I now had to close the door, but a relatively simple pivoting action of elbow and hip made it possible to claw it shut.
‘Right!’ I said. ‘All set.’
‘Tell me, Doris,’ said the driver, turning to the passenger in the front seat. ‘Do you know this person?’
‘Why no, Agnes,’ said Doris. ‘I thought she must be a friend of yours.’
Together they rounded on me. ‘Would you please get out of our car,’ they said. So I did. But it took time.
As we get older we don’t mind quite so much if we are caught off guard – although going back to a party the morning after, to reclaim one’s wig, takes courage. The other morning, as we few stay-the-nighters were gathering up sticky glasses and vacuuming under the sofa, a small, dark-haired girl wandered in.
‘Ah, there it is,’ she cried, snatching up what I had taken to be a recumbent Pekingese. And lo, with not so much as a nervous titter, the small dark stranger clapped hand to head, turned into last night’s blonde belle of the ball and strolled out.
If only we could develop such poise when we are young and suffer most acutely. I can remember those dreadful adolescent days of Oh, I wish I could die/Life will never be the same again/How can I ever face my friends? (The cause of all this mortification, by the way, was usually no more than a pimple on the chin.)
And I’ve just realized that it starts even before adolescence. ‘Oh Mummy,’ says Anna, crashing in from school and talking non-stop. ‘You know those pants of mine with the pink flowers? – well, I forgot to take my PE knickers this morning and when I turned upside down on the climbing frame they all laughed and now they call me Flower Power!’
‘Never mind,’ I say soothingly. ‘You’d never believe some of the embarrassing things that happened to me …’
One does stop blushing – eventually.