Dress It Up.

And nowhere to go.

I’ve always been crazy about dresses, since I was a little girl. The prettier the better. I love them, and have lots of them, in two wardrobes. You might even say I have a dress addiction, and if you did, I would answer that there are worse ones to have. It’s one of the reasons I love summer. Nothing compares to getting up on a warm day, throwing on a dress and a pair of heeled shoes – but not too high – and knowing that’s it, you’re dressed.

Currently my favourite one is blue, with tiny yellow and pink flowers and pearl buttons. I’m wearing it to death. On Friday, late afternoon, I’m wearing it when I meet an old friend for a drink, and she starts to tell me a story...

“I was meant to be going away on business,” she says, as we sit in a dark and seedy bar, in Soho. “But my flight was cancelled so I went back home."

I take a little sip of my beer. “Uh-huh,” I say, smoothing my dress down over my knees.

“As I was getting out of the taxi,” she says, “something caught my eye.”

“What?” I say.

“A woman,” she says. “A big woman, in a dress, running through our apartment, from one side to the other. Blonde.”

“Right,” I say.

“Then,” she goes on, “when I get in the apartment, there is no woman, only my husband - my ex-husband - coming out of the bathroom.

“And so,” I say, trying to catch the bar tender’s eye with a ten pound note, to order another beer. “Where was the woman?”

“I don’t think there was one,” she says.

“How come?” I say, dropping the tenner back into the lap of my pretty blue dress. 

“A while later, I found this zipped bag full of women’s clothes and comedy breasts and a blonde wig,” she says.

I accidentally spill the remaining dregs of my beer down my dress. “Why have you never told me this before?” I say. “This is mega.”

“Forgetful, I suppose,” she says. “Couldn't believe it, or buried it, too hard to handle, until now."

I think about this... for about thirty seconds.

“You think?” I say. “Let’s get this straight. There is this locked corner of your mind - a cupboard, essentially - and you just opened it and all these women’s clothes and a pair of comedy breasts and a blonde wig fell out.”

“Um…” she says. "I don't understand it either."

“Wow,” I say. “Maybe you were waiting for the right moment, sexual politics-wise?”

“Yeah," she says.

“If you think about it," I say, "transgender is all the rage now."

“I know,” she says. “I never could understand why he shaved his legs.”

“Okaaaay,” I say, thinking about this for a minute, but only a minute. “Each to his own. I suppose you let it be at the time, it was years ago, you’re not married to him any more, so...”

“Yes,” she says, “I mean, no. I think.”

Some like it hot.

“Let’s catch a bus,” says Husband, later that same day as we walk down St Martin’s Lane, trying to get to Kensington Palace Gardens to watch Some Like It Hot.

“I’m really not keen on buses,” I say, still thinking about my friend and her ex-husband. “You never know where you are with a bus.”

“You know exactly where you are with a bus,” says Husband. “Just look out of the window.”

“You know what I mean,” I say. “You never know when they’re going to turn up.”

“It tells you on the electronic display,” says Husband.

“Yeah, right,” I say. “Like you believe that.”

“Er, yes,” says Husband.

We wait at the bus stop for the number nine. The electronic display says it will arrive in five minutes.

“It will never arrive in five minutes,” I say.

“It will,” says Husband.

It does. It’s a Boris bus, hot as hell because the air con is struggling.

“Now we’re going to get stuck in traffic.” I say.

“We won't,” says Husband.

We do get stuck in traffic.

“I told you we’d get stuck in traffic,” I say. "Plus it looks like rain."

"It won't rain," says Husband.

The bus moves again. I’m losing this argument, I think, as we make it to Kensington Gardens in plenty of time.

The movie is sold out. There are loads of families eating picnics. I forgot how great it is. Really funny. Line after line of sharp, witty writing. Of course, the comedy entirely rests on Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis pretending to be women, in dresses and high heels, and it’s still funny for that reason, even if they aren’t very convincing women. We just suspend our disbelief.

“This movie has really stood the test of time,” I whisper, as beautiful Marilyn Monroe sings I Wanna Be Loved By You, in a dress so revealing it’s pornographic.

“You’re a guy!” hisses Tony Curtis to Jack Lemmon at the end, when Jack Lemmon tells him he's engaged to Osgood Fielding III. “Everyone knows a guy can’t marry a guy!”

A high little voice rings out across the grass, a little girl. “Oh yes he can!" she says.

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. "Hey Libby,” says my sister-in-law, when she’s round for lunch with my brother and two nieces on Saturday (Libby is the name my family call me). “I picked this up for you in a charity shop.” She pulls a gorgeous silk flowered dress from her bag. “It's from me. Check it out. I think it's your size."

It did rain but only a bit.