The Mystery of the Pink Panties

Abby is walking home from work under a grey sky. She’s depressed. She’s goes into the Tropicana wine bar in the hope of running into some friends who might cheer her up. If she doesn’t, she’ll have to rely on a vodka and orange to cheer her up. Ten to six might seem a bit early for a vodka and orange, but what the hell! She’s had a lousy day.

She finds Trish and Sophie sitting round a glass table in a kind of clearing in the jungle vegetation.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi-ya.’
Trish and Sophie are depressed. The three girls cheer themselves up by discussing what an awful day they’ve had and what total bastards all men are.
‘Doing anything tonight?’
‘No, I’m staying in and doing my nails.’
‘I’m staying in and doing my emails.’
‘I’m staying in and doing my hair.’
‘I can’t even afford this month’s rent. My landlord wants to “discuss” it. He wants to take me out for a drink to “discuss” it. I know exactly what THAT means.’
‘My laptop’s packing up and I can’t afford to get it fixed or get a new one. The letter ‘e’ doesn’t type, which is a real pain since ‘e’ ’s the mostly commonly used letter in the English language. Isn’t it? Or is it “a”?’
‘I think it’s “f”.’ And they all laugh and feel better.
‘Get Jeb to fix it,’ suggests Sophie.
‘Jeb! Your joking ! Jeb can’t change a light bulb!’
‘Well, he spends all night poring over a computer, so he must know something about them!’
‘He doesn’t. He knows nothing about everything.’
‘Nothing about everything? That makes him sound really wise – in a Zen kind of way.’
‘Well he’s not, he’s a prat – in a Zen kind of way.’
Abby’s mobile rings. She fishes it out of her bag and glances at the display. Speak of the devil! She lifts it to her ear.
‘Alright, babe,’ says a voice.
He has this annoying habit of calling her ‘babe’ all the time. And now he wants her to pick up his laundry from the laundrette – it should have finished its cycle about now. He thinks he put it in machine number 7 but he can’t be sure. Anyway, it’s the one with all the pink tee-shirts (the result of an accidental wash with some naff red handkerchiefs his Mum insisted on sending him for Christmas). And would she mind just slinging it in the dryer while she’s about it? He’d do it himself only he’s really on a roll with his writing.
Abby’s jaw drops. The cheek of the guy! It’s not even as though he’s her boyfriend. He’s just this guy who lives in the room next to hers in the house, who does shift-work in a packing factory and thinks he’s a writer. But he’s never published anything. In fact, she’s not even sure if he’s ever written anything. But he’s doing a creative writing course, so apparently that makes him a writer. She ends the call.
All her friends are looking at her expectantly. She drains her drink. ‘I have to go,’ she says mysteriously.

Sitting in the laundrette staring at Jeb’s clothes bouncing round and round in the dryer, Abby ponders her life. She’s twenty-eight, single and works for a company that makes rubber sprockets. She has so little interest in her work that she is not even entirely sure what rubber sprockets are, but they pay the rent – just. She’s recently made a solemn vow never to have anything to do with men ever again. Experience has taught her that all relationships with men are cyclical – i.e. going nowhere. Just like life. Or like Jeb’s underwear – churning endlessly up and down and round and round, going nowhere. The cycle typically comprises about twenty phases and she’s been around it so many times she knows them by heart. Most recently it was with a guy called Craig. The cycle was completed the previous week – and the parting was really messy.
The machine stops and Jeb’s clothes all flop to the bottom of the drum in a lifeless heap. Abby hauls herself out of her chair, opens the door and finds they’re still damp. She scratches around in her purse for some coins and sets the machine in motion again. She resumes her seat and sighs.
And then there’s Jeb – all of whose clothes, incidentally, now appear to be pink. He’s different at least – though not quite in the way she would have liked. He seems to have jumped straight into the cycle at about Phase 12. But what’s he doing there? She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even like him particularly. He hasn’t worked his way through the cycle like you’re supposed to do. He hasn’t put in the time. He hasn’t put in the effort. As far as she can remember he’s never even bought her a drink. She did allow him to kiss her once, at a party at Trisha’s place when everyone was blind drunk. Maybe that’s what underlies this attitude of his. Maybe that’s what makes him think he’s got the right to come into the kitchen while she’s making her supper, plonk a hand on her shoulder and peer into her saucepan with some remark like ‘What’s for tea, babe?’ Or is it that she and Jeb – the tenants of the two cheapest flats in the house – are forced to share a kitchen? Is it that which gives him the illusion they’re practically married? There’s a deep spiritual bond between them – so he says – and apparently that gives him the right to help himself to her spaghetti. And to get her to stop off on her way home after a shit awful day to pick up his washing from the launderette and wait while it goes through the dryer a second time. And the worst of it is, here she is doing it.

Jeb’s not exactly on a roll with his writing, like he said. He’s actually sitting staring at a blank Word document, waiting for inspiration. The topic for this week’s assignment is “Location, Location, Location”. Not that naff telly programme where over-moneyed thirty-somethings turn up their noses at six-bedroomed country mansions because they’re more than 6.7 miles from the motorway. Neil, the guy who runs the class, wants them to address the big questions: ‘Where am I? Not just WHERE AM I? But where AM I? Or indeed, WHERE am I? I am here, sitting in front of my laptop, thinking about “Location”. But where am I REALLY? And Abby’s there, in the laundrette, listening to the churning of the dryer and watching my pink Y-fronts bouncing round and round. But where is she REALLY?’
He sighs. It’s not just lack of inspiration. His thoughts are fixated on something which happened earlier that evening. A silly little thing but one which nonetheless has stuck in his mind, or in his soul or somewhere. As a writer he can’t help viewing his life aesthetically and he therefore feels strongly the importance of keeping what happened as an isolated incident, of not following it up in any way, of preserving it as a single precious jewel set in the dull paste of mundanity. Hey – “a single precious jewell set in the dull paste of mundanity” – that’s not bad!

Abby, bored and angry, surreptitiously glances around at her fellow inmates of the laundrette. There’s a tall, thin, grey man, probably in his early forties, wearing a shabby brown suit and a little beard. He looks as though he tried being a teacher but couldn’t hack it and now makes a meagre living teaching people to play the piano badly. There’s an old woman who appears to be of Asian origin. And a teenage girl who’s thin and pale and would be very pretty if life’s hardships and disappointments hadn’t made her look so sad and haunted. Has she run away from home? Or from a boyfriend who’s abusing her? Her bob of floppy hair is dyed nuclear red and she has a stud in her nostril. Abby and the girl glance at each other – just for an instant – then the girl quickly averts her eyes before any kind of contact is made. Here we all are, thinks Abby with a sigh, the brotherhood – and sisterhood – of those who are too poor to own a washing machine. It’s completely different in France. In France the “laverie” is the hub of the community where people from all social backgrounds gather and mingle – even the word sounds more cool and exotic than “laundrette”. Old ladies air the town gossip with their jaws in overdrive – who’s just had an illegitimate child and by whom, who’s husband’s clearly a closet gay, who’s the Mayor’s mistress of the month. People laugh and help each other fold their counterpanes. Here in England they just sit and stare at nothing, hypnotised by the drone of the machines and the sight of the laundry bouncing round and round.

Jeb’s clothes stop revolving again. Abby feels them thoroughly to check that this time they’re nice and dry and warm. She puts them in one of the plastic baskets provided and carries them to a counter where are spread some prehistoric copies of Titbits and Weekend and yesterday’s edition of The Sun. She imagines that Jeb would probably just grab all his clothes and thrust them anyhow into a bag, but there is something in her – possibly (oh my God!) some mothering instinct – which compels her to take each item separately, fold it and place it neatly in a pile. There is actually something quite pleasant and restful about the activity – like ironing or hoovering the carpet. Maybe it’s because, being totally disorganised, those little tasks give her the illusion that she’s imposing some order on her chaotic universe. For a few moments she feels reassured, comforted, warm, safe. She lays both her palms on one of Jeb’s tee-shirts and slides them slowly apart, her head tilted, smiling with satisfaction. Next she picks up a pair of his Y-fronts. She can’t believe Jeb’s still wearing Y-fronts! Real men all wear boxers nowadays. She can’t imagine where he even buys them – probably from some stall in the market. All his clothes look so small and cheap. He’s fairly tall but of slight build and his clothes look like those of a young teenage boy. As she folds them she suddenly imagines she’s a mother folding up her child’s clothes for school. Then she notices the girl with the nuclear red hair glaring at her. She briskly resumes her task.
Jeb has overloaded the machine. His week’s wash seems to go on and on. But then, just as she’s getting to the end, Abby comes upon something which causes her to gasp and her eyes to widen in surprise. It’s a pair of pants, pink like everything else, but definitely not Jeb’s – because they’re not even pants, they’re panties! GIRL’S panties!
She frowns. How on earth did a pair of girl’s panties get into Jeb’s laundry? She pauses in her work and considers the question at length. The obvious answer is that they belong to someone he’s slept with. That he’s SLEPT with! Jeb? But what girl sleeps with someone and then leaves without putting their knickers back on? It’s bizarre! Unless it was someone who lives close by, someone in the house, but even then it’s pretty weird. Abby mentally goes through all the females in the house who could possibly have slept with Jeb. There isn’t one. Another explanation is that they belong to someone from outside who was forced to leave in a hurry. But what forces people to leave in that much of a hurry? The unexpected return of the wife? Jeb hasn’t got a wife. The unexpected return of the real girlfriend? Jeb hasn’t got a real girlfriend. At least, as far as she knows he hasn’t. She shrugs and decides to put the matter out of her mind. But it’s a real mystery just the same.

When she finally gets home, Jeb asks, ‘What happened to that guy Craig or Dale or whatever his name was? I haven’t seen him around for a while.’
‘It’s over.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!’ he remarks cheerfully.
‘I’m not.’
‘Anyway, thanks for picking up my laundry, babe. I really appreciate it.’
‘So you should.’
Abby has trouble sleeping that night. It’s crazy, she knows, but the mystery of those panties just keeps niggling at her. She can’t get them out of her mind. The theory that they were abandoned by a lover just doesn’t ring true whatever scenario she plays out in her imagination. Maybe he had a sister or an old friend to stay and she just left a pair of panties behind. Yes, that had to be it! But Jeb’s never talked about having a sister and, in all the time she’s known him, she can’t remember him ever having anyone to stay. Still, that’s got to be the answer! Unless… unless… there’s another, rather tackier explanation. No, that can’t be it!
But that, actually, she has to admit, is the most logical explanation so far. Jeb is seriously odd, after all. Maybe, in the privacy of his room, he likes to walk around in girl’s panties. Or even a bra – although Jeb’s so skinny there wouldn’t be much to hold one up. Or maybe, maybe, he goes the whole hog – tartan miniskirt, knee-length white socks, bracelets, necklaces, makeup, wig. When she sees him boiling pasta in the kitchen she can’t help picturing him in a little black number and is horrified to find that she rather prefers what she sees to the reality. No! Jeb would never be able to afford designer labels, even from TK Maxx. But maybe she’s doing him a terrible injustice. She can’t go around imagining he’s a transvestite if he isn’t. She has to know the truth!
That evening, when he’s in the kitchen making himself something involving noodles (he seems to live on noodles) she goes in and asks, ‘Do you mind if I make a start on chopping some tomatoes?’
‘No problem, babe.’
‘I mean… I know the system is for one of us to wait until the other’s finished, but…’
‘It’s not a problem.’
As she works, Abby remarks, with studied casualness, ‘I was reading this really fascinating article in the Daily Mail. It said that their research shows that a staggering 22% of males have indulged in some form of tranvestitism during their lives.’
‘Really? That’s amazing!’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yeah, I’d never have you down as a Mail reader.’
Abby frowns. ‘I’m not! There just happened to be one floating around the rest room at work. But it’s an amazing statistic, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I thought it was amazing.’
‘And yet… why is it that if men dress up in women’s clothes it’s regarded as weird and unhealthy whereas if women dress in men’s clothes it’s just a bit butch and eccentric?’
‘Personally I don’t think there’s anything weird and unhealthy about men dressing up in women’s clothes. Not if it’s done in private. I think it’s rather sweet. And it doesn’t hurt anybody, does it? It’s probably just a way of them getting in touch with their feminine side. Or a way of feeling close to a loved one… to… the owner of a pair of panties, for example. Or a bra. Or whatever…’
Jeb stops stirring his noodles for a moment. ‘Mmm. I don’t know. I suppose that’s all true in theory but I have to say that at a gut level I still find it a bit weird.’
Yeah, well you WOULD say that, wouldn’t you? Abby thinks to herself. But she has to admit that, weird though Jeb is, he doesn’t seem into this particular foible. When she broached the subject there wasn’t a hint of embarrassment or defensiveness in his reaction. Maybe the transvestite thing is a no-go after all. So what is the explanation?

On the bus into work the next morning she is exasperated to find she’s still thinking about those panties. She just can’t help it. Maybe he just likes to possess a pair of women’s panties without actually wearing them. A lot of men like to possess something private and intimate of their girlfriends’. Especially if they’re far from them. But Jeb hasn’t got a girlfriend. The only person he seems to fancy, as he’s made crassly obvious on a number of occasions, is her.
Oh my GOD! Maybe they were HER panties! Maybe Jeb sneaked into her room while she was out and pinched a pair as a keepsake. But he couldn’t have done that! She always locks her room when she goes out. Although, come to think of it, she doesn’t. Not always. She’s actually quite remiss about locking her door. She always locks it when she goes to work or goes out for the evening, but if she’s just popping round the corner to post a letter or pick up some milk she often doesn’t bother. And there’s absolutely no way she can check whether she’s short of a pair of pants because she hasn’t the faintest idea how many pairs she had in the first place!

The following evening, Jeb’s cooking and she’s chopping a pepper this time. He doesn’t seem to think there’s anything suspicious about it.
‘Jeb… what do you think about the idea of a wife or girlfriend giving something to their husband or boyfriend if they’re away from them? Something to remind them of them and make them think of them?’
‘You mean… a present?’
‘Well, no, I mean something of their own… like a hair clip, or maybe… something more intimate, something which carries the perfume and body odour of that person.’
‘Yeah, I think that’s a lovely idea. If you ever went away I’d like you to give me a pair of your panties.’
She gasps. ‘Jeb, that’s disgusting!’
‘Well, you brought it up.’
Abby suddenly snaps. She can’t stand it any longer. She sets down her knife and turns to face him. ‘Jeb, that laundry you made me pick up the other day! There was a pair of girl’s panties in it!’
He looks all vagueness and innocence. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really! I know it’s none of my business, but since you made me go and collect it for you and hang around while it dried, even though I was exhausted after a crap day at work, I’m making it my business. I want to know how they got there! It’s driving me crazy!’
Jeb just looks vague, then shrugs. ‘I’ve no idea how they got there.’
‘You must have some idea! Think!’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea at all.’
She stares at him. ‘And that’s all you’ve got to say on the subject?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I want you to tell me what they were doing there! I can’t stand it another minute!’
‘I’ve just told you, I don’t know what they were doing there. Why’s it such a big deal, anyway?’
‘It’s not a big deal. It’s just… a mystery. And I don’t like mysteries. They infuriate me!’
‘Did you think they might belong to my girlfriend?’
‘You haven’t got a girlfriend.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t, but…’
‘And would it… bother you if they did belong to my girlfriend?’
‘No, of course not! Why should it?’
Jeb’s smiling at her in a really irritating way. And then, suddenly, it’s as though a light has been switched on in his brain. ‘Oh I get it!'
‘What?’
‘All that talk about men wearing women’s clothes! You were trying to find out if I’m a transvestite!’
‘Of course I wasn’t! I never thought for a moment you were a transvestite! I was just … eliminating possibilities.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you.’
The matter is dropped. They work on in silence, rather awkwardly, preparing their respective suppers. Then Jeb suddenly says, ‘Come to think of it I do remember how they got there! It’s just come back to me!’
‘Well?’
‘There was this girl. Really pretty but a bit punky – her hair was dyed red and she had a stud in her nose and a few other piercings.’
‘Yes?’
‘And she… well, she filled up her machine and set it off and then, just as she was leaving she kind of lingered in the doorway and then came back in and came up to me. I was still loading up my machine and she said something like, ‘I’m really sorry to ask you this but I’ve just found I’ve left a pair of pants out of my wash. I was wondering if I could put them with your stuff. They should both be finished at the same time.’ I thought she looked like the sort of girl who maybe couldn’t afford too many pairs of pants, so I said, “Yeah, sure, no problem.”’
Abby is looking at him in utter consternation. ‘That’s the most feeble, pathetic and improbable explanation I’ve ever heard!’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but it happens to be true.’
‘Jeb, I’m a girl! And I’m telling you there is no girl on this entire planet, however desperate, who would ever ask a totally strange man if she could put her dirty knickers in with his wash. It just wouldn’t happen. Unless…. you weren’t a totally strange man...’
‘No, I was. I’d never seen her before in my life.’
Abby’s shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Well… a girl like that… she’s probably got hundreds of brothers. And she probably comes from a really tough background far away from South Croydon. Some people just aren’t used to the sort of luxuries you and I take for granted.’
‘No, I’m sorry. She’s a woman. No woman would do that. I don’t care how tough her background.’
‘Well, maybe it was her way of…’
‘Of what?’
‘Well, you know, of kind of… coming on to me.’
Abby frowns. ‘I’ve seen people come on to people in some weird ways, but that would have to take the prize!’
‘Well… some people might find a pair of knickers a bit of a turn-on. And she was being quite flirtatious. Or maybe she was lonely. Maybe she was just… reaching out to a fellow human being.’
Abby considers his words for a few moments. ‘Well, if that is the explanation, I’m afraid I’ve messed it all up for you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I spotted that girl. She kept looking daggers at me and now I know why. When she saw me neatly folding your clothes she must have assumed I was your girlfriend.’
‘Oh, right. Which you’re not, of course. Are you?’
‘No. I’m not.’