'The Modesty Vest'

To mark Amnesty's International Women's Day Festival, Fishamble Theatre Company asked a group of writers to pen a story about a piece of clothing, for a one-off performance on 5 March. Here's what Maeve Binchy and Gavin Kostick came up with...

We had an old dressmaker, Miss Looney. Well, you can imagine the fun we made of her name. She was very old and she lived in a sort of tenement.

Well there was an awful smelly stairs going up to it and things written on the wall.

Anyway, there wasn't much money for clothes at home, and we were the only family in the area that didn't have relatives in America to send us clothes parcels. All my friends had lovely dresses with puff sleeves and little waistcoats and short jackets belonging to their American cousins.

"Why did none of our family go to America?" I would complain to my mother.

"Because we were all very lucky, we managed to get work here," she said with a pleased smile.

I saw nothing to be pleased about. No parcels bursting at the seams with glittery things and candy stripes and polka dots. Some luck that!

So we trekked up and down to Miss Looney. Miss Looney's sister, Miss Queenie, lived with her she would come in and chatter a bit. "Miss Queenie wasn't all there," they said, as if Miss Looney was. But my mother was always very polite to them both and always brought a few biscuits or maybe two nice scones for their tea.

She told me once that Miss Looney had been Disappointed when she was young.

I didn't think that was anything to worry about, weren't we all being disappointed all of the time? Like with the awful dull heavy streelish clothes that Miss Looney made for us. Clothes with plenty of room to grow into.

But my mother said it was a different kind of Disappointment. It had to do with a man who was going to marry Miss Looney once but, when he realised that she would have to look after Miss Queenie, the man disappeared.

I looked at Miss Looney after this with new eyes. A man had loved her once, or sort of loved her. How extraordinary. But he must have been a bit of a shit if he wouldn't take poor Miss Queenie, who never did anyone any harm and always said "Isn't she a lovely child, God Bless her" when she came in to find me in my vest and knickers, with Miss Looney pinning awful things on me.

Then I was 17 and going to a dance and my mother said that I could have a dress made by Miss Looney. We went to town and Mammy bought Shot Taffeta – a material that changed colour when you moved. And Miss Looney made this awful, awful garment which made me look like an armoured tank with sleeves.

And I knew that there were girls buying strapless bras to hold up terrific strapless dresses and I cried my eyes out and said I'd prefer never to go to a dance but to go and sign on to be a nun now, rather than wear it .

So my mother gave in and it was made sleeveless. I wanted a low neck and Miss Looney and my mother nearly fainted and Miss Queenie blessed herself.

Miss Looney said you couldn't rely on men; if they saw the division between your breasts, they couldn't help themselves and you would be leading them into sin and it would be your fault if they damned their eternal souls.

So they made a modesty vest. It was a triangular piece of material that was sewn into the dress where the v-neck ended and covered your cleavage. It could be the same colour as the dress, or white. I asked for it white and asked if it could be on patent fasteners, so that I could take it out and wash it separately.

I went to the dance and, of course, I took the modesty vest out and put it in my handbag for safe keeping.

And people said I looked great, and this fellow who was quite drunk, but I didn't realise it, took me out for a chat, only it wasn't really a chat at all. It was sort of nice at the beginning. We were kissing and cuddling but then he started pulling at my dress and he put his hand over my mouth. And he... he... and when he had finished, he ran away.

And I screamed and screamed and everyone found me, and knew.

And life changed after that.

It seems I shouldn't have screamed.

Or gone out for a chat.

Or told anybody.

And I certainly shouldn't have taken off the modesty vest.

It was all my fault. He couldn't help himself.

I had led him on.

I hadn't listened to people like Miss Looney and Miss Queenie but I should have listened.

Because I didn't have much of a life after that.

I was damaged goods and I had brought it all on myself. I should have worn the modesty vest.