Attempting an authoritative tone that suggested she had an idea what she was doing, she looked into the little green circle on her phone. 'Right. I thought I'd do a what's in my handbag video, because apparently, people find other people's belongings fascinating, and I've certainly got plenty of belongings to entertain you with. My bag is a life force of its own. I do believe it has its own microclimate. All joking aside, if you are like me, you will love to know what’s inside people’s bags. Woe betide you, however, if you ever meet me and you decide to touch my bag or even look in its direction. You will be toast.'
She’d bought the bag itself during a period when she'd convinced herself that buying a larger style basket would somehow lead to a more organised life and not the otherway around. Therefore, with that premise in mind, a lovely French market basket, earthy and rustic, had been sourced and purchased to facilitate dreams of walking along in white linen, buying fresh herbs from a market in Toulouse. Real life meant it was a bit on the tatty side, however, it had fulfilled a few fantasies by accompanying Darby to the Pretty Beach Farmer’s Market so there was that. The handles had stretched with use and abuse; they were slightly different lengths and a few tufts poked out here and there. The whole thing wore a lopsided, slightly inebriated appearance. In an odd way, it these days, matched Darby's general approach to life.
Hauling it onto the table, she chuckled. 'It's massive, which you'd think would mean I'm incredibly organised and have space for everything, but actually it just means I lose things more efficiently and carry around twice as much rubbish as normal people.'
Shaking her head, Darby tutted; the weight of the bag genuinely surprised her every time she lifted it. Over the months since she’d last decluttered it, it had accumulated layers of necessity and what she sometimes considered to be her very unique neurosis. Less handbag, more a portable manifestation of her inability to make decisions about what she actually needed versus what she might theoretically need in some imagined emergency scenario.
'I should probably get a smaller bag, but then where would I put all my essential rubbish?'
It was distinctly lived-in and very much loved and she wasn’t about to be giving it up anytime soon. Minimising and refining her life was not on her radar, at least not in the foreseeable. Chuckling, Darby started to dig in. ‘Right, here we go.’
Pulling out a moulded eye mask, she nodded, ‘This is one of the best things I have ever bought. It’s an eye mask, obviously, but it’s moulded, meaning it slots around your, I suppose, youreye sockets, and even if you have the light on, it feels like you are in complete darkness. Honestly, if you have trouble sleeping, one of these is your friend.’
Rummaging for a bit, she pulled out another eye mask. This one pale pink and silk. Putting it on over her hair, she shook her head and then pushed it back up. ‘Obviously, this is also an eye mask, but this one is my spare. Yes, I need a spare. However, there is a problem with this one. Despite it being made from very rare silk and being oversized, as you can see, in my case, it’s not great. Even though it does do the job it was designed for, it also has other skills. Oh yes. It actually stopped my eyelashes from growing. After a few months of better sleep, I was indeed more sprightly, but I began to realise I had no eyelashes. My friend Google told me this was easy to fix. It’s taken me 13 weeks for my eyelashes to grow back. Why do I keep sleep masks in my bag? I do not know. Right, what’s next in here?’
She pulled out a handful of small containers that looked like they'd been designed for travelling but had really only ever been to Pretty Beach. Lining them up on the table, she tapped their tops and continued to ramble away to the camera. 'Little pots of cream. This one's for hands, this one's for face, this one's for something, though I can't remember what. I buy these thinking I'll become the sort of person who touches up her skincare throughout the day, but mainly I just accumulate tiny containers of products I'm too mean to throw away.'
Darby smiled as she opened each pot and held them to the camera. Recounting the story of a face cream which had been an impulse buy during a lunch break when she'd caught sight of herself in a shop window and been horrified by her own reflection. There was also a pot she had no recollection of purchasing. The mystery cream had probably been part of some optimistic skincare routine. Said routine would have lasted approximately three days before being abandoned in favour ofher usual approach: splashing cold water on her face and hoping for the best.
'Oh, and here's a little mirror. It’s actually got a tiny battery in the back that you can replace so that it lights up. It’s useful for checking how awful you look throughout the day, though I'm not sure why I need portable confirmation of something I could probably guess. I mean, it’s been my face for long enough.'
The next thing she pulled out was a little floral fabric pouch with a zipper that had seen considerably better days.
'This is my little bag that lives in this big bag. It's from Bea's, do you know that shop? Anyway, they do lovely things, but you have to cut off a leg to buy something from there. So, yes, I’m now missing a leg. Not really, I’m joking. This little bag goes everywhere with me and covers me for any situation. I shove it in any bag I’m using because I don’t always haul this basket around with me. And yes, I have issues with handbags as well as everything else in my life.'
Darby shook the smaller bag and raised her eyebrows as a rattling and jangling of various makeup items and accoutrements banged against each other. 'I'm not going to show you everything that's in here, because frankly, I'm not sure I know everything that's in here, and some of it might be embarrassing.'
Darby tried not to start rambling. Her intention was to remain calm and dignified on the outside as if she was presenting on Blue Peter or something. Inside her head, she tuttedtoandatherself. What was she doing, showing the inner contents of her bag to the far corners of the globe? She had reached a new low. Low, low, low. No doubt people in Singapore, Dallas and Outer Mongolia would be hooting to themselves. She would be a person people watched to make themselves feel better. A madcap woman in England surrounded by 1980s decor and a very messy bag. Despite acknowledging to herselfthat there was no way the video would ever see the light of day, she carried on regardless. Unzipping the smaller bag, she pulled out a tiny, round plastic dusky pink container, no bigger than a larger matchbox, and held it up to the camera.
'Actually, let me show you one thing. Look at this. It's a little emergency salt holder. I'm basically powered by salt and I got this little container once on a plane when I had the, well, you know. Anyway, now I take it everywhere. Because you never do know when you might be in need of some Maldon. I will also tell you this: sometimes I put Maldon on my tiramisu. I have already told you about my addiction to tiramisu, but sometimes it’s not easy to cart around with one.'
The pot was tiny, decorated with a little label that proclaimed the contents to be 'essential'. Darby loved it because the contemplation with genuine horror of being caught somewhere without access to decent salt made her shudder. She had experienced it often. 'I mean, obviously I haven't actually used it that many times.' Darby admitted, turning the pot over in her palm. 'It's too special to use willy-nilly in a way. Which completely defeats the point, but there we are. I'm saving it for a proper emergency, though I'm not sure what constitutes a salt emergency that would justify breaking into the emergency supplies. Yes, I am strange.'
Dropping the pot back into the little bag and then popping the bag back into the main compartment of the basket, she began pulling things out of the bag. Like some kind of excavation or archaeological dig, Darby continued to delve. It made her both chuckle because of the funny side and want to cry as she realised her bag was just as upside down as her life.
'Right, let's see what else we've got in here. Oh, a little foldable brush.' She held up a brush. 'I bought this about six months ago with the idea that I'd maintain good hair throughout the day. Needless to say, I've never used it. I continue to carryit around, though just in case I find myself in a situation where I need to brush my hair.’ Laughing as she opened up the brush, Darby held it up to the camera. The irony that most, if not all, of the time, her hair was in a messy bun right on the top of her head. The brush belonged to the theoretical version of herself who thought about things like good hair and being moisturised. The version who had meetings that ran late and needed to freshen up before evening engagements, rather than the reality of someone whose most exciting evening plan usually involved choosing between two different types of biscuit to have with her tea and who to watch on YouTube.
'I think I bought it during one of those phases where I convinced myself I was going to become incredibly professional and organised.' Darby laughed as she examined the brush as if it might hold clues to her past optimism. 'You know, the sort of woman who keeps spare tights in her desk drawer and always has breath mints. Clearly, that transformation is still a work in progress.'
Producing a handful of writing implements in various states of decay, Darby grimaced. There was no way she was ever going to publish the video but it would give her a very good poke in the you know what to clear out her bag. 'Pens. I mean, really? Why? I don’t even use pens when I am out these days. So many pens. Some work, some don't, some might work if you shake them long enough. I'm like a pen magnet, except instead of attracting good pens, I seem to attract the dying ones that other people have abandoned. Oh, and yes, because of course I have a permanent Sharpie in here. I know where this is from. This is from when I had to write the names in the children’s clothes.'
Shaking her head at the motley collection of pens, Darby felt embarrassed. There were promotional biros from businesses she'd never heard of, pencils worn down to stubs, and a marker that had given up the will to live sometime during the previousdecade. She continued to carry them all because throwing away a pen felt wasteful, even when the pen in question was clearly beyond redemption.
Next came out a foldable sun hat. 'This is for one of those times when you are suddenly in St Tropez and your delicate English skin needs shade.’ Darby flicked out the hat. 'Hmm. I haven’t been out of the country for years, but there are moments, you know? Like, I always think if I ever went to somewhere like Sicily in the summer, which let's face it is about as likely as me becoming an astronaut, I can picture myself on some gorgeous bougainvillaea-surrounded terrace with big sunglasses and a glass of something chilled and alcoholic and it would just be perfect. Of course, in reality, I'd probably be sitting in McDonald's sunburnt, but the fantasy is quite appealing.'
The holidaying on the continent on a nice boat fantasy was one of Darby’s ridiculous, persistent daydreams that bore no relationship to her actual life or abilities. She'd never been boating, had no particular desire to learn, and possessed none of the equipment or attitude necessary for summer sports. But the image persisted: herself as some sort of glamorous creature, on a mini-break, no less, all sophisticated European style and expensive sunglasses. The fact that she couldn't even manage to walk across Pretty Beach without incident didn't seem to diminish the appeal of this particular delusion.
Darby held up a tube of cream. 'Cream for pain. Because apparently, when you get older, your joints ache, which is one of those things nobody tells you about ageing. Along with the way you find it harder to get up out of chairs and how you become genuinely excited about new kitchen appliances.'
Pulling out a small rectangular container, Darby pursed her lips and nodded. ‘Now here we have something. Look at this beautiful little thing. This is one of those sushi box thingies. It apparently helps the environment. Bento Box, is it? Yes,I think so. To be honest, though, I’ve never used the little compartments. Oh dear, there’s a leftover chicken sandwich with, dare I say it, shock horror, white sliced bread from my work lunch yesterday. I made it with pesto, which always makes everything taste more interesting than it has any right to. I like to make sandwiches with leftovers, you know?'
Darby continued to delve but decided that she’d had enough and if she’d had enough if the video ever came to see the light of day, there was no doubt that anyone watching it would feel the same. She pulled out two pairs of sunglasses, one hard sunglasses case and two soft ones. ‘Yes, I have many pairs of sunglasses in my bag. You know why? I am addicted to sunglasses because I live by the sea and pretend that I am on holiday all the time. They are just expensive props for a lifestyle I don't actually have. But they make me feel like the sort of person who might jet off to Monaco at a moment's notice, even though I can barely afford to jet off to the Co-op most days.'
The holiday glasses represented everything she'd hoped her life might become: spontaneous, glamorous, full of adventures. Instead, they'd spent most of their existence sitting in the small bag within the big bag, waiting for occasions that never materialised and adventures that remained firmly in the realm of imagination.
Darby continued to pull things out of her bag. ‘I can do you headaches, I have a bunch of keys from my old house. Umm, that was five years ago, a phone charger that is a spare and has one of those dodgy cords. And that's it. The complete contents of my handbag, which turns out to be a fairly accurate representation of my mental state. A mixture of good intentions, abandoned projects, emergency supplies for emergencies that never happen, and random items that probably made sense at the time.'
Starting to begin the process of returning everything to its rightful place in the bag, she looked up at the camera. 'I think what you carry around with you says quite a lot about how you see yourself, or at least how you hope other people see you. Yeah, so what does this say about me? I think a lot of this harks back to the me who had a job and three children and a home to run and the feeling as if I was always chasing my tail. That I'm someone who's always preparing for a life that's slightly different from the one I'm actually living.'
