Z has nothing to wear

We are going to a Party tomorrow night. The Sage is required to wear his dinner jacket. I started mentioning this gently some while back, and became slightly more insistent a week ago as, I pointed out, there was still time to send it to the cleaners/darn the moth holes/buy a new one (this last is not to be taken seriously). Much to my surprise, he sprung to his feet and said "I will go and check on it NOW, as you have kindly reminded me." He returned a couple of minutes later, looking highly smug, saying that it is still in its dry cleaner wrapper, he having sent it after the last wearing.

I was vastly impressed. I should also like to point out that, when I married him, the Sage (who was not yet so named as he had not earned the title) believed that it was up to a mother or a wife to deal with all matters of clothing. For a few years I did, indeed, buy shirts and socks and underwear and send clothes to the cleaners. But then I realised that, whilst it may be up to the mother of a small boy to do these things, a Man can do it on his own account. And I didn't want to be the mother to my husband, for we have no Oedipusish leanings round here. It took quite some time for him to adjust, during which he went round with holes in his socks and only three working shirts, but we got there.

So, the Sage is sorted. Isn't it easy for a man? He will put on his dinner suit and a smart white shirt and swear at his bow tie for a bit and he will look wonderful and suitable, and I don't know what to wear at all. I don't know where to pitch it. And I haven't bought anything dressy for evenings for years and years. It is a party in our friends' house to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. They are considerable landowners but wear their wealth lightly and understatedly. They have a beautiful house but not a smart one. They give great parties but not, usually, very formal ones. She is quite an informal dresser normally, but their parties do not normally mention DJs, so I think they must be upping the stakes someone for the momentousness of the occasion.

I was browsing through my wardrobe the other day, amongst clothes I haven't worn for ages, and I came across a very nice black tailored short-sleeved top - a little jacket, but not the sort you wear anything underneath. I was highly pleased and put it on. I could not do up the buttons! It is not a matter of weight gain, it is, um, Development. That is, of course, another matter. I have a cleavage now, which I used hardly to have and one has to wear different clothes. More fitting and lower cut, which sounds as though it Should Not Be, but loose clothes make you look as if you are actually that big all the way down and around, and high necks make you look all puffed out. It is not, I hasten to add, that I am exactly busty. It is all, furthermore, home grown. But why? It all started when I took up the clarinet, all that good breathing and chest muscle development. But it must have carried on since then, because this little black top is not that old - five years perhaps? Which, in my terms, is practically Brand New (I'm not big on clothes shopping).

There's nothing for it. I'm going to have to brave the cold of my bedroom (we like a warm bed and a cold room and don't heat the bedroom) and check out the wardrobe.