SHOES

Her right shoe caressed the calf of her left leg, up and down, snaking and teasing, as if in ritual courtship to the left. The look-at-me shoes were peacock blue leather, gold four inch heels, and gold straps.

There were still a few faint, but persistent, doubts in her mind about the wisdom of her adventure and she almost gave the taxi driver last minute instructions to take her somewhere else.

She was on her way to meet the Kensington crowd. She had made contact with friends of friends via her old hairdresser and discovered that her old social group still met up at least once a month.

When she had bought the shoes there had been no coo-ing chit chat with the assistant, no‘...what do you think?...’. She had wanted them as soon as she saw them, felt a remembered nausea of desire, of demon lust - a yearning for the time before stretch marks and stitches. She had forgotten how much she had enjoyed what had become a way of life. It had been a long time since she had bought shoes like these. Since before she married.

She had married ‘sensibly’, although she had been fond of him. Might love him if he was ever there. They met at breakfast when ever he was at home, or when he rushed in between flights. Sometimes they had conversations at the open door of his study, interrupting him with news of their son’s progress at university, or to read aloud holiday postcards from friends.

She had planned what she might do - or, perhaps the idea for her adventure had sneaked into her consciousness piece by piece while pushing peas and carrots down the sink, during her daily routine. Odd, isolated bits of her plan would interrupt her seek and find mode at Waitrose and she would think of her old contacts. Especially Tommy - ‘Talented Tommy’ as he was known, a sparkling party goer - and so much energy, she remembered.

She had put the shoes in her wardrobe, absentmindedly, pretending she hadn’t bought them, but they were there, ready. She was kidding herself. It wouldn’t happen by default, because she had decided.

When not being the dutiful and charming host to his friends and business associates, she continued with her not unpleasant life of hairdressers, frock fittings, expensive shopping, the pleasure of it evaporating because of its very predictability. She wore the shoes occasionally around the house to get used to them, to re-familiarise herself of the art of wearing dangerously high heels.

The taxi dropped her a hundred yards from the venue and she strode, feeling trampy on the precariously tall heels - higher than she remembered - but she soon regained that hip swaying S shape of the dangerous heel wearer. For a moment she felt self conscious - an unfamiliar discomfort, which prompted unsureness, guilt, doubts about visiting the past. Thoughts of Tommy spurred her on.

“Love the shoes,” said Tommy. He had a thing about shoes, and she had a thing about men who had a thing about shoes.

After thirty minutes of lovely to see you darling and potted biographies and graduation photographs the party died. The remembered sizzle had gone. But there was still Tommy.

It used to be dinner - club or casino - and ending up at someone’s house. Lots of laughter and high spirits, black Russian cigarettes and sex in the laundry room or the garden; and with Talented Tommy it had been exhilarating fun.

She had kept fit and was wearing a twenty year old dress that still fitted. They all looked old and talked of nothing but money, wild boar and avocado quiche, organic muffins, kitchen work tops - which just had to be of Brazilian slate. And pension funds. It was all so boring. But there was still Tommy.

She had yet another drink. She homed in on a young man who was grazing at the food table who listened open mouthed, unaware that he was being pulled. Before she went too far Tommy took her arm.

‘His mother,’ he said, nodding in the direction of a non stop gob talking loudly about house prices in Wimbledon. Tommy had drunk a little too much and was talking much too loudly, making her feel uncomfortable. '...You always were a bit of a tease - a sexy dresser. You know I never believed all that tosh about your job…’

‘Please. Tommy!’

‘Oh, don't mind him...he’s just...just…’

Him was another grazer at the food table, a quiet man who wasn’t contributing anything at all. She had tried a conversation, but so much food went into his mouth he never actually replied. He worked for a glossy magazine, had been captured by tribesmen in Afghanistan. That was his qualification for being at the party. A special guest. Invited and ignored.

Tommy blundered on, ‘...I always had an idea of what you were really up to - all those business clients... but, look, that’s okay by me. I never said anything.’ He was magnanimous.

‘Oh! Thanks a bunch, Tommy!’

She remembered Tommy as debonair - energetic - well connected - man-about-town. But he had wasted his expensive education - his money - his life. Now he was a silhouette of a Dandy relying on tenuous connections for opportunities, cosy jobs involving nothing more strenuous than having his name on the list of directors.

‘Why don’t you take me home, Tommy?’

‘One for the road?’ he asked, looking at her shoes.

He gave the taxi driver directions.

‘Peckham!? Peckham!? Are things that bad, Tommy?’

‘Just temporary, old girl.’

She negotiated the shabbily carpeted stairs in her gorgeous shoes. Tommy fixed drinks, and she went to the bathroom.

She remembered the excitement of old times, and her power to WOW. She went back to where Tommy was and leaned on the door frame, wearing nothing but lipstick and her fuckme shoes, the straps straining against the unholy restricted flesh.

Tommy was asleep.

Fast asleep and snoring.

She let herself out onto the street, feeling silly, disillusioned, and, at two a.m. in Peckham, a little bit afraid. A pirate cab prowled near to her. She waved it away, and was thankful when a black cab responded to her frantic waving.

She left the shoes under a lamp post on Peckham High Street and the taxi sped off with her back to Surrey. Her right bare foot caressed the calf of her left leg, up and down, snaking and teasing, as if in ritual courtship.

　

　



© billhaddowallen

and the postman just whistles

… and the postman just whistles.

　





She opened the letter.

As soon as she felt that pleasurable ripping of the envelope giving way to the blade Kathy realised what she would have known before had she not been blinded by suspicion; that she might be making a mistake. She felt the stab of guilt, had split their trust with a dagger, severed bonds, felt a kind of disjoining.

She sat at the polished table with the slit envelope in her fingers, at arm’s length - disowning it. She drummed on the table lightly with the corner of the envelope, worrying about the consequences. I will have to throw the letter away - I will know something he can never know I know.

An hour ago she and Tom had breakfasted here. They had touched hands across the toast rack, had flirted with the freshness and excitement of strangers; a game he loved to play.

Oh come on, Kathy! Get hold of yourself, it’s probably something ordinary and innocent. But… he might be expecting it - ask about it - missing letters sometimes complicate things.

She read the envelope again, the strong, confident immediacy of the handwriting - a fountain pen, she guessed - seeing Tom’s name written by some one else as if they owned it - had stolen him - knew things about him which she herself did not.

Kathy reminded herself why she was doing this; those odd phone calls - silence when she answered, but if Tom answered he’d say, “I’ll call you back.” And he always went out afterwards to pop to the shop or get something from the car.

She’d reached down to pick up the letter from the new doormat. The simple, ordinary doormat, like so many objects for Kathy, had memories locked within its stillness, its matter of fact inanimateness. She and Tom had bought the doormat together, holding hands in the household section of the supermarket. Afterwards they’d had lunch at their favourite pub on the river. On that summer Sunday a man in an overcoat had rowed a small boat resolutely against the traffic of cruisers and tourist vessels. Tom had stood on the bank with a pint in his hand and shouted rude things. An hour later the boatman rowed back down river creating a hazard for club eights and motor boats. The crowd thought it was amusing but the rower in a black overcoat haunted Kathy for the rest of that day - it had unsettled her. They’d spent the rest of that day drinking and dozing in the waspy heat of the garden listening to cricket on Tom’s old portable, occasionally discussing the curious incident of the boatman. At Tom’s insistence they’d suddenly taken a break for sex in the cool kitchen and he had satisfied himself selfishly and vigorously while she’d thought about the boatman.

She had reached down, extended her arm to grasp the letter already speculating who it was from and about the news in it; but stopped; did not touch it; saw that it was addressed to Tom. Suspicions she never knew she had teemed into her mind. In that moment, bent and hand outstretched, so many things became clear, incidents which had entered her consciousness in the innocent, disarming state of natural trust and filed as routine, of no consequence, things forgiven and forgotten. It was all so obvious now. All those times when he’d behaved out of character - weekends away - more late nights than usual - those instances of unusual reticence and moodiness - tell tale signs which had not registered as warnings.

How dare she write to him here!

Opening letters had always been such a pleasure for Kathy, a ritual she savoured, a rejoining with much missed friends. She loved slitting the envelope and reading - listening to - the voice from the pages, magically transported from far away as if the writer were here in the flower scented stillness.

She tap-tapped the table with the corner of the blue envelope. There was still time to throw it away. No. No, it is too late. I must read it. Either way nothing will ever be the same.

Get a grip, girl. She remembered how her mother had said that to her so often. Kathy often invoked her mother to give her courage when she was dithering or wilting, or to shift the responsibility for anything she was about to do.

She took the single sheet out of the envelope. There’s something else, she remembered. Tom’s friend, Christopher.

Chris used to come to the house often - used to pick Tom up in the morning in his genuine Yellow Cab imported from New York at great cost. They were always fixing it and driving off looking for parts. Sometimes they’d be away all day. They seem to have such fun together and Kathy was happy for Tom. In the evenings Kathy would cook a meal for the three of them, they’d have wine, lots of laughs - but now she remembered… haven’t seen him lately. He’s been behaving rather oddly, too. Covering for Tom, I bet! Typical! And he was evasive, almost unfriendly. She had phoned the office to speak to Tom. Christopher answered. Tom was out and Christopher seemed unwilling to think about where Tom might be and not interested in Kathy’s chit chat. Later that same day Kathy had seen Chris in the shopping centre, had smiled in anticipation of their greeting. He’d darted into a shop and they didn’t meet. She had thought then that Chris had not seen her. Typical, just like men. He’s covering for Tom and couldn’t face me.

Kathy wished she had not opened the letter, had not remembered the suppressed memories that had ambushed her stable straightforward existence. I used to like Chris. Opening this damned letter has contaminated everything!

Kathy remembered nights when Tom would be late from work - remembering as if it were a past relationship - how she would be asleep and she would wake when he came to bed, smell alcohol and fresh air on him, feel the brief draught of coldness when he slipped under the duvet. He would cuddle up to her and after a few fidgety adjustments settle into the mould that they were and she would absorb his coldness until they were one evenly warm togetherness.

She remembered, too, those nights when he would lie close, so very close, but not touching. She would lie awake because he was awake, alert as if he was concentrating on not making contact, as if - in case- she might want something, as if touching might awaken desire for affection or sex. It was all so clear now.

I wonder what she is like. Dark haired I suppose. Like me. I wonder if he ever asks her to… oh, god! A series of brief vivid images of Tom doing their special intimate things with another - with HER - made Kathy physically ill as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Does he do things with her… not with me… what has he told her… DAMN HER!

Holding the single pastel coloured sheet, she looked around the room, at the familiar friendly things which now felt unfriendly, even hostile, that had absorbed the sounds and thoughts of the room into their screaming muteness; the carefully chosen furniture they’d shopped for, ethnic carvings, bits of tack and tat, her mother’s elegant vases, wedding photos, happy snaps of them on holiday in Mombassa, Algiers, New York, memories glossed over as if never serious. So this is what it’s like - the day your life changes - the day, the moment, it happens? Just an envelope through the letterbox. And the cheery postie whistles on his way.

She could hear her mother’s voice telling her that there are some things it is better not to know.

Darling Tom,

I am writing in the hope that you will read what you wont listen to, what you wont let me say. My anger has gone. I cant be angry with you.

I know that you know that I love you. I cannot believe that you were never serious about our plans - about our life together. Why should I believe that I was a fool to believe you? You’re just dishonest, Tom, my love.

You have broken my life and thrown it aside, but you cant rob me of my memories.

I miss your hugs and security, and can’t live without them.

All my love


Please don’t scrap our buttercuppy car. If we can’t go to New York, then send her.



copyright billhaddowallen