Shoes

The ground was covered in a thin layer of water, courtesy of the
winter showers that had been blustering around the school buildings for
weeks making PE a living hell. My toes were cold, that was normal, but
suddenly they were also wet. Slouching into the biology lab, I grabbed
one of the medium height stools and took my place at the workbench.
Twisting round, I studied the sole of my shoe. The grips had worn off
months ago, but there was now a small hole, right on the ball. The heel
was also worn through, exposing the hollow black-plastic braced cavity.
Water dripped out as I lifted my foot. Jamming the back of the heel
under the stool bar, I pulled out my white socked foot without undoing
the laces that were pulled tight in a permanent knot. The entire bottom
of my foot was wet, a brown stain spreading across the cotton on the
ball of my foot from where the hole had opened up.
"You ok?" Anna put her bag down on the desk and peered at my foot. "Why
is your sock wet?"
"Shoe's gone through," I said, shrugging as though it wasn't a
problem.
She wrinkled her nose. "You gonna get new ones now?"
I shrugged again. "Maybe. Maybe I can fix these, I like these."
Lie. I hated those shoes. I'd had them for a year and a half, and had
disliked them the day we found them in the Barnardo's shop. They were
black leather, with a three hole lace up, a star stitched in black cord
on the toes, and had been the out of fashion alternative when my class
mates were buying shoes with a silver key moulded into the sole about
seven years ago. But they fitted, and to my despair had continued to
fit as my feet stopped growing. I asked for new ones, sighed loudly at
the shoe pages in mail order catalogues, but the only result was that
the nerve in Mum's jaw jumped a little faster than normal.

I skirted the puddles around the campus, walking down the edges of the
paths and leading with my left leg. In Drama I sat with the soles of my
socks firmly on the carpeted floor, my skirt wrapped carefully round my
legs so that the boys opposite couldn't look up and see my knickers.
All the other girls had thick black tights against the cold, even
Gemma, who carried her books in a carrier bag and reputedly lived in a
stable with her lunatic mother. There was a roll of gaffer tape on the
top shelf in the control box. I tore off a piece the length of my foot
and snuck out under the pretence of fetching a script from my bag.
Reaching into the shoe, the tape wrinkled and folded against its self,
rucking against the inner suede and trapped my finger down by the toe.
But it covered the hole and kept my foot dry for the rest of the day,
until the tape wore through on my way out of the gate. I climbed
awkwardly into Mum's rusting brown Austin Metro, stepping right over
the soggy grass verge.
"Hiya Lou, how was your day?" she asked.
"My shoe's gone through," I said, peeling my damp sock off. I held it
up to show her. The hole was now big enough to stick the tip of my
little finger through.
She took it from me and looked at it, frowning.
"What's this sticky stuff?"
"Gaffer tape. It fixed it for a while, but it's given me blisters,
look."
There was a row of blisters down the side of my foot where the tape had
rucked up.
"I've never had blisters before," I said. It was an effort to keep my
voice steady. "They hurt quite a lot, don't they?"
"Pop them with a pin when we get home," Mum said. "Put your sock back
on."
My brother emerged from the school at top speed, ignoring the commands
of the teacher on the gate to slow down. As a first year it was still
possible for him to run without shame. He swung himself into the back
seat and kicked his bag to the floor, simultaneously pulling his seat
belt across his chest.
"Ready!" he said.
The car started second time and pushed it's way through sleek BMWs and
Mercedes, belching grey smoke.
"How your school?" Mum asked Ben in the rear view mirror.
"Same as always. Mummy?"
"What?" She sounded suspicious.
"Can we get a computer?"
"No. Next question."
"Can we get a Sega?"
"No. Next?"
"Can I have a new pair of shoes?" I asked.
Her eyes flicked to the ruined sock resting on the plastic mat in the
foot well. "Maybe."

The road outside the primary school was already lined with cars when we
arrived, so we pulled up next to the supermarket. Tiny children were
lead down from the gates by enthusiastic parents. I used to walk down
this bit of pavement everyday. I'd wait for one of my friends so that
we could walk down together, hand in hand. There was something about
that pavement that frightened me. In the mornings, I would have to walk
up it alone, and would always imagine that there was someone behind me
with a gun. At any time the bullet could rip into me. Would it hurt? Or
would I be so surprised that it had actually happened that I would just
be shocked. I'd seen people getting shot in films and they never cried,
so maybe it was just a surprise before you died. If I was shot, I knew
that I would fall forward on to my knees and graze all my skin on the
tarmac. I knew how that hurt, and knew I'd cry then. I couldn't look
back, and I couldn't run until I was inside the school gates behind the
trees. The man with a gun was never there when you looked. I didn't see
him following any of the others.
Emily came running down, a sheaf of pastel coloured papers in her hand.
She opened the door and moaned.
"Ben, you're on the wrong side again! Now I'll have to climb over
you."
"Fine, do then, I don't care. I want to sit on this side. That's your
side."
"Fine, but I'm not saying sorry if I stand on you."
"Oi! Stop it, now!" came the crisp order from the driver's seat.
"Yes Mummy."
"Yes Mummy," Emily sneered, and launched herself across the back seat,
elbowing Ben firmly in the stomach.
"Ow! Say sorry!"
"No. Said I wouldn't, didn't I? Stupid."
"I said now."
"Sorry Mummy."
"Yeah, sorry Mummy," said Ben. His voice lowered to a whisper. "See,
you did say sorry!"
"Not to you, pillock."
"Divvy brain."
"Snot rag."
"Butt rag."
"Mummy, he called me a butt rag."
"Ben, don't call your sister a butt rag, be a little creative. Emily,
what are those letters?" Mum said with a glance in the rear
mirror.
"Letters! Letters from school to you, it says Dear Parents."
"Ok, could you pass them over to Louise please?"
She shoved the pages into the side of my head and shook them until I
took them.
"What are they?" Mum asked quietly.
I read through them quickly. "Please enforce uniform, no cans of fizzy
drink in packed lunches, annual general meeting, and a school trip to
Whipsnade."
"How much?"
"Seven pounds, and the deadline's tomorrow."
Mum winced and glanced back again. "Emily, how long have you had these
letters?"
"Umm, a week? Maybe two."
"Right. Can the shoes wait until next week?" she asked, without taking
her eyes off the road.
"Have we got gaffer tape?"
"Yes, we've got gaffer tape."

I hopped up the drive when we reached the house, my bag slung over one
shoulder making me lean at an angle. Ben and I headed straight up
stairs to get out of our uniforms while Emily curled up in a chair by
the fire and went to sleep. I sat on the edge of my bed and removed my
sock. The blisters were tight and yellow below the thick skin along the
outside of my foot. I scrambled in the drawer for my pin box, an old
Altoids tin with half of the words scratched off, and selected the one
with the blue glass head. Sliding the point under the skin didn't hurt
as much as I thought it would, but my eyes widened at the sight of the
clear liquid that spilled out. It was almost as though my foot had
become a sponge for the water that had soaked in through the hole, and
it was storing the liquid in foot bubble wrap that hurt instead of
protecting. I pushed the loose skin back into place, wrinkling my nose.
Standing wasn't as painful as I was afraid it might be, but both feet
were cold through, numb and heavy. I swung down the stairs with both
hands on the banisters, and settled myself in the middle of the lounge
floor, ankles hooked over the bar on the fender. An ache spread as my
feet warmed up and I knew I would have chilblains in a matter of days,
but at least they were warm.
When Mum pulled the wrinkled tape out of the shoe, all of the lining
came out with it, leaving a layer of grey card.
"Never mind," she said, and pulled out a length of new tape.
She made a much neater job of re-lining it than I had, and added a
second layer of tape on the outside so that it had half a chance of
making it through the day. Every night for the next week she sat
cutting up tape. Emily went to Whipsnade and bought me back a pencil
top shaped like a lion.

Tuesday, child benefit day. Mum turned right at the junction instead of
left.
"Are we going into town?" I said.
"Yup, you need shoes."
Emily perked up suddenly in the back.
"Do I need shoes too?" she said.
"No, you don't."
She folded her arms and set her chin. "I don't want to go into town if
I'm not getting anything."
"Neither do I, I hate town," said Ben, staring out of the window.
"Well, you're both welcome to walk home from here if you wish," Mum
said. She flicked her hand and turned on the indicator. "You know the
way back from here, don't you?"
"No, no, its ok, we'll come too."
"Yeah, 'cos we have to."
"Good. I'm glad that's settled."
We parked on floor two of the multi-storey car park attached to the
multi-storey shopping centre, and took the lift down to the ground
floor and out into the main shopping street. The centre itself was
avoided if possible, a maze of small, independently rented units across
two floors, full of tie-dyed clothes, cheap imported clothes, pick and
mix sweets, and a giant indoor playground that Ben and I were too tall
for. Perfect for loosing small hyperactive children. The ground floor
wasn't too bad; larger chain stores set down a pedestrianised road with
curved drainage gutters along each side and trees planted in square
holes, securely caged and sickly. Mum herded us into each shoe shop,
tactfully avoiding the ones with hand-written price tags.
"What's the budget?" I asked her.
"Ten pounds. Sorry Lou, that's all I can do."
"Well, that's ok, there's bound to be some. How about these?" I picked
up a pair of plain black leather shoes from the sale rack outside
Barretts.
"Yes, they're ok," she said, turning them over to see the price
sticker. "Seven. Yeah, you could have these."
She herded us into the shop and sat me down on one of the carpeted
boxes. A sales assistant appeared within a few seconds, cracking gum in
a wide mouth with narrow lips. I glanced at Mum and saw the nerve in
her jaw jumping in double time. Gum was strictly forbidden in our
house, she hated it so much.
"Could we try these, please?" she asked through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, what size?" The assistant held a stiff strip of hair in her
fingers. Her hair was pulled back in the tightest bun I had ever seen,
and stank of hair spray. On either side of her forehead there were a
few strands left purposefully loose, straightened with gel that
rendered them immobile.
"Three, please," I said.
She looked at me, judging my height and raised her drawn on
eye-brows.
"You sure?"
I nodded and lifted my foot to show its size. She took the shoe from
Mum's hand, turned on her heal and disappeared into the store room.
Emily sat on the box with a thud and began swinging her legs backwards
and forwards, kicking a hollow beat in time with the background
music.
"Can I have some platform shoes?"
Mum looked at her without blinking. She looked straight back with
feigned innocence.
"Is that a no?"
"Good guess."
The girl arrived back for m the store empty handed. "They start at a
four I'm afraid."
"Can you wear a four?" Mum asked me. She sounded almost pleading. I
shook my head and slipped the taped shoe back on. The fan above the
door blew loose strands out of Mum's ponytail and over her face. She
didn't bother to put them back.

All the shoes in the next shop were huge, thick soled and expensive. I
pulled on a pair of size threes and clumped up and down the carpet in
front of a mirror. Ben snorted.
"You look like Frankenstein."
"I think you mean Frankenstein's monster actually," I retorted.
"Sod off. Can we go home yet?"
Mum sighed. "Not yet. Two more shops to try."
I liked the next shop with its soft blue carpet.
"What about these," I said, holding up a pair of plain black
ones.
"Where are the laces?"
"There aren't any, they're slip-ons," I muttered, hoping she wouldn't
quite hear me. She did.
"Slip-ons? No. You're to have laces, they'll fall off otherwise."
"No they wont, look." I put them on and walked up and down, pushing my
toes into the soles to prevent them slipping off.
She folded her arms. "Now run."
I trotted awkwardly to the door and back, stumbling flatfooted, forcing
them to stay on my feet.
"They make you run like a cripple. You're not having them. What about
these?"
She forced a pair of four hole lace-ups into my hands. They had similar
clumpy soles to the ones in the previous shop. I put them on and
frowned as she laced them tightly on to my feet. They didn't fall off,
but she was still frowning.
"What?"
"Look in the mirror, you look ridiculous. Your ankles are too thin for
these ridiculous block soled monstrosities."
Emily stuck her arms out in front of her and walked with straight legs,
staring into the distance. "Erg, grr, I am
Frankenstein&;#8230;"
"Pack it in. Come on."

I scanned the next shop as we walked in. All the shoes looked the same
as the ones that had been in the other ones. I shook my head.
"There's nothing here Mummy, I have to have the slip-ons."
"How about these," she said, picking up a pair of black suede pixie
boots.
I recoiled. "No! I mean, we're not allowed boots, and they have to be
leather, not suede."
"I'm sure you'd be alright with these, they're quite plain."
"No, Mummy I'm not allowed. Please, I mean, it's not the eighties
anymore."
She didn't put them down. "I think you should at least try them on,
they're only eight pounds."
"That's 'cos they're awful," Emily muttered.
"I'm not allowed," I insisted. "Ben, tell her, we're not allowed boots
or suede, are we?"
Ben looked around him as if suddenly realising where he was. "What?
Boots? No." He stepped forward and I stopped holding my breath. The
cavalry had arrived. "No, boys are allowed boots 'cos they wear
trousers, but girls have to have shoes. And no suede."
"Oh." Mum looked disappointed, but returned the boot to the rack.
I mouthed 'thank you' to my brother. He shrugged, looking bored.
"What are we going to do then?" I asked.
"We'll just have to keep taping them I think. I checked all the charity
shops and there's nothing in your size."
"What about the slip-ons?" I tried not to sound too hopeful.
She shook her head, the escaped strands of her ponytail waving across
her face. Her lips looked dry and cracked under a thin layer of
lipstick that was too red for her pale skin. I could see that she had
had enough, her face was starting to look heavy again, as it did at the
worst times. Grandma said it was the weight of the world she was
carrying. I knew it wasn't, I'd realised years ago that it was us, all
of it. Three children, a house, schools, letters, bank statements and
mortgage papers.
"Let's go home. We can keep taping them, it's been working fine." I
said.

It seemed colder and darker as we stepped outside. I pulled my blazer
tight around my chest. Strings of lights still hung above the market
place. In an effort to reserve resources the council left the Christmas
decorations up all year round, only switching them on during the
festive period. The bulbs hung down, heavy drips of slow moving liquid
dangling above us. Ben walked determinedly down the drainage channels
in the shopping centre, Emily urged us to return to the car park
through the upstairs shopping units, telling us that the escalators
were faster than the lifts. Mum said she could do what she liked, but
we weren't stopping. Her face fell for a moment, then brightened as she
nodded. I love escalators. The jumping off from still ground onto
movement that takes you up and up smoothly to the top where the world
appears to stop. As you get higher and higher, the new world comes into
view and you have been raised without even having to climb.
Anticipating the end where the ridged steps flatten and are dragged
under the terrifying spiked edge, then jumping to safety, terra firma a
storey higher.
The smell of Emily's aim drifted through the perspex boxed units.
Incense. The crystal shop was run by a man in his fifties, pure white
hair with black streaks pulled back to a plait down his back, a neat
white beard with black sections at the edge of his mouth like
Christopher Lee. He was always swathed in loose fitting cotton tie-dye
cotton in blue and purple. The sound of sitar music leaked
apathetically from a small box painted with stars and moons, travelling
on the cloud of patchouli incense that whirled up from a dozen glowing
sticks. We slowed down as we passed, inhaling the smoke deep into our
lungs. Mum's eyes flickered across the shop then sneered. She had been
a hippie in the sixties and seventies and now considered these things
out grown. She walked on ahead while we dawdled, studying the hanging
dream catchers and ammulets. I was saving, slowly but surely for tarot
cards. I wished I could transport the whole contents of the shop to my
room. I would tent the ceiling with a huge Celtic throw, hang painted
beads in my door way. The man looked up from his stool behind the glass
topped crystal counter and smiled at us. He raised his hand slightly
and made a loose peace sign. It was peace and a blessing, in the style
of the biblical figures I had seen in huge medieval and renaissance
paintings in the National Gallery book in the school library. I smiled
back. Ben raised his hand and made the Vulcan live long and prosper
salute. The man's mouth opened to a grin showing yellow teeth and his
shoulders shook with silent laughter.

"Louise! What about these?" Mum called from up ahead.
I tore my eyes from the crystals, velcro vision, the hooks in my eyes
stuck firmly in the shop. Mum stood just outside a discount shoe unit,
walled in glass with racks of odd shoes outside trailing tentacles of
laces. She was pointing through the window at a pair of small leather
lace-ups, plain and soft looking. The lack of disgust on my face was
taken for interest and she darted in and requested a size three which
was produced immediately. I flexed the shoe in my hand. It bent easily,
all the way back. The thin crepe sole was bungy and stretchy, the
leather as softas Grandma's arms. I kicked off my taped shoes, pulling
the socks free from where the tape was beginning to roll at the edge
and pulled the new ones on. They were so light, cupping my foot in an
instant warmth, allowing each movement of my toes to be free, bending
with each flex of the muscles in my feet. It would be almost possible
to forget I was wearing them and imagine myself with magically
waterproof and toughened feet. I walked up and down the shop, skipped
on my tip toes and darted backwards and forwards to see how the sole
gripped the linoleum floor. Perfect, not a trace of a skid.
"I like them," I said, knowing that the price would be the deciding
factor. They had to be expensive, they were so comfortable and
small.
"How much are these?" Mum asked. The sales woman, a plump middle aged
woman with red hair and grey skin waddled round from behind the counter
which looked suspiciously like an ironing board with a sheet draped
over the top, and scrutinised the cardboard box. A label showed the
price marked out in various currencies but not pounds.
She closed one eye and bit her lower lip. "Five pounds, these are five
pound."
I tried not to let my expression show my surprise. The outside of my
face felt cold and a little numb. I nodded at Mum and she smiled.
"That's great, we'll take them," she said.
"Is it ok if I wear them?" I said, rolling backwards and forwards on my
heels.
"Yes, yes, yes, of course," the woman said, handing Mum her
change.
My old shoes looked sad in the box as though they were lying in their
coffin. I didn't put the lid on, just pushed them into the micro-thin
blue and white striped bag and trusted the plastic to keep them in. I
ran back to the car through the shopping units, pushing my weight
against the soles that gripped the floor like tires on a road. I ran
round corners at the angles that racing motorcyclists lean to.
"Don't go through the soles on those too quickly," said Mum, lagging
behind us, the reluctant child.
I promised I wouldn't, and skipped to the car. Up on my toes and down
again.

At home, I pushed the plastic bag under my bed and ran up and down the
garden, easing them into new use, adding a thin line of beige mud
around the bottoms. My feet looked small in the mirror, folded neatly
into black leather gloves. I wore them with my pyjamas when I went
downstairs to say goodnight after brushing my teeth. Instead of prising
them off at the heels, I untied the laces.
Wednesday was the dreaded day of PE, though lashing rain finally
defeated even the torturous minds of the games teachers and they
allowed us to play basketball in the gym. For the first time afterwards
I was happy about removing my ancient once-white plimsolls and changing
back to my school shoes, and the lack of hockey pitch mud allowed my
socks to stay the white that they were when I put them on in the
morning. The trauma of Wednesdays shrank to a manageable
inconvenience.
The path down to the Domestic Science kitchens was accessed by a set of
concrete steps. On either side of them, the bank was supported by
paving slabs laid at a forty five degree angle, offering an inviting
alternative to the steps, if you had the grips on your shoes. Having
been a stair treader for the past years, I approached the slope that
day with a warmth in my chest that cast light around the edges of my
vision. It worked. Straight down, no slipping. I didn't even have to
rush down like most of the others, I could step down slowly, letting
the shoes take my weight on the slabs. Other girls looked at my shoes
and smiled. I bit my lips together to suppress a grin and walked on
into the building. The tarmac under my feet was old and crumbly, a
layer of loose stones lay on the surface to be kicked and scuffed by
shoes. I could feel each grain as I stepped. I felt I was part of it.
When I walked across grass I could feel the wormcasts, across paving,
each crack was known to me without sight. The other girls in my class
walked by on the near platform soles I had seen in the shops with no
idea of what was below their feet.
The slope proved irresistible at lunch time. Anna seated herself on the
bench nearby after wiping it dry with a stretch of toilet roll. She
watched the boys down by the kitchens playing football, skittering over
the loose tarmac in pursuit of a sodden piece of foam that was once
round. Each kick sent an explosion of muddy water into the air. I
walked up and down the slope, backwards, sideways, fast, in slow motion
whilst chewing Marmite sandwiches.
"Hi, Louise."
Verity and Michelle had appeared at the top of the steps and were
looking down at me. Two of the most popular girls in my year, their
fashionability was marked by their tall shoes and rolled up
skirts.
"I've got a pair of those shoes," Verity said to me. I almost liked
Verity. She smiled at me when she caught my eye in classes and didn't
give me the silent treatment if we were set to work in a group
together. She even passed me the ball once in hockey, even though she
knew I'd probably pass it to the other team. And here she was, in front
of Michelle, who I hated and who had hated me since I beat her at
gymnastics when we were seven, admitting that she had the same shoes as
me. Anna looked up in anticipation. Was I about to be accepted?
"Really?" said Michelle, sneering. It was difficult to see her
expression because her ponytail was pulled so tight on top of her head
that it restricted her facial movements.
"Yeah," Verity nodded. "Jazz shoes."

My ankle buckled under me and I fell forward on to the slope, sliding
down to the bottom on my knees, leaving streaks of burgundy blood on
the slabs. Cold spread through from my fingertips and flooded into my
stomach, fighting against the heat in my hands, knees and face.
"You OK?" Verity took half step forward but her voice sounded far
away.
I nodded. "Yeah, fine," I said, my voice echoing in my skull. I stood
and rubbed my hands together, dislodging the grit ground into the
grazes. Michelle looked down at me disdainfully then turned on her heel
and left, her tight grip on Verity's elbow steering her away.
Whiteness fluttered in front of my eyes. It was Anna with another
length of loo roll unfurled from her blazer pocket.
"Your knee's bleeding," she said.
"Thanks."
I had lost most of the skin from both of my knees and the upper half of
my shins. Beads of blood welled like blistered jewels from the tiny
holes in the layers of skin. I blotted them away but they came back
larger, forming pools and rivers. Drizzle blew across the playground,
growing heavier by the second. Anna returned to the bench.
"Jazz shoes?" she said. "For school?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding as if I had known. "I just like them. I'm
getting my other shoes back tomorrow."
The rain was pouring now, forcing its way through my hair to chill my
scalp, carrying loose strands of hair across my face.
"I'm going in," Anna shouted.
"I'll be in in a minute," I replied.
She joined the stream of muddy boys back up to the form building. I
could hear them whispering.
Water blurred my eyes, bathing the school in an invisibility of grey. I
looked down at my feet. Blood washed down my unsteady legs and into my
socks where it mingled with the dark blue of the dye leaking out of my
black jazz shoes. With my arms outstretched the rain soaked through my
blazer and stuck my shirt to my skin. I spun. I spun around and around
in my dance shoes in the rain until I felt the crepe soles go through,
until I felt the cool rain mingle with the new blood that crept out
from the ball of my foot to meet the rivers from my legs. I spun and
danced.