Fiddler's Foot

The Fiddler's Foot

The scent of overripe lime, with an edge of musk. Mike was taken aback.
The other smells, of greasy bodies, unwashed facial hair and old old
shoes, those were predictable. Levellers gigs often attracted new-age
types, along with a body of students of which Mike had, until three
years ago, been a member. The students, at least, tended to use
deodorant. But not that fragrance.

The venue was as dilapidated as it had been when a younger Mike had
come here with likeminded friends at weekends, determined to escape the
pop-filled mix of the campus nightclub. He was glad to see it hadn't
changed, with the peeling blue paint and the busted lights above the
bar that had been that way since the day it had opened. It was a small
venue, rectangular in shape (though he swore that the longer walls were
curved), with a narrow passage leading past the bar to a green room
full of silver foldable seats and black tables. The stage itself had
been constructed out of metre high wooden frames, that could be removed
once the gig was over. The splatter of rain outside was just audible
above the murmur of the crowd.

The club was only just big enough to justify holding a gig, the stage
taking roughly a quarter of the available space. This meant standing
shoulder to shoulder, chest to back with damp, matt-haired, ... ah
well, live and let live, he supposed. Apart from that man wearing a
short umber leather jacket, with what looked like bird-crap on his
shoulder. Anyone old enough to lose their hair should be wise enough
not to grow such a beard.

But that smell.... It was the scent, he was sure, that he used himself
to mask unpleasant odours. Foot hygiene was never in the forefront of
the consciousness of the average person, so when a patient came in for
examination he would often have to squirt a little of the aftershave
onto the sole. If asked he would claim that it was a clinical aid that
helped him to better view the texture of the feet. So far, no one had
questioned him further on it.

The worst case had been the stubbly fat man, whose job behind the fish
counter at the local Tesco required that he wore rubber boots at all
times. Not only had they given the man the worst case of athlete's foot
Mike had ever seen; the constant sweating, the warm darkness inside the
boots and, he suspected, the occasional spillage of fish-guts down
their sides, had conspired to produce an odour that could only be
described as a fart from Beelzebub himself. It absorbed half the bottle
of Jaguar before at last it succumbed to the heavenly power of rotten
citrus.

A strum from a guitar woke him from his reminisce. The music had
started.

"What's this song?" What's more Peter Follis, who, in misdirected
nervous cheer, had invited himself to come along with Mike to the gig,
had materialised to his side.

"I don't know," Mike replied, not turning his head.

"Who's that?" Peter asked, again into Mike's ear, whilst pointing to
the blonde man wearing a red shirt with white flowers on it. The man
was bouncing up and down with his fiddle tucked his chin, playing it
with excited strokes of the bow.
"I don't know," said Mike.

"Who's that on the drums?"

"I don't know." Mike inhaled sharply through his clenched teeth.

"Is that one the bassist?"

"I. Don't. Know."

"Who that one in the centre?"

Mike looked over his shoulder at Peter. "Oh, that one's Mark Chadwick."
He looked back at the band, at Chadwick in his once-black jeans and
ochre green shirt singing into the microphone, and smiled. "He's the
Captain." The words were too quiet for Peter to hear.

The smell of the aftershave wafted up his nostrils once more. It was
lingering in the air, or rather lingering on a body close by. Perhaps
the young man close to his left, in a white T-shirt with his arm around
a lovely young blonde girl.

Spraying the aftershave on the feet of his patients had become a matter
of routine, even for the rare foot that was odourless. It had occurred
to him in his second year at Northampton that perhaps a career in
podiatry was not the wisest choice for someone with a foot fetish. It
had seemed like a good idea at the time, sitting in the cramped brown
dankness of his sixth form common room, leafing through piles of
university prospectuses. There, alone in the uncomfortable plastic
chair, leaning against a table deemed unsuitable for classroom use, his
mind wandered to the inevitable, and he noted down the four podiatry
courses he could find among the promotional literature. Later he had
added Cardiff and Glasgow Caledonian, though he had no intention of
going so far adrift to study. But once he started on the course, it
soon became clear that he would only be looking at the steerage of the
foot world. Corns and Chiblains would be his subjects. It was like
entering on a course in great literature, then finding all you were
going to read was Mills &; Boon.

That said, Mike was unpretentious in his love of feet. He did not
obsess about the curves and grooves of each individual foot, he did not
for a moment see it's shape as a metaphor for the female upper body.
The heel was not the hips, the arch was not the waist, the ball of the
foot was not a breast. In fact, to his considerable surprise, Mike's
preference for women's feet was based on their more balanced
proportions, their smoother skin; not the fact they were women's feet.
The occasional male patient with sexy feet sent Mike into a slight
fluster. He would pace nervously in the office, and attempt every
contrivance in order to pass them on to one of his colleagues, usually
Peter, who accepted them with his trademark cheerful innocence.

There wasn't any risk of such a man here. Old saggy trainers, once
white socks and oversized boots were dominating the feet of the
audience. Mike felt sure, reassured even, that their feet were rotting
inside, especially those near the double doors, through which water had
begun to seep in. Peter's feet were no doubt perfect, but Mike liked to
imagine them crawling with bacteria and the tendrils of fungi. Mike
stared straight ahead and tried his hardest to pretend Peter wasn't
there. He liked the feeling of being alone in the crowd, the passing
delusion that the band was playing just for him. He was the master of
his own ship, listening to the chorus of the waves.

The problem with nice feet was that nice feet didn't need treating.
Sure, you could give their feet a good feel once, maybe twice, but
after that you would have to tell them everything was fine, and they'd
be on their way. At least that's what usually would happen, what was
meant to happen. Of course you could discover some slightly subtler
ailment, something more out of the ordinary. A mild skin disorder - a
sensitivity - that without regular examination could flame up into
sores, veruccas and corns. A very new condition, you see, not properly
understood. Perhaps coming back in a couple of weeks to see if there is
any change, and if so, a variety of experimental creams could be used.
Oh no, they're perfectly safe. No, not on animals, people were paid to
be guinea pigs. It's wonderful to meet someone so caring, who thinks
about the world, someone with a big heart and a beautiful, soft sole.
Now let me take another look of those feet of yours...

That wasn't how it really went. Mike went through his working day
wearing a cheap spray-on professionalism. So the secretary Tracy had
kept on attending the weekly check-ups, unaware that anything was
amiss. Though her nose was a little large for his tastes, Tracy had
otherwise pleasant features, a chirpy personality and feet so delicate
and tender. Yet he had started using the aftershave on even her feet,
and the smell itself had started to pick up certain
associations...

There it was again! Dammit, who was wearing it? He eyed each audience
member, accompanied by a sniff of the nostrils, until he came to the
man with the beard. The black beard. It was him, he knew it. He was
standing at the bar, mouth open, staring at the entrance to the club.
The bearded one bit his lip and started to move towards the front of
the gig. Mike moved to intercept him, but the burly man was able to
push his way through far quicker than Mike could manage. The man moved
round to the back of the stage, let past by a stocky bouncer in a blue
top. Mike doubted that he would show him the same courtesy. But the
scent still danced within Mike's nose. Upon reaching the foot of the
stage, he ducked underneath, and pushed off into the darkness.

"What a beautiful day-hey-hey"

The song that he had come to hear. Typical. On the other hand, this
certainly was a different way to listen to it. Mike could feel the
wooden beams around him vibrate with the beats from the music. He had
now crawled about five feet forward on his hands and knees. However,
the cacophony of noise and the lack of light meant that Mike felt
disorientated, despite moving in a straight line. He could hear a
rhythmic thumping, probably that guy in the red shirt, still jumping.
Right above him. Only Mike's familiarity with the song enabled him to
recognise the distored words from over his head.

"It was the fifth of November..."

And with that there was crackling explosion over the music. The song
stopped. The whole room had fallen into silence, apart from the
continuous thumping. Suddenly there was a crack from above, and
something impacted on the back on Mike's head. He was knocked down onto
his chest. There was a scratching, a shaking. Mike turned onto his
back, a task made awkward by the vertical beams, and then reached
forward, upward. He could feel a shoe. The fiddler's shoe. His leg must
have gone through the stage, and now he couldn't pull it back out. Mike
grabbed the shoe and wrenched it from his foot. It was then it hit him,
not the shoe, but the smell, the stench, the wafts of fetid sweat. It
was horrendous, it was terrible, it made him want to... actually it
wasn't that bad, once you got used to it. Wasn't there, Mike tried to
think, wasn't there a cheese that smelt the exact way feet do? From
Sweden, maybe, or Switzer... something. He gave the foot a push up,
before turning himself back onto his chest. He got up onto his hands
and knees, edged round slowly, and went back the way he came.

Mike realised he was out when he reached feet. The room had been
plunged into darkness, broken only by the torches of the bouncers as
they guided people to the exits. There was a whiff of burnt
electronics. He let himself be taken with the flow of the crowd, and
was pushed through the double doors of the club, out passed the lobby,
before washing up on the banks outside.

A veritable river was flowing into the club and down the road. An
employee was desperately attempt to sweep leaves away from the drains,
unaware that they were blocked all the way down. Mike's perfectly
fitted trainers were soaked through, his feet were cold, but he didn't
care. Most of the audience were outside now, shivering in the rain. A
confused employee had begun handing out coats he had collected from the
cloakroom. A young man in a white T-shirt was heckling one of the
bouncers, demanding the money back for his ticket. Mike spied Peter,
and made his way towards him.

"Well who'd of thought," said Peter upon seeing him. "Lightning of all
things." He blinked at Mike, then his nose crinkled and his brow sank
into his eyes.

"Any chance of a," Mike snapped his fingers four times, "a lift?"

Peter shoulders slumped, and he raised his forearms level with his
mouth, tensing the slivers he might call biceps. "Oh, oh, oh! Look at
you! You'll make my car filthy. You can walk. It's not even that
far."

Mike looked down at himself. His off-white shirt was now so off white
it would officially be considered brown. The pelting rain did not so
much clean his clothes as soak them in their new colour. His hands were
grazed, and his trousers now had gaping holes in the knee. Mike smiled.
"Oh well," he said. He felt the lump of the back of his skull.

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Peter, turning away.

"I'll look forward to it."

Peter looked back and frowned. "To seeing me?"

"Nope."

"Then what?"

"To tomorrow." The rain began to subside.

"Why?"

"I'm going to tell Tracy what lovely feet she has." Mike then slumped
to the wet pavement and passed out from concussion.