‘So, this was what was known as the clicking department,’ he began. ‘It’s where the shoemaking process started. The leather was cut into the shapes and patterns needed for a shoe or boot, either by hand or using these presses.’ He tapped one beside him and it let out a low metallic ring.
I stared at the machines, the dampening hum of metal in my ears. This place seemed somehow caught out of time. Many of the steel cutters still pressed down against leather, as if their operators had disappeared momentarily and would be back in an instant to finish the job. But the workers had never returned and everything stood exactly as it had originally. Past and present collided.
Moving into the next section, we passed row after row of sewing machines to the left and right of the central aisle. Their black bodies lay still, their wheels shrouded in dust. In many of them, pieces of leather lay trapped between the needle plates and feet of the machines. On all their sides, the white letters SINGER stood out. I tried to imagine the noise they would have generated when they were frantically working away. But the silence now was deafening. On the long benches in front of the machines were assortments of intricate tools and finished stitched uppers. The bare floor was still covered with scraps of leather which had, presumably, been cut away and discarded.
‘This is the assembling department,’ said Richard, ‘where the pieces of leather were stitched together to form the upper part of the shoe. This was one of the few areas where women worked. The rest of the place was pretty much the domain of men.’
Richard moved into the central space on the far side of the floor where huge black machines dominated. ‘I think they cut the soles out here,’ he said, running his hand down a great hulk of heavy metal pressing down onto a blade. ‘The leather was thicker than that used for the uppers.’ He took a piece still trapped beneath the machine between his fingers.
I nodded, looking behind him where hundreds of rolls of leather, longer than six feet, lay stacked on shelves. Neat squares also lay piled in the centre of the floor. I inhaled deeply. I’d begun to notice that wherever I went in the factory the smell of leather always lingered. But here it seemed to ooze from the walls, hanging thickly on the air like invisible smoke. It crept up my nostrils and down into my chest. I felt I was breathing in a past that was almost alive.
As I looked down the length of the factory, taking it all in, my head became filled with visions of deconstructed machine parts reassembled into modern architectural forms. Metallic table stands and lamp fittings, old machine wheels attached to the walls. The vaulted ceiling with light tunnels boring through it. Light and glass and metal intertwined. Yes, the old industrial look with some sleek modern touches would work really well in this space.
Richard’s voice broke into my thoughts. He was on the move again, heading for the staircase at this end of the floor. ‘Down here is the lasting department,’ he shouted as he went.
I followed him into the next section on the first floor. Before us stood a gigantic table stacked with hundreds of pairs of wooden feet. They spilled over its edges and onto the floor. I smiled. ‘Cool. What are they?’
‘I suppose they’re lasts,’ said Richard, with a grin. ‘I think the uppers were stretched over them to construct the shape of the shoes.’ He looked down at his piece of paper again before pointing further down the factory floor. ‘The soles were attached in the next room and then right down at the end, in the bottoming department, the shoes and boots were levelled. Repairs were carried out there too.’
We walked slowly to the far end of the floor. Here shoes of all kinds, scuffed, soleless or full of holes, formed an unruly pile in a corner. Real down-and-out footwear ready for mending but left instead to rot away.
I nudged the heap with the toe of my trainer. ‘Look at this. Why do you think it’s all still here?’
‘Maybe the owners just never came back to collect. After the factory closed down, I mean.’ Richard paused before continuing. ‘Or perhaps the beneficent boss-man gave them new pairs of shoes instead.’
‘Yeah, right. Fantasist.’ But secretly I hoped that he was right. I looked at the pile again. There was something sad, deeply forlorn about it. Abandoned, discarded. Rather like the factory itself.
As I turned away, my gaze fell upon two rows of carefully stitched, perfectly crafted shoes and boots. All without heels.
I started to laugh. ‘This place is surreal.’
Richard followed my look. ‘Ah, yes. Heeling and trimming happened on the ground floor. The final stage in the process.’
Taking the stairs down out of this department, we wandered back to where we had started.
‘And this is the dispatch room, where everything was inspected and passed for packing.’
I nodded, taking in again the countless boxes and racks of shoes around us. ‘So basically the whole process flowed from the top to the bottom of the factory.’ It was regimented, orderly and still tenuously preserved.
‘Seamless, don’t you think?’
‘Rather like your tour.’
Richard gave an exaggerated bow. ‘Thanks. But, to be honest, I haven’t really managed to get my head around it all. I’ll have to leave the rest to you. Is that okay?’
‘Of course.’ I smiled at him, feeling a sudden tightening in my chest. ‘Thanks, Richard,’ I said, apropos of nothing.
There was silence for a second as he looked at me. Then he shook his head. ‘No need for thanks. After all, you are the creative genius, the best man for the job.’ He paused. ‘Which is a pain in the arse for me, because you haven’t exactly been the most reliable.’
The statement was made lightly and contained no edge, no hint of malice. And, frankly, I was somewhat surprised that it didn’t. No doubt about it, Richard could be ruthless when he had to be. I’d seen it in action. But he was also a good guy. He hadn’t been able to rely on me during the last few months but he had carried me regardless. And now he had given me this job. My chest constricted again.
‘So are things okay, Johnny?’
The question hung in the air between us for a moment. Then, ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I muttered, embarrassed. I wanted to end this conversation before it had a chance to get going. ‘Just fine,’ I repeated, my fingers stroking a pair of soft leather shoes from a rack.
I could feel Richard’s stare on me, probing, assessing.
‘Really,’ I said, finally, looking directly at him.
‘Good. I’m glad.’ He winked at me and, sensing a shift in the conversation, I began to breathe easily once more.
For a few moments Richard talked me through some practicalities. The electricity had been reconnected on the assumption that I’d want to work on site as usual. He gave me a look as he said this as if he were humouring a small child. However, the 1940s lighting system might still prove to be a problem on occasion. There was no wi-fi for the moment but he’d organised for someone to come and get it up and running within the next day or so. So I’d be able to use a laptop and CAD on site. The water was on and there was a working toilet at the opposite end of the ground floor. If there was anything else I needed I was to call our office manager and she’d get it sorted.
Finally he looked at me as he picked up his bag to leave. ‘You know, of course, that you’ll need some help on a job this big.’
I nodded.
‘I was thinking of Tara. Sound good?’
‘Good’ wasn’t the word I would have chosen but in the circumstances I didn’t have the heart to disagree with him. I kept my face inscrutable as I answered. ‘Sure. That sounds fine.’ I could, after all, think of worse people.
‘Great. I thought she could start on an inventory and then, as you get going, help you draw up all your designs. But, of course, feel free to use her for whatever else comes up. Within reason, of course.’
I nodded, trying to ignore the tone I thought I heard. Something protective and territorial tinged with innuendo. But I might have been imagining it. I looked at Richard’s face but he was already moving on.
‘So, are you okay if I leave you to it? I have a mountain of stuff to do back at the office.’
‘Of course. I’m fine.’ And I was. I’d been longing for this moment since I’d arrived.
Richard grabbed his coat and on his way out clapped me on the back again. ‘Drop by the office later and we can talk through your initial thoughts.’
Then the door slammed shut and he was gone.
A couple of hours later I was standing once more in the quiet of the clicking department, looking through the large dusty windows to the road outside. When Richard had first told me the name, it had conjured up fantastical images of women’s feet clicking their high-heeled way across a wooden factory floor. Shoes clicking next to the slim ankles of their owners, the sound raucous as an army of ghostly feet in stiletto shoes advanced. Click click click click. But all was quiet now. The clicking presses were silent, their metal limbs still. The only feet moving over the floorboards were my own.
I took the stairs out of that department down to the first floor. The walls of the stairwell were full, from top to bottom, with photographs. There was a sombre picture of a group of bearded gentlemen, dressed up in dark suits and ties, staring ahead unflinchingly at the camera. Our directors, 1948 read the caption. Alongside it stood a portrait of a solitary director with dark eyes that seemed to glower at the camera. It was dated 24 May 1896. The next photograph was of four rows of Victorian women, clad in long black dresses and white aprons, each seated in front of a sewing machine, diligently stitching pieces of leather together. Their heads were bowed, eyes focused, their long hair tied back neatly at the napes of their necks. One woman, however, looking up, beautiful and distracted, had been caught out by the photographer. The date was 1898. Another showed a group of about eight women, blonde and brunette, fat and thin, grinning as they worked. Machinists, 1936. They stitched and sewed, caught in their black and white world. I left dust trails with my fingertips across their smiling faces. It seemed to have been a happy enough place. So why could I still feel it? A touch of sadness hanging in the air, loitering in the shadows and dark corners.
I took a breath and, as I crossed the length of the factory, exhaled slowly. Heading for the table full of lasts, I picked up one that I had noticed earlier, cut from a paler wood than the rest. I cradled it in my palm, the fingers of my other hand tracing the foot’s smooth contours: the curve of the arch, the high instep, the silky smoothness from the subtle press and touch of a chisel. After all these years, it held only a faint smell: the palest residue of oak and resin. I closed my eyes and heard the vague murmurings of the factory once more. The voices of the past talking to me.
2
THE FOLLOWING DAY a funny thing happened.
I’d been working in the dispatch room on the ground floor of the factory all morning. I’d now designated it mine and Tara’s office. It was the perfect workspace as it already contained two big old desks and was far less cluttered than elsewhere. The only other things in the room were shoes and shoeboxes. Admittedly there were hundreds of them, but I’d stacked them neatly against the front wall. After doing this, I settled down to look over some paperwork, checking the original blueprints of the factory and looking over the surveyor’s recent drawings in detail. I’d wanted to get the layout of the building and all its dimensions clear in my mind.
When lunchtime came around I was longing to get outside. The beauty of the day was distracting. Clouds like spun sugar floated across the sky and the sun possessed rare warmth for the time of year. I bought a sandwich at a nearby deli and made my way to the park, sitting down on a bench under a plane tree. I closed my eyes for a few moments, feeling the sun against my skin. Then I pulled the client’s brief from my jacket pocket and began to read through it again while I ate. Absorbed in the task, I didn’t surface until some time later. When I looked around, I noticed that I was not alone.
Walking along the opposite side of the park was a woman. She was about five feet, six inches tall and around thirty years old. She had pale skin and dramatic features: strong cheekbones, large deep-set eyes and a long slim nose. You couldn’t have called her classically beautiful but there was something striking about her. Her hair hung dark and straight to her shoulders and was topped with a bright pink beret, which sat at an angle on her head. I couldn’t help staring at her. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was but there was something about her, something that appealed. She was wearing a black shirt and long black trousers and was holding what looked like a camera in her right hand.
I watched her walk from tree to tree around the park’s perimeter, scanning the ground. When she eventually headed in my direction, I dropped my gaze back to my papers and feigned indifference. She passed by, her footfalls breaking the silence. She circled the bushes, then the flower beds, moving gradually inwards until she stopped at the old bandstand that stood in the middle of the park. Hands on hips, she frowned, glancing to her left, then her right. I thought I saw her lips move, as if she was muttering to herself.
She must have felt me watching because suddenly she looked right at me. I glanced away, embarrassed by my lack of subtlety. But it was too late. She advanced towards me.
‘I’m sorry to bother you.’ I looked up to be fixed by her green-eyed stare. ‘But you haven’t seen a lens cap lying around the park anywhere? One that would fit this.’ She held up the camera I had spotted her carrying. A Nikon, large, expensive-looking.
‘Erm, no, I haven’t. I’m sorry.’ Then I shrugged, trying to imbue the gesture with some semblance of sympathy.
She smiled at me. She had a nice smile. ‘Oh well. Never mind. Thanks, anyway.’
She began to walk away and the movement made up my mind. ‘Hey,’ I called after her, ‘I’m not doing anything particular right now. Do you want me to help you look for it?’
As she turned back to face me I caught the hesitation in her eyes. ‘No, really, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. I mean, you can only look so much, can’t you?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I felt a sudden pang of disappointment which I tried to suppress. But it must have been reflected on my face because she suddenly smiled at me again.
‘Okay, sure – we can look one more time. It can’t hurt, can it?’
I shook my head and stood up, slightly embarrassed that I’d made such a big deal about it all. We walked a few paces together in silence. I tried desperately to think of something to say but my mind was a white blank. She, however, was already focused on the search, indifferent to me.
‘So, do you live near here?’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth I grimaced. They were almost on a par with ‘Do you come here often?’
But she turned to me, seemingly unaware, and smiled. ‘Clerkenwell. Not far away at all. You?’
‘Just up the road in Islington.’
A slight nod. ‘So what are you doing here, then?’
‘I’m renovating the old shoe factory over there.’ I gestured.
‘Ah, nice. I’m glad something’s finally happening to it. How long’s it been empty?’
‘Over fifty years,’ I said, somewhat surprised at being able to recall Richard’s summary of the place.
‘So you’re what, then? An architect?’
I nodded. ‘I work in a small practice in Shoreditch with a friend of mine. You?’
She gestured at the camera. ‘Photographer. One that constantly loses her shit.’
As I looked at her I couldn’t help smiling. ‘In the physical or emotional sense?’
‘Hmm. Mainly the former but also the latter.’ She smiled back at me, uncertainly. Then she broke the gaze and looked away, biting down on her bottom lip. In that moment I felt an almost overpowering urge to kiss her.
I coughed and tried to regain some sort of focus. ‘So, what kind of photographs do you take?’
‘Fashion, mostly. And usually shoes. I do a lot of advertising work – for campaigns, that kind of thing. It’s a little dark, edgy.’ She looked straight at me, her eyes tw
inkling. Long eyelashes framed deep green irises. ‘But perhaps that’s why it sells.’
Our footsteps echoed on the tarmac walkway for a couple more seconds and then we came to a standstill. We had completed a circle of the park and found nothing. We stood by the entrance nearest to the factory. Its façade loomed over us.
‘It’s beautiful but kind of creepy too, you know.’ She looked upwards at the smoky, discoloured bricks of the building and my gaze instinctively followed hers. With its obscured, dirty windows and dim interior, it didn’t exactly look inviting.
‘I suppose it is a little creepy,’ I said, nodding.
‘And what’s it like inside?’
‘A time warp.’ I smiled. ‘It’s still full of stuff from the end of the nineteenth century. Machines, tools, that kind of thing.’
‘Cool,’ she said and smiled back at me.
For a moment we said nothing, simply looking at one another. ‘Well, thanks for your help,’ she said finally. ‘But I guess my lens cap is lost.’
‘Never say never. It’ll probably turn up unexpectedly.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ She shrugged.
Then there was silence.
I waited, expecting her to say goodbye and leave. But she just stood there in front of me.
I looked down at the brief in my hand and felt a moment’s pang of guilt. I should be working. But the words leaped out of my mouth regardless. ‘So can I buy you a consolatory coffee? I know a great place not far from here.’
She paused for a second. Then she smiled. ‘Sure, why not? That’d be nice.’
And that was how I met Ophelia.
3
IN DEFERENCE TO the unseasonal weather, there were four metal tables set out on the pavement below the café’s long front window. Two of them were taken. A young couple sat at the first, seemingly in the aftermath of an argument, staring furiously away from one another. The woman lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the afternoon. It hung, hostile and heavy, on the air. Next to them sat a balding middle-aged man with thick-rimmed dark glasses, mostly obscured behind a vast expanse of newspaper. He had the appearance of someone desperately trying to make himself invisible. Probably from the angry couple. We took the table furthest away and sat down, me facing the other tables and Ophelia with her back to them. The waitress came over and gave us a nod. Both Ophelia and I ordered coffee from her and she turned and headed back inside.
The Medici Mirror Page 2