The Girl in the Blue Shoes

by Shaun Hume

  She dove a look back at me with those pickaxe eyes and said: ‘I think you might be best served by going to a local information centre. You’d be able to get a map from there.’

  ‘Oh, of course, sorry to bother you, thank you,’ I said quickly, but without moving from the spot.

  The short conversation had not been sweet, but I’d wager more than adequately the former to most all others. And strangely, the latter to me. She peered at me again but her gaze had softened, a pale veil now up in place of the hardened barriers she had been but half a thought away from fully constructing, walls she would no doubt be schooled well in propelling to the front of her order, the need for it to deal with Oxford’s not so finest a sure necessity.

  ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

  I stood motionless, my gaze at half focus, my mind in a suspended mode of thought.

  ‘If I told you what I was going to tell you, you wouldn’t believe me.’ A prickle of something then tinged her face.

  ‘And what makes you say that?’ the pretty police officer replied.

  ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Then why say anything? Why come in here at all?’

  ‘People are after me, I thought it might be … wise.’

  ‘What kinds of people?’ the officer said, now standing up a little straighter in her space.

  ‘I … I don’t know entirely, not yet, anyway.’ This was how I blundered as reply, my assurance of thought about The Girl in the Blue Shoes and her people splitting into tiny pieces and floating away in the air.

  The police officer now took a little quarter step backwards, just enough to be noticed but maybe not by her. It was an action of instinct. This girl knew there was something up, and sooner more than later she would do something about it.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ I said, now moving in my own mode of instinct, and turned towards the door.

  ‘Wait,’ called the woman and I stopped in my tracks. Her call had, curiously, not been an order but a request, a clean and lighter mood flowing on her tone that suggested she was casting upon me her genuine intentions. I turned back around, and by the time I had done this she had walked around the side of her space, a white card in her hand.

  ‘Here, take this,’ she said, offering the pearly rectangle towards me. ‘If you decide you want some help, call me on my direct line.’

  She paused, an action, the first of such she had made in front of me, I was not entirely sure she had been aware she was doing. Her heart was less than an arms length from my chest, her mossy eyes arced slightly up towards mine.

  ‘Or else straight through to the station,’ she continued, ‘and we can have someone to you immediately,’ she finished in a breath, the pause over, the tone restored.

  I took the card and held it below my eyes. Sara. Her name was Sara. Her first name was all I registered before I slipped the business card into my trousers pocket and thanked her duly. She gave a half smile as reply and I set my steps outside.

  11.

  The way I needed to go on had left me with the choice of two paths to take.

  The first option was through the usual bustle of central Oxford. It was an easy path to navigate, but its downside was that typically at this time of an evening, typically on this day of the week, the way would scarcely be teaming with enough walking others in order to act as cloak for my presence, and therefore, protect me so. This choice was well lit, but also filled with many off shoots and alleyways. These were prime settings and opportunistic spots for my foes to lay in wait, an easy snatch to be made with the minimum of fuss, next to zero recognition to be roused from the ambling public.

  The second option was to take the darkened paths which ran along the Meadow side of town. This was a naked way, a space that was intended to be locked and free of any human being during the night-time hours. I would have to hop the stout fence once and then leap another on my way out. But it was the shorter of the two cuts, and would have the added veil of darkness on my person. Once I was in, there would be few but the most active and sociable of fox or alley cat that would see me slinking along.

  The downfall of this option was the camouflage of black would not only serve me, but any pursuer who felt suited to stalk me down as well. An end in there would certainly be an invisible one. There would be no where left to run, no presence to offer me aid.

  I felt squeezed for time, an apple in a press, and my inclination was to turn right, back towards the Meadow and away from the city streets. But as soon as I had laid hands on the cool slippery metal and hoisted myself over the fence I started to question my decision. If they had still been watching, they would have surely seen my clumsy navigation of the barrier and be after me in a shot. And a shot could be what I would get, as all manner of ghastly possibilities and bloody endings now rushed through my mind like startled leaves in a rushing gale.

  Despite these ill thoughts I was quickly convincing myself that the most silent option would be the best. A small level of calm and comfort rose in me as I remarked that were the deed to be done, and my flame brought to a swift end, I would scarcely be aware of it before I had nothing left to be aware of, a hurried and stealthy end the best one of any such full stops to be made.

  I felt as if I had ventured into an ever deepening lake of black ink, so close were the edges of darkness within the now silent and deserted space.

  One of Mother Nature’s saplings stirred to my left and I turned to the fight, my unthought of actions surprising my considering ones. But I had tensed my muscles and readied my bones for naught, as the movement proved to be mere product of the wind, a teasing breeze that saw amusement in shaking me up.

  Christ Church itself stood as a solid wall of colourless mass, a mere sounding board to reflect back the bleating of my unsteady and scuttling steps as they scuffed along the stone strewn way. I tried to pass it with no more mind, but had a scratching sense that it too was carefully observing my progress, the place like a singular eye, wide and gaping, but cunning and still.

  The college was for me or against me. Of which I was unsure. I made haste forward, and left the great eye behind, my focus now onto the other creatures waiting for me beyond.

  Trees stood stiff and black, their shadows like rough silhouettes cut out of the sky and stuck to the ground with some kind of ghastly glue. Barely a spec or two of ambient amber dust floated its way onto my path from the tiny lights which lit in bits and bobs around the colleges and streets I had left behind.

  The slim starlight felt like feathers on my face, I fancied, that then turned into flecks of paint on my cheeks, the little luminescence just enough to spot the solid from the not so solid that dwelt around me.

  The time of day had not long left the genteel shores of twilight, but it may as well have been the blackest of predawn. The shadowlands were so pressing it was all I could do to keep convincing myself I had not already perished, now left a wandering carcass of the most pale of spirits, seeing nothing and seen by no one.

  But the absence of light did not disquiet me as much as did the absence of sound. Not a shrill wail of siren nor call of canine could be heard behind the border of trees to my flanks. It was still quite early in real terms, and even a city such as this was prone to leave a faint tick tock of life at least, a gentle but constant beat of the inner heart that lay behind the souls who called it home.

  The warm wind swelled up and my mind wandered into the summers of my youth. The scent of soft dampened ground carried up and aloft into my nostrils, sweeping through my hair and ruffling my clothes, times laying across warm ancient stone, heated by years of knowledge before the hours of sun.

  My goal was nearly reached and still, despite severe evidence, I was still alive. I pushed along, and there a sprinkle of luminescence was forming into a puddle, growing larger all the while as I moved closer, and I felt the safety of light. There was nothing in it, just light, but to be able to see, it felt like a treat, and it pulled me in like a moth to flame. One and then the other and soon I was back o
nto the, dimly sure, but lit streets.

  As night drew in like a swelling tide, my ideas again turned to where I might sleep for the night. I thought first about the cemetery, but after last night’s near miss I was compelled to think a little harder about where it might be best and safest to next lay my head. I had discounted Bertie only as a precaution, and mainly because I was sure I could come up with less conspicuous lodgings. But now unwilling to take refuge in another hotel or motel type establishment, I thought it prudent to at least give the old man’s hospitality another try.

  I must admit that a large bulk of my concerns for heading for the professor’s house were also due to a penchant he had for letting fly when new and interesting information came his way. If you wanted a secret not to be kept, then tell it to Bertie. This was a mantra well known.

  Even though this dilemma of character did cross my mind before I first went to see him, it was a tale I was well aware of. But also, my thoughts were of if he too believed the concept I put towards him, and its significance, that even Bertie might just be capable of zipping his lip. For this matter was one that if proved would also see him lofted to the precipice of the truly renowned and respected scholars.

  At the time before I left my life in Oxford, Bertie was certainly known, but not necessarily respected. He was feared by some, but only for his proclivity to volatility at the most, as other saw it, inappropriate of times. Bertie had never been one to hide his theories of connections between the ancient Egyptian civilisation and the supposed presence of aliens, extraterrestrials, within that culture.

  It was indeed true that Bertie had been officially banned from entering the grounds of Merton College, a sentence that was almost unheard of for any professor as well lettered as Bertie. The origins of his ban had come about when not so many years ago he had been asked to give a lecture about associated similarities between Arthurian legend and modern storytelling. Bertie had inadvertently turned this talk into a denouncement of what he called ‘bigotry of the mind’ when he had brought up what he thought were clear cut relationships between Arthur, Egypt and the presence of aliens on earth that predated both histories and their folklore.

  It is true that a mere ramble on such a subject is not enough to be expelled from an Oxford college for life. However, what is enough is to square oneself up to one’s main objector, who just happens to be the Dean of the school you are lecturing at, and punch said Dean in his jaw, breaking cheek bones and chipping teeth.

  It was said Bertie was given the choice of jail time or banishment from Merton for his attack, and that he steadfastly chose expulsion. Proudly he had barked at the top of his lungs, during a now famous and so-called private hearing, that ‘there are thirty seven other reputable institutions in this town that will not be afraid to take heed of the truth! What is it to me if a mere one decides to remain ignorant?!’

  The recounting of these shenanigans brought a brief smile to my lips, the first for days, and I could clearly remember when and where I was the day it was relayed to me from the horses mouth.

  This was not by any means the only account of Bertie’s lawlessness. Frequent updates, usually passed on by amused undergraduates as precursors to their whispered enquiries, falling on my ears in regular intervals.

  Bertie’s conviction to his work, and the frenzied determination that clung to him like a persistent swarm, had always earned my constant respect for him. Ever increasing with each altercation of such passion of which he was the architect.

  12.

  Dark had now painted the sky in full, deep brush strokes, and it was with the help from only sparse streetlight and starlight alone that I was able to turn into Bertie’s street.

  With keen eye on passing cars and sharpened ear for distant sounds, I crept closer, a sudden thrill of foreboding troubling my spine, a faint shiver crawling down it like the unseen tentacles of a creature of ill repute. My stomach began to churn and my blood begin to mottle, the cells like thick oil as it seemed my actions slowed without my control.

  An open gate was the first image meeting my eyes as I approached from the side, and was my first warning of grave deeds beyond its barrier.

  Bertie was nothing if not astute; I never called at his home without having to unlatch, and then latch back behind me, the sparkling white timber gate that gave entry to his front garden.

  Indeed, as I set my eyes on the house proper did my muscles suddenly tighten like steel bands and I looked towards a front door that had not just been left open, but left on the ground, half of it clinging to a solitary hinge, like a valiant autumn leaf. The rest of the door sat in large thick splinters, spread across the scene as if their creator had wished to lay a gruesome garnish upon the terrible deeds that had no doubt been done inside.

  With surprising clarity and lack of hesitation I bounded up the garden path, not allowing my heels to hit the pavement as I went, and was at the door and silent again. The light within was scant, and I thought, was provided by only a single lamp, maybe overturned in the scuffle and now laying flat, a whisker away from acting as fire starter to a swift inferno. The dull golden bright was splashed over scattered papers and books, strewn up the front passage like a blanket of snow, furniture bent and broken as twigs on the cold flat flakes.

  I wondered if I should dare chance a call to my friend’s aid, but swiftly turned against it, thinking Bertie may not even have been inside during the siege. It could be too that the intruders were right this instant crouched in dusty corners, away from the light and hugging the shadows, sucking their darkness for mortal needs.

  Maybe they had burst in without heed for Bertie’s presence at all, cutting through the house like wicked sprites, determined to batter and bruise whatever he owned as well as his his physical self, treating it all as part of his skin, intent on letting him know what it was he was now a part of.

  I had a peculiar mix of emotions scatter in my head like startled birds, the fear for my own and Bertie’s life flapping around with the guilt and hatred at my own actions, for drawing an old friend into my flame, insisting that he help to build the fire too.

  Whatever there was to be done I had to do it. And whatever it was, I had to do it now.

  Taking care to register the exact location of every piece of crumbled wood and each shard of broken glass, I slunk down the hallway and towards the source of soupy light. It was coming from the living room and seemed to be pulsing, one gentle wave after the other, both inviting and ominous. Still I could hear no foreign sound. The scuttling rumble of slow cars turning the nearby corner of Bertie’s street; a rocketing plane, barely audible over thirty thousand feet overhead; a confused starling twittering away to itself in a tree under a bright streetlight; all were making up the normal and perfectly calm soundtrack that the simple Oxford street was used to.

  I moved closer and took the shallow step that led down to the living room at surprise, and my knee buckled, gravity throwing the rest of me at the hard stone floor. I hit the ground like a dropped book and came to rest on my face. In the terrible second that ensued I dreamt of massive monsters leaping out to clench their teeth down on my flesh, great steamrollers squishing me flat, and giant birds pecking at my body, all at once finding myself exposed. But to my further surprise I neither felt nor saw nor experienced any such things. Instead, I heard a voice.

  ‘Who’s there?’ came a dusty croak, so small that for a half second I near expected a wizened toad to appear from the rubble, sounding itself as the speaker. But I recognised the voice’s real owner in the other half of time and my ears turned towards the presence of the voice.

  ‘It’s only me, Bertie,’ I whispered from the floor, struggling to my feet as quietly as possible, ‘are you alright?’ Bertie answered my question with his presence, and sidled out from behind a sofa.

  ‘Good heavens!’ he chirped, some of his familiar vigour on show, ‘what are you doing back here, old boy?’ I dusted myself off as best as I could and entered the living room to see my friend’s eyes. They
were drained of light, the little lamp that I had correctly guessed as laying flat on the floor having to work overtime to give Bertie’s pupils some glow of life.

  ‘I came to see if you could help me,’ I replied, ‘but it looks like it’s I that should be doing the helping.’ I gazed around at the mess in the living room, looking much like the hallway, paper and objects cast all over the floor.

  ‘I fear I have made a grave mistake, old boy,’ Bertie went on, ‘and boasted a little too freely that I had a new theory to tell of. I told some colleagues, at the college, about what you had told me – I didn’t mention your name,’ he added with purpose and speed, a shadow creeping into his eyes, a ghost haunting his face. ‘They were most interested in what I had to say. But I suppose the powers that be were listening in too.’

  ‘Were you here when this happened?’ I asked, casting rumpled eyes around the shattered scene.

  ‘Thankfully not so,’ said Bertie, bending down to set the fallen lamp straight, the effect on the room and his face a wholly different one. ‘But as you can see, I got the message – my notebooks are gone too. I dare say that attaining them was their true desire.’

  ‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ I said with low eyes, my hands at my sides.

  ‘Poppycock!’ said Bertie, so abruptly that I looked around me with a jolt, fearing that the intruders had returned for round two. ‘Now we know we have their attention, as surely they have ours.’

  ‘I should have left you out of all this.’

  ‘Nonsense once more!’ barked Bertie, ‘this is larger than you or I. Although … I may have to take a backseat, for the time being that is … until I can get my affairs in order.’

  I helped Bertie tidy his house and he kindly insisted that I spend the night on the sofa that had just been his hiding place. I expressed my fears to him, that the ones responsible for the impromptu redecorating of his abode may still be watching the house, waiting for just such an occasion to arise, where they would have the complete opportunity to strike out two birds with one stone.