The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

by Ruth Hogan

  I cannot help but follow her. I am caught in her backwash. Her basket contains fresh salmon steaks, crème fraîche and dill. I copy her shopping. I wish I could copy her full stop. I want to be her. She will never end her days in a Happy Endings home. I follow her to the wine counter, trying to keep my distance, but irresistibly drawn. She selects a bottle of prosecco. As she moves on, I take a bottle of the same wine from the shelf. Suddenly she turns round and catches me. I can feel the colour rising in my cheeks. In a few short moments I have turned from shopper to stalker.

  She takes another bottle and places it in her basket. ‘It’s always good to have one in reserve,’ she says with a smile. I feel like a schoolgirl facing her prefect infatuation. I can only nod in reply. As she moves away once again, I stay where I am, pretending to study the Italian reds and trying to recapture my composure. I wonder where she has been hiding. In all the years that this has been my corner shop, I have never seen her. If I had, I would remember. Definitely. As I dither by the dog food, another customer comes in. Elvis.

  It is immediately apparent that he is equally transfixed by the mystery woman. She is now standing at the counter waiting to pay and smiles at him with enough sizzle to set a fire. At once his cheeks are burning. With obvious reluctance, he takes an empty basket and walks away. The woman apologises to the cashier and explains that she has forgotten something.

  ‘Do go ahead and pay,’ she says to me, leaving her shopping on the counter. ‘I’ll just go and fetch it.’

  Once outside the shop, I allow myself a moment or two of covetous gazing at Elvis’s bicycle before heading home. I need a cigarette.

  Chapter 20

  ART

  Today’s pool temperature is 12.6 and sunlight flashes and sparkles on the broken water as I begin my fifteenth length. The lido is becoming busier with the warmer weather, but it is too early in the day for any children to be in the pool. During the school holidays I shall swim as soon as the lido opens its doors. Children in the water make me nervous.

  I am swimming more and more these days; further and more often. The deep underwater still calls to me to atone, but I’m trying not to listen. I speed up to overtake the woman who is swimming in the lane next to me. She is an untidy swimmer with thrashing limbs and splashing strokes. Demonstrating more enthusiasm than efficiency, she ploughs through the water with all the grace of a lopsided pedalo. As I manage to pass her I get a faceful of water from a particularly vigorous kick-stroke before I escape into the open water ahead of me.

  The Olympian is standing at the edge of the pool adjusting his goggles. I can’t help but notice, as I swim towards him, that he looks just as fetching in his trunks as Daniel Craig did in his. I must remember to report this to Epiphany. Or maybe not. I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea. Or perhaps that should be the right one. After twenty lengths I climb out of the pool and peel off my swimming cap. I have a lot of hair, and, squashed under a skin-tight dome of Lycra, it gives my head an odd, misshapen appearance, a bit like a cauliflower. Set free, it is a long skein of dark curls. The same curls that my son inherited from me and refused to let me brush if ever he could help it. The Olympian is now scything through the water, sleek as a seal, and the pedalo is having a break, puffing and blowing as she clutches the side at the deep end of the pool.

  In the café Flo is being kept busy by a group of young mums and their toddlers. As I wait to be served the woman in front of me is struggling with a small boy, who is doing his best to escape from her, and a buggy containing a fractious baby who has pulled off both her socks and thrown them on the floor. The little boy yanks his hand from the woman and makes a break for the door, causing her to drop her purse, scattering change everywhere. One of the other mothers, already seated, jumps up and gathers the wriggling escapee in her arms, while I help his mother to retrieve the contents of her purse from the floor. As I hand the coins back to her our eyes meet and I see a young woman whose face is ashen with exhaustion. She, however, sees someone she recognises.

  ‘I know you.’

  This is going to be awkward. I have no idea who she is. I smile uncertainly, playing for time to try and remember, but knowing full well that I shan’t.

  ‘You’ve got that big dog.’

  That’s me. But who’s she?

  ‘You found my little boy when he ran off in the cemetery. He fell and hit his head?’

  Jayden’s mum. She asks Flo for a cup of coffee and a glass of milk.

  ‘You probably thought I was a bad mother, losing my Jayden like that.’

  Guilty as charged, but I’m hardly going to admit it.

  ‘Let me bring your tray for you.’

  I carry it over to the table where Jayden is happily drawing with his finger in a mess of spilt sugar. His mum places the glass of milk in front of him.

  ‘Say hello, Jayden. This is the lady with the big dog.’

  He won’t remember. It was months ago. Jayden’s eyes light up and he claps his hands.

  ‘Doggy! Doggy!’

  His mum wearily scrapes back a chair across the floor and sits down.

  ‘He loves dogs, does Jayden. But we can’t have one. Not in the flat.’

  Judging by the bags under her eyes and the pallor of her skin, she could barely muster the energy to care for a goldfish, let alone a dog. As I turn to leave them to their drinks, she touches my arm.

  ‘I’m not a bad mum.’ The words are delivered in a quiet voice with a steely edge and I can see a flash of defiance in her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t say—’

  She interrupts me. ‘You didn’t need to. It was written all over your face.’

  She takes a gulp of her coffee before she continues.

  ‘I was visiting my mum’s grave. We’d only buried her the week before, and I had a bit of a . . . moment.’ The catch in her voice tells me the pain is still raw. ‘He was there one minute, and then when I looked up . . . Well, you’ve seen how quick he is.’

  I can feel my face flushing. I smile, but I’m embarrassed. Ashamed. I have used my grief as an excuse to be judgemental and I have strayed onto the path of self-righteousness. This woman has called me out on it.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your mum’ is all I can think of to say. Jayden’s mum nods an acknowledgement and then turns to her friends and I am mercifully dismissed. I want to go straight home, but Flo has been watching and I know she won’t let me go without comment, so I go back to the counter and order a large mug of tea.

  ‘I’ll bring it over to you.’

  I sit down at the table furthest away from the group of women and their children, carefully arrange my book in front of me and stare out at the pool where the Olympian is still swimming. I wonder if he’s single. It crosses my mind to eke out my tea and hang around in the hope that he might come into the café after his swim, but I quickly dismiss the idea, as I’m already perilously close to being late for work. Besides, the jumper I’m wearing is about as flattering as a tea cosy. It shrunk in the wash and now the sleeves are far too short. If, and that’s a gargantuan ‘if’, I’m going to attempt to engineer an encounter with a man as indisputably hot as the Olympian, I should at least make sure that I don’t look like a walking jumble sale. Flo bustles over and plonks a mug of steaming brown tea on the table.

  ‘I’m doing you a teacake as well. You look like you could do with it.’

  ‘Thanks, Flo.’

  She picks up the book and inspects the title, clearly surprised and more than a little amused.

  ‘The Victorian Way of Death. Blimey! That’s not very cheerful. You should try something a bit more Mills & Boon.’

  ‘It’s research. I’m going to be a cemetery tour guide.’

  Flo’s face is a picture of consternation. The smell of burning drags her back to her counter before she can articulate her dismay, but she soon returns with my teacake.

  ‘It’s a bit black round the edges, but I’ve put plenty of butter on it.’ She hovers. ‘What happened there then?’ She tip
s her head ever so slightly in the direction of Jayden’s table.

  The price of a teacake.

  I sigh. ‘We had a bit of a misunderstanding. It was a while back now, but I think I upset her. I was probably a bit rude.’

  Flo pats my hand.

  ‘Never mind, love. Water under the bridge now.’

  There is a queue forming at the counter and Flo returns to her post with a final word of advice.

  ‘Eat your teacake before it gets cold.’

  Chapter 21

  ART

  Alice and Mattie

  In a cottage in a wood,

  A little old man at the window stood,

  Saw a rabbit running by,

  Knocking at the door

  Alice woke up sticky, shivering cold. The nausea washed over her in waves, small but constant, with the occasional breaker thrown up by a particular taste or smell. Her limbs felt leaden – bloated and blighted by the noxious cocktail that was sneaking through her veins. But in reality she was little more than skin and skeleton. Her clothes hung pathetically on the jutting bones of her hips and shoulders, and her face was the colour of uncooked tripe. Why the hell was she putting herself through this? Was it really worth it? And what about Mattie? He tried to act as though he was fine with typical teenage bravado, but she could see the fear in his restless eyes.

  ‘Elpy, elpy, elpy.’ The words floated into her head, like driftwood cast ashore from long ago. When Mattie was a little boy he used to play a game. His eyes would open wide and he would pretend to be afraid. He would draw pictures in the air with his forefingers and whisper the words ‘Elpy, elpy, elpy.’ It was always the same and she never understood what he meant. Over and over, always pausing at the same place, desperate for her to join in, to fill in the missing pieces. But it was a puzzle she never solved, just like the tiny white feathers that she sometimes found in his pockets.

  Looking back, maybe sometimes even then his fear had been real and not pretend.

  Mattie sat down at the base of a tree and reached into his pocket for a cigarette and a box of matches. Sam had given him a couple. He had nicked a whole packet from his mother.

  ‘She won’t even notice,’ he boasted. ‘She’s always got loads knocking about the house.’

  Sam had taught him how to smoke. He didn’t really like the taste of it, but it made him feel cool. Well, it did when it didn’t make him cough. It made him feel more like the other boys at school. Because often he didn’t. It was hard to explain, but he felt slightly removed, as though there was one tiny piece of him that was missing or mutant in some way. A rogue gene, like a rough edge on a jigsaw piece that prevented a perfect fit.

  Mattie could see his house from here. These were the woods at the bottom of their garden, but to get here he’d had to come via the track down the road. The last part of the garden was impenetrable, a vicious tangle of nettles and brambles. He’d once suggested that they could clear it. It would give them more space and then maybe he could get more rabbits, but his mum had dismissed the idea. He tucked the cigarette between his lips and struck a match. He sucked tentatively until the end of the cigarette glowed and then blew the smoke out without inhaling. Mattie came here to smoke because he could see the house from here. It somehow underlined his defiance of his mother and enhanced his crime with a daring frisson. He puffed again, this time taking a little of the smoke down into his lungs.

  His mum was the problem. He felt guilty even thinking it, but it was true. She was the one who made him feel different. She wasn’t like the mums of other kids at school. He flicked ash onto the mossy ground and watched the grey flakes flutter and settle. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. Of course he did, and she loved him. He knew that without any doubt. But it sometimes felt like she loved him too much, too desperately, as though he were her only reason for living. She still waved him off to school every morning as though she might never see him again, and was watching at the window for him when he came home each afternoon. He was too old for that now. It wasn’t normal. It was irritating, and though he would never have admitted it to anyone else, somehow just a little bit creepy.

  It had been a hot and sticky afternoon, and the cool shade and quietness of the woods was soothing. He drew again on the cigarette, harder than he intended, and his coughing clattered through the silence, scaring a nearby pigeon into flight. Mattie stubbed the dog-end out and shifted uncomfortably against the rough bark of the tree. He was late now, but still reluctant to go home. Maybe today she wouldn’t be watching for him. Over the past couple of weeks, something had changed. She had changed. She looked different and Mattie worried that sometimes she seemed muddled, as though she were unsure about even the most mundane aspects of their domestic routine. Meals had been late and he had twice found her putting unwashed laundry into the tumble dryer. He kept asking her if she was okay, and she always said she was fine. Mattie checked his watch. Five more minutes and then he would go. He took a deep breath. The cigarette had made him feel slightly sick. Or maybe it was the thought of going home.

  Chapter 22

  ART

  Masha

  The woods are dark and cold, and gunshots crack the silence. I am inside the cottage and the rabbit is cowering outside; flattening itself against the ground, making flesh and bones and fur as small as possible. I can’t get the door to open. I scratch and scrape and kick and scream. My fingers are bleeding and my nails are torn. My breathing is fast but ineffectual; the air made too thin by fear. One final shot and then silence. The door opens. The huntsman made the perfect shot straight through the back of the head. But the body is not of a rabbit, but a little boy. Gabriel.

  And then I wake up.

  The details of my nightmare are always the same, but the horror is never diminished by familiarity. The luminous numbers of the clock on my bedside table tell me that it is 3.37 a.m., and Haizum’s snoring is the only sound that ruffles the dark stillness. I climb out of bed and he is instantly awake and by my side. My fingers reach for his warm head and he sighs dolefully and licks my salty hand. I am drenched in cold sweat and my pyjamas cling to my now shivering frame. Across the landing, the door to Gabriel’s room is open and I can see the rocking horse silhouetted against the moonlight. I wish it would rock. The ghost of Gabriel would be better than no Gabriel at all. Haizum follows me across the landing and I sit down on the bare floorboards next to the horse. As I set it in motion I close my eyes and try to see my little boy sitting on its back, using the metronome creak of its rocking to summon pictures of the past. Not the flat, frozen images of photographs, but living, breathing memories – trailers of a past life. When Gabriel died I gathered up and treasured even the tiniest scraps of anything that proved he had been here. I found a half-eaten custard cream under one of the cushions on the sofa. It still had Gabriel’s teeth marks in it. I kept it until it was covered in blue mould and crumbled away in my hand. It would never have lasted that long if I’d have had Haizum then. He has settled down at my feet, but shifts his considerable bulk restlessly on the uncomfortable floorboards.

  Eventually, I allow the horse to rest. I am cold and stiff, but still reluctant to move. And then I hear it. The throbbing, bouncing, joyful notes of the T. Rex song I used to play to Gabriel when he was still kicking inside my belly. ‘I Love to Boogie’. I have loved it ever since I saw the film Billy Elliot. And so did Gabriel. As soon as he was old enough to stand he would wobble and jiggle and wave his hands when he heard it. He too loved to boogie. I know that the music is only in my head, but it doesn’t stay there. Moments later I am downstairs with T. Rex blasting from four speakers. I only wish that I could bring myself to dance in my pyjamas.

  Chapter 23

  ART

  Edward was Gabriel’s father. He was the one who came to ante-natal classes with me and held back my hair when, stricken with morning sickness, my head was down the toilet. It was Edward who paced the corridor outside the delivery room when I was in labour, and he was the first person to hold Gabri
el in his arms and welcome him into the world. He changed nappies, read stories, did midnight feeds, and told me that everything would be all right when I was giddy from lack of sleep and covered in baby sick. Edward was Gabriel’s father in every way except biologically; a minor detail that held no significance for any of us.

  Edward is also the brother I always wanted but my parents failed to provide. We are very alike; as emotionally complicated as one another. Not in a sophisticated, glamorous ‘I want to be alone’ Greta Garbo way, but in an awkward, frustrating and sometimes self-alienating way. For example, we both find the admission of any kind of personal vulnerability as embarrassing as tripping in your high heels and falling flat on your face in front of millions on the way to collect an Oscar. Stiff upper lip doesn’t even begin to cover it; rigor mortis is more like it. I have seen Edward weep unashamedly and very publicly at the end of the film The Railway Children. You only have to say the words ‘Daddy, my daddy’ in Jenny Agutter-esque tones and his eyes fill with tears. But six years ago, when the love of his life and partner of fifteen years, Rupert, left him to go and open an antiquarian book shop in Hay-on-Wye with his reiki practitioner, Edward’s upper lip remained as stiff as Prince Charles dancing the rumba. And so it was when Gabriel died. Drowning is a quiet affair and we kept our grief tightly swaddled in suffocating self-restraint. It seems that we each independently entered an unspoken pact to protect one another by refusing to discuss our devastation. I think now that it may have been a mistake, but it is a mutual flaw born from mutual love that binds us together and makes our friendship so precious.