The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

by Ruth Hogan

  He was wearing his new blue sandals and he kept trying to pull them off, and laughing when I told him not to. As we walked down the lane to the riverbank, Gabriel clutched the bag of bread in one chubby pink fist and I held tightly on to his other hand. He almost tripped several times in his excitement to get to the ducks, and each time I caught him. But no one was there to catch me. As we clambered down the shallow slope to the riverbank I slipped and lost my footing. And then there was nothing. The next thing I remember was my head pounding, sticky and wet with blood, anxious voices somewhere very near, and someone touching my arm. I could smell damp earth and warm grass close to my face, and see a plane like a silver splinter slicing through the empty blue sky above. The first word I spoke was my son’s name, but he was gone.

  I had lost consciousness, but for how long I have no idea. I had hit my head on the only rock in the vicinity. A couple walking their dog found me and called for an ambulance, but they had no way of knowing that I had not been alone. The police found one of Gabriel’s sandals, the left one, close to the water’s edge, and the bag of bread floating just a few feet away. They dragged the murky water for two days, but Gabriel’s grave refused to give him up. The divers weren’t surprised. The river was too long, too wide, too deep, too fast; too full of twists and turns and secret crypts and tombs and catacombs of tangled weeds and knotted roots. He was gone forever. Now, after all these wasted, waiting years, I too must let him go.

  Kitty Muriel squeezes my hand, but for a moment she says nothing. Then she looks straight at me with a gentle smile.

  ‘Bugger.’

  And that’s it. She doesn’t need to say anything else. She knows what I know. She produces another tiny hanky, with which I try to salvage my face, and fixes me another Martini.

  ‘And now, what about those dresses?’

  She lifts the lid of a beautiful wooden travelling trunk and pulls out a mouth-watering collection of dresses, one after another, like a magician pulling silk scarves from his sleeve. There are three floral tea dresses, a lavender chiffon evening gown with a beaded bodice, two day dresses in pistachio-coloured raw silk, and a black strapless taffeta ballgown. The next hour is spent with me flitting backwards and forwards behind a fabric-covered screen, trying on these stunning vintage creations whilst Kitty perches on the edge of the bed waving an ostrich-feather fan in approval. Each dress fits me perfectly, and Kitty is insistent that I take them all as her gift. I am thrilled, overwhelmed and embarrassed all at once, and begin to gabble my attempts at a thank you, but Kitty is as dismissive of my gratitude as she is generous with her mother’s wardrobe.

  ‘They look beautiful on you. You do them justice in a way that I never could. I think Mummy always wished that I was a little more Audrey Hepburn, and a little less Barbara Windsor. I sometimes felt she thought I was rather too “tuppence ha’penny” for her as well.’

  ‘She was wrong.’

  Perhaps it was not just the convent that had chafed at Kitty’s lively spirit. We pack the dresses in tissue, and Kitty finds a suitcase for me to borrow.

  ‘I really don’t know how to thank you . . .’ I begin again.

  ‘Take me swimming in that wonderful outdoor pool that Marcus mentioned you frequent. That will be thanks enough.’

  ‘I should love to. By the way, how is your gorgeous fiancé?’

  ‘He reads me poetry in the bath, brings me flowers every week, holds my hand in the park, cooks a delicious Thai green curry, and always puts the lavatory seat down.’

  ‘He sounds perfect.’

  ‘He is to me.’

  As I gather my things to leave, Kitty Muriel once again takes my hand.

  ‘Gabriel would be very proud of you. To live through a child’s death takes great courage and we had no choice, but it takes greater courage still to live on without them when we do.’

  As I leave Kitty Muriel’s flat carrying my suitcase full of beautiful dresses, I remember what she told me. People are often so very much more than they seem to be. Indeed they are.

  Chapter 43

  ART

  Today’s pool temperature is 20.1 degrees. The sun is unseasonably hot for early September and Kitty Muriel is even hotter. The pool is crowded and people are sitting or lying on towels spread out on the grass and enjoying the sunshine. When Kitty Muriel emerges from the changing rooms, heads turn. She is wearing a scarlet halter-neck bathing suit that shows off her hourglass figure to its best advantage. Her shapely legs are smooth and tanned, her matching red manicure and pedicure are immaculate and even the flower-covered swimming cap looks glamorous on her. She walks to the pool with her head held high, back straight and her hips gently swaying to a samba that only she can hear. I trot along behind, grateful to be in her slipstream. The wonderful thing about Kitty Muriel is that she is truly proud of the woman she is. Exactly as she is. Her age and its physical manifestations are wholly insignificant. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t need to. She’s magnificent. As she climbs into the water I feel like the geeky girl in the playground who has, for some unfathomable reason, been blessed with the friendship of the coolest girl in school.

  Kitty is, of course, a beautiful swimmer. She glides through the water slowly, with hardly a splash, keeping her face dry and smiling at everyone she passes. I don’t want to swim. I just want to watch her. And watch everyone else watching her. But Kitty turns and calls to me, ‘Come on in, my dear. The water’s lovely!’

  Kitty swims two lengths, and then has a break and then swims two more. As she approaches the deep end for her second break, the Olympian is just getting in. Bugger. I just keep swimming. No break for me this time. When I reach the other end of the pool, I turn to see Kitty happily engaged in conversation with him. When she sees me looking, she waves.

  After our swim we go to the café for a cup of tea and a slice of Flo’s famous lemon drizzle cake. I introduce Kitty Muriel to Flo and Flo is ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Flo almost lost for words. Kitty Muriel, gorgeous in a white and gold kaftan, sits down at a table close to the counter and I take our tea and cake over on a tray.

  ‘Well,’ says Kitty Muriel, spreading her paper napkin carefully onto her lap, ‘that was wonderful. I haven’t been swimming for ages, and now I’ve finally made it to this gorgeous pool I shall be swimming much more often. I might even persuade my fiancé to accompany me.’

  Flo is shamelessly listening in.

  ‘I noticed your ring. It’s very sparkly.’

  Kitty Muriel smiles at her and holds up her hand for Flo to take a proper look. It’s all the excuse Flo needs to escape from behind the counter and come and have a chat. The café is cool and quiet, with most people preferring to take their refreshments outside in the sunshine. Flo takes Kitty’s hand and inspects her ring carefully.

  ‘That’s a proper rock, and no mistake.’

  Kitty retrieves her hand and breaks off a piece of cake.

  ‘I know it’s very lovely, but to be honest, if he’d given me a ring from Woolworths, I’d still have said yes.’

  Flo looks suitably impressed. ‘He must be really something then, your fella?’

  Kitty Muriel winks at Flo. ‘He’s sex on legs!’

  Flo laughs out loud and then asks, ‘I don’t suppose he’s got a brother for me, has he?’ And then, looking at me rather pointedly, ‘Or a son for this one?’

  Kitty Muriel takes a sip from her cup of tea and dabs her lips with her napkin.

  ‘Actually,’ she says, smiling across the table at me, ‘I did meet a very nice man in the pool.’

  I can feel the colour rising in my cheeks. Flo is desperate to know more, but two teenage girls have come into the café and are waiting at the counter to be served. She reluctantly leaves us to go and take their order. Kitty Muriel reaches across and pats my hand.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed, my dear. I’m only teasing. But wouldn’t you like to meet someone?’

  Actually, yes. Actually, I’ve alread
y met someone. The problem is he probably thinks I’m a complete basket case.

  ‘Perhaps . . .’ I mutter, toying with the remains of my cake.

  The girls at the counter start giggling as two teenage boys wander in and stand behind them in the queue. A tall figure follows them in and comes over to our table.

  ‘Would you ladies recommend the lemon drizzle cake?’

  It is the Olympian.

  Chapter 44

  ART

  Alice

  An Act of Contrition

  O My God! I am most heartily sorry for all my sins; and I detest them above all things, because they displease Thee, Who art infinitely good and amiable, and I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to do penance for them and never more to offend Thee.

  Sprinkle me with Thy precious Blood, and I shall be whiter than snow.

  The scarlet berries on the holly tree outside Alice’s bedroom window looked like droplets of blood against the leaves and branches lustrated by sparkling frost. Alice and God were on proper speaking terms again after all these years. Well, Alice was speaking and she really hoped that God was listening. She couldn’t have gone to Father Peter at her local church. She had been going there with Mattie, on and off, since he was born. But now she knew that all that had been a lie. That had been the other Alice.

  So she had spoken to Father Thomas, the priest at the hospital, before her most recent chemotherapy session. She hadn’t gone into details; not even the bare bones. She just wanted to know if it was too late for atonement; too much to even hope for forgiveness. True confession was unavoidable now, but could God, could anyone, still love her after what she had done? Father Thomas’s faith was like a favourite well-worn sweater; loose threads here and there, a little faded in places and patched at the elbows, but still the warmest and most comforting thing he had. He spent his days consoling the dying and those they left behind; trying to persuade them that life was a gift, no matter what. It was always harder for the ones left behind – it was sometimes a gift that they no longer wanted. Father Thomas used to tell them that God wasn’t like Marks & Spencer; he didn’t accept returns. But for some, there was no consolation to be had. They refused to live on, choosing instead to simply wait for death. These were the ones who made him the saddest of all. He had told Alice that it was never too late; that God always left the door ajar for even the worst of all sinners. Looking at the fragile woman in front of him, despite the lines and shadows that haunted her face, her eyes were those of a child. He couldn’t imagine such a woman having even an overdue library book or parking ticket to her name. That she was capable of a mortal sin was virtually inconceivable. And yet her gratitude had been palpable. Almost desperate.

  Alice was in bed, too frail to get up. She had been trying to read – Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It was an old favourite, but her unremitting exhaustion befogged the words on the page in front of her and made the familiar story incomprehensible. She felt like a phantom. What was left of her flesh and bones seemed as insubstantial and polluted as the factory smog that hung above Dickens’s Coketown. With excruciating effort she propped herself up on the pillows so that she could see the whole garden that ran long and narrow at the back of the cottage, cutting a stripe through the fields to the woods beyond. A few bedraggled chrysanthemums still made splashes of colour in the flower beds, and Mattie’s beloved pet rabbits, Bugs and Bunny, were hopping about in the large run attached to the wooden hutch where they slept at night. The last third of the garden was cut off by a sturdy fence. Alice had had it put up once Mattie was old enough to play in the garden alone. She had wanted to be able to see him from the kitchen window, and the bottom of the garden was too far away to be in plain sight.

  But not from here. From her bedroom window Alice could see the wilderness that it had become, strangled and smothered in a shroud of vicious brambles, silvered into barbed wire by the frost. And right at the bottom, close to the woods, the dark mound that had once been a brick shed, but now resembled little more than an ivy-clad tumulus. The cold crept over Alice like the breath of a ghost and she slunk back down under the bedcovers and closed her eyes.

  Chapter 45

  ART

  Masha

  The spinning glitter ball showers the dance floor with a blizzard of silver lights, and the pulsing disco music competes with the rhythmic rumble of wheels on wood. The Bee Gees are stayin’ alive, and so am I. But only just. I’ve twice (narrowly) avoided falling over backwards and breaking my neck, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud so much. Kitty Muriel has brought me to the local sports hall for an evening of drinking, dancing and near-death experiences, otherwise known as a roller disco. When she picked me up in a cab earlier this evening, she wouldn’t tell me where we were going, only that it was a surprise. She told me to put my best disco knickers on. Just as well. If I end up in an ambulance on my way to A&E, at least I’ll have the consolation of knowing that my underwear won’t embarrass me. Apparently, Kitty Muriel has been longing to come here, but couldn’t find anyone daring or maybe daft enough to come with her. Until she met me.

  I’m beginning to find my groove now. Well, I haven’t nearly fallen over for at least five minutes and I’ve let go of the side barrier. Kitty is streaking ahead of me in a short, black skater skirt and silver leggings teamed with a pair of neon pink leg warmers. She is completely fearless, weaving in and out of the other skaters, occasionally glancing backwards to make sure that I’m still in one piece. She completes another lap at breathless speed and then swooshes to a halt beside me.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, to have left you to fend for yourself for a bit, but I had to get it out of my system. I’ve been dying to have a go at this for ages, and I can’t quite believe that we’re here. It’s absolutely brilliant, isn’t it? Shall we get a drink?’

  We lean against the barrier sipping vodka and tonics and watching the other skaters roll past through a kaleidoscope of coloured lights. There are people of all ages, shapes and sizes on the dance floor, but the one thing they have in common is that they all seem to be enjoying themselves. Even the ones who end up with a thud on their bottoms or pitch forward and crash onto their knees. They just pick themselves up and carry on. This normally rather spartan and soulless sports hall has, for one evening, been transformed into a joyful cacophony of music and laughter. A teenage boy hurtles past at breakneck speed, hand in hand with his girlfriend. I assume she’s his girlfriend because I saw them smooching at the bar when we came in, but who knows – they could have just met tonight. I wonder if Gabriel would have had a girlfriend by now. He would have been a bit younger than them, but then I had my first kiss at thirteen. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the mother of a teenage son. I’m not even sure I would have been any good at it. I always assume that Gabriel would have turned out to be a son I was proud of, but perhaps that’s just complacency. How could I know? How could I know that he wouldn’t have turned out like Deliverance Boy or one of his disciples?

  ‘Penny for them.’ Kitty Muriel interrupts my reverie.

  ‘I was just wondering about Gabriel – whether he would have turned out the way I always imagine.’

  Kitty Muriel sighs. ‘We’ll never know, my dear.’

  I’m grateful for her honesty, untainted by any meaningless platitudes. But then she adds, with a wicked smile, ‘I’m sure he would have been impressed with his mother’s roller-disco dancing!’

  I laugh. ‘I’m absolutely certain he would have been mortified to see his aged parent in sequins and roller skates. But that, I’m afraid, would have just been his tough luck, because I’m loving it!’

  A short, plump woman in a sequinned jumpsuit chugs past us, puffing and blowing like a steam engine. She is hand in hand with a tall, skinny man with flying dreadlocks and a satin shirt. As she draws level with us, she catches my eye and waves with her free hand. It is the pedalo from the pool.

  Kitty drains her drink and grabs my arm.

  ‘Come on
. Let’s boogie!’

  As my favourite T. Rex track blasts from the speakers, Kitty glides and I thunder after her round the floor. The vodka has improved my balance and I’m skating faster and faster. Suddenly I’m swooped upon from both sides by two young women, each of whom grabs one of my hands and drags me along, shrieking and laughing. Unfortunately, whatever they’ve been drinking has had the opposite effect to my vodka, and as they grip onto me more tightly in a desperate attempt to stay upright we veer into the barrier and crash onto the floor in an inelegant heap. My companions barely pause for breath before their laughter continues, despite a bloodied knee for one of them and ripped tights for the other. Clutching onto the barrier, they haul themselves up by pushing down on my shoulders. I’m still sitting on my now sore backside, scrabbling to control my disobedient wheeled feet. It’s a good job I did wear my disco knickers. I expect everyone has seen them now. As the two women teeter off to the bar, a hand reaches down and takes mine. I look up and see it belongs to the pedalo’s dreadlocked companion. He has a lovely smile, and is stronger than he looks. He leaves me safely propped against the barrier with a solicitous Kitty Muriel before he rejoins the other skaters on the floor.