by Graham Mort
The man smiled incredulously. He thrust the shoes at me again, then looked down at my shoes, a pair of knackered brogues made in Dundee. Good shoes once, they had a coating of dust from the market and were stained with salt. Sweat was trickling from my hatband and down my neck.
– Sah, you come!
He tugged my sleeve and dragged me into a gap between two stalls.
– Come! Come!
We ducked under a carousel of leather belts, past a stack of watermelons with their sweet, sugary smell. Then we were in a narrow alleyway between buildings, catching the tang of human shit. A beggar held up his fingerless hand, but we brushed past and turned left into a narrow street and into a shop doorway that gaped under a blue and white striped awning and had yellow cellophane in the widow.
– Come sah, come sah!
The shop was piled up with fabric, saris and shalwar kameez and made-up suits hung from mannequins, the glass-fronted display cabinets were piled with ties and collars and socks and – yes – shoes, though of a kind I’d never buy. We entered a gloomy back room where an elderly Sikh gentleman with a white beard and a maroon-coloured turban was watching a black and white television set. Gentleman? There seems no other word. My Ugandan guide spoke to him in Swahili and the Sikh eyed me carefully. He held out his hand to shake mine.
– You are welcome.
– Thank you.
– You are looking for shoes?
I shrugged, slightly helpless and more than slightly intimidated. The Sikh gentleman bent down and examined my brogues carefully. He drew a finger across the toe of one, making a line in the red dust.
– I have. Come.
The Ugandan man had taken the Sikh’s place and was screwing up the volume on a Kenyan soap opera. I felt a tug on my sleeve and followed the proprietor into another room at the back of the shop.
At first glance the room seemed to be draped with curtains but as the Sikh pulled the curtain back I saw that the walls were lined with shelves and the shelves were filled with boxes. Shoe boxes. I remembered the sharp smell of my father’s pantry – a mixture of shoe polish, turps and Swarfega – where he kept his shoes neatly stacked on shelves made from old fruit boxes. The old man stooped in the gloom and pulled out a box, pulling down his spectacles on his nose to check the label.
– You are a nine?
It was a good guess.
– Yeah, nine.
He straightened up and handed me the box.
– Here. You try. Very good shoes.
I noticed that he was wearing light leather slippers that allowed him to shuffle almost noiselessly from room to room.
– Come. Come to the light.
He led me back to the room with the television where my Ugandan friend was now eating from a Tiffin tin of matoke and tilapia stew. He ignored us both. The food reminded me I was hungry.
I took a seat and opened the box. Inside was tissue paper, then two velvet bags and inside each bag was a shoe of unmistakeable quality. Dark brown stippled leather, richly oiled. Double-welted soles. The tongues were stitched into the shoe at the side to form waterproof webbing. Genuine veldtschoen.
– I am Nayanprit Singh.
The proprietor smiled at me a little shyly.
– These are good shoes, eh? Good shoes. You like them?
The shoes were kid-lined and the soles were solid leather, each heel laminated from thin sheets. They had that old smell that brought the ringing of the bell of the cobbler’s shop in my hometown to my head. Flamenco dancers and the smell of lamp oil sold from a big metal drum under the counter. The stump, stump, stump of Carson’s artificial leg. When I put my hands inside to feel the linings, they were soft and supple. There was no name inside, just the number nine hand-written on each tongue in black ink. They were probably the most beautiful shoes I’d ever seen and when I slipped them on and tied the laces, they fitted as if they’d been made on my personal last. I reached for the roll of cash in my pocket.
When I woke on Sunday morning, after a quiet night sipping tonic water on the guesthouse terrace, it was to the smell of new leather. No hangover after a quiet night. No work until tomorrow. I’d grown to love Sundays in Kampala when the city took on a sleepy quality, like a 1950s English suburb. Well, like I imagined that to be. No wonder the British had loved it here. I pushed on the curtains and caught the scent of cut grass where the gardeners were busy with sickles. A woman in a bright yellow gomesi was brushing fallen petals from the path with a broom. It made a soft, sifting sound, repetitive and soothing. A couple of cattle egret pecked at the lawn and a pied crow was mithering something that had died in the night.
After breakfast I walked down to the gate to buy a newspaper from one of the boys who gathered there, working the traffic and passers by. I hadn’t seen much of McKenzie since Friday night. I wasn’t surprised after his performance at Al’s bar. All that beer and brown sugar. My new shoes felt good. Supple yet strong. They already had a layer of red dust. A woman passed me carrying a fat little girl in a frock made of pink gauze. She was sweating and cross. I could already hear hymns rising from the university chapel. One day I planned to give up fieldwork and teach somewhere. Maybe here where they needed engineers and surveyors and you could live cheaply. There was nothing for me at home now. Not since Helen had left me and taken the girls. For no reason, actually. I’d been faithful, but she didn’t think so. I missed Emma and Tracey. Every Christmas I got a letter from them as if she’d stood over them with a whip.
Emma was the youngest at seven. Tracey was just nine. Emma had a harelip and cleft palate which had been repaired after a couple of operations. The surgeon had done a pretty good job. Helen even blamed me for that because it ran in the family as far back as my dad’s uncle. I don’t know what Helen thought I got up to when I was away. Not much but work, actually. I suppose you couldn’t blame her, stuck with two kids when my job was a whole continent away. The guys I met who worked out here were mostly fucked up and mostly divorced. A lot of them went with young black girls. But I didn’t want to be loved for money.
My new shoes felt good against the crumbling footpaths and pavements of Wandegeya. Nayanprit Singh. That was his name. A gentleman. A gentle man with a shoe emporium. His breath had smelt of peppermint in that dark little back room. I’d tried to memorise the location of the shop, the alleyways that my Ugandan guide had taken me through. It wasn’t easy, though I remembered the touch of the old man’s hand against mine, soft and insistent.
When I got back to the guesthouse I found McKenzie, still looking sheepish, sitting over a late breakfast on the terrace, watching two African boys play tennis on the clay court. They ran like deer, retrieving the ball from impossibly angled shots with vicious topspin. I tossed McKenzie The Monitor and ordered some tea. Then I stretched my legs and leaned to wipe the dust from my shoes. My father would have loved them. Maybe shoes were the only things he had loved. Not my mother, not me or Steve. Certainly not sheet metal or iron, which he beat with deepening hatred.
I looked across town to where the tower of a mosque leaned against the sky. It had never been finished. It needed pulling down before it fell down. I’d done some calculations once and worked out that it shouldn’t be standing at all. But this was Uganda, where the impossible happened every day, where red tape could be finessed with something small.
A couple of brown parrots were quarrelling in the bushes. The leather of the shoes had a deep burnish where I’d wiped the dust off. I thought about Nayanprit Singh, serene in the depths of his shop. I thought of the shoemakers of Nakasero and of my father. The last circle of hell would be an everlasting absence of good footwear. I thought about Helen and the girls and how I could have tried harder. Maybe. I’d call her when I got home, get some presents for the girls in Wandegeya where they sold banana-fibre dolls, hippos and giraffes carved from wood.
McKenzie was smiling at something in the paper. Moses appeared at my elbow carrying a tray. I’d forgotten to order English tea and there it was, Africa
n tea with the milk already in the pot.
– Tea, sah?
It didn’t matter. Nothing did. Kites turned in thermals above the city. White clouds puffed up at the horizons. The voice of the Imam sent a pair of doves fluttering from the trees. It was going to be a beautiful day. Tomorrow we’d clear some emails then load up the truck and James would drive us to another river. Up country. Later on today we’d get the maps and plan a route. Then James would change it, the way he always did.
A dragonfly hovered by the toe of my shoe, a blue rod of iridescence. What was that song I kept remembering and forgetting? It was on the tip of my tongue. Believe. That was it. McKenzie looked up, surprised. I must have been thinking aloud. He raised a ginger eyebrow. I shook my head.
– Nothing.
– Didn’t sound like it.
He folded the newspaper then cracked his knuckles. Which reminded me of Armstrong in a way I could have done without. Then the gate of the tennis court clanged shut and the boys were walking past us with their racquets. There was something vacant about McKenzie in the end. As if he had no imagination. As if he was just here, now, and nowhere else.
A GLASS OF WATER
She brings him a glass of water. A tall glass beaded with droplets that sweat against her hand. He’s crouching in the garden, a heap of stone piled up, a string stretched between two beanpoles. A spade against the cherry tree, the lump hammer set aside. He waves away a wasp, pulls off the leather gauntlets and takes the glass. Zoscia touches his arm. His skin is brown from a long summer, his hair faded blond across the line of muscle.
– It’s looking really good!
Sunday morning. The bell is ringing at the new church, a single repetitive note that blurs with distance. He’s looking beyond her. A flycatcher is working the air between a telegraph post and a crab-apple branch bright with fruit. In the war they shot three partisans against the old church, then burned it down. Carl pulls his shirt from his armpits. The sun is still hot, even in September. Zoscia tries again.
– It’s going to be nice.
– It’ll do. It’ll have to. The stone’s pretty useless…
He’s taken down an ornamental flowerbed and is re-building it against the boundary wall as a long border. That way they can get the mower in and things won’t look so fancy. Instead of marigolds and violets they’ll grow tall poppies, St John’s wort, mint and sage. Borage maybe.
– We can have lunch soon.
– OK. Bring my testing kit would you? Before we eat.
He watches her saunter back to the house, picking some leaves from the rosemary bush, rubbing them between her fingers. She’s let her hair go grey. Once it had been golden brown. But it suits her, cut close to the nape. There are buddleia flowers turning from purple to brown. A few butterflies linger there, dabbing and retreating. Cabbage whites. Peacocks. He pulls out more stone, finds snails that have died in the wall, their nacre like dried sperm.
The stone’s all wrong, river boulders that have been rounded by the current. Slabs of shale that have started to rot in winter rain. Hardly anything flat or square. It’s a bodged job. No through-stones to tie it together. He’s got a bucket filled with smaller stuff to fill in with, but it’s not the way to build a wall. There’s no rear access to the garden, no way to bring in more materials. When he’s out and about in the car and sees something suitable he stops to haul it into the boot. He’s heard of a farm worker in the next village who did that, building a house for his old age. They said he could tell where every stone came from. Every one had a story. One of these days, Zoscia says, he’s going to get caught and they’ll all end up in court. For what? And who cares? Good stone is hard to come by. It’s hardly stealing.
Zoscia’s stepping across the lawn, the muscles in her calves broad and tight. She’s bringing a tray of sandwiches now, a bottle of Pilsner, a bottle opener next to the black pouch. There’s a packet of crisps, sliced cucumber, gherkins, baby tomatoes from the greenhouse. The tomato plants are turning white with mildew. They’ll need clearing soon. Carl cracks a stone in half with the hammer and a splinter strikes his face.
– Shit!
– You ok?
He shakes the gauntlets off and kicks fragments towards the wall.
– Ach! Bastard thing!
– Come for your lunch … come on, you’re tired.
Carl walks away from his work, rinses his hands under the garden tap and dries them on his polo shirt. Zoscia watches him, a little stiffness in his movements. His hair is cropped close and his head is tanned. His stomach is still taut and lean, his legs slightly bowed. Footballer’s legs. Though he hasn’t played in twenty years. Zoscia pulls a chair away from the table for him. He sits down, letting his shoulders sag for a second, dangling his hands in mock exhaustion. His grey eyes flicker towards her. He’s still handsome when his face catches a smile.
Carl unzips the black pouch and takes out the meter. He puts in a new testing strip and sets the symbol: an unbitten apple. He fiddles a needle into the lancet, twists off the plastic cap, then shoots it against his little finger. Zoscia watches the droplet of blood squeeze out. It’s like a ruby or rowan berry. Carl touches the strip to it and the blood is drawn away.
– What does it say?
Digits are counting down from five to zero. Then a new number appears.
– Five-point-eight.
– Is that good?
– Pretty good, I guess. Anything over seven is high.
Carl shrugs and packs the kit away.
– I’ll live at that.
Zoscia takes a crisp and holds it for a second.
– Anika rang, by the way.
– What did she want?
– Just to Skype us with Michal. I said we were busy. Maybe tomorrow.
– Are they ok? She usually wants something.
– They’re fine. She said so.
Carl sucks his finger clean and for a moment they sit with their faces turned to the sun, soaking in the heat. It feels like a dimming ember, slowly sinking to autumn. Winters are cold this far inland. It’s a good feeling when the leaves fall and the days turn crisp and the lawn glitters with frost in the morning sun.
Under the table, her open-toed sandals and brown ankles; his work boots and frayed cargo pants. Against the garden wall, sunflowers, espaliered fruit trees heavy with pears and plums, a hollyhock still in full bloom. There are foxgloves everywhere this year. Bees are working the purple and white bells, crawling along the stems of lavender, brushing stamens on the ragged pink flowers of the dog rose. Their low thrumming and the clanging of the bell meld together. The partisans’ names are cut into a slate plaque with a line of poetry. Once a year there’s a ceremony with a wreath and the local scout group. It’s said the priest gave them away. But that hadn’t saved the church. The bottle hisses as Carl pours it, catching the excess with his mouth as it overbrims the glass.
Carl sits for a moment, feeling the beer cold in his stomach. Cold like metal. Then he puts the glass down and massages his neck, rotating his head from side to side to stretch the tendons. Zoscia is watching him, the way the skin tightens and slackens around his jaw.
– Is it still sore?
– It’s going to be.
She stands behind him and massages the sides of his neck and he groans with pleasure.
– You should take it easy.
– This is taking it easy.
– You know what I mean, after what happened.
Carl shrugs her off and reaches for the glass of beer. He stretches his toes and calves, sending a wave of tension through his spine. His neck still feels tight after all this time.
He’d been driving through wads of early morning mist, leaving the hotel in the company car to get to a sales meeting. He fumbled the keys into the ignition. The engine turned over then died. Carl tried again, watching white smoke fan out behind as it fired. The clutch retracted smoothly against his foot and he pulled away.
He was tired, even though he hadn’t had a dr
ink with Jonas and the others last night. If he went to the doctor it’d mean more tests. He just needed to slow down a little. The news presenter’s voice filled the car, smooth and reassuring. Syrian refugees were flooding into Iraq; suicide bombers in Pakistan; an attack on a church in Kano. He’d been there once, before he met Zoscia, working in pharmaceuticals for a British company. It hadn’t lasted long, just three months or so. Then he’d had enough of backhanders, of never knowing where you stood. And that was just the Brits. The voice went on to the exchange rate, the FTSE 100. Then the weather, which was supposed to be mild when the mist burned away. It thinned and gathered again like cannon smoke from a movie.
Carl switched on his fog lights. Then the headlamps, dimming them as they bloomed against blank air. He drove down the slip road to join the motorway. Something moved in the corner of his eyes and he braked. A family of fallow deer crossed the road ahead. First a stag with small pointed antlers, testing the air, then a dappled doe and her foal following, stepping with dainty footsteps across the tarmac. Sometimes he surprised an early morning heron or caught a hawk working the verges. He never tired of that: nature was out there, going on despite everything. Carl watched them leave. They seemed bewildered for a moment then made a way through bushes that lined the slip road, finding a way to disappear.
Animals had senses that humans lacked. Dogs had some organ that mingled taste and smell, but was neither. Maybe deer, too. It was hard to fathom stuff like that, things there were no words for. He slipped the car into gear and pulled away, picking up speed as he swirled into sparse traffic. There were container lorries heading for the ports. Guys like him in ties and pressed shirts, risen from hotel rooms to shower and shave. Now they were moving on to the next thing, their faces grim and tight. Six-thirty. Zoscia would be just waking up now, pressing down the lever on the kitsch alarm clock that Anika had given them one Christmas. She’d be pulling open the curtains to look across the fields and they’d be lost in mist. He’d been away for three days already. One more meeting, one more PowerPoint presentation, then home to decent food, his own bed.