The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Read online

  Praise for Ruth Hogan and her debut novel

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  ‘This is the first book I read in 2017 – and if another as good comes along in the next 12 months, I’ll eat my special gold reviewing spectacles . . . Wonderful’

  Daily Mail

  ‘An exquisite, absorbing novel, a potent cocktail of insightful psychological realism, whimsy and glittering magic, where hopes and new beginnings glint off the sharp edges of grief and loss. It grabs you right from its intriguing opening scene’

  The Lady

  ‘I was hugely impressed by this flawlessly written, most humane novel’

  Ronald Frame, Sunday Herald (Books of the Year)

  ‘A charming story of fresh starts and self-discovery that warms the cockles’

  Woman & Home

  ‘A really beautiful, tender book. Heartbreaking in parts, but lovely. I got sucked in and read the whole thing in one afternoon, unable to tear myself away. I sobbed for a good hour afterwards!’

  The Londoner

  ‘When this book first appeared I said it was the perfect cure for the New Year blues. But it could apply just as well to any summer blues . . . This touching, funny and romantic debut is that rare and precious thing – a real story with brilliant characters’

  Daily Mail

  ‘A warm and heartfelt debut’

  Prima

  ‘A charming whimsical novel about holding on to what is precious’

  Red

  ‘This mystical and spiritual tale is a joyous read that will broaden your imagination and warm your heart’

  OK!

  ‘Charming, beautiful and full of heart’

  Fabulous

  ‘Magical and moving’

  Heat

  ‘A lovely read – quirky, fun and plenty of gallows humour’

  Bedfordshire on Sunday

  ‘From the attention-grabbing opening paragraph, to the joyful conclusion, Ruth Hogan has stirred together a charming fairy tale in which the people may be more lost than the things; and generosity and compassion may be the key to finding a way home. Also there are dogs. Delightful’

  Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

  ‘Ruth Hogan captures perfectly and heartbreakingly the small moments on which a life can turn. We can all recognise something of ourselves in these pages’

  Kirsty Wark, author of The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle

  ‘A sometimes poignant, sometimes funny but always heartfelt page-turner, The Keeper of Lost Things turned out to be exactly the book I was looking for’

  Chrissie Manby, author of A Proper Family Holiday

  ‘A beautiful story of love, loss and the redemptive power of friendship’

  Catherine Hall, author of Days of Grace

  ‘Wonderful and heartwarming’

  Nina Pottell aka Matinee Girl

  ‘A great bedtime read, though difficult to put down, so keep an eye on the clock!’

  The Bookbag

  ‘Totally and completely gorgeous’

  Lovereading

  Also by Ruth Hogan

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes

  Ruth Hogan

  www.tworoadsbooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Two Roads

  An imprint of John Murray Press

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Ruth Hogan 2018

  The right of Ruth Hogan to be identified as the Author of the Work

  has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781473669024

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Duke Roaring Water Bay.

  My blessing.

  . . . and one has gone right away and will never, never come back, and we shall be left alone to begin our lives again. We must go on living, we must.

  Anton Chekhov, Three Sisters

  Etiquette may be defined as the technique of the art of social life. For various and good reasons certain traditions have been handed down, just as they are in any other art, science or department of life, and only very thoughtless persons could consider unworthy of notice that set of rules which guides us in our social relations to each other.

  Lady Troubridge, The Book of Etiquette

  Contents

  ART

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  Author’s note

  Acknowledgements

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  About Ruth Hogan

  Prologue

  ART

  The old woman fills her lungs with the crisp autumn air, throws open her arms and exhales a flawless top C.

  The note soars, pure and clear, above the gravestones that are scattered down the hill in front of her. There is no one to hear the astonishing power and perfect pitch of her voice except the crows perched in the pines that punctuate the landscape, and a squirrel excavating acorns from his stash beside a crooked stone cross.

  The woman thrusts her hands into the pockets of her well-worn tweed coat, remembering with a smile a scarlet silk gown she wore in another life, many years ago. Almost the same shade as the scuffed, red shoes she is wearing now. Beneath the crackling of lines and wrinkles on her weathered face, there remain the traces of extraordinary beauty, and her eyes sparkle, brimful of
curiosity, as she surveys the scene before her. She begins a slow descent, zigzagging across the rimy grass between the graves. The squirrel springs bolt upright, twitching his tail in alarm at her approach, but refuses to abandon his supply of nuts.

  As the woman approaches the path at the bottom of the hill, she finds a solitary tattered rose, its pink petals fringed with frost, lying at her feet. She picks it up and inspects it closely, marvelling at its fragile beauty before placing it carefully on a nearby headstone. Life is full of small joys if you know where to look for them, and the woman’s bright eyes are forever seeking them out and finding them, even in the darkest of times and places.

  A black shape falls from the sky and lands beside her, rearranging its feathers and cawing loudly. Another crow joins it, and then another and another. Their number grows as they follow her through the rusty, wrought-iron gate into the park, some hopping behind and beside her, and others swooping around her head. The park is almost empty, save for a few dog walkers and a handful of children taking a shortcut home from school. She takes a paper bag from her coat pocket and begins to scatter its contents.

  As the crows grab and gobble their daily bread, the woman looks up in wonder at the sky where dark clouds are haloed with the copper light of an impending sunset.

  Small joys.

  Chapter 1

  ART

  Masha

  Several years ago . . .

  Today’s pool temperature is 6.3; little warmer than a mortuary, but then I am not quite dead yet.

  Mist hangs low over the blue slab of water like dry ice on a lighted disco floor, but deep below the bright, shimmering surface this is going to be my last dance. A danse macabre. The bitter cold is soothing like an ice pack on exquisite pain and is lulling me to sleep. The body’s instinct is to fight to stay alive and I can feel my lungs burning; screaming for air.

  But my mind, like David Bowie’s Major Tom, is feeling very still.

  They say that just before you die your entire life flashes in front of you, but for me it is a single fragment. That instant when I woke up and he was gone. These are the final moments when my body and soul are still united in the fragile alchemy we call being ‘alive’. But my spirit is exhausted by grief too almighty to bear and so my soul is bidding farewell to the flesh and bones it once called home.

  It is such a relief simply to let go.

  Chapter 2

  ART

  Alice

  Several years ago . . .

  The rich, sweet smell of toffee and fruit filled the kitchen as Alice opened the oven door and carefully removed the hot tin. Pineapple upside-down cake. It was Mattie’s favourite. Alice checked the clock on the wall. He would be home soon and starving hungry as usual after an afternoon at the pool. Today Mattie was being tested for his Bronze Medallion award that involved all kinds of challenges, including basic life-saving skills. Alice had no doubt that he would pass with ease. Since he was a toddler he had always been completely fearless in the water and had learned to swim before he started school.

  Alice tipped some potatoes into the sink ready to peel for their supper of shepherd’s pie – another of Mattie’s favourites. She wanted to spoil him today, not just for the swimming test but because she loved her son beyond measure and always worried that she didn’t say that enough. Waiting for him to come home from school was the highlight of her day. Once the potatoes were ready, she set them to boil and turned the cake out of the tin and onto a plate. She checked the clock again. Any minute now. She wiped the condensation from the kitchen window with the back of her hand so that she could watch for him walking down the road, and soon his dishevelled figure appeared, blazer unbuttoned despite the cold, tie at half mast and one shoelace undone. He had a satchel over one shoulder, a sports bag over the other and a wide grin plastered across his face. Clattering in through the back door he dumped his satchel on a kitchen chair, his sports bag on the floor and made a beeline for the cake.

  ‘Not so fast, young man!’ Alice said, smiling at his eager face. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘I passed!’ said her son with a triumphant fist pump, his eyes still fixed firmly on the cake.

  ‘I always knew you would,’ said Alice, ruffling his still-damp hair. ‘Now, get changed and put your wet swimming things in the bathroom, and then you can have some cake.’

  ‘Muuum!’ Mattie protested good-naturedly, but he snatched his sports bag from the floor and galloped up the stairs. By the time Alice had cut a slice of cake, he had changed out of his uniform and was back in the kitchen.

  Chapter 3

  ART

  Masha

  Present day

  Today’s pool temperature is 10.4 and a bitter wind grazes the surface of the water. The Charleston Lido opened in 1931; a thing of beauty and a place for pleasure. But by the mid-1980s the sounds of splashing water and children’s laughter were no more than ghostly echoes. For the next twenty years the tiles in the empty pool cracked and flaked and sprouted weeds. The walls of the changing rooms grew soft with mould and the poolside bunting flapped frailly on the ground like fishes slowly dying. The lido’s resurrection was a small miracle performed by a determined neighbourhood band of ordinary, extraordinary people, some of whom had learned to swim here as children. I, for one, am very grateful. The pool where I learned to doggy-paddle, clutching a rectangle of grubby polystyrene and wearing a saggy-bottomed nylon swimsuit, was trapped inside a grim, concrete box where the air was thick with the warm stench of chlorine, and the threat of verrucas lurked on every surface. The Charleston at sunrise is an ethereal beauty. But it is also my penance.

  Every week I come here to drown. Almost.

  I’m an authority on drowning and I’ve studied well. I have an intimate knowledge of Francesco Pia’s work. Frank is a silver fox with two master’s degrees and a broad smile. He was also a lifeguard for over twenty years and is an internationally recognised expert and legend in his field. Drowning. His specialist subject is drowning. I can recite his ‘instinctive drowning response’ word for word. It’s saved in my YouTube favourites.

  Today the ground glitters with frost and the water will be punishingly cold, but it welcomes me, as ever, with a siren’s embrace and lures me deeper and deeper. At first I just used to put my head under the water in the bath. But it wasn’t enough. My bathroom is a place too cosy to properly play ‘chicken’ with death. At the lido, I swim underwater to the steps at the deep end and then I hold onto the handrail until my lungs implode and I drown. Almost. Japanese pearl divers can hold their breath for up to seven minutes in pursuit of underwater treasure, but the average person can only manage thirty to forty seconds. My personal best so far is just shy of two minutes. It’s self-inflicted waterboarding.

  After my swim (because I do actually have to swim a bit as well, otherwise it might look odd) I go home to a comfortable Edwardian house with high ceilings and commensurately high heating bills – a generous legacy from my maternal grandmother to her only granddaughter. I am greeted with undignified enthusiasm by my wolfhound Haizum. He is a long-legged, hairy affair of a dog with the eyes of an angel and the breath of a goblin. He is also my reason for living. Literally. He has an appetite for all things disgusting and inappropriate, and his diet to date has included most of the contents of the compost bin, bird poo, whole cloves of garlic, a bar of soap, a dead frog and a pair of rubber gloves. My vet bills are prodigious.

  After a lunch of salt-and-vinegar-crisp sandwiches, which I share with Haizum, I settle down at my desk and pretend to work. I’m fortunate that my job allows me to work from home when I’m not seeing clients, and provides me with somewhere to see them so I don’t have to have them in my home. God forbid! Haizum slumps sulkily onto his bed, disappointed that a walk is not next on the agenda. I scan through some emails, look up the word of the day on my favourite dictionary website (‘tatterdemalion’ – ragged, unkempt or dilapidated) and inevitably stray onto YouTube. How on earth did we manage to waste time before the Internet?
I persevere for an hour or so and then give up. Usually a visit to the Charleston calms my inner demons for a while. But not today.

  At the sound of his lead being lifted from its hook, Haizum leaps into action; a maelstrom of limbs and hair skittering perilously across the tiled kitchen floor. The cemetery is just a short walk across the park and the cold, crisp air, still tinged with the earthy undertones of autumn, is intoxicating to breathe. If the pool is my penance, then this place is my sanctuary and today it is fairytale beautiful. It is a fine example of a Victorian garden cemetery, and the Victorians did death so beautifully. Towering trees stand guardian over the rows of imposing headstones and graceful sculptures. The angels are my favourites and there are a whole host of them here. Some, on children’s graves, are small with unfledged wings and hands softly clasped in prayer. Some stand in silent vigil with downcast eyes, guarding those who lie beneath their feet; and others have stretched their arms towards the sky and spread their wings ready for flight.

  But one is very special. I am spellbound by each elegant sweep and curve of her polished marble figure and the expression of serenity she wears on her face. She is the Cate Blanchett of angels and she kneels on a grave here in the oldest part of the cemetery, quite close to the chapel. But should she ever choose to unfold her magnificent wings, I am certain that she would fly straight up to heaven in the most elegant fashion.

  I hope that heaven exists. Because when the person that you love the most is already dead, it is the one place where you might be reunited, and if heaven is just wishful thinking or an urban myth, the hope of finding them again is gone forever.

  ‘But if it does exist, will I ever get there?’