The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Read online

  I know the angel can’t answer me, but I always find some consolation in her exquisite face. I don’t really support any particular religion. I’m not much of a joiner; I’m more of a soloist. The thought of complete strangers hugging me and telling me they love me and that God does too makes me want to run for the hills. How do they know? He might not. I’d consider myself blessed if he could be persuaded to offset my occasional blasphemy, pathological intolerance of wimps and bad drivers, and skipping Holy Communion classes aged thirteen, against my kindness to animals and reasonably consistent – although not always successful – attempts to be a fairly decent sort of person. Because surely that’s more important than following someone else’s arbitrary religious rules?

  ‘What do you think?’

  The angel doesn’t look like a jobsworth to me. I’ll take her silence as assent. And although I may not be a joiner, there are plenty who would like to be who are simply not made welcome. I prefer to think of myself as freelance religious. I like angels, so I’m inclined to look more favourably upon a religion if it includes the angelic element. If it discourages gratuitous hugging, even better.

  The ground is covered with damp leaves, rotting now and losing their bright-jewel autumn hues to winter’s sludge of grey and brown. Haizum pushes through the leaves with his nose, greedily inhaling the scent of hedgehogs, foxes and Lord only knows what else. I can only smell the scent of freshly dug soil and decay. A lone crow stands sentinel on a cross-and-anchor headstone, watching our progress with nervous suspicion. He caws a protest when we get too close before casting his black wings wide and sweeping up into one of the dark, soaring pines. A pair of squirrels scrattles up and down the rough bark of its thick trunk like over-excited children playing chase, and Haizum watches them intently, frustrated that they are out of reach. The golden afternoon light is slowly bleeding away and now I can smell smoke from a bonfire. Soon all my angels will be shrouded in shadows.

  But there will be no angel to mark my grave. No one will come to my funeral except the undertakers and the vicar. There will be no flowers, no hymns, no tear-jerking music. No tears at all, in fact. Because there will be no mourners. The care home – or Happy Endings, as I have nicknamed it – where I shall have spent my old age waiting for death in inappropriate frocks and shoes, smelling of cheap rose talcum powder and wee and wearing smudged red lipstick on my teeth, will be very glad to be rid of me. The vicar, who will no doubt be short and skinny, with a weak chin and a lisp, and wearing beige Y-fronts under his vestments (or, in these days of fledgling ecumenical equality, thousand-wash-grey big knickers and a bra with as much ‘come hither’ as a dentist’s chair) will probably dismiss my coffin to the burner with the words ‘Thunderbirds are go!’

  I might get a prayer if I’m lucky.

  Of course, this is not my funeral of choice. I should choose a glass-sided hearse drawn by two magnificent black horses, and have ‘Casta Diva’ from Bellini’s Norma playing as my coffin is carried into a splendid gothic church. I’m tempted to include a Jean Paul Gaultier model dressed in a sailor suit. The vicar would be tall, dark and charismatic; holy enough to suit God’s purpose, divine enough to suit mine. The congregation would be elegantly dressed and their grief would be evident, but dignified. My coffin would glide through purple velvet curtains to the sound of ‘La Vie en Rose’, and of course, my beloved boy would be there to see me off.

  In my dreams.

  By the time we leave the cemetery, the daylight is dwindling into a crepuscular shadow world and the park resembles an Arthur Rackham illustration with tall, black trees stretching their spindle limbs across a purple bruised sky. The bandstand is a haunting silhouette against the orange and crimson mottled clouds that veil the full splendour of the late autumn sunset. We cut across the muddy grass which is already stiff with frost, Haizum loping in all directions in pursuit of imaginary small creatures and revolting smells while I stride purposefully so as not to resemble an easy target for a mugger looking to steal a mobile phone. As we approach the path I can see the small, tatterdemalion figure of the old woman who feeds the crows. She brings a bag of bread every afternoon for the noisy black birds who loiter in the treetops on the side of the park that shares a boundary with the cemetery. As they jostle restlessly on the grass waiting for the bread to be thrown, the birds look like a gang of sulky teenagers hanging around on a street corner. The woman is bundled up in a patched tweed coat that is several sizes too big, a red woolly hat with a pom-pom and red Mary Jane shoes with brown socks. My grandma always used to say, ‘Red hat, no knickers!’ In my head, I call the woman ‘Sally Red Shoes’, but I have no idea of her real name or the presence or otherwise of her underwear.

  ‘Hello,’ I call to her as we reach the path. ‘It’s going to be chilly tonight.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ she replies with a smile. ‘Bloody blackbirds eat all my bread.’

  Her vocabulary belies her demeanour. Her manner is unfailingly gracious and she enunciates her expletives beautifully. Their literal meaning is incidental. ‘Fuck off’ is her version of ‘Good evening’. It is as though the dictionary in her brain has been scrambled, and all the words and their meanings have become mismatched. She has periods of clarity when her communication is more conventional, but now is not one of them. Perhaps it is simply a reversal of the process we go through when we are very young – learning new words and uniting them with their meanings, like playing that card game where you lay all the cards face down and take turns to choose two cards until you find a matching pair. As a child I was always keen to keep an interesting word by me until I could match it up with its meaning. I kept ‘fuck’ to myself until one day when I was about nine and I slipped it into a conversation I was having with my mum. She failed to supply me with its exact meaning, but the slap round the back of my legs gave me a general idea. Perhaps Sally’s matching pairs simply keep drifting apart.

  She throws the last of the bread onto the grass and Haizum gobbles a few pieces before I hastily restrain him on his lead. My ‘goodbye’ is lost in the clackety-flap of the crows’ wings as they scrabble and squabble over the few remaining crumbs. We follow our usual route around the back of the bowling green, tracing the perimeter of the cemetery, and then head back down the main avenue towards the bandstand. A blackbird’s alarm call echoes through the dusk as he is startled by Haizum’s diligent investigation of the bushes and undergrowth. I can smell smoke again now as people come home from work and the lights go on and fires are lit in the large Victorian houses that face the park.

  As soon as he is through the front door, Haizum makes a beeline for his water bowl from which he slurps noisily and then leaves a trail of slobber and water across the kitchen floor that I immediately walk through, having removed my boots at the front door. I always think that I shall have a cup of tea when I get back from our evening walks.

  Tonight, as usual, I pour myself a glass of wine.

  Chapter 4

  ART

  The rocking horse is all that’s left. I waited a year exactly. Three hundred and sixty-six days. It was a leap year that year. And then I cleared the room.

  From the garden, I can see it in the upstairs window: a handsome dappled grey creature, with flared nostrils and a red saddle. The garden has succumbed to its customary late autumn chaos. The last of the blackberries are hard, black knobbles dusted with mildew, and the windfall apples ooze, sticky and sweet, beneath the trees – a generous feast for hungry birds. A few hardy dahlias and chrysanthemums still bloom in the raggedy flower beds, but the last of the roses have shattered and their fragile petals lie strewn across dark soil.

  I have been working in the garden all day; sweeping leaves, pruning trees and bushes, planting bulbs and moving pot plants into the greenhouse for their winter hibernation. Making everything tidy. Ready. My back aches, a film of sweat and soil coats my face, my fingernails are black and my hands pierced a dozen times by rose thorns. But soon I shall have my reward. The mobile phone in my pocket buzzes an
d I fish it out and peer at the screen. Dad.

  ‘What’s the name of the bloody useless article who calls himself the Chief Constable?’

  My father doesn’t believe in the introductory niceties of telephone conversation, such as ‘Hello, it’s Dad’.

  ‘I don’t know off-hand, but I’m sure I can find out. Is it urgent? Is a ram-raid on the postbox in progress or an illegal rave rampaging at the bowling pavilion?’

  ‘You may mock, my girl, but the very fabric of society is unravelling when a senior citizen is unable to pull out of his own driveway because it is blocked by the four-wheel drive of some silly woman who can’t walk five yards to pick up her bone-idle children from school. What’s more, when I asked her to move it, she told me to “Eff off, you silly old bastard!” That’s trespass aggravated by verbal assault and I’m not standing for it.’

  Dad could never be accused of being a moderate. The high standards he sets for himself in both behaviour and attitude are his benchmark for humanity, and he takes a pretty dim view of those who fall short.

  ‘I’ll find out for you, but I do know the Chief Constable is a woman.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  He doesn’t hold with female chief constables either.

  After a very late lunch, shared, as usual, with Haizum, I reward myself with a bonfire. I’m not sure if it’s really allowed – it’s probably contrary to some by-law or another – but I’ll happily risk the wrath of the bonfire police for the crackle and spit of burning leaves, flame-warmed face and hands, and the scent of wood smoke clinging to my clothes and my hair. Besides, at this time of year they’re commonplace. Yesterday was Halloween, and there’ll be an endless cacophony of firework displays this weekend. But whatever happened to ‘penny for the guy’? When we were kids, half the fun of Guy Fawkes Night was the painstaking construction of a ramshackle effigy of the man himself, using a pair of old trousers, a shirt, a pair of tights (for the head) and a great deal of screwed-up newspaper. We then paraded it round the streets on a makeshift go-cart attempting to extract money for fireworks from kind-hearted neighbours. But back then, it was a very genial affair, quite unlike the ‘demanding money with menaces’ that trick or treat has become. Last night Haizum managed to scare away from my door a gaggle of teenagers dressed as zombies and vampires, but the price I paid for their empty-handed exit was half a dozen smashed eggs on the windscreen of my car.

  The fire takes a while to catch. Some of the leaves are damp and I fan the faltering flames with an empty potting-compost bag. My efforts are repaid with a sudden spit and flare. Upstairs, in the bedroom window, the wooden horse rocks gently back and forth. Or is it just a trick of the smoke-hazed light? Today is Día de los Angelitos. Day of the Little Angels. One of the three days of the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ celebrations, Día de los Angelitos is when families gather to remember the children who have died. They invite their spirits to visit, and they celebrate their lives, however short. And we keep this day, every year.

  But I wish we didn’t always have to do it alone. I wish we could share the memories, both happy and sad. The ‘firsts’ that still make me smile, and the ‘lasts’ that make me crumple and weep.

  I have never had the courage to ask my family and friends to join me. They might think it mawkish, or morbid, or just plain weird. Edward is the only one who really understands and so Edward is the only one who joins us. Edward and Lord Byron, his dog. I make my ofrenda in the garden and decorate it with sugar skulls, lanterns and paper marigolds. Earth, wind, fire and water are represented by fruit, tissue-paper bunting, candles and a glass of water, and I surround my little angel’s photograph with dishes of his favourite sweets and biscuits (chocolate buttons and custard creams), and the white rabbit. It was his favourite toy. His bedtime comforter, battered and balding from a thousand cherub-lipped kisses and chubby-armed cuddles. The fire is blazing now and Haizum is squinting at the flames and sniffing at the smoke. I will sit by this bonfire with Edward and a couple of bottles of wine and will the rocking horse in the window to rock. I will draw back the veil between me and the past and force myself to remember. All of it.

  Hours later, the wine bottles are empty and my head is resting on Edward’s shoulder as we huddle close to the mound of smouldering embers – all that remains of the fire. My hands are as cold as a corpse, but I can’t bring myself to move.

  ‘Masha?’

  Edward whispers my name softly, but I don’t answer. He strokes my hair and sighs.

  ‘She sleeps.’

  He shifts uncomfortably and then kisses the top of my head.

  ‘I sometimes wonder, my darling girl, if all we’re doing here is keeping the grief alive.’

  The tears squeeze out from under my eyelids.

  Haizum and Lord Byron have finally given in to temptation and are eating the custard creams.

  Chapter 5

  ART

  Alice

  Present day

  Alice inspected her shopping list again to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything before unloading her trolley at the checkout. She smiled to herself thinking how the items on the piece of paper in her hand had changed over the years, reflecting the transformation of her little boy into a testosterone-tormented teenager. After the endless paraphernalia of babyhood, his requirements had distilled into a simple bill of fare. Blackcurrant squash, cheese balls, fish fingers and shepherd’s pie. He would eat almost anything she cooked except mushrooms and swede, but fish fingers were a twice-weekly mainstay. How times had changed! Fish fingers were still on the list, but food was fast being eclipsed by a panoply of personal hygiene products. Deodorants, facial cleansers, cologne sprays, spot creams and disposable razors were the new essentials. Razors! What on earth were they for? Mattie’s chin was almost as smooth as Alice’s. Perhaps he was shaving his legs.

  As she unloaded the contents of her trolley onto the conveyor belt, she wondered if Mattie might have a girlfriend. He was only thirteen, but they started so young now. Alice had been sixteen and a half before she’d had her first proper kiss, and even then she hadn’t liked it much. It had been with a boy called Gareth Bloodworth after the school disco. He had walked her to the bus stop and kissed her while they were waiting for the number 19. She remembered that it was raining and she had snagged her tights on the seat in the bus shelter and that she hadn’t really fancied him, but thought that he might do to practise on. All her friends had already been kissed by then – even Deborah Dickey who wore braces. Alice was beginning to feel left behind; out of kilter with the rest of the world. But kissing Gareth Bloodworth hadn’t helped. It wasn’t dreadful, just vaguely disappointing – like biting into a powdery apple. And she had kept her eyes open. She had watched the raindrops trickle down the dirty plastic walls of the shelter while Gareth tried to put his hand on her bum.

  ‘Do you need any help with your packing?’

  The girl on the checkout had purple hair and a nose stud. Alice was pretty sure that ‘Courtney’ – as her name badge proclaimed her to be – had been kissed by the time she was sixteen and a half. She’d probably had sex, a tattoo and some serious hangovers by then too.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Alice, smiling. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She shook open the plastic carrier bags that she had brought with her and began filling them with the items Courtney scanned and then flung in her general direction at breakneck speed. Alice hoped that Mattie’s first kiss would not be with a girl like Courtney. Or Deborah Dickey for that matter. Courtney handed over the receipt and a money-off voucher for fruit-flavoured tea bags, and then expressed the hope that Alice would ‘have a nice day’ with as much indifference as she could muster.

  Outside, a bitter wind blew across the car park, making the heavily loaded trolley treacherous to steer. As she reached the boot of her Nissan, a sudden gust slammed the trolley into the car’s rear door, chipping the deep red paintwork. Alice rubbed the dent with her fingertip, more curious than concerned. It was an old car anyw
ay. A dependable workhorse. So long as it got her and Mattie safely from A to B, and the radio and heater worked, she was content. As she drove out of the car park, the roads were beginning to fill with traffic; parents going to collect their children from school. Mattie caught the bus from their village to his upper school on the edge of town. After a while the houses thinned and trees and fields filled the horizon. Above it a bleak and bloated sky began shedding sleet that blurred the dirty windscreen. As the wipers struggled to clear Alice’s view she wondered if Mattie would tell her if he had a girlfriend. She switched the radio on for company, and while the smooth voices of pop duo Charles and Eddie asked ‘Would I lie to you?’ Alice answered her own question. Of course he would tell her.

  There were never any secrets between them.

  Chapter 6

  ART

  Masha

  All I can hear is the sound of water dripping. Dropping softly onto grass and earth, splashing hard and bright onto path and stone. In the sixteenth century, Chinese water torture was used to drive its victims insane simply by dripping water onto their foreheads. Drip, drip, drip. Or sometimes – drip. Drip, drip. An inconsistent pattern, but consistently torturous.

  This morning a fine drizzle shrouds the monuments and mausoleums in the cemetery, making the marble glisten and the leaves of the holly bushes shine. And everything drip.

  I have come to visit the children. After a busy morning of consultations at work with an insomniac, a hypochondriac and a middle-aged man who believes he is the reincarnation of Elizabeth Taylor, I need some peace and quiet. In a sheltered corner of the cemetery, beneath the protection of a copse of ancient conifers, is where the children ‘sleep’. Here there are always fresh flowers and fresh tears. Windmills and teddy bears and shiny foil balloons. These are the piteous mementos of a childhood cut short or, for some, never begun. Today, in the drizzle, I could almost pretend that it’s a playground. That the children have simply gone inside, leaving the toys behind in their haste to escape from the rain. But these children will never return. Emma Grace Spencer was just three years old when she died. The only child of Walter and Marie, she loved to dance and her favourite food was jam sandwiches. Strawberry jam. She had a tabby kitten called Popsy and when Emma Grace giggled she wrinkled her nose. Her parents moved to the coast and opened a tea shop. They couldn’t bear to continue living in the house where their daughter had died. I wonder if they ever returned to visit her grave with its two little angels hand in hand. Emma Grace was dancing too close to the hearth when her new dress caught fire.