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SWALE LIFE > FICTION
The Shoes that Took Her
Away
A short story by
Mary-Laine Friday
First things first: I want you to know
that they’re making me write this. I’m not doing it
out of consideration - I don’t care about you. In fact, I
want to tear the walls apart just thinking about seeing you
again. But I’m stopping myself – I don’t want to be locked
up with any of those psychos I saw being dragged in here
earlier. I’ll just grit my teeth until my molars begin to
ache, and grip this pen as if it’s the only way I can hold
onto my sanity. That’ll stop me.
They asked me write you a letter -
nothing fancy or formal, just thoughts: where I’ve been
living, what I’ve been doing these past three months. They
don’t think I’ll speak to you when you come and collect me,
and they’re right, I won’t. I won’t even talk to them – they
may be the police, but that doesn’t mean they have my
respect, or my trust. They don’t trust me, I know it.
There’s one of them here in the room with me now, and I can
feel his glare on the back of my head whilst I write. I wish
I could put the hood up on my jacket, and then perhaps I
wouldn’t feel so exposed to his eyes. The phrase: ‘If
looks could kill’… But he’s too quick to judge me: he’s
almost like you.
He had the same expression when he took
me: bitter, but scrutinizing. He gripped my arm, dragging me
away with a force that made me wince, yet still he held that
same furrowed brow with eyes like flint. His face never
moved, though it seemed as pliable as play dough. His mouth
was perpetually pressed into a hard line, and even when he
spoke, his lips hardly moved an inch. I considered he might
have been a simple ventriloquist dummy to the shorter,
plumper officer. There were a lot of them there in case I
made a scene. But I didn’t realise and, when I did, it was
too late. I was weak, and I couldn’t fight back.
I hadn’t eaten for a while. I was
living in an alleyway off East Street. Well, I say ‘living’,
but I suppose ‘surviving’ is more fitting. It smelt. No - it
stank: it was musty and kind of earthy, like damp leaves.
Most days I sat propped up against the wall of that empty
alleyway. Wait. I take that back. The alleyway wasn’t
completely empty. I was
there, after all (though I may as well classify myself as a
non-entity – I certainly felt like it). Lodged between
myself and the wall was usually a bottle of water and a
pound container of cheesy crackers - my breakfast, lunch,
and dinner respectively.
I’d go down to the corner shop weekly and buy them –
crackers were cheap. I’d walk through aisles of tinned food
to reach the till: baked beans, minestrone, and tinned soup,
cream-of. It almost reminded me of food back home… Then I’d
reach the desk and the lady there didn’t think highly of me:
I was just another teenage runaway to her. She followed the
bridge of her nose to look over my hoody, and jeans, and
plimsolls… but she didn’t know my life story. I tried to
avoid her scrutinizing eyes by looking away, looking down.
She’d bag up my water and crackers and hand them to me in a
brown paper-bag, and I would thank her while merely staring
at her shoes. She wore a different colour of high heel every
week.
I would meander back to alley with my
bag of goodies tucked away in the pouch of my hoody. Then I
would seat myself, and eat and eat. I would press the food
to my mouth and watch it crumble in my palms, gorging myself
like some suburban rodent. (The paper-bags, also, became
useful for the unpleasant everyday tasks that once seemed
remotely hygienic…)
People tried not to look, but each
flitting glance pierced like a laser-beam through my skin.
Surely by now I wouldn’t look dissimilar to Swiss cheese.
The only reason they would hand me any money wouldn’t be
through compassion, but curiosity. They just wanted a better
look at the local beggar: I was a freak show.
I considered that perhaps if my ears
weren’t so red, thrashed by the wind that roared like
gladiator lions, I could melt into the wall, like
camouflage, become invisible. And maybe if my hair wasn’t
such a brilliant peroxide-yellow I would seem less obvious
(and less like my metaphorical cheese) although I was sure
the grease building up in my hair had dulled it down a few
shades.
But people did seem to become
ignorant, after a few weeks, or what seemed like it anyway.
Time seemed to pass irregularly, in strange, dragging
stupors; I just sat wrapped up in my own little world where
you no longer hung me up like your own marionette. I liked
it there. With the knowledge I was far away from you, I
could proverbially sleep warm in my bed. But the very worst
part was the thirst. It clawed at the back of my throat. My
water had begun turning a dilute ochre colour after I’d lost
the bottle top down a drain. And I’d quit eating what was
left of the crackers simply because the hunger was easier to
deal with than the feeling of them scratching at the back of
my dry throat. So I stopped: eating, drinking… surviving.
It was yesterday - a tinny blaring of
music stirred me from what seemed like an eternal reverie.
I‘m not sure what time it was, but the pang that seared
through my stomach then suggests it was late afternoon, what
used to be dinnertime back at the house (I refuse to call it
‘home’). A strange murmur of voices, male, mingled
dissonantly with the music which was screaming from their
mobiles. Then they lolloped towards me and the smirks that
teased the corners of their mouths then made me want to run.
I know you always called me a ‘dumb blonde’, but even I
couldn’t ignore the ear-splitting siren in my head telling
me I was in danger from this mob. I wanted to run, I
needed to run but weakness and terror, or a mixture of
both perhaps, meant my legs wouldn’t allow it.
Then the sirens in my head became
louder and more pronounced. They were then certainly sirens
rather than incoherent screams. It took me a while to
realise that it wasn’t just the noises in my head that were
producing this excruciating nee-nawing sound: the
police had been called. The mob had escaped by now, after
hearing the approach of the cops, but I was still in as much
peril as before. They were going to take me away, take me
back to you, I knew it. I think I would’ve rather have had
my body bruised and broken and each limb undone by the mob
than be taken back to you.
Then they approached – I remember it
undoubtedly: My legs shook like those of a newborn colt; my
eyes flitted helplessly towards the opening of the alleyway,
but all routes of physical escape seemed millions of miles
away from where I stood then. I could’ve tried to run, but
even if my leg-muscles did, miraculously, obey my brain, I
wouldn’t get far in these shoes. Perhaps I should’ve worn my
new trainers… They were closer now. There were two of them –
well, two outside the car at least, I was sure there were
others, armed, in the backseat ready to pounce if need be –
one broad with dark hair and putty face, and the other
stockier. I was aware the first one was talking, though his
mouth didn’t seem to move much, if at all. He tried to get
through to me by using my nickname - I didn’t like it, they
weren’t my friends. And then he said that I was old enough
to live away from ‘home’ anyway, and that I just needed to
come to the station – it was routine for all missing people.
As I was pulled along into the car, I
saw the woman from the shop spying from outside the doorway.
She was curious, nosey let’s face it, as always. And she was
wearing red shoes that time. I should’ve taken it as warning
– red did signify danger after all. But I didn’t: I just
clambered into the car with the play-dough-faced man, the
man who gripped my wrists together in ever-tightening,
sweaty, flesh-coloured manacles. They had tricked me – the
dumb blonde – they were bringing me back to you, and I knew
it then. And it isn’t fair!
Even now, I spit the words. Even now,
when he’s come over from across the room to remove the pen
from my hand, to thrust my body into your arms, my mother, I
sputter the words – It isn’t fair!
The end
Poem
"Ochuko"
by Hannah Edeki
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Contributors
Mary-Laine Friday
Briony Jones
Nnorom Azuonye
Hannah Edeki
Sharon Williams
Christine Locke
Jennie Wakuche
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