THESE BOOTS

by
ROSANNE RABINOWITZ

“You must be absolutely ruthless,” says Janice “You’re gonna have a lot less space. You have to downsize.”

She is lying on her stomach on the bed, skirt hiked to the top of long legs that she kicks back and forth. Her eyes follow my motions as I chuck things out of a hulking old wardrobe.

I hold up a pair of crimpers. “Look what I found!

“They should’ve stayed lost.”

The flex is caught. When I give the crimpers another tug, a whole edifice of shoes loses its foundation. Out they tumble. Khaki basketball shoes, a pair of pointy-toed red pumps adorned with fabric roses; purple eight-eyelet DMs.

I can’t remember when I wore the pumps with the roses. I tweak a rose, which results in a puzzling puff of fine brown grit that doesn’t belong to the wardrobe. Did it come from a dirt road or parkland path? I hold a shoe in each hand, disturbed to find them surrounded by so much blank space in my mind.

“Go on Yvonne, we have a lot to go through.”

“Do you remember these shoes?”

But Janice isn’t looking at the rose-y shoes. She is gazing at the purple Docs with an expression of great fondness. “I remember those.”

So do I. I was wearing them — along with shiny black leggings and a tutu — when I met Janice at a Bikini Kill gig. Those leggings are long gone, eroded by the great thigh-rubbing unravelling process. The tutu, however, was only thrown away yesterday.

“Now why haven’t I worn those?” I ask. “They still look OK. Why don’t we wear Docs anymore? They were great. They last much longer than trainers, they have more oomph.”

Then I look closer. Heels worn to concavity, only the edges of the inner soles remain. A spatter of deep pink gloss paint at the bulbous end of one toe.

Janice takes a deep breath and opens her mouth. If she says I should keep the Docs, I’ll do it in an instant. But instead she points at the crimpers and the shoes with the wobbly roses. “Out! Into the bin! And what’s that?” She points to a square of faded black fabric carefully folded and placed on top of a pile of things to take with me. “What the hell is that rag for? Out!” She jerks her finger towards the bag for rubbish.

”No! Not that! It’s important! It’s a scarf. I uh, I wore it at the Poll Tax riot.”

“The Poll Tax riot!” Janice exclaims, as if I was talking about the Battle of Hastings. “How long ago was that? Honestly, Yvonne. And those purple docs, they go too. You can’t even walk in them! If you haven’t worn something in the past year, get rid of it.”

I sigh. “They go then, alright? But it’d be nice if you helped instead of just giving orders.”

“I am helping. In an advisory capacity, as well as a dinner-cooking and tea-making one. I can’t pack for you, but I can keep an eye on you. Otherwise, you’d be too soft. Isn’t that what exes are for?”

“You’re lucky I don’t regard my exes the same way as old boots. ‘Oh, I haven’t slept with her for ten years. Guess I’ll put ‘er in the rubbish!’”

“Yes, I’m lucky.” Janice grins. “And so are you. And you’re so fucking lucky I’ll pack the computer stuff for you and then I’ll make another cuppa.”

*

Then I make another rediscovery.

The pink patent-leather knee-high boots had been shoved far inside, under everything where dust couldn’t reach them. I used to wear them for special occasions only. They are smooth and gleaming as I pull them out, with only a few scuffs near the heel. Why didn’t I see them, lighting the wardrobe from inside, not far from where I sleep? Like the pumps with the wobbly roses, they had simply stopped existing for a while.

Glimmers of blue and green merge and dance on the pink patent leather as I turn the boots in waning shafts of late-afternoon sun, which make their way through a peculiar window in the wall between my bedroom and the front room. I’d only removed the piece of velvet covering that window this afternoon.

An earlier tenant had painted flowers, multi-coloured fish with big smiles and a sun on the glass. My room might have been a child’s room and the parents painted that window. Maybe they told the kid they were in the next room, see our light shining through the window. And the child, feeling safe, must have fallen asleep watching the fish.

But it isn’t always so safe. Fifteen years I stayed in this flat. Along with neighbours I fought the council’s attempts to remove us, seeking solid ground in our limbo between tenancies and a shady status as ‘licensed’ squatters who happen to pay rent. Most of us had won a rehousing settlement, but what will be lost when this street is left to the developers? And how will I pay my new rent and still be able to work part-time?

When I popped into the shop round the corner to ask for some empty boxes, the guy greeted me with: “Funny, there are lots of people from your street looking for boxes. What’s happening, are you all giving up and moving?”

No, no, I swore I’d never give up! I clutch the heel of a boot in my fist as tears sting my eyes. The sunset coming into the room, the translucent fish and the magenta-pink boot I’m holding start to blur beautifully. I almost forget to be sad. When the edges of things run together like this, I just keep looking and imagine slipping between them. And it seems like it would be too easy to get trapped there, like the grinning fish suspended in a pane of glass.

But I don’t have time for that. I’ve got work to do. Madam will get grumpy if she catches me daydreaming. But why don’t I hear movement from the computer room, cursing as Janice untangles the wires and takes things apart to put away? It’s too quiet.

I leave the boots next to my bed and go to investigate.

I find Janice just standing in the tiny room that I’ve used as a study. She is stroking the scanner as she looks out the window. There is not much to see, with the window facing straight on to a wall. Only stand-by lights on the equipment illuminates the room.

I join her, listening to the flat. Everything sounds different with the place emptied into boxes, even the background hum that is normally called ‘silence’. We share the silence. Then Janice puts her arm around me. When I touch her I’m surprised at how thin her waist feels. It must be that job of hers. Too much work to eat properly.

“It is sad that you’re moving from this flat,” Janice says. “Imagine, we were still together when you first moved here!”

“Yes, you helped a lot with the painting.”

“That purple and turquoise woodwork in the front room looked really good then.”

“Nothing beats that good old squattish patchwork! ‘Squatter’, ‘short-life tenant’ or ‘licensee’, call it what you will — the paint’s the same. Bits from every tin of paint your mates bring round from squats long past. And each tin’s got inches of plastic skin you need a pickaxe to get through.”

“And all that pink,” Janice adds. “In the bathroom and in the corridor. But I actually bought that.”

When Janice and her girlfriend — oh, her partner — purchased their own flat a few years ago, they employed someone else to paint it tasteful shades of beige.

Now she looks around at our past handiwork with the same misty eyes inspired by the sight of my old purple Docs. She prods me gently. “Sort out the rest of your things while I put the computer away. But you know, it is really old. You can’t run any up-to-date software on that. Maybe…”

“Janice, don’t even think of it! It’s not like I can get another one.”

I go to the front room to see if anything’s left in there to pack. Stacks of boxes loom. Everything’s changed. Only the blinking light from the construction site over the road is the same, while the building itself remains in a state of flux. It used to be a Victorian mansion block like mine, housing ‘proper’ council tenants and low-rent licensees. Then the council sold it and a developer is converting the flats for sale at £300,000 each.

*

“What’s all this for, then?” Janice laughs as we position our cups of tea on a kitchen table piled with broccoli and spinach, red onions, fresh tarragon and dill from the Portuguese deli, chillies — long mellow red ones, those small, ivy-green ones that are the most fiery. Olives both green and black. lemons and limes, ripened yellow, black-speckled bananas. It would make a great still-life.

“For tonight — and tomorrow. Brunch, remember? I make the food, and you lot help me move.”

“You won’t cook all that, Yvonne.”

“We’ll take it with us when we move. There’s no good market in Kennington. Or Waterloo.” I’m still not really sure whether my new home is in Kennington or Waterloo — it’s somewhere between.

“What? Brixton market is just a couple of miles down the road on the 159.”

“There’s the 3 and the 59 too,” I corrected.

“Exactly. You can always come back and shop there. But anyway, I got some things from Borough Market for lunch tomorrow. I might as well give them to you now. You can look forward to walking to Borough Market from your new place. That will put you in a more positive frame of mind.”

Janice reaches into a bag and takes her goodies out. Smoked salmon, not just any old salmon but hot smoked wild salmon caught on a beechwood-smoked organic fishing line somewhere or other. A jar of truffle-infused olive oil! Beautiful stuff I can’t afford, especially now. But I don’t mention that, because that could lead to unwanted advice to find a career instead of my three days a week at a homeless shelter. She’s always at me to look for other work — she thinks I should be doing a more glamorous job at my age. With her job as ‘development officer’ at an AIDS charity, she gets to be both worthy and high-flying. And she can afford things like truffle oil.

“Thanks Janice, that’s great. Excellent fuel for the big move. We’ll all enjoy it.”

“Who’s coming tomorrow? Your boyfriends?”

“Yeah, both of them. And John’s other girlfriend. And Jenny, and Andy and Jill and… well, a bunch of people.”

Janice shakes her head. “I first took the piss that you needed two guys to replace me, but it’s lasted a long time. I have to admit to a certain admiration, like you’re last practising non-monogamists left from the ‘60s and it’s kind of brave…”

“Fuck that!” I interrupt. “It’s got nothing to do with the ‘60s. That was even before my time! And what’s more — no one has ever replaced you. It would’ve been a disaster if either John or Richard advised me today. They’d tell me to ditch everything, while you only told me to ditch five-sixths. Maybe John would’ve let me keep the Poll Tax riot scarf. Really, you have been pretty patient. Even now, I started wondering again if I’m doing the right thing. Maybe I should stay and fight it out, in the courts or behind the barricades or both!”

“Yvonne, we’ve been through that! You were always so bad at choosing and making decisions. Moving will be good for you. It could get you out of all your bad, entrenched patterns.”

“Oh go make another cup of tea before you start with the psychobabble,” I tell her. “For all that, you’re one of the most stressed out people I know. How’s the irritable bowel syndrome doing these days?”

Janice sputters into the last of her tea as she laughs. “What’ll I do with you, Yvonne?”

“Make me another cuppa, that’s what!”

The banter is well-worn, but so comfortable. I’m stricken with an urge to hug Janice, for this is the last time we’ll sit in this kitchen together having this kind of conversation.

*

Before she leaves, Janice goes to the bedroom to get her jacket. I hear a scream that brings me running. Has one of the boxes on top of the wardrobe fallen on her?

She is backed against a wall, pointing at the pink patent leather boots. “You’re not keeping those! Throw them out!”

“I like them. I’m glad I found them.”

“Have you worn them at all in the past year?”

“No, but that’s because I forgot about them.”

“Where would you wear them now?”

“I’ll find somewhere.”

“You promised. If you haven’t worn it, it goes.”

Janice puts on her jacket, then stands there with her arms crossed and waits. Times like this remind me why I left her years ago, but also why I still like to have her around annoying me too. All her bossiness just goes along with the caring.

“OK.” I pick up the boots and put them into the charity shop bag. With a flourish I twist the top closed over them.

*

With Janice gone, my steps are even louder in the emptiness. Tomorrow this flat will be full of friends helping me heft boxes around, but tonight I chose to be alone. I wander through the rooms. I feel like a ghost preparing to haunt a scene of desolation: the block lying empty for months, then gutted before the flats are replaced by expensive broom-cupboards.

But if new people squat the emptied flats, it might not have to happen at all. Maybe someone will find a way in here and make it their home — as I had for so many years. I write in marking pen on a big mirror propped against the wall in the front room: “WELCOME”. Then I unscrew the locks at the window that shares a balcony with the flat next door. My neighbour moved in too recently to be rehoused, so she’ll be there to let someone in.

I step back. Now those locks look too open. The housing officer might spot it. So I twist them so they look locked — but are they loose enough so people can still get in from the balcony? I deliberate, screwing and unscrewing the locks to various positions.

I am too indecisive. Sometimes when I’m very worried, things around me look different. I see the outlines of what-could-be, what-might-have-been right there. I get paralyzed me as I keep peering at the outlines and shadows. And beyond them I sometimes see other planes that are familiar, but full of things that are out of place and out of sync. I’m afraid to look there closely. I’m out-of-sync enough already.

So I better stop faffing because I have too much to do. What’s left? My thoughts turn to the bags in the bedroom. The boots.

Janice really is right. I have to get my act together. You must be ruthless. But before I leave, I need to put them on just one more time…

I remove my trainers, take the boots from the bag. When they are released, they light up the evening as it approaches. As I put them on, I already feel less burdened. I still need to lace them, though. There are seven holes, plus twelve hooks. Maybe the hooks go a bit quicker, but it’s still a slow job. The slowness of unlacing them can be even more agonising.

The boots bring memories, but they are becoming new as my feet settle into them. It was such a long time since I wore them, now I might be a different person. I look at reflections of myself on the surfaces as I lace up. My hair is a different colour these days, but it doesn’t matter now because everything becomes a kind of shadow over pink and rose.

I get up and walk. I look down at my feet, bright against a floor now bare of rugs. Though I am already tall, the chunky heels on the boots make me feel even bigger. They urge me to strut. I twirl in front of a mirror, but I’m not pleased with what I see. My boots look garish and unreal with my jeans. That’s not right. I take the them off again, then the jeans. In my t-shirt and knickers I look through the charity and throw-away bags for the outfits I once wore with the boots. There’s that black lace dress. Black lace went so well with them.

The dress is too tight, now worn and frumpy next to the boots. What about the white stretch jeans with a black lattice design on them? I used to wear them rolled up to the tops of the knee-high pink boots.

No, the inner thigh is ripped. That’s why they’re in the throw-away bag.

In a bag bound for the new flat there’s a straight black skirt, more jeans, a long green velvet skirt, a denim skirt. No, the shine of my old/new boots will turn all those cloths dull and faded — even the new ones.

I take off my t-shirt. Pause. Then the knickers go — too many washes have turned them that special shade of grey that all old knickers become.

The draught on my bared skin is startling. I walk, then twirl fast to feel more air against me. I squint at my reflection and concentrate on the magenta and rose streaks cut by my boots in the mirror as I move. The motion and colour take over. The room starts to spin too so I lie down on the lumpy futon sofa.

I find a still point at the centre of the whirlwind in the intricate ceiling rose above me. A Celtic knot, an ancient blinking eye. The painted fish on the glass between the rooms swim in a sea lit by a faded red sun and the blinking orange light on the scaffolding over the road. I raise my legs with the pink boots at the end of them. I cross my legs this way and that. A rhythm comes into my mind, made of all the rhythms I used to dance to and a tune I’ve never heard before. Outside the window the sky is deepening to violet.

Something pulls me towards that that sky, as if my edges have softened and peeled back to let me flow up to meet it. The brightness pulls me up, and it travels through me in sparks. A rushing and light, and a pop.

I’m looking into the room where a woman wearing nothing but her boots dreams on an old futon. Sudden panic sends shocks after the sparks. My centre isn’t holding, will I pulled apart by the sparks, will I get trapped in the space-between? But then I see I still wear the same boots as the woman sprawled on the futon. I’m safe with my boots on. I can go back, but now that I’ve lost my fear I’m ready to go forward in a running dance past the horizon.

Below my pointed patent-leather toes I see mountains. They are distant purple and pink, but this is dusty pink, a night-time pink cut with stones and shadows. Beyond that, a watery expanse, a sea.

I plunge down again, swooping like an evening bird and I’m on my feet. I walk over a hill covered with soft foliage, cushions of undergrowth. My feet sink in and I feel the contrast of their deep pink against shades of green: moss, forest fir, silver-shaded willow. The greens spread on the hillside before me hint at the quieter colours I’ve painted in the new flat. I don’t see an end to the hills and I wonder where I’m going. Then my heels are striking stone beneath the deep growth.

I want to keep exploring, but my feet are starting to hurt.

These boots may be made for walking, but not too far. They may be made for dancing, but not hiking.

The meadow thins out. I’m walking on pavement again. I don’t regret it. The city is my home. I’m not sure which city this could be. It is like London, but the angles are different and the colours brighter.

My boots take me further into the city. People rush by on all sides. They don’t notice I’m naked. I’ve had dreams like this. Everyone does. This time I don’t care what people see. I’m not cold.

Now someone is looking. But its only at my feet, and she nods.

I nod back, and walk across a bridge. I know where I am now. Lambeth Bridge. The river is now dark, the wheel of the London Eye bright and spinning.

I have to go home and I’m hovering, confused about where that is.

The road takes me from the bridge straight to where I’ll move tomorrow, a structure of black-and-white Lego pieces that could have been thrown down to create three towers of jagged heights and jutting angles. Stainless steel gargoyles grin between the towers. With their smooth, sharp features and elongated eyes, they are not like the gargoyles found in ancient cathedrals. They stare down at the road, with a coldness more forbidding than the old-time demonic scowls and grimaces. One of them has very pointed breasts.

But she seems to be winking at me, so I wave. Where did you come from? I ask her. You weren’t here before.

Neither were you. In fact, you’re not here yet! Go back, there’s something you forgot!

So I keep walking along the road to Brixton, listen to the rustle of the trees clustered around the red-bricked arches of the old estate next door. Despite the busy traffic, it feels peaceful and out-of-the-way so I’m not prepared for the close crush of shoppers as I enter Brixton. Sounds of reggae and rap come out of shops. In the market I’m drawn by the greens of avocados, coriander and dill: the scarlet ranks of capsicums. It’s too late for the market to be open, but very open it is. I reach the road where I’ve lived for fifteen years, and enter the flat the same way that I left.

Soon I’m in the front room, foggy-headed and blinking.

The first thing I do is put the boots into a rucksack I’ll take with me tomorrow. It’s full of the things I treasure the most.

I think of how the boots will warm the place between my shoulder blades as I walk into my new home. I think also of friends and lovers who will come tomorrow to help me make the new flat a home.

,I>You must be absolutely ruthless.

I will be.

I’ll keep those boots, and maybe a few other things as well.

But I’ll get some new clothes to go with them.

© Rosanne Rabinowitz
Reproduced with permission

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