Green Shoes

A display of up-to-the-minute footwear in Andersen’s shop window caught Vanessa’s imagination. She gazed longingly at the stylish shoes with their oh-so-high heels and glossy leather. They were shown in a range of colours that reminded her of fruity sweets in a glass jar.

At sixteen Vanessa had never worn what she thought of as real shoes. For as long as she could remember her grandmother had ordered her footwear from a specialist shoemaker who used only the softest of leather.

‘You wore no shoes as a baby and toddler,’ Nana Gina explained whenever the question of footwear was raised, ‘and that was a wise decision because your feet are as beautiful now as they were in babyhood. ’

Vanessa recalled the time when as a small child, she’d run barefoot over the lawns that surrounded their house. Even now, she still enjoyed feeling the grass beneath her feet but the grainy touch of coarse sand on the dunes that led to the beach near her home always gave her the greatest pleasure. Once on the beach she liked to leave perfect footprints in the smooth sand left after the water drained away before running to the water’s edge to splash in the icy North Sea. Vanessa loved the sea shore when the tide was ebbing. But then everything about the sea pleased her. She collected shells of all shapes and kinds and displayed them on a shelf in her bedroom alongside pieces of driftwood, twisted and warped, bleached white from the salty water. 

As young as four years old Vanessa had been a confident swimmer but her father made her promise never to go into the sea alone.

‘I know you swim like a dolphin, Nessa. But on this coast there are dangerous currents that have no respect for human life. You must never swim alone.’

She was five when he engaged builders to extend their house and include a swimming pool. 

‘There you are, my darling,’ he said when it was finished. ‘Now you can swim whenever you want.’

And swim she did, at least once a day. But the water in the pool lacked the buoyancy of the sea and her attraction to the salty waves remained. 

Since her sixteenth birthday Vanessa had discovered other distractions at college. She’d met Jake, a boy of seventeen and their friendship developed quickly into what she could only describe as love. She’d had little experience of close friendships. Throughout her school years she’d never made strong attachments with any of the other pupils. She had played with them at primary school, invited them to her birthday parties and attended some of theirs and once, during the holidays, a dark haired beauty of a child, Johanna, had come to play with her.

‘Why do you keep these smelly shells in your bedroom?’ Johanna said, wiping her hands on her skirt after touching them. ‘And why do you always wear those funny black shoes?’ 

Until then Vanessa hadn’t noticed that her shoes were different from those of her schoolmates.

‘Nana Gina says shoes from a shop might hurt me.’

‘Your Nana Gina must be an old fashioned lady,’ Johanna said.

Vanessa thought of her short, stout grandmother. ‘Aren’t all grandmothers old fashioned?’ she said..  

Later, when she questioned Nana Gina about her shoes, the lady shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. But the next pair of shoes that came in the post were red.

Jake never commented on Vanessa’s shoes. He seemed to like everything about her and she formed the opinion that her footwear wasn’t so different from the ballerina type shoes a lot of the other students wore. 

Towards the end of the college year she came across a group of students who were crowded around a notice board in the corridor outside the main hall.

‘What’s so interesting? ’ she asked Jake who could see above the heads of the others

‘It’s the announcement of the end of term ball,’ he replied. ‘You will come with me, won’t you, Vanessa Carruthers?’

Her acceptance of Jake’s invitation awakened in her a new interest in fashion. As his partner she felt the need to buy something smart, even sexy in the way of shoes.

The centrepiece of Andersen’s shop window featured a pair of high-heeled shoes with peep toes and platform soles. The shoes were green. Not an ordinary shade of green but a colour Vanessa had often seen when sunlight streamed through shallow blue waters to change the fine sand beneath from golden to green.  She longed for those shoes with an intensity that was hard to bear. She tried to summon up the courage to go into the shop, imagining herself asking the assistant to bring them for her to try on. But she’d never entered a shoe shop before and the thought of her grandmother’s opposition to such footwear held her back.  She went home without the shoes.

Her dress for the ball was a different matter. She trawled the internet to find something special, something to make her stand out in a crowd so Jake would love her forever. She bought fashion magazines and studied them carefully. Her grandmother made no objections and her father laughed at her enthusiasm. 

‘Find something wonderful,’ he said.  ‘I’m sure you’ll choose something in good taste. I think you have your mother’s eye for fashion and colour.’

She couldn’t recall a time when he’d spoken of her mother. 

‘Tell me, Daddy,’ she begged. ‘Tell me about my mother.’

He smiled sadly. 

‘She was the love of my life.’ 

He dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief and Vanessa knew he would say no more.

The assistant in Andersen’s brought the shoes out of the window. 

‘It’s lucky they happen to be your size.’ she said.

Even so, they hurt Vanessa’s feet when she put them on.

‘Wear them around the house for a day or two,’ the woman advised. ‘They’ll soon stretch and you’ll get used to walking in high heels.’

Parading in front of the mirror Vanessa vowed silently to put up with any amount of pain to wear those shoes.

‘Your mother was just the same,’ the assistant said. 

Vanessa spun round to stare at her. 

‘You knew my mother!’ she said in amazement.  ‘Why did you say she was just the same?’

‘Everyone in town knew your mother,’ the woman replied, ‘and I only meant she always bought the smartest shoes no matter how uncomfortable they were. I could see the pain in her face—I saw it in yours just now.’

On the night of the ball Vanessa came down the staircase to where Jake and her father waited in the hall. Her dress of pale green chiffon fell in gentle folds over her breasts, skimming her hips to hang in points above her ankles. A single strand of real pearls encircled her neck. 

‘They belonged to your mother,’ her father said when he’d given her them earlier that day. ‘They were my present to her on our Wedding Anniversary. I’ve kept them for you. You were only three when she left.’

‘I remember her,’ Vanessa said. ‘She had golden hair and she used to let me comb it while she sang songs to me.’

He held her close. ‘You imagine it, darling,’ he whispered. ‘Your mother couldn’t sing. She was mute.’

Now, in the hall, Vanessa looked at Jake to assess his reaction to her changed appearance. Her hair, usually tied back in a pony tail, cascaded over her shoulders in soft golden waves. The boy gazed at her, smiling his admiration. But her father’s expression was one of disbelief.  

‘I didn’t realise you were so like your mother.’ he said. ‘Now I’m afraid of losing my little girl.’

Jake was holding her wrap, eager to get to the cab that waited outside. 

At that moment the sitting room door opened and Nana Gina came into the hall. She glanced first at Jake and then at Vanessa. When she saw the green shoes she lifted her hands to her face in horror.

‘Alex, ’she said, reaching out to touch her son’s shoulder. ‘You can’t let her go like that. Stop her now before she goes any further.’

Vanessa snatched the wrap from Jake, grabbed his hand and pulled him to the door.

They were out, climbing into the cab before her father could get his breath but a backward glance revealed his tall figure framed in the doorway, watching as the cab drove away. 

‘What’s going on?’ Jake said. ‘Don’t they like me?’

Vanessa laughed. ‘It’s my shoes,’ she said. ‘My grandmother doesn’t approve of my shoes.’

‘Oh, come on, Nessa. Your shoes are perfect.’

‘Let’s forget my shoes,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps, my family just don’t want me to grow up.‘

He put his arm around her and stole a kiss. 

The moon was high in the sky when Jake brought Vanessa home in the cab.

‘Ask the driver to stop at the end of the lane,’ she said. ‘I want to walk on the beach before going home. There’s something I want you to see.’

They took the narrow path over the dunes, stepping carefully over stringy couch grass that threatened to entwine their feet.  Vanessa touched Jake’s hand. 

‘Look out there.’ She pointed far out over the sea where, in the moonlight, two dark shapes were leaping, circling and splashing in the water.

‘They’re porpoises,’ she said. 

‘I didn’t know porpoises came out at night.’ Jake said.

‘I saw them this morning and knew they’d come back tonight,’ she whispered.

Jake sat on a rock to take off his shoes but Vanessa, still in her shoes, stumbled in the soft sand as she hurried to the water’s edge. The ebb tide had begun and she laughed as her high heels sank deeply into the wet sand, then slipping out of her shoes she bent to pull them out of the slurry. 

Jake stopped to roll up his trousers before following her.  His shoes were tied together, his socks in his pocket.  Vanessa passed the green shoes to him as she entered the water. 

‘Don’t go too far, Nessa,’ he warned. 

Jake watched as the waves reached the girl’s knees and in the pale light of the moon he could imagine iridescent fish scales glinting beneath the bedraggled chiffon that clung to her thighs like seaweed.

Her sing-song voice drifted back to him as she called, ‘Come on, Jake, come into the sea. You will be safe with me.’

The wet sand sucking at his feet made him shiver with revulsion.  He glanced down to find a firmer footing and when he looked up again she was gone. Scanning the expanse of sea again and again, he called her name loudly and repeatedly. Then he saw the porpoises again, closer, much closer than when she’d first pointed them out. Only now, there were three porpoises playing. 

Using his mobile phone he called for help. Then he called Vanessa’s father. 

Jake was still at the water’s edge when Alex Carruthers came hurtling down from the dunes to join him. The boy was holding Vanessa’s shoes above the receding waves watching as the blood drained out of them to make dark patterns in the silvery water.