The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (6 page)

       
I hold the solitary envelope. The air-mail sticker and maple-leaf stamp send a shiver down my spine. It’s the first week of December, and our first Christmas card has arrived.

       
This is no ordinary card, either. It is Aunt Margaret’s – the official matriarch and family scribe of the Meadows clan. She is Tim’s dad’s eldest sister, who emigrated to Canada in 1956. And her card is always the first to arrive.

       
I will say one thing about Tim’s family: they may never win the Waltons’ Nuclear Family of the Year Award, but they are prolific and generous correspondents. He’s forever getting letters from his mum and dad in Spain (they’ve got a retirement villa there) and emails from his brother in New York (where he’s a museum curator). Must be all those years at boarding school. And thanks to Aunt Margaret’s enclosed festive newsletter, we’ll know all there is to know about most of Tim’s blood relatives. The six-page epic is the pinnacle of her year’s meticulous investigative journalism.

       
I place the card in pride of place at the centre of the mantelpiece, wondering when I am ever going to get around to our cards, let alone Christmas shopping.

       
Kate does a whizz round with the vacuum cleaner and folds the washing in my bulging basket (she got Mum’s cleaning genes that I missed out on), while I gratefully take the opportunity to play ladies with Fi and Millie.

       
‘You really should be putting her on her tummy more,’ Kate observes. And then gently rolls Millie over, placing some toys in front of her head as an enticement.

       
‘She’s three months now, and needs to develop her neck and upper-body muscles.’

       
Kate has made a recent point of pulling me kicking and screaming on to the mothering train. Her expertise comes from spending her gap year (and at least one weekend a month thereafter) volunteering at a small shelter for homeless single mums.

       
Fi and I, rather less nobly, chose to spend our year of ‘self-discovery and personal development’ packing boxes in a tiny shoe village just outside Venice (that’s where she developed her antique-mirror fixation too) in exchange for free board, Italian lessons (language, cooking, the lot) and more importantly access to cheap designer shoes. Let’s just say we were the only ones on campus to totter along to our first lecture in rhinestone-encrusted slingback stilettos. An impossibly high student shoe standard we were quite unable to sustain.

       
Though I am rather proud of the fact that at least we didn’t squander our gap year in a pair of those hideous rubber-sandal-come-flip-flop things with Velcro fastenings the size of half a Michelin tyre, gamely dodging toenail clippings and verrucas in some festering youth hostel.
Euch
.

       
Millie’s lying face down on her mat and looks like a newborn foal in an animal documentary – valiantly kicking and flailing. Only she doesn’t miraculously push up on splayed legs and trot away. She falls flat on her nose, time and again, finally letting out an almighty howl.

       
I leapfrog Kate’s disapproving glare to pick her up, and head for the kitchen.

       
‘Let’s have some tea. I made a date cake last night.’

       
Kate’s mildly impressed that I’ve at least managed to do that.

       
As I walk out, I notice that Tim’s awake and has been watching us. I also can’t help but notice his face change from a post-big-night-out liverish greeny-yellow to a ghostly white. And suddenly it all comes rushing back to me  ...

       
1 a.m. Unmistakable chug of black cab up our street; stops with squeaky brakes outside of flat; husband stumbles out and slams door; black cab chugs off into dead of night; front door opens and closes with the elegance of a hippo on heat; more hippo tiptoeing down hallway; kitchen lights turn on; banging and crashing of doors and plates; ten minutes later husband falls into bed – pores reeking of alcohol – rambling incoherently that he ‘really, really, really, really, really’ loves me and Millie ... with breath that smells of DATE CAKE.

       
‘Well, it technically
was
my dinner,’ he says sheepishly.

       
I am
so
not impressed.

       
‘I tell you what,’ says Kate, ever the peacemaker. ‘Why don’t we all head down to Queen’s Park – Tim and I can take Millie for a stroll and see if she’ll have a bottle for her next feed, and you and Fi can stop off at the café for a girlie chat.’

       
She really is an angel.

       
‘That sounds great,’ I say, ignoring Tim.

       
‘Oh, before we go, I promised Alison at work that I’d pass this on to you.’ Fi produces a crumpled plastic bag and plonks it by Tim on the sofa. ‘Though I can’t imagine what you’d
ever
want from her.’ She laughs heartily.

       
I don’t.

The dull winter duvet of low grey cloud has momentarily given way to a sliver of crisp blue sky, and everyone seems to be making a dash for the park. We walk by rows of prettily painted terraced houses basking in the sun – the net curtains of the old-timers shoulder-to-shoulder with the frosted glass and wooden shutters of their gentrifying neighbours. But the mention of Alison’s name has completely thrown me.

       
Alison worked on the Jolie Naturelle bid, and was by implication important to me. It was my prerogative to know exactly what she was doing and when she was doing it. Alison also irritated me. A lot. Due largely to her heart-stopping ability to scrape through
every
deadline with only milliseconds to spare.

       
I tolerated her chaotic existence because she’s an excellent analyst. The best on the team, by far. But when I think back now to the laughs that Fi and I used to have at her expense, I am ashamed. At our bitchiness. Our basic ignorance.

       
Our game went something like this: each morning, we would have a bet on Alison. Just between the two of us. (Although it soon became common knowledge on the fourth floor.) The person with the most wins at the end of the week treated the other to a lunchtime sushi the following week. And so it went.

       
The betting hinged upon Alison’s arrival at work, which usually occurred any time after 9.30 a.m. And every day it was the same. The ting of the lift’s doorbell would announce the imminent arrival of hurricane Alison. Her detritus of dog-eared files and mishmash of bags and coats led a clumsy trail directly to the desk next to mine and Fi’s.

       
We’d all exchange surreptitious knowing little glances. Of course, we’d been in since 8 a.m. But the best was to come.

       
The secondary goal of our competition was to be the first to spot the ubiquitous smudge of baby sick, dried milk, jammy fingerprints or honey-glazed snot on the right-back shoulder of her suit jacket (or anywhere else).

       
A task made increasingly difficult when Fi swore she heard Alison telling our office manager that she didn’t dry-clean her suits any more. A fact that nearly made us wretch. (Alison had apparently considered buying out her local dry-cleaner in lieu of her monthly dry-cleaning bills.) So a bonus-point system was introduced for differentiating new from old stains.

       
The best day, as far as we were concerned, was when she turned up in mismatching shoes. I promise this is true. One black and one navy.
And not even the same style
. We both agreed that we would personally rather have feigned an epileptic seizure in the lift than hobble into the office in such a state.

       
We dined out on that one for weeks.

       
And do you know what the genuinely terrifying point to all of this is?

       
We
really
thought we were clever.

www.ShoePrincess.com
 
Stiletto Stamina
 
I’m perplexed by some bad press surrounding stilettos of late. May I gently remind my gorgeous subjects of the important role they play in our lives. Not unlike that of an illicit lover: the melding of two into one is at once irrational, adventurous, exhilarating yet ultimately (and consistently) not for long-term use.
 
And that is OK.
 
As my dear Swiss finishing-school tutor always said, ‘To avoid disappointment, one should never expect commitment from an electrifying lover nor comfort from a pair of spikes.’
 
So toughen up and enjoy the ride!
 
Well-heeled
 
There’s nothing worse than standing behind a SP on an elevator and glancing down to her beautiful shoes, only to notice that the heels are worn through, and the backs are scraped and scuffed. It is strongly suggested that SPs invest in a pair of driving shoes to be left in the car at all times, and make the acquaintance of a skilled shoe-repairer.

6. Arch Enemy

Once at the park, Fi takes microsips from the polystyrene coffee cup, as if sampling rat poison. It was always going to be dicey bringing her to a family-friendly café – but I figure she has to be exposed to them sooner or later.

       
I’m patiently listening to her dissect every word that Marco has ever uttered but my head is on a swivel. Each time a baby cries, I look around thinking it’s Millie. Suddenly, I spy Kate marching up the path towards us. Without Tim or Millie. And frowning. My throat dries and my heart goes all fluttery.

       
‘You’d better come. Tim’s in a bit of a state. Millie still won’t take the bottle and he’s talking to some woman who has really put the wind up him.’

       
We all rush out of the café and follow the sound of Millie’s bellowing to where Tim is being held captive by an impeccably groomed woman in a black fur-trimmed Escada ski jacket, and black skinny jeans that are tucked into ultra-pointy-toed, black-leather knee-high boots. She’s leaning on a red Bugaboo pushchair with a flock of those psychedelic mobiles that promise future Mensa membership dangling from the hood.

       
I hurriedly take off my beanie and try to fluff my hair from its matted mass, all the while wishing I’d changed out of my tracksuit. My face feels hot and blotchy from running in the cold.

       
‘This is Victoria,’ says Tim. He looks like a deer caught in headlights. ‘Her baby girl, Allegra, was born on the same day as Millie.’

       
‘Oh, how lovely,’ I say. Tim virtually throws Millie at me as I try to hack a way through my layers of clothes with one hand.

       
‘You’re
feeding
her,’ Victoria observes, with just the right amount of voice inflection and eyebrow gesticulation – in case I didn’t realise this was code for
breast-feeding
. She nods approvingly. ‘I couldn’t help but notice your husband and sister struggling to give her the bottle – if she won’t take it now, she never will. Rod for your own back, I’m afraid.’

       
Great.

       
‘What centile is Millie on?’ Tim asks. ‘Allegra’s on the eightieth.’