By
the time the young assistant was available to serve them, the boy was already
struggling to free himself from out one shoe.
Kneeling
before the chair in which he sat to facilitate its removal, she remarked the
heel almost completely worn away, and in words she hoped to sound
conspiratorial whispered
cog:
Oh my, what have you been up to? Have you been naughty?
still
loud enough for his mother to hear and be included.
Her
inability to recognise either marked them out as visitors or new to the town:
children this young and their parents quickly tend to become shoe-shop
regulars.
cog:
Let’s get your feet measured and then we can pick out some shoes for you to try
on. Would you like that?
He
stretched his little leg straight out in front with his shoeless foot suspended
in the air, remembering the procedure from such prior shopping.
cog:
Do you want to come with me?
offering
the boy her hand which he took, slipping down off the chair onto the carpet.
Seeing his lopsided steps caused a hard blush to break upon her face, his gait
odd beyond anything as might be accounted for by the lack of that one shoe left
beneath the chair.
Mother
(herself embarrassed at having to begin this again): I don’t suppose you sell
single shoes, do you?
The
assistant looked back at the woman whose son she held, choosing to treat the
query as rhetorical in order to avoid further offence although later she will
actually recommend small steel tacks to reinforce the heel and extend the
problem shoe’s longevity, from which idea Brother Skunk even at this age will
recoil, not wanting that one foot’s irregular tattoo ever sounding the
consolidate of his visible difference.
She
led him across to a low metal platform of bright and polished chrome, at the
centre of which sank a shallow recess. A column rose up from the platform’s
back edge.
cog:
Okay, if you can stand up here, and then what I want you to do is place
your foot in here
pointing
with her free hand to the centre hole but already aware of the boy’s
body-weight crawling away from the hand held in her own, and looking down saw
his face taken with the onset of actual panic.
Skunk:
No. NO.
writhing
free to quickly stoop and shield his bad foot with both hands.
cog:
What’s wrong, it’s okay.
Mother:
He’s not used to... The last place we lived he got measured with a little, you
know a little
making
gestures to distract from her ignorance of the word she sought.
cog:
Oh but,
and
then again addressing Skunk
cog:
this is so much more fun. Just hang on a second.
She
left them to retrieve a shoe from a nearby stand and in her brief absence his
mother touched him gently.
Mother:
You’ll be okay son. It’ll be okay.
cog
(returning to lean across and place the shoe in the middle of the recess): Okay
now, are you watching?
Pressing
some buttons on the column caused mechanised bars inside the platform to extend
out into the recess, closing in upon the shoe from each side and stopping at
the met impediment to calibrate its length and width, the subsequent
calculation appearing in glowing red numerals on the digital read-out halfway
up the column.
cog:
See? Isn’t it wonderful?
Skunk
was still bent to protect the foot turned even further in.
Skunk:
How does it know when to stop?
cog:
Well, it stops when it feels your foot there, and then it lets us know how long
your foot is, and how wide, and then w-
Skunk:
But what if it doesn’t know when to stop?
cog:
It’s very clever, and it’s very gentle so that
Skunk:
But what if it doesn’t know when to stop?
his
defiance attuned now to its own rhythm, each word afloat on the small odour of
his breathing.
With
both women provoked to coaxing and coercion, still neither were able to
convince him of it as anything other than instrumental in the inflicting of further
damage upon his already wounded foot.
Conceding
her eventual defeat to the knowledge that they had come to the attention of
other customers awaiting service, the assistant finally excused herself with
cog
(to them both): Okay, let me see if... Hang on just a second
crossing
to the counter at the rear of the shop and in her absence now his mother losing
patience
Mother
(whispering): Skunk you have to stop this. Skunk.
The
infant Skunk turned about in his seat to watch her return, at last happy to
recognise the handheld green length of yellow graduations ending in a small cup
into which he willingly placed his acquiescent heel, his foot now flat upon the
plastic and down to the toes of which the assistant gently brought the
measuring bar with some relief. Perpendicular to this and slid vertically to
the sock at its broadest, a calibrated tape was fed through itself and pulled
tight to ascertain the exact requisite width of his new shoe.
Little
Brother Skunk smiled up and around and at everyone, happy to orient himself by
the simple known within this new and unfamiliar territory until ceasing upon
his mother’s face at work to curb whatever struggled to erupt forward into its
features.
cog
(stepping back): Dear Jesus.
Skunk:
MUMMY! MUMMY!
screaming
as if the sheer volume of his voice might locate her at whatever depth by which
she was being subsumed, but for the moment she was lost beyond her senses.
