Someone Else's Shoes(84)

“So?” The American woman’s voice is brisk.

“So she took them to a charity shop. It’s one near her college.”

“She took my shoes to a goodwill store?” The American woman throws her hands into the air. “Oh, this just gets better.”

“When?” says Sam, weakly.

“Yesterday afternoon. Look, don’t panic. If we head over now maybe we’ll be able to get them back.”





twenty-six


Nisha sits in the tiny car, squashed into the backseat, while Sam and her friend drive across London in silence. The friend, whose name is Andrea, is wearing the kind of soft turban and gray pallor that denotes serious illness, but she is oddly cheerful, as if she has been lifted temporarily out of whatever malaise she is in. “And when are you going to tell me about this ‘affair’?” Andrea says to Sam.

Sam glances back at Nisha, and says, “Some other time.”

“So you are having an affair? What the—”

“I am not having an affair.” Sam goes pink. “I may have kissed someone. That’s all.”

“What the fuck, Sam? No bad behavior, you said.”

“That was before this happened.”

“Don’t mind me,” says Nisha, from the backseat. “You could be getting jiggy with half of London for all I care.”

But she sees Sam’s hand creep across and squeeze Andrea’s while they sit at traffic-lights, and something in her gives a little at the sight of the tenderness. It is the same gesture she used to make to Ray when they were driving him back to his school, a tiny squeeze intended to convey so much more than words ever could.

Nisha is pissed about the shoes. She is pissed that this Sam clearly thought they were hers to borrow, pissed that the woman’s daughter took them to the goodwill store. But as the car navigates its way through the heavy London traffic she is finding it hard to maintain the same degree of blind, righteous fury. This Sam does not seem like a thief—she has none of the feral sense of self-preservation, the ability to lie compulsively and without hesitation. She just looks, Nisha thinks uncomfortably, sad.

Maybe it was a mistake. She thinks back to that day in the changing room and has a vague, cloudy memory of shoving another bag onto the floor. It is just possible this thing has been an accident. And then she thinks about that grainy CCTV image of the woman wearing her shoes at the pub. And she thinks of her Chanel jacket hanging casually over the back of that office chair, and her heart hardens again. People are capable of being all sorts of things, regardless of appearances. She knows that better than anyone.

“I think this is it.” Andrea has pulled up on a main road, and is gazing at her phone, then up and out of the driver’s window.

Sam reads the sign aloud: “Global Cat Foundation.”

“You’re kidding me,” says Nisha, who has just realized where she is.

“No, that’s what she said. Yes, right next to her college.”

Nisha sighs. Of all the goodwill stores in this goddamn city, of course it had to be this one.

“I’ll go,” says Sam, climbing wearily out of the car.

“Oooh, no,” says Nisha, wrestling the front seat forward so that she can wriggle out. “You’re not going anywhere by yourself. I’m coming too.”



* * *



? ? ?

The stale, fuggy scent of the overheated charity store hits her as Sam opens the door, and Nisha closes her eyes for a second, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the urge to walk straight out again. She takes a breath, braces herself and follows Sam toward the back, where a sad array of crumpled boots sits on dusty shelves, alongside shoes with the maker’s name worn off by who knows how many unknown sweaty soles? Sam glances along each shelf, then shakes her head. “Maybe they haven’t put them out yet,” she says. “My friend works in the Cancer Research Shop in Woking and she says they have bags of people’s stuff out the back for weeks before it gets to the actual shop. We could go through those.”

“Today just gets better and better,” Nisha mutters.

They walk around the shop, Nisha peering into corners and examining the shop-window displays—can you call them displays? Mismatched mother-of-the-bride outfits and crockery she wouldn’t throw at an enemy. Porcelain cats. Tarnished cruet sets. The shoes are nowhere. When she turns, Sam is standing at the counter. The woman with blue hair looks past her to give Nisha a steady look.

“Hi—I wonder if you can help me?” says Sam. Her voice does a tentative lilt at the end as if she is unsure she should even be speaking. “It’s a bit awkward? I’m sure you must have this happen all the time? My daughter just brought in a pair of shoes and they weren’t actually her shoes to give away and we need to get them back so it would be ever so helpful if you could maybe—”

Nisha steps in front of her. “Oh, for God’s sake. We need to see all the shoes that came in yesterday.”

“Do you want your toweling robe back while you’re at it?” The blue-haired woman’s lips curl a little.

Nisha pulls herself up a little taller. “Just the shoes. Where are they?”

The woman sniffs. “Everything that came in yesterday has already been put out.”

Sam and Nisha exchange a glance.