Someone Else's Shoes(87)

At that moment the front door opens and a woman emerges from the house. They fall abruptly silent, staring through the windscreen at the figure in a turquoise blouse and jeans. She is around thirty-five, her red hair tonged and styled as if for a day out. She is carrying a black bin bag at arm’s length.

Nisha spies them. “She’s wearing my shoes to take out her trash? I’m going to decapitate her.”

“Can you not be quite so horrible?” Sam puts her head into her hands.

Andrea lifts her phone immediately and starts filming her.

“What are you doing?” says Sam.

“Don’t know. We might need . . . evidence?” The instant reflexive reaction to everything these days: if you’re not sure, film it.

Nisha’s heart has started to thump against her chest at the sight of the Louboutins. Sam is murmuring beside her: “Look, we’ll—we’ll have a nice chat with her and explain the situation and I’m sure she’ll—”

As they watch, the woman opens the black bin and drops the bag inside. She is so close, thinks Nisha. Six, seven strides and she could be there before the woman realizes what’s happening. She could drop her with a Krav Maga move, wrench them off her and be back in the car in seconds. As her hand reaches for the door handle, her breath stalls. At that moment the woman hesitates, then walks up to the cat. She makes as if to stroke it, then, after a surreptitious glance down the street, picks up the cat by the scruff of its neck and dumps it in the brown bin. She closes the lid with a slam, and glances around her. Then she dusts her hands together, walks back inside and shuts the door.

The three women stare from the little car, their mouths open.

“What the hell?” says Nisha, after a moment.

“Did she just . . . put that cat in the bin?” Andrea is peering through the windscreen.

“She did,” whispers Sam, almost to herself. “She put a cat in the bin.”

Then before Nisha can speak, Sam climbs out of the car. She marches a few paces toward the house, then turns to face the car. Her face is flushed. “You see? This is what we’re up against. It was just a cat, minding its own business, probably doing a quite nice job of being a cat. Just leading a quiet cat life. And then some arsehole comes up and, for no reason at all, decides to wreck everything, dumping it for no reason in a bin. An actual bin with all the rubbish, like it didn’t even matter.”

She doesn’t seem to realize that she’s shouting, oblivious to the fact that anyone might hear. Her face is anguished, and she’s clearly on the edge of tears. “That cat wasn’t even doing anything bad! It did nothing to that woman! Nothing! It was just living, being a cat! And she tried to ruin its life! Why do people have to be so horrible? Why can’t people just not be so horrible?”

Nisha turns to Andrea. “Uh . . . is she okay?”

“No, I am not okay!”

Sam turns and runs the few short paces to the bin. As Nisha and Andrea watch in shocked silence, Sam reaches both arms into the bin, struggles to reach down a little further, her feet briefly leaving the ground, then emerges with the cat. It looks a little pissed off, and has a light covering of noodles, but apart from that is pretty much unperturbed. Sam pulls the animal close to her face, flicks off the noodles, strokes it, murmurs something they cannot hear. She closes her eyes and takes a long, deep, shuddery breath. After a moment, she opens them and places the cat carefully on the pavement. It shakes itself, briefly washes a paw, then stalks off slowly along the street without a backward look.

“She’s saying she’s the cat, right?” Nisha murmurs.

“I think that might be it,” says Andrea.

Sam gazes up to the heavens, then wipes her hands on her trousers. She walks back to the car and climbs in, her eyes burning. There is a short silence before she speaks.

“Fuck her. Do what you want. We’re getting those shoes.”



* * *



? ? ?

When they arrive Jasmine is in the middle of a batch of ironing. She parks the steaming iron on its rear end without comment and makes tea, listening carefully as Nisha outlines what has happened. Sam stands in the corner of the stranger’s kitchen, taking in the piles of laundry, the rigorously clean countertops, and sneaks looks at Andrea beside her, who seems more cheerful and animated than she has been in months. Jasmine, having prepared a tray with four full mugs, shoos them through to the living room, where they sit down.

“So, let me get this straight. You need to get your shoes off this woman. Who bought them from a charity shop. And hasn’t actually done anything wrong.”

“She put a cat in a bin.” Sam’s face is mulish.

The teenage girl’s eyes grow wide. Perhaps detecting some strange shift in the atmosphere, she has hovered in the doorway since they arrived. “She put a cat in a bin?”

Andrea holds up the phone, shows her the video. Jasmine’s face works its way through several expressions in the few short seconds, ending with bemusement.

She shakes her head. “Gracie, go do your homework.” The girl tuts under her breath and heads reluctantly out of the room. Jasmine turns to Sam and Andrea. “And who are you two? In relation to this?”

“I’m Sam. I’m the person who took the shoes in the first place. Accidentally.” Sam glances at Nisha, but for the first time Nisha is not rolling her eyes or looking skeptical.