The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (4 page)

       
‘He has got that whole tall, dark and handsome Italian thing going for him,’ I agree. When he speaks everything’s so measured and calm. Almost sensual.

       
‘But he does seem a little on the quiet side – you know, beautiful but boring.’ Rachel winks.

       
‘Oh, far from it,’ I say. Though admittedly, I did have to go through everything from my pidgin Italian to holiday destinations and supermarket reward schemes before hitting the jackpot. ‘He’s crazy about shoes. Can you believe it? I couldn’t stop him talking about them once he got started – he was
completely
captivating.’ Quite honestly, the best dinner party conversation I’ve ever had.

       
‘He’s very attentive towards Fi, too. He practically hangs off her every word,’ says Liz proudly. ‘And they have a lot in common.’

       
She’s got a point. Marco’s quite a departure from Fi’s usual fare – no Internet, lonely hearts or speed-dating. She met him in an antique shop in Church Street, while hunting for her latest acquisition. He happens to own the shop and is also an expert on eighteenth-century Venetian mirrors – Fi’s Achilles heel. So really, that’s about as good a start as she’s had in a long time.

       
‘Mmm. I don’t know. I’m always suspicious of a good-looking guy in his early forties who says he’s single
and
doesn’t drink at a dinner party. He
must
be married,’ Rachel pushes on. ‘Then again, he’s so damn polite. And this whole “shoe thing” he’s got going – did you notice his shoes? He could be gay.’

       
Ah, yes. His shoes: John Lobbs. I spotted them a mile away – the luscious caramel swirl of soft brown kid leather, precise stitching and faultless styling.

       
You see, normally we can guarantee that any boyfriend of Fi’s who wears decent shoes is either gay, married or a gangster. (Yes, she has dated them all!) Our theory being that no straight, single, law-abiding guy would fork out that sort of money on shoes – when it could be better spent on stereo speakers or iPods.

       
‘It’s a tricky one,’ I admit. ‘But he told me he’s a fifth-generation cobbler from Milan. He’s totally passionate about the craftsmanship of a shoe, and I’m sure couldn’t care less about the brand or the logo.’

       
‘Well! That clearly throws the gay theory out of the water,’ says Rachel.

       
‘He’s set his sights on cracking the London shoe scene. He has a studio in the basement of his shop, where he works in-between customers and at night. Plus, he runs weekend shoe-making schools there. The antiques purely bankroll the shoes,’ I say, more than impressing the girls with my intelligence-gathering. ‘I think he’s just a workaholic –’

       
‘Who speaks fluent Italian, French, Spanish and English,’ pipes in Liz, his new best friend.

       
‘And speaking of shoes ...’ I’m now laughing at Rachel. ‘What’s with Dan the he-man and his
white
numbers?’

       
‘Oh. I know.’ She grimaces and takes a long drag of her cigarette. ‘He’s a back-up. Freddie had to fly to New York at the last minute.’

       
Thank goodness for that. I thought she was losing her touch.

       
Rachel takes another sip of wine.

       
‘Well, I think Marco’s too good to be true.’

       
The voice of envy?

       
‘He’s going to break her heart,’ she concludes bleakly.

       
Mmm, maybe I’ll have the Jaffa Cakes and teapot on standby – just in case.

4. Shoedown

Liz does a noble job with the meal. Though there’s only so much you
can
do with baby poussin, anchovies, tomato ketchup and Marmite. And nothing can disguise the fact that by now everyone, bar Marco and me, is legless.

       
Dan has turned out not only to have the shoes of a dentist (albeit a funky one), but the conversational skills of one too. He’s completely monopolised the table and finally goes one step too far when he pronounces, ‘Women’s high-heeled shoes are the scourge of modern-day society,’ apparently accountable for an abundance of bodily ills.

       
Pah! My hackles rise.

       
‘
Reeeeally  ...
’

       
Tim gives me the evil eye from across the table, and would kick me if he could reach.

       
‘Absolutely. Women’s and men’s feet have exactly the same bone structure. The high-heeled shoe has no functional value whatsoever. Its sole purpose is to affix a permanent deformity, in order to make walking difficult and tiring.’

       
Rachel arches a semi-interested eyebrow.

       
It’s shoe-enemy propaganda like this that I blame squarely for Tim’s complete heel-neurosis during my pregnancy.

       
‘Why, yes, I’d never thought of it like that before. They’re a
safety hazard
,’ says Harry, lest we forget, the health and safety officer. ‘The stiletto heel decreases the surface area available for the creation of friction – between the foot and the walking surface. It’s
so
simple.’ He seems blurrily enamoured by his own powers of deduction. ‘Slips and trips are the most common cause of major workplace injury in the UK, you know. And can even cause DEATH.’

       
Fi and Rachel simply burst into fits of laughter at his dramatic punchline, while Liz affectionately rolls her eyes skywards.

       
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ says Harry. He and Dan frown disapprovingly.

       
Oh, so
that’s
why I bought the pretty little flower-print mules with the scalloped edging and ten-centimetre heels. In order to self-mutilate or, better still, kill myself. Of course! I cannot believe I am hearing this.

       
‘Can I be so bold as to suggest the wild and crazy notion that most shoe-loving women know
exactly
what they’re doing when they put on a pair of skyscraper heels or toe-pinching pumps. They
love
them – the way they make them stand, walk, talk and feel.’ I’m on a roll now. ‘Do you honestly think we’re going to be fazed by blisters, bunions or hammer-toes? We have, after all, evolved to survive bloody childbirth.’

       
‘And Brazilian waxes,’ Rachel nods ruefully.

       
I note that these weapons of female mass destruction kindly fund Dan’s luxury London lifestyle. I’m furious. For some reason he’s really wound me up.

       
The table is heading towards a full-scale shoe war, when Marco nervously clears his throat and enters the fray, his heavily accented English immediately attention-grabbing amidst the drunken babble.

       
‘The high-heeled shoe: it is
so
much more than a mere physical construct. It is just as much a psychological and emotional extension of a woman’s
being
, her
sensuality
, her
essence
,’ he says tenderly, and then eyeballs Dan. ‘A woman who wears a high-heeled shoe made by an artisan – respectful of the laws of physics and anatomy, fashion and sculpture – need not ever require your services, my friend. Nor should she ever need to, how do I say,
souffrir pour être belle
– suffer to be beautiful.’

       
Touché. And now he’s my new best friend.

       
Rachel leans over to me and whispers, ‘Who’d have thought Fi’s new man would be the champion of shoe princesses!’ At that, she slowly eases her chair back from the table and brazenly crosses one leg over the other (
à la
Sharon Stone) in front of Dan. The surreptitious flash of the dagger-thin heels executed with the subtlety of a gangster tapping his violin case. Leaving Dan in NO doubt as to where he’s getting his dessert tonight.

       
He backs down like a cobra to its basket.

       
The last tea candle flickers out and an uneasy silence falls.

       
‘I think we’d better be making a move, Jane,’ slurs Tim, reaching for the mobile phone that he’s kept in front of him all night like a badge of honour and handing me the car keys.

       
‘Ohmygod.’ Fi hiccups and lurches behind her chair. ‘Not before we give you this. The girls pitched in and we bought you a little gift.’ She hands me an exquisite white box. ‘It is after all your coming-out night!’ They’ve gone all sentimental on me? I’m intrigued.

       
‘Something all nursing mothers should have,’ Liz says knowledgeably.

       
It’s heavenly. A soft, dusky-pink knitted shawl.

       
‘The new season’s must-have,’ beams Fi. ‘The Stella McCartney cable-knit cape.’

       
‘The shop assistant said The Cat couldn’t live without hers,’ says Rachel, clearly thrilled by the celebrity endorsement.

       
Dan’s ears prick up and my mood markedly darkens. (I simply don’t recall being this emotionally flighty before Millie. Maybe I’m just tired and irritable.) You see, I presume she means The ten-minute-water-birth-my-tattoo-hurt-more-supermodel-supermum Cat. Catriona ‘The Cat’ – so called because of her impossible and completely natural feline beauty. She’s the ‘face’ of Jolie Naturelle cosmetics and was all over the magazines this week. Most notably in a spread wearing little more than her trademark Christian Louboutin ocelot-print stilettos and her baby, Happy Sunshine (a boy the same age as Millie), sprawled across her bare sun-kissed midriff – completely ruining my mid-morning trash treat.

       
‘It’s for breast-feeding in public. You cover
things
up with it.’ Rachel vaguely gestures with her hands over the breast area. ‘Makes the whole experience more dignified, she said.’

       
‘Hmph. Like she’d know,’ I growl under my breath, while picturing Millie puking baby sick on it within two seconds of my wearing it. I can’t help but wish they’d given me something useful – like a month’s worth of cleaning vouchers. Or offered to do some babysitting, so that I could grab a nap, or get my hair cut.

       
No – this is not right. I’m an ungrateful cow. It’s not their fault. I know I’ve done exactly the same, pre-Millie – given something deliciously expensive and dry-clean only.

       
Everyone’s a little taken aback by my mean snarl, and I quickly pull my fragile ego into check.

       
‘I love it – really, I do. Thanks.’ Bizarrely I feel close to tears. ‘It’s just that anyone would think The Cat was the only woman on the planet with a baby at the moment. And the whole washboard-stomach-up-for-it-sex-kitten-mothering’s-a-doddle thing....’

       
‘Oh! Don’t go worrying yourself about
her
.’ Fi’s relief makes her slur. ‘It took a team of four graphic artists fourteen hours to get those photos fit for print – airbrushing, digital touch-ups, you name it. Apparently, she looked more like what the cat dragged in.’ She cackles uncontrollably.