The girl in the back yard let out a cry. The old woman looked up from the dishes and stared idly out of the back kitchen window. The girl now crying softly was seated on the browning grass picking glass fragments out of the sole of her left foot. The old woman continued her chores as the small girl with ash hair and haunted eyes began to make her way to the tap next to the back door and began to rinse her wound under the running water, her tears dried as she watched red colour the pavement.
The back gate opened as he entered the yard and began to make his way towards the shed, the girl did not say anything, his attention was turned by the sound and smell of the running water. As he looked across at the girl he saw the red stained pavement and hurried to where she stood. Holding the girl, the man listened as the girl told him how she had landed on the broken glass at the bottom of the step as she ran to play in the yard after the old woman had told her to get out. He examined the wounds on her foot and decided that as the bleeding had stopped there was nothing else to be done except to scold the young girl for being outside without any shoes on. The girl dropped her chin to her chest and while staring at the red, very quietly almost as a whisper the girl confessed "I haven"t got any shoes'.
He looked up at the kitchen window, saw the old woman watching the scene through the clouds of smoke that billowed from her cigarette. He told the girl she would be getting some shoes today and he left her alone on the pavement, disappearing through the back door into the house. On his way he caught sight of the broken glass on the last step and he remembered last night, dropping his bottle there on the pavement as he staggered back into the house from spending hours in his tin retreat.
The girl squatted on the pavement as if in a ball trying to make herself smaller than she was, trying not to be seen. The voices inside grew louder, the words turned into a deafening noise that refused to take a breath. Then nothing. Silence. The girl waited. Her small heart racing in time to her shallow breath. SLAM… the back door was opened and closed in an instance. Her hand was wretched from her knees as she was lifted to her feet. As hard as it was the small girl managed to keep up with the pace of the old woman as they went through the gate and out onto the street. The old woman stormed towards Main St with her small charge at her side, she did not notice that the girls wounds had re-opened, that the searing pavement was burning her tender soles or that the girl swallowed her tears so as not to draw attention to her presence. The girl had no idea where they were going she was only sorry that she made the old woman angry.
Stopping at the kerb to allow a blue car to pass, the girl looked behind and saw her red foot print staining the pavement behind them.
They crossed Ocean st and entered Hoffman's Shoe Store. A young sales lady wearing a white crisp shirt with a pencil black skirt approached the old woman. Her smile was wide, it was her first day at Hoffman's, she was eager to make a good impression, the old woman was her first customer and the boss was watching her over his silver rimmed glasses through the window that separated the shop from the office where he tended his desk. Looking her up and down the old woman simply said "she needs a pair of shoes" as she handed her a twenty-dollar note. The sales lady's mouth was poised open, about to speak. It was already too late. The old woman had left the shop and stood outside lighting a cigarette as she glanced back with and the girl in the shop with bitter resentment. The girl who had said nothing now apologised for her mother's behaviour, She blamed on the heat, it causes the headaches; which makes her angry.
The sales lady smiled, her face not betraying her thoughts. She took up the small girl and promised to find her the most beautiful pair of shoes in the shop. Seating her one of the orange chairs that made a row of two in the middle of the store the sales lady drew in a gasp as she caught her first view of the girl's feet. The left sole was encrusted with the blood remnants of the trip to Hoffman's, the big toe of the right swelled from an infected toe nail, green pus forming bubbles in the recesses between the Childs toe nail and the flesh of her toe. Looking at her own feet, watching the sales lady examine them and then in turn examining the feet of the sales lady - elegantly manicured in black patent leather sandals - the girl felt embarrassed and ashamed she had no place here, her chin fell to her chest, her eyes searched the red and green chequered carpet for an escape. She couldn't leave. A gentle hand on her shoulder from the sales lady, a smile " now you stay here and I will be right back to fix you up, everything will be fine." The girl believed her.
