I never seemed to have enough shoes back then. So out of habit I always wore the same ones. Except an ancient pair for gardening, and hefty boots for proper hill walking. Otherwise it was the same black lace-ups I bought with my first real salary.
Walking in those shoes felt like treading ancient byways. It seemed as if they had always been with me and to discard them would be like abandoning an old friend. So they were repaired and re-soled and re-laced and polished and buffed till they began to look like antiques restored for sale in a pretentious Chelsea flea-market.
Then when I met Lydia she decided that my wardrobe needed updating, rather like the rest of my life. Those old shoes had become an emblem of my entropy – the slow descent into unchanging habits, stock routines and social inertia. So I was gifted sweaters, scarves and most of all shoes: sneakers, ankle boots, brogues.
As I walked more and more in differently-heeled footwear, I felt my demeanour changing. In sneakers I was sprightly; in ankle boots, upright and sturdy; in brogues, confident and sure-footed. Friends noticed the change in me. They all assumed it was Lydia’s positive influence, which was of course most of the story.
But I still kept those emblematic shoes from my past. Now and again I wore them when out walking the dog, as a reminder of who I was and how it used to feel, to be the old me.