Shoes
Lets try again...
Shoes.

Straightaway he said, unpleasantly:

“There’s only ever one reason why people look at the soles of their shoes”. He still let me in though, because he had to.

The carpet in his hall is the type of carpet that makes you nervous just to step on it. Thick and purple with a pattern from somewhere like Arabia on it. It’s not like the carpet I’ve got at home.

Or the carpet in our old house.

When we bought our house, at the house warming, this guy, one of those friends of friend people was there. He was probably the only person there I hadn’t known really well for years. He had an old England shirt on and was drinking my beer. I could see him looking around, at our stuff. Everyone else was really friendly, coming up to us and saying what a nice place, what a good spread we’d put on, but this guy was just standing there. Sort of looking smug, without looking smug, you know?

My eye kept catching him when I was supposed to be talking to someone else, because as soon as I’d seen him I’d known I couldn’t trust him.

Later on, I saw him talking to her. To stop her talking to him, I went up to them. As I was crossing our patio, though our patio doors and across our new lounge, I had to push through all these groups of our friends. They were smoking and drinking and laughing and drinking, and sunburnt from the garden. I could see her laughing.

I could see her face was sort of soft.

I felt crowded in by all these people, all our friends. Not mine. Ours. We used to share most everything. When I was close to them, I realised I didn’t know what I was going to say. I always have this thing when I meet people; I think of about three things to talk about, and remember them in case my conversation gets boring. It can be anything, really, football, telly, traffic, weather, whatever, work. It just calms me down to know that if there’s this pause, I know what to say. But I couldn’t think of anything. I thought about saying how everyone was saying how lucky we were, and how good the sandwiches are, but, I thought that was stupid. I wouldn’t have bothered crossing the whole room, coming in from outside, just to say that, just to her, would I? So, in the end, I just crossed over and stood there.

He was talking, anyway. He was talking about himself, I can’t remember what. I was looking at her, and him, rather than listening.

I saw him flicking ash from his cigarette onto our carpet.

I know everyone else was doing it. I’d even told everyone it was fine. It was an old carpet, we'd already said that were going to get rid of it. But, somehow, seeing him doing it without asking really got to me. I was thinking, “If he throws the butt down, he’s getting a kicking”. I could just imagine the burn mark, black on the yellow carpet. He put his fag in an empty bottle, though, and it fizzled as it hit the last centimetre of left over beer. I don’t know how I felt about that, him not putting it out on the carpet. A bit regretful, if I’m honest.

He was still talking. You could tell he was showing off about how much he knew. All these facts.

Then, straight out of the blue, this guy turned around to me and told us that there was 20 years of dead skin in the average carpet.

I was dumbfounded when he said it. Twenty years? Imagine all that skin, in our new house. Just lying there. Just fucking lying there like that.

It took me ages to question this, and when I did, it really got to me. For a start, how the hell would this guy know something like that? And why would it be 20 years? It got to me, like, I wanted to see him again, just so I could ask him, so that I could see his face look uncomfortable when he realised he’d been rumbled. I can’t stand people who boast about facts, as if knowing facts makes you clever. Like, all you need to do to be a doctor is read the back of “England’s Glory” matchboxes.

I don’t know why I thought of all this then, at this other guy, this posh guy’s front door. I was tired, I suppose, or hungry. Maybe I was just a bit scared of leaving skin on his carpet. I told you, it got to me. Even though I figured it wasn't true. It still got to me.

My arms were aching, because of that bloody toolkit. My old one was miles better. It was made out of this plastic, and was dead light. I couldn’t afford to get another one of those, afterwards, so I’d had taken this one from my Mum’s where I’d left it in the loft. I’d never taken it around to our new house, because if felt so silly. We were cramped for space. I was always going on abut her shoe collection, and there was me with two fucking massive tooloxes? She’d have loved that. But, why I’d kept it was, because, secretly, I was hoping that if she’d ever have had a boy, he could have played with it. I’ve seen all those toolkits in those toyshops I used to visit sometimes. They look like they'd fall apart the first time you touch them. The first and only fucking time.

When I stepped onto the carpet, it was so soft, it felt like, that feeling you get in the evening, when you take your boots off and put on some old trainers. I felt like I was leaving footprints, I felt so heavy. I was a bit worried, because the carpet was so soft and rich, I didn’t want to mark it. I honestly didn’t want to mark anything. You know what it’s like, right? You do.

I wasn’t worried when the posh guy said that; about my shoes. About him catching me checking the soles of my shoes for shit, as I waited for the door to be answered. That’s alright, see? People are like that; you get a new carpet in, the last thing you want is some stranger to come in, and put a stain on it which you can’t get ever out.

I still remember what it was like to have our own house, of course I do.
(sirolimus, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 21:21, Reply)