Colum McCann - Dancer

if you’re adjusting the vamp and it’s too stiff just use a little Brylcreem to soften it,

soap the satin clean of dust not only before but during and especially after the making of the shoe,

think of yourself as the foot,

and the only thing that disturbs the rhythm of his shoemaking is the soccer match each Saturday, he makes the trip half a mile down the road to watch Arsenal, and on alternating weeks he supports the reserves, a red-and-white scarf wrapped around his neck, standing in the terraces, for which he has built himself a special pair of shoes that give him another four inches, since he is a small man and he wants to watch the game over the other fans’ heads, Arsenal! Arsenal! the sway of the crowd as the ball is swept around the pitch, the spin, the dribble, the nutmeg, the volley, it is perhaps not entirely unlike ballet, everything in the feet is what matters, not that he would ever see a ballet, a notion inherited from his father

stay out of the theaters, son, don’t ever go watch,

no point in seeing your shoes ripped to pieces,

tune your shoes, that’s all,

and at halftime he finds his mind drifting back to the shoes in his room, how he can improve on them, if the shank was too tight, if the box could have been toughened, until he hears the crowd roaring and sees the teams trotting out onto the pitch, the referee’s shrill whistle, and the match begins again, the ball tipped on by Jackie Henderson, taken down the wing by George Eastham, and then swung across into the center for David Herd to head home, and the shoemaker jumps in the air on his false shoes and rips his hat from his head, revealing his baldness, and after the match he walks home with the singing crowd, swept along, sometimes he is pinned against a wall for a moment by the bigger men, though it is not far to the house, and he is embarrassed if he meets Mrs. Bennett at the door, she has not yet figured out how come he is taller on Saturdays, A cup of tea, Mr. Ashworth? No, ta, Mrs. Bennett, up to his room to look at his work, to trim the cardboard where there is a bump invisible to any normal eye, or to feather the shank down with a skiv, and then he lines the shoes up by his bedside table, so that on Sunday, after a sleep-in, they are the first thing he sees, pleasing him no end, even thinking of them while in church, walking heavy-footed back down the aisle after services, among the ladies in hats and veils, out into the sunlight, a deep breath and a sigh of relief, away from the church grounds, past the suburban gardens, taking the remainder of Sunday as a day of rest, a pint of bitter and a spot of lunch, reading the paper in the park, November 6, two days past his forty-fourth birthday— Hague Agreement to Be Altered, U.S. Charges Cuban Spy, Soviet Dancer to Arrive in London —a story he knows well, since the sketches of the feet came in last week, he is due to start work on the shoes first thing in the morning, a thought that occupies him as he prepares for bed, and ten hours later he emerges at Covent Garden in the sunlight, walks towards the shop, keen to get going, Mr. Reed the boss slapping him on the shoulder, Good morning, Tom oul’ son, and he leaves the toe shoes from the weekend in the front office, enters the shop, takes off his overcoat, puts on his large white apron, fires up the ovens, seventy degrees — hot enough to harden shoes but not melt the satin — and then he goes downstairs to the leather room, wanting to find a number of good sturdy hides before the other makers arrive, smells the leather, rubs his hands over the grain, then straight upstairs with the hides and a bucket of glue beneath his arm, to his work desk, the makers arriving, all cricket and wives and hangovers, nodding at him, he is the best of them, they have a deep respect for him, coming as he does from the line of Ashworths, the greatest makers of them all, craftsmen, the insignia on their shoes down over the years a simple

a

a little more intricate than those of any of the other makers, who all have their own flourishes — a squiggle, a circle, a triangle — placed on the sole, so the dancers know their makers, and some of the fans even go to the dustbins behind the theaters to rescue the ruined shoes, to see who made them, the Ashworths being coveted, but Tom isn’t troubled by the pressure, he gives himself to his work, spectacles on the bridge of his nose, studying the sketches of the Russian’s feet, the specifications in from Paris,

the size, the width, the length of the toes,

the angle of the nails, the ball of the foot, the way the ligaments come to the ankle,

the spread of the heel, the blisters, the bone spurs,

and just by the sketches alone he knows the life of this foot, raised in barefoot poverty and — from the unusual wideness of the bone structure — bare on concrete rather than grass, then squeezed into shoes that were too small, coming to dance later than usual given the smallness yet breadth of the foot, 7 EEE, then a great violence done by excessive training, many hard angles, but a remarkable strength, and stretching back from his worktable, Tom Ashworth smiles, shakes out his hands, and then is lost in the work, silent as if in a trance, making one pair of men’s boots in the first hour, three in the second, slow for him, the order is forty pairs, a full day’s work, maybe even two if he runs into difficulty, for the Russian desires his shoes made with a reverse channel construction, meaning two large hook needles must be used and — even though it’s a much easier proposition than making toe shoes for a ballerina — it requires time and intimacy, and he stops only when a shout goes up for lunch break, a moment he relishes, sandwiches and tea, the younger cobblers a bit cheeky, How’s the commie shoes then, eh? to which he nods and smiles — when the other makers saw the sketches they shouted, Defected my arse! Defective more likely! He’s a bleeding commie ain’t he? No he ain’t, he’s one of us. One of us? I seen him on telly and he looks a right bloody poofter! — and when lunch is finished he’s back with the sketches, afraid he has made a wrong move somewhere, the figures trilling through his head, keeping the inside-out shoes moist with wet cloths, his bald head shining, he stitches by hand, invoking the Ashworth spirit, then brings the shoes to the drying oven, which he checks again with the thermometer to make sure it is seventy degrees

after all, no matter who the shoes are for, or why, they always have to be perfect.

August 12

The wooden shutters on the windows blew open last night and banged until the morning.

August 13

Up before dawn with the radio, listening, but fell back to sleep. When I woke Father had already eaten breakfast. He said, You must rest, daughter. And yet he is the one feeling sickly. The past weeks have worn him out. I beseeched him to return to bed. Still he insisted on accompanying Mother and me to the market. Father does not talk to anyone when he goes out, for fear of what will be said, even though it has not been officially announced. He walks with his head down as if they have put something heavy on his neck, his forehead brought low with the weight of it. At the Krassina market we found three bundles of spinach. No meat. Father took both canvas bags at first. We switched when we got near the fountain on October Prospect. The stone wall has cracked in the heat. He was bent over with exhaustion. When he gave me the second bag he said, You must forgive, Tamara. And yet there is nothing for me to forgive. What is to forgive? I had a brother, he is gone, that is all.

August 16