In memoriam John Baddeley

A dripping mass of leaves and twigs slapped across the window. The bus began very slowly to take the hill.

Near the top, in an oval of meeting branches, a horse and rider were visible, reduced to immobility by the distance, the drizzle, and the drops on the glass, as if fixed with a few blobs on a miniature.

The bus growled closer. He could see that the rider must be a girl. The animal’s bright hooves flopped through the puddles and steam fumed from its sides. But she sat completely straight, her head slightly raised, her thighs gripping firmly. As they passed, the boy glimpsed a pale, finely chiselled nose, blue eyes, and short fair hair beneath the helmet.

Lone rider!.. Dare he turn?

‘Smoking a bit heavy aren’t you, son?’ said the gaffer in the seat in front, and moved further off.

Half-term seemed really long, even if they were going back the day after tomorrow. Just a few days off, and you began to relax, to live ‘properly’, to take some pretty unusual things for granted. That blonde bombshell, for instance.

But there was the cathedral above the shingle roofs, here he was clambering down from the upper deck, now he was about to set off into the city centre to do his ‘shopping’, and –

He frowned. Opposite the bus station was the side entrance to a department store. He knew that it had an amazing modern bookshop. He looked round casually, crossed the road, and half an hour later emerged with a copy of Brave New World.

He set off in the direction of the old, unbombed part of the city, where his mother had told him to buy a new pair of black shoes at a half-timbered shop called Hartley & Brown. But then he stopped. What was wrong with buying them from Wisemans, which he had just come out of? They had a whole floor of shoe shops, strip-lit, glassy, and open plan. It would mean he need not go near the cathedral, whose presence he found oppressive. He was already a bit behind, so going back into Wisemans would buy him time.

He walked out of the lift, turned right into the footwear department, and the first thing that caught his eye was the words ‘For the Teenager’ on the wall in a far corner. He made for it over new, seemingly perfumed carpeting.

A girl, or, well, a young woman, was sitting to the right of the till with her legs stretched in front of her, her hands together in her lap, her eyes open, but apparently dreaming. He approached. With a little jerk of the head, she stood up, smiled, and came towards him. She had short, wavy black hair, a thin line of lipstick, and wore black trousers, a light-grey top, and black open cardigan, beneath which he registered small, young, but perfectly formed breasts.

‘Can I help you..?’

She smiled even more, with her bright dark eyes, and looked at him comfortably but very directly. In a flash he realised that she was only a year or two older than himself.

‘Yes. Thank you very much. I’m looking for a pair of black shoes – ’

Suddenly a large, florid man erupted through the curtain to the left of the till.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ he effused, adding: ‘That’s all right, Anita, just watch.’

‘Yes, Mr Brimley.’

‘I’m looking for a pair of black shoes for less formal occasions…’

‘Certainly, sir. And what size would that be?’

‘Nine and a half.’

The man actually closed his eyes, wrung his hands, and cocked his head in ecstasy at the ceiling.

‘We have just the shoe for you, sir. Anita, fetch the gentleman a pair of Crox size nine and half, and make them snappy, hahaha!’

The girl darted through the curtain, darted back, and handed her boss the box. He removed the lid with a flourish, rustled apart the tissue paper, and presented the creation on his open palm.

‘There we are, sir, the very latest in teenage fashion. Crox from Liverpool!’

The boy eyed them critically. They weren’t actually black, but a very dark, night blue. It was matt with sort of contour lines visible in the leather; you couldn’t polish it. And they were gussetted; no laces. They looked rather tapered, and their black rubber soles were fiercely serrated, hence, presumably, their name.

‘Can I try them on?’

‘Of course, sir, of course!’ The manager beckoned him to a foot-rest and gently, professionally fitted one for him with a horn. He pressed the toe.

‘There you are, sir, plenty of growing room, they will fit perfectly. Put the other one on, would you, and try walking about… How do you find them?’

‘Very comfortable. Very comfortable.’

‘I thought so. They suit you, sir, in fact if you don’t mind me saying so they are you!’

The boy ruminated. They were not, perhaps, what his mother had in mind, but you were allowed to wear gussets in the sixth form, and he was sure they would cost less than the money she had given him. And he would be able to wear them outside school. The bloke was right: they were ‘him’, they were slightly sneakerish and mod, his friends would ask him where he had bought them.

‘Thank you. Yes, they’re excellent. I’ll take them. How much do they cost?’

‘Anita, that will be three pounds nineteen and sixpence from the gentleman, please.’

The girl bobbed, smiled with both mouth and eyes, and went round to the till. This was more money than the boy was expecting, but even so he would be bringing his mother plenty of change. He paid. The bloke reassembled the box, slid it into a paper bag, and thrust it out.

‘There we are, sir. It’s been a pleasure to serve you!’

He had hardly walked eight paces when he heard Brimley say something to the girl about ‘butter up’. He half-glanced behind him. Brimley was disappearing through the curtain, but the girl gave the boy her nice smile.

With his two paper bags, he ambled to W.H. Smith’s and bought a German newspaper. He read it ostentatiously over lunch in an unpretentious café he knew, then smoked a miniature cigar with his coffee.

The bus home filled up rapidly. At the first village a bulky middle-aged couple got on. There were only two empty seats downstairs. The woman made it to the back seat, the man gripped the rail and swayed there with a stick.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said to him.

‘I will do, when this cowboy has moved!’

The boy started. He was blocking the window seat. Presumably the bloke was referring to his artificial leather jacket. The boy got up and stood in the gangway. With a dramatic sigh, the bloke struggled to the window seat.

The boy resumed reading Brave New World, which was to be a set book. Suddenly, he remembered the shoes. He put the book back in its bag, manoeuvred the lid off the box on his lap, and parted the tissue paper. The natural light accentuated the contour lines on them and brought out the blue. They were distinctly pointed…and he wasn’t sure he liked the jagged soles after all. Crikey, now he looked at them more closely, had he made a terrible mistake? But no: they were allowed more relaxed shoes in the sixth form, and these shoes would definitely go with what he wore among his friends. No, they were what he wanted. But what would his mother say?

She caught him as he was passing through the kitchen, and exploded.

‘Those are aw-ful! What on earth were you thinking of? Or were you thinking at all in that head of yours? I can’t believe it! I gave you six pounds ten to buy a good pair of black leather lace-ups from Hartley and Brown, and you come home with winkle-pickers! Where did you get them?’

‘At Wisemans…’

‘A cheap and nasty department store! Why? Why? You can’t possibly wear those to school – ’

‘But we are allowed to wear gussets and less formal things now.’

‘Well you’re not going to! You flatly ignored what I told you, and have made me buy you a pair of vulgar winkle-pickers. They’re not even black! Why do you do these things to me?! You won’t be able to wear them at weddings, funerals, or anything else – everyone will think you’re a teddy boy!’

‘They won’t think I’m that…’

‘Well. You can take them straight back. Tomorrow. I don’t know who managed to sell you this rubbish, but you can go straight over there, demand my money back, and then go and do what I told you to.’

Drained and almost trembling, he went up to his room. Dammit…perhaps he hadn’t thought carefully enough before he bought Crox. He definitely wanted to keep them, though. He got out his National Savings book and counted the money in his wallet. He couldn’t afford them, given his other expenses. But he was in despair at the idea of persuading that fat arse Brimley to give him his money back – and he was sure Brimley had nothing ‘For the Teenager’ that he could exchange for them, so what was he going to do? It was an impossible situation. Tomorrow would be like going to the scaffold. Maybe if his mother took the shoes back, she’d be able to persuade Brimley… But she would never do that.

When the boy entered the shop in the middle of the afternoon next day, Brimley was attending to a mother and son and did not acknowledge his arrival. Anita, however, noticed him and smiled.

After an agonizing wait, Brimley saw his satisfied customers off and his eyes lighted on the boy. He beamed.

‘Well well, sir, have you come back for more? What can we do for you?’

The boy went over to the two of them and tendered the shoebox to Brimley on both hands.

‘Er, I’m afraid there is a bit of a problem, Mr Brimley… I haven’t worn the shoes, because my mother doesn’t like them.’

‘Your mother doesn’t like them?’ He was genuinely taken aback.

‘No. You see, she sent me out to buy some shoes and I bought the wrong ones. Now she would like you to take them back and…refund her money.’

‘Oh no, son, I’m very sorry, we can’t do that. I thought you were buying the shoes, not your mother! Don’t you like them?’

‘Yes, yes. I do. But you see, she gave me the money to buy a pair of black leather lace-ups…for school. And I rather forgot… My mother is… She doesn’t understand shoes like Crox.’

‘I see – I think. Where is the receipt?’

‘I…I can’t find it anywhere, Mr Brimley. I think I lost it…’

‘Well, I can’t give you any money back, and we don’t sell school wear, but I might just be able to help you. How much is your mother prepared to spend?’

‘Yesterday she gave me six pound ten and I’ve brought the change with me.’

‘Right, son. Wait here. Put the shoes over there and I’ll see if I can fix something up with one of my colleagues. I can’t promise anything. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Anita, watch the shop.’

He adjusted his tie, put on an important-morbid expression, and sailed away.

When he had gone, Anita sat down beside the till and looked across at the boy. She stretched her legs out and placed her hands in her lap as she had yesterday. In her concentration on him, however, she slid her hands down the sides of her groin. She bent forward slightly and even moved her hands up and down in the creases.

‘Good grief, what’s she doing, that’s her pubic hair, her mons Veneris,’ thought the boy in shock, but instantly knew he could never think of such a girl in that way. 

She leant further forward, smiling at him with her beautiful, sensitive mouth and her dark eyes, which were as wide as wide, as still as still on him. He felt she saw directly, unwaveringly, lovingly right into him.

‘What happened?’ she asked him softly.

© Patrick Miles, 2021

Happy Christmas to all our readers!

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SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS 

‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine

‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian

‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’  Michael Pursglove, East-West Review

‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter

‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer

‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18

A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.

A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.