RED SHOES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 204, 30 August 1933, Page 17

RED SHOES.

(By ROBIN HYDE.)

If it hadu'fc been for The Landing, they might never have met. A queer, dimmish second-storey sort of place, The Landing, with a mournful representation of that excellent piece of Victorian art, "The Doctor," lit up by a yellowish gleam of pilot's light, one special glow, in particular, bearing a sad but extraordinary resemblance to a Saracen's eye. It was here that ships passed in the night—or rather, boarders scuttling furtively past one another were more like fugitive mice. Yet Tommy was haunted a little by The Landing. It reminded him, in a homesick way, of apple-lofts and bad lighting, and the amazing shadows only to be found in New Zealand country farmhouses. Rather more shy than the other boarders, he scuttled up and down a trifle more swiftly; and this headlong flight downstairs (at the time he couldn't breathe indoors in Auckland) brought him into contact with Ruth. Hβ said, "Ooh, I beg yours," but his mind registered a pleasing brown „ impression—hair, mackintosh, eyes, the inevitable cheap handbag, and most of all, the smooth, slick, unassuming brown of her perfectly plain brown shoes, size about four. She was (he didn't note it as yet), brown as the little farmhouse about which he felt so nostalgic, brown as the deeper shades of burnt field grasses, or nests which he had promptly demolished. Ruth replied appropriately, but not boldly. (He would havo hated that.) In Queen Street, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he swirled past people who, under parasols or brollies, according to season, merely looked something like toadstools. ("Drat 'em," his father

would sensibly have remarked.) On the hundredth time he might perhaps have made sheep's eyes at a girl. But Ruth, without being stiff, was quiet. And they said "Good-night" under tho sorrowful picture of "The Doctor," the first time Tommy had said "Good-night" with a glow in his very young heart since he had come to Auckland. They became friends; so slowly that it was quite painless, and almost jolly, even for Tommy. Milford and sea air and huge pines; Auckland, like a huge golden-stemmed wistaria flower, from Mount Eden's dusk. Tommy discovered Ruth's weakness; it was shoes. A bit awkward when you came to think of lush grass and, worse still, cow-bails at home (he had lived near Paeranga and had not the faintest intention, after his city sample as a grocery boy, of staying away from the country after "the old man" died). But you could say this for Ruth. Her shoes were always sensible. Brown lizard, guaranteed for years, real and without ornaments. Smooth dark green suede for something "flash"; black patents, with firm-looking buckles; but, most frequently of all, brown shoes like a country bird's nest; never once had he seen her in anything more gaudy than black satins for evening. On one occasion he watched Ruth look down her nose at a little yellow-haired minx in red patent shoes, jewelled heels, flippant jumper with puffed sleeves and an enormous bow at the neck. He shared his lady's disapproval, though Ruth said nothing—she merely looked it. He was glad that red 6hoes were never to disgrace the little hawthorn-shaded farm where they would live; for, tacitly, Ruth and Tommy were "walking out." Neither had mentioned it, but Tommy would have been cut to the quick if Ruth —his brown girl—had ever forgotten it. On the night of nights (a dazed, dreamy New Year's Eve) Tommy gave Ruth an enormous yellow balloon with a pig" B f ace > ail( l s^le P r e 3en ted them both with whistles. They started off from The , Landing—so happy, so dapper, Ruth almost pretty in her green coat— and saw the town. They grew tired of shopworn town faces very quickly, and came home by way of Albert Street. Never, never would Tommy forget the swishing sound Ruth's shoes—brown as a chocolate hen—made in the little pools of dried-up dead flowers under the lime trees, blossoms green-golden so short a while before.

Xi»ej down a street towards the Domain- On one tree, were great grey-purple flo Were, whose name Tommy

couldn't remember, but they were not a little like lilac-coloured moons. There was an ancient rhyme: One, and two and three, Round about the wlshlng-tree! No need for wish-foolery, but here was the wishing-tree in broad moonlight, and Ruth close to him. They stayed for a little while by a fern-hung bridge in the Domain. He was thinking how exactly right her name was . . . lluth. "Thy people shall be my people, and thy gods my gods." Couldn't have been righter. But Ruth —to-night she looked a little different. Sort of bubbly, like a fairy girl out of a witch book his mother had, and like one of three town people at the same time. Sort of lazy and yet almost gay. She wasn't in any hurry to get home, hut who would be, with such a moon? It was only a few days later, when he saw her full red mouth twisted like on angry child's . . . angry, and hurt, too. He asked her what the matter was, and she answered, quite without reserve, "Out of a job." She added, almost at once, as he knew she would, "Don't worry, I've got plenty to keep on living here." He could almost have laughed, thinking of the little brown farmhouse, for a letter in his ppcket said that the old man was pretty sick. Nobody wanted the old man to pass out —only another poet had written Tommy's lines for his brown girl: But oh, my God — The down, the soft, young down of her! The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair! ' Weeks passed while the old man was sick —and you couldn't help seeing that Ruth had an almost greedy look, when tho two passed the brightly-lit shoe ehops. Her own shoes were getting , — sort of down-at-heel—but bless the girl, at the farmhouse that didn't go for anything, and besides, Tommy meant to give her new pairs before they were married, maybe two or three of them. They stopped "walking out" when one night on The Landing, she stuck out her brown shoes before him, in a light suddenly gone crazy, and cried out in- a harsh, strained voice, "Look at them — look at them!" He was almost too shocked to see- (and he know, anyhow) that they were twisted right over, with flapping soles. But for Ruth to call out like a beggar —maybe a thief—wae a bit too much for Tommy. He'd have taken her back, maybe. Next day her eyes were brown and soft and stricken, as they had looked before, woodland eyes, deer's eyes. But that sort of girl has to be taught her lesson. So. he waited- a day or two. He saw her late one night at a dance, next time, with a chap who —well, they had only one name for his sort back home. Well set up and all, she wae, the little turncoat . . . green satin with that diamond stuff, hair done up to the nines ... oh, all the things Ruth and Tommy hated. But what he couldn't take his eyes off was her shoes —red, with diamond heels. A let-off, that's what she was for him. But he couldn't get it out of his head that the little brown farmhouee would bo haunted now by wings . . . soft, brown wings, and brought down clear out of season.