Page 4 of Someone Else's Shoes
‘You know. Rather than the five-quid-no-teeth-blowjob kind …’
Sam waits for Joel’s laughter to die down. ‘Well, thanks, Ted,’ she says, staring out of the window. ‘I feel so much better now.’
The meeting isn’t in an office, as she had expected. There is a problem in Transport, and they will have to pitch in the loading area, where Michael Frampton is going to be overseeing some issue with a botched hydraulic system. Sam tries to walk in the heels, feeling the cold air on her feet. She wishes she had had a pedicure, maybe some time since 2009. Her ankles keep wobbling, as if they’re made of rubber, and she wonders how on earth anyone is expected to walk normally in footwear like this. Joel was right. These are not shoes for standing up in.
‘You okay?’ says Ted, as they draw closer to the group of men.
‘No,’ she mutters. ‘I feel like I’m walking on chopsticks.’
A forklift truck carries a huge bale of paper in front of them, causing them to swerve, and her to stumble, its beep a warning that sounds almost deafening in the cavernous space. She watches as every man around the lorry swivels his head to look at her. And then down at her shoes.
‘Thought you weren’t coming.’
Michael Frampton is a dour Yorkshireman, the kind who will let you know how hard he’s had it, and simultaneously imply that you haven’t, in any conversational exchange.
Sam musters a smile. ‘So sorry,’ she says, her voice bright. ‘We had another meeting which –’
‘Traffic,’ says Joel, simultaneously, and they glance awkwardly at each other.
‘Sam Kemp. We met at –’
‘I remember you,’ he says, and looks down. He spends an uncomfortable two minutes talking through the contents of a clipboard with a young man in overalls, and Sam stands helplessly, conscious of the casual curious glances of the men around him. Her inappropriate shoes glow like radioactive beacons on her feet.
‘Right,’ says Michael, when he finally finishes. ‘I have to tell you before we start that Printex have offered us very competitive terms.’
‘Well, we –’ Sam begins.
‘And they say you won’t have the flexibility now Grayside has been swallowed up by a bigger company.’
‘Well, that’s not entirely true. What we have now is volume, quality and – reliability.’
She feels faintly stupid as she speaks, as if everyone is looking at her, as if it is obvious that she is a middle-aged woman in somebody else’s shoes. She stammers her way through themeeting, stumbling over her answers and flushing, feeling everyone’s eyes on her feet.
Finally she pulls a folder from her bag. It contains the quote she has spent hours refining and laying out. She makes to walk across to hand it to Michael, but her heel catches on something. She stumbles and twists her ankle, sending a sharp pain up her leg. She turns her grimace into a smile, and hands him the file. He glances down at it, flicking through the pages, not looking at her. Eventually she walks away, slowly, trying not to wobble.
Finally, Michael looks up. ‘We’re looking at serious numbers for this next order. So we need to make sure we’re with a firm that can definitely deliver.’
‘We’ve delivered for you before, Mr Frampton. And last month we worked with Greenlight on a similar run of catalogues. They were very impressed with the quality.’
His whole face is an extended frown. ‘Can I take a look at what you did for them?’
‘Sure.’
She flicks through her folder and remembers suddenly that the Greenlight catalogue is in the blue folder on the dashboard of the van, the one she had thought she wouldn’t need. And that that involves walking out of this loading area and across the car park, in full view of all the men. She looks meaningfully at Joel.
‘Why don’t I go and get it?’ says Joel.
‘What other samples have you got in the van?’ says Frampton.
‘Well, we did a similar run for Clarks Office Supplies. In fact, we have quite a few different catalogues from last month. Joel, could you –’
‘Nah. I’ll take a look myself.’ Frampton starts to walk. Thismeans she has to. She sets off, a little more stiffly, alongside him.
‘What we need,’ he says, thrusting his hands into his pockets, ‘is a print partner who is fast-moving, someone flexible. Fleet-footed, if you like.’
He is striding too briskly. It is at this point that she turns her ankle again on the uneven surface, and lets out a yelp. Joel thrusts out an arm just as her knees buckle and she’s forced to grab it to stay upright. She smiles awkwardly as Frampton looks at them, his face unreadable.
Later, she will recall, her ears hot with embarrassment, his muttered words to Joel. The last words he will utter to Grayside Print.
