Guy Jenkin

his lips mauve

It was mad to be in a shop buying shoes when her father was a shoemaker. When she’d threatened to come home with a pair, he’d told her that he’d throw them on the fire

her hose, and she was going to spend part of one on some shoes that didn’t leak, her father be damned.

The shoemaker’s wife sat, with a baby on her breast, on a stool by the door.