4.

       The Shoe Watcher

      Lou Suffern always had two places to be at the one time. When asleep, he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of that day while making plans for the next, so that when he was awakened by his alarm at six a.m. every morning, he found himself to be very poorly rested. When in the shower, he rehearsed presentations and, on occasion, with one hand outside of the shower curtain he responded to emails on his BlackBerry. While eating breakfast he read the newspaper, and when being told rambling stories by his five-year-old daughter, he listened to the morning news. When his thirteen-month-old son demonstrated new skills each day, Lou’s face displayed interest while at the same time the inner workings of his brain were analysing why he felt the exact opposite. When kissing his wife goodbye, he was thinking of another.

      Every action, movement, appointment, a doing or thought of any kind, was layered by another. Driving to work was also a conference call by speakerphone. Breakfasts ran into lunches, lunches into pre-dinner drinks, drinks into dinners, dinners into after-dinner drinks, after-dinner drinks into … well, that depended on how lucky he got. On those lucky nights at whatever house, apartment, hotel room or office that he felt himself appreciating his luck and the company of another, he of course would convince those who wouldn’t share his appreciation – namely his wife – that he was in another place. To them, he was stuck in a meeting, at an airport, finishing up some important paperwork, or buried in the maddening Christmas traffic. Two places, quite magically, at once.

      Everything overlapped, he was always moving, always had someplace else to be, always wished that he was elsewhere or that, thanks to some divine intervention, he could be in both places at the same time. He’d spend as little time as possible with each person and leave them feeling that it was enough. He wasn’t a tardy man, he was precise, always on time. In business he was a master timekeeper; in life he was a broken pocket watch. He strove for perfection and possessed boundless energy in his quest for success. However, it was these bounds – so eager to attain his fast-growing list of desires and so full of ambition to reach new dizzying heights – that caused him to soar above the heads of the most important. There was no appointed time in his schedule for those whom, given the time of day, could lift him higher in more ways than any new deal could possibly accomplish.

      On one particular cold Tuesday morning along the continuously developing dockland of Dublin city, Lou’s black leather shoes, polished to perfection, strolled confidently across the eyeline of one particular man. This man watched the shoes in movement that morning, as he had yesterday and as he assumed he would tomorrow. There was no best foot forward, for both were equal in their abilities. Each stride was equal in length, the heel-to-toe combination so precise; his shoes pointing forward, heels striking first and then pushing off from the big toe, flexing at the ankle. Perfect each time. The sound rhythmic as they hit the pavement. There was no heavy pounding to shake the ground beneath him, as was the case with the decapitated others who raced by at this hour with their heads still on their pillows despite their bodies being out in the fresh air. No, his shoes made a tapping sound as intrusive and unwelcome as raindrops on a conservatory roof, the hem of his trousers flapping slightly like a flag in a light breeze on an eighteenth hole.

      The watcher half-expected the slabs of pavement to light up as he stepped on each, and for the owner of the shoes to break out into a tap dance about how swell and dandy the day was turning out to be. For the watcher, a swell and dandy day it was most certainly going to be.

      Usually the shiny black shoes beneath the impeccable black suits would float stylishly by the watcher, through the revolving doors and into the grand marble entrance of the latest modern glass building to be squeezed through the cracks of the quays and launched up into the Dublin sky. But that morning the shoes stopped directly before the watcher. And then they turned, making a gravelly noise as they pivoted on the cold concrete. The watcher had no choice but to lift his gaze from the shoes.

      ‘Here you go,’ Lou said, handing him a coffee. ‘It’s an Americano, hope you don’t mind, they were having problems with the machine so they couldn’t make a latte.’

      ‘Take it back then,’ the watcher said, turning his nose up at the cup of steaming coffee offered to him.

      This was greeted by a stunned silence.

      ‘Only joking.’ He laughed at the startled look, and very quickly – in case the joke was unappreciated and the gesture was rethought and withdrawn – reached for the cup and cradled it with his numb fingers. ‘Do I look like I care about steamed milk?’ he grinned, before his expression changed to a look of pure ecstasy. ‘Mmmm.’ He pushed his nose up against the rim of the cup to smell the coffee beans. He closed his eyes and savoured it, not wanting the sense of sight to take away from this divine smell. The cardboard-like cup was so hot, or his hands so cold, that it burned right through them, sending torpedoes of heat and shivers through his body. He hadn’t known how cold he was until he’d felt the heat.

      ‘Thanks very much indeed.’

      ‘No problem. I heard on the radio that today’s going to be the coldest day of the year.’ The shiny shoes stamped the concrete slabs and his leather gloves rubbed together as proof of his word.

      ‘Well, I’d believe them all right. Never mind the brass monkeys, it’s