But it would be truer, I think, to say it started when I asked my father, one bright and not too cold Saturday in May, what he’d like to do that afternoon, running through with him the various possibilities: a short walk across Norman Park to the shops on Chatterton Road, a ride into Bromley High Street on the bus, or perhaps just put on our coats and bring out the folding chairs from the garage and sit on the patio in the sunshine and talk? Truer to say that it started when to each of these suggestions he shook his head and said what he’d really like to do was to drive to Moravia, to the shoe museum in Zlín. His cleaning lady had told him about it. They had Smetana’s slippers there, he said, and a pair of riding boots that had belonged to King Wenceslas. He’d always been interested in shoes and very fastidious about his own – for as long as I could remember his London shoes had been for going up to London; his Bromley High Street shoes for going to Bromley High Street; his Chatterton Road shoes for crossing Norman Park to the shops on Chatterton Road; his Upstairs shoes for upstairs; his Downstairs shoes for downstairs.
What do You think about New Welsh Short Stories (2015)?
