Interlude

Anna had never had the chance to wear those red shoes before. They were an impulse buy (sale – 50% off!) and her rush of bravado at the till, exchanging tender for something much more brash, had waned by the time she had got home. They had hidden uncharacteristically out of the limelight (under her bed) until today, where they now stood challenging her from the mantelpiece. Still – the red shoes were the only thing that matched and today was, Anna conceded, a special occasion.

They were beautiful. They were terrifying. The two characteristics were intrinsically linked in all areas of life - she thought of swans - so it was only logical that it was no different with the shoes. Look at me, they said, unashamed. Just look. They waited patently for admiration, like a painting on the wall. Did either exist without an audience? (Anna was aiming for beautiful today.)

Later, Anna would walk in those shoes, feeling that even her gait had been elevated into something wonderful, as if she floated above the ground. The only reminder of her earthly existence was click-after-self-important-click, signalling to all that she (click) had (click) arrived (click.) They walked her past some business event at the gallery, swiftly moving her away from the flat leather soles of a girl stood alone, offering wine (excitement filled her bones with enough intoxication - she didn't need any more help with this).

Later, Anna would wish back to the time with the wine, desperately dreaming of the help it would bring. Maybe it would give her an excuse. (Maybe it would have fuelled her on.) Maybe they would have been more sympathetic if she wasn't entirely in control. (Maybe they would have judged her more. Maybe they didn't think she was in control anyway.) She would look down with the horror of 'What Have I Done?'; with the red of sin flashing belated warnings catching her eyes. She would try to click her heels and wish for home, but they had melted into puddles, burning with shame. They would lose all beauty for her and all that remained would be terror.

Now: With the shoes overseeing operations, it was time to choose the dress. The whole wardrobe opened itself up to Anna, offering her all the pleasures from within. What went with red? Her nails, painted perfectly for the tone of the whole ensemble, tapped a pattern into the wood as she considered. There was always black. Black went with red. Black went with everything. It would be cheating to consider black with shoes like those. (This was a celebration, not a funeral.) She flicked through the hangers, fabric swaying to her command beneath her fingertips. A blue dress (another impulse buy) slipped from her grasp, falling at her feet. She turned to the shoes. They nodded in affirmation. The Gods had spoken.

God, how she would wish they hadn't. Later that would be a half-prayer in her mind, cursing fate for the perfect coordination of two impulse-buy items, spurring impulsive behaviour on her part. She would forget the weighty amount of consideration that had come before, and curse herself for a silliness she hadn't thought through - though she'd thought this eventuality through too! She had decided it all in his company, each step imagined and re-imagined on every day since. A receipt, carefully filed, smugly announced proof of a murder weapon and intention much prior the event, but god, god, god how she would curse her impulsiveness. Sometimes she was so spur-of-the-moment, sometimes she even bought stupid red shoes without thinking.

Before that, she would slowly and purposefully walk through the gallery. The dress would sway with each step, boldly calling out to be noticed. (Look at us.) This was an outfit with which to conquer the world. (This was an outfit to fall in love in.) Her hands would shake lightly – she imagined lipstick across her cheek, knocked by this unsteadiness -, and she'd begin to breathe, slowly, purposefully. That wasn't the image she was aiming for, she must be calmer. It would seem she had borrowed a hummingbird's heart, vibrating the cavity of her ribs, reverberating through her. She was a group of closely packed sound waves, jittering across the page with rapid terror. She was a 'seven' on the Richter Scale, about to knock the earth off-axis. She was just a girl in red shoes and a blue dress. What power did she have?

He had talked about the power of symbolism, she remembered that. She remembered most things he said, but that stuck in her mind. He was hopelessly romantic (an art professor) on that front. He would never buy a girl flowers, because of the death that followed the beauty. He had made a joke here about la petite mort (wrapping a naked arm around her) and she had giggled, hopelessly. Giggled! Here was an educated man making an educated joke, and she had acted like she was still in compulsory education, laughing only from compulsion to impress rather than understanding. Oh, she understood. She would stand before the place that they had met in the gallery, understanding completely. He had talked about the power of symbolism. She was a girl in red heels and a blue dress. What power did she have? Well... this was an outfit with which to conquer the world. Symbolically, she could. She would.

They had been stood separately before this painting, strangers to each other. The picture itself was a modern thing, a portrait of a man's face. The canvas was big, stretched far across the small gallery's wall, and the man was sideways, forcing an intimacy as if you were lying down next to him (or the artist were). Each eyelash; each skin dimple; every inflection within his iris was replicated so that if the man were to walk in right then, you would just need to count his freckles for a definite identification. (Later, she imagined that's how the police had created her e-fit, imagined the policemen counting the constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose before letting her go – mistake with the picture; they'd missed two out.) There had been a lot of fuss about the painting in the paper - rave reviews! - but it just made Anna feel uncomfortable. She was stood before a stranger, sharing an intimate moment with them that they'd never be able to share back. Moments like that weren't down to the placement of an eyebrow hair, or the gleam of a tooth between slightly parted lips. They were about the soft-focussed blur of intimacy, the feeling of total security for brief moments in life.

“I just don't get it,” she had said to the man in the painting, slightly sorry she was forsaking their beautiful moment together. That's all it really was - a single moment - stretched across time, across canvas, perfect and whole. That's what he said to her, the art professor. He had leaned over and, forgive the intrusion, but may I ask about your confusion? She had explained and he nodded. Looking at this painting seemed to invite you into someone's life for a brief moment, allowing you into a snapshot of intimacy, though never for long enough that reality would seep in to ruin it. It wasn't about the romance, it was a celebration of the reality of this brevity in all areas of life.

Much later, she realised she had fallen for this hook, line and stupid, stupid, stupid sinker. It was humiliating. At the time, though, she had imagined him as a perfect, brief moment in her life. He had been respectful and knowledgeable and oh-so-very-handsome and, for eight hours, entirely hers. She had left, head ringing with symbolism and sweet sorrow (as parting often is). She had left, knowing she'd never see him again. She had imagined the whole thing like a whale momentarily disembodied from the body of water in which it belongs - out of place and all the more glorious for it. That image would make her laugh loudly in disbelief later, so aware of her ridiculousness. That would be much, much later though. Long after the red shoes had been abandoned.

For now, she stood before her mirror, dressed in red shoes and a blue dress. Her hair had been curled softly, falling beneath her shoulders, and her eyes had carefully been underlined with foundation creating a blank canvas of her face. In her hand was the murder weapon, for it would be Anna Sealey in the Contemporary Room, with the red lipstick. She was fuelled by the symbolism of a night spent with a man who believed heavily in it. Symbolism for the love of the painting (because of him), love of him (or the snapshot of him in her mind) and these dual moments represented in the stretch of fabric and splash of paint that she'd later stand in front of. Slowly, calmly, she would paint her own lips in red, sharing that intimate moment with the man whose lips were painted only, who couldn't look back at her. Then, ignoring all security measures and alarms, she would lean forwards, and kiss the canvas.

But for now – she stood before the mirror, surveying her appearance. She was a girl in red shoes and a blue dress... and she looked good.