Stepping back into the past with a new pair of boots

A new pair of football boots are sitting on a rack in a shop in the midlands.

They’re heavily discounted in the post-Christmas sales — discounted so far that you’re drawn to wonder what must be wrong with them.

You don’t play anymore, undone by age, so you wander on and leave them sitting snugly beside each other, a perfect pair.

And then old habits take a hold of you and you wander back.

You look at them for a little bit, as if standing in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris.

You wonder, more than anything else, why it is you keep looking.

It’s not that you’re transfixed, more than you’ve been transported to another place and you’re beginning not really to think properly anymore.

So you pick up the boots. And you examine them. And they perform the miracle of becoming even more perfect.

The stitching and the laces and the cut of the ankle, the run of the cogs beneath the sole, the way the flap sits down. You push your thumb against the insole and marvel at how light and soft everything seems. The boots have the feel of being more comfortable than worn slippers.

Still, you move to put them back on the rack. Because you’re 47 and buying a new pair of football boots for yourself makes no sense. Unless you’re one of those freakish outliers who have denied time and social conventions and the decline of their own bodies to continue to play. And you haven’t managed that.

But then you make a mistake — you smell the boots.

From that moment it’s over.

The boots smell like Christmas morning and being a child and the unbridled joy of opening a box, knowing what’s going to be in there, but being wild with excitement anyway.

You smell away and it’s intoxicating.

But you keep your dignity — you’re not going to kiss the boots in public. You’re better than that. Not even a sneaky one. Maybe later, in the privacy of your own home. Or, more likely, when you get back to the car and you open the box for a second time because the journey home would be impossible to make with the longing.

You know already that you’ll take them out of the box and put them on the passenger seat beside you for the spin home.

You tell the shop assistant that you’d like to try them on. For ‘a friend’. And she brings out the boots and leaves them in your hands. There’s the trace of a smile on her face.

You take out the paper that was nursed into the toe of the boots and sit there pushing the tops of the laces through the holes and making sure the length of lace on each crossing is exactly right.

You love the fact that nobody has put their feet in these boots before now. Although you wish you’d better socks on. And that they weren’t so obviously odd.

The shop is fairly busy – there are people all around and you can hear them but your only interest now is the boots.

The lacing is done. A little pause. And a shift of the body on the leather stool. And then the boots are on, one after the next time, first the left and then the right, as always.

You take care tying them up, the left foot is smaller than the right one, so you tighten it a little bit further.

You stand up and flex into them and gently move.

And it’s pure bliss. They’ve clearly been made only for you. And you know you’re buying them now. You’ve known, of course, for a while now, definitely since you smelled them, but possibly even from when you saw them on the rack.

All doubt has now been obliterated. You don’t want these boots — you need them.

And then you hear a snort.

‘You’re not buying those boots, are you? For fuck sake! You must be 50!’

‘Howareya, haven’t seen you in a while.’

‘I’m grand. But what are you doing buying boots?’

And then you explain what’s after happening – the glimpse, the walk away, the walk back, the feel of the boots, the smell and the urge to try them on. And you say, ‘Sure, you know yourself….’

But he says, ‘No. What would you want boots for?’

And then you remember what he was like when he played.

How he never really could kick a ball without finding someone to run into first. And, even then, that he should kick it at all seemed both an after-thought and at least a mild surprise.

For 15 minutes, the two of you stand chatting in the middle of the shop. The present is abandoned and, instead, it’s back to the solace of the past: Matches and fights and arguments and pints. You wallow in the nostalgia, ignoring the fact that you would gladly have poisoned each other for the best part of two decades.

And then gone on to the wake for a good look just to make sure you’d been successful.

All the time you’re standing there in a pair of football boots, perfectly laced-up, the black leather shaping itself around your feet in an embrace that could not be more natural.

His sons come over and there are introductions. They’re huge lads, bigger than you, but with the faces of teenagers still waiting to grow into themselves. You ask about school and football and then it ends in handshakes and good wishes.

As he turns away, he says with a smile to the boys (but really to you): ‘Come on, we may go. We better let this lad buy his boots.’ And the two sons stop, unsure what he’s talking about. Then they look down and they see the football boots sticking out from under your jeans.

You don’t exactly blush, but you’re not looking forward to having to explain things again. The lads are great, though – they’re too sound to laugh out loud. But you can see the laughter in their eyes. And the confusion.

They couldn’t see their own father in a pair of football boots and here’s a fella of his vintage buying a new pair. Off they go out of the shop and you can already imagine the chat in the car.

Still, you sit back down on the leather stool and undo the boots. You square them off and put them back into the box, putting the wrapping over them.

The shop assistant comes over and asks whether you’re taking them. There’s a silence. You think about making a joke about unscrewing the cogs and remaking them as slippers. But that would be a little bit pathetic. It’s just a joy to be standing in a shop buying a pair of football boots.

Yet you hear yourself say: ‘No thanks’.

And that comes as a bit of a surprise. So you go to change your mind and say, ‘Actually, yes. I will.’ But the words don’t come out. Instead, you hear yourself say, ‘No. Sorry – thanks. I’ll leave it. They’re perfect but they don’t quite fit.’