Terroir by Graham Mort Page A

stack of watermelons with their sweet, sugary smell. Then we were in a narrow alleyway between buildings, catching the tang of human shit. A beggar held up his fingerless hand, but we brushed past and turned left into a narrow street and into a shop doorway that gaped under a blue and white striped awning and had yellow cellophane in the widow.
    â€“ Come sah, come sah!
    The shop was piled up with fabric, saris and shalwar kameez and made - up suits hung from mannequins, the glass - fronted display cabinets were piled with ties and collars and socks and – yes – shoes, though of a kind I’d never buy. We entered a gloomy back room where an elderly Sikh gentleman with a white beard and a maroon - coloured turban was watching a black and white television set. Gentleman? There seems no other word. My Ugandan guide spoke to him in Swahili and the Sikh eyed me carefully. He held out his hand to shake mine.
    â€“ You are welcome.
    â€“ Thank you.
    â€“ You are looking for shoes?
    I shrugged, slightly helpless and more than slightly intimidated. The Sikh gentleman bent down and examined my brogues carefully. He drew a finger across the toe of one, making a line in the red dust.
    â€“ I have. Come.
    The Ugandan man had taken the Sikh’s place and was screwing up the volume on a Kenyan soap opera. I felt a tug on my sleeve and followed the proprietor into another room at the back of the shop.
    At first glance the room seemed to be draped with curtains but as the Sikh pulled the curtain back I saw that the walls were lined with shelves and the shelves were filled with boxes. Shoe boxes. I remembered the sharp smell of my father’s pantry – a mixture of shoe polish, turps and Swarfega – where he kept his shoes neatly stacked on shelves made from old fruit boxes. The old man stooped in the gloom and pulled out a box, pulling down his spectacles on his nose to check the label.
    â€“ You are a nine?
    It was a good guess.
    â€“ Yeah, nine.
    He straightened up and handed me the box.
    â€“ Here. You try. Very good shoes.
    I noticed that he was wearing light leather slippers that allowed him to shuffle almost noiselessly from room to room.
    â€“ Come. Come to the light.
    He led me back to the room with the television where my Ugandan friend was now eating from a Tiffin tin of matoke and tilapia stew. He ignored us both. The food reminded me I was hungry.
    I took a seat and opened the box. Inside was tissue paper, then two velvet bags and inside each bag was a shoe of unmistakeable quality. Dark brown stippled leather, richly oiled. Double - welted soles. The tongues were stitched into the shoe at the side to form waterproof webbing. Genuine veldtschoen.
    â€“ I am Nayanprit Singh.
    The proprietor smiled at me a little shyly.
    â€“ These are good shoes, eh? Good shoes. You like them?
    The shoes were kid - lined and the soles were solid leather, each heel laminated from thin sheets. They had that old smell that brought the ringing of the bell of the cobbler’s shop in my hometown to my head. Flamenco dancers and the smell of lamp oil sold from a big metal drum under the counter. The stump, stump, stump of Carson’s artificial leg. When I put my hands inside to feel the linings, they were soft and supple. There was no name inside, just the number nine hand - written on each tongue in black ink. They were probably the most beautiful shoes I’d ever seen and when I slipped them on and tied the laces, they fitted as if they’d been made on my personal last. I reached for the roll of cash in my pocket.
    When I woke on Sunday morning, after a quiet night sipping tonic water on the guesthouse terrace, it was to the smell of new leather. No hangover after a quiet night. No work until tomorrow. I’d grown to love Sundays in Kampala when the city took on a sleepy quality, like a 1950s English suburb. Well, like I imagined that to be. No wonder the British had loved it here. I pushed