Red Shoes

Pen, ink and Derwent Artists’ Pencils. Cover illustration for my novel ‘Red Shoes and Eel Traps’ which you won’t find anywhere, as I haven’t got round to publishing it yet. This is the only original drawing I have released into the outside world, and that’s because it is in the possession of philbarnesenameller.co.uk and the lovely Linda. The text reads:

River Street, in its pristine form, lay at right angles to the river bank and discharged onto the towpath between the two rows of buildings to which it led and which gave it its purpose. These two had not known it then. Today the old warehouses stood empty, stacking dust on dust, slowly. Windows bricked shut, light bulbs all removed and the power turned off. River Street was dammed off by a tall wall that had been quickly erected between the corners of the buildings at its far end, close to the water’s edge beside the jetty. The flow of people held back and compressed to a trickle. This is the end at which they must stop. Or from which they might start.

It was only a doorway. We huddled there each night, shaking, with our clothes undone, in case the soldiers caught us. We clung to each other, waiting till the shaking stopped and we could run. We held each other night after night. Waited for the courage to come, so we could flee. We shivered there each night with our clothes undone in case the soldiers came, and between the scrape of their boots on the cobbles heard the bruch of our lips above the gunning of our hearts. It was only a doorway in a block where every doorway to the river was bricked up, only a doorway, nailed shut, for us to shelter in, till the courage came.