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Clery’s.’
    â€˜Yea?’
    â€˜A dear hole, is what she called it.’
    She lifts an eyebrow. ‘Righ’…’ she says, her voice full of doubt.
    On the pavement outside the dry-cleaner’s, Farley stands, one eye involuntarily winking; his right one, leaking again. He pats it with the back of his gloved hand. Cars parked all around him. The rear of a stationary bus farting out a long bloom of fumes. Farley stares at it for a while and wonders – what’s he doing here? What does he want? He looks around; behind him is a row of shops. That’s right, the shoe.
    He heads into the newsagent’s and immediately has to step back out to check the name above the door along with its position in the row of other shops. Both as they should be – yet inside the shop is all wrong. It’s too small for a start. And the L-shaped counter has been replaced by a single short one blocking the entrance to the side corridor that should hold the barber, the shoemaker, the fella who cuts keys, a few others too, each at their own little higgledy station. Where’s the speckled floor, the drifts of damp sawdust? The litter of sweet papers and lolly wrappers all over it? There should be things hanging out of the ceiling or thumbtacked all over the walls: fishing nets, plastic dolls, ropes of chewing gums like shrunkengolfballs. And how come, instead of the usual sour-faced oulones serving behind the counter, an Indian chap is smiling?
    He stays in the doorway trying to locate himself. The Indian nods encouragingly.
    â€˜You’ve changed the shop around?’ Farley asks.
    â€˜Excuse me?’
    â€˜The shop, have you, you know, got rid of half of it?’
    The Indian glances quickly behind him. ‘Em, no, sir. I don’t believe so.’
    Farley thinks for a moment. ‘Well, are you not doing the shoe repairs any more?’ He pulls the shoe out of the bag and holds it up to show.
    â€˜O, we don’t do anything like that.’
    A woman’s voice behind him. ‘Can I get by you there?’ and Farley quicksteps out of the doorway into the shop to make way for her. He shows the Indian the shoe again, pointing to the hole in the sole in case the chap’s command of English mightn’t be the best.
    â€˜See, I’m looking to have it repaired,’ he explains.
    The woman says, ‘Ah now, you’re goin back a bit, aren’t you? It must be years since the shoemaker was in this shop – ah ah, showin your age there, you are.’
    Farley looks at the woman; not all that young herself, if it comes to it but her eyes are smiley and he sees that she’s speaking to him as an equal, as if to say ‘we all have our vacant moments’. She’s holding a small fat child by the hand. The boy staring at the shoe. Farley feels like giving him a wallop with it on the back of his head. He struggles with the bag, trying to get it to take the shoe back as quickly as possible. His hands are shaking.
    â€˜Well, have you a Mass card then at least?’ he barks at the Indian.
    Outside, the ground tilts as if it’s moving away from him. And it feels as if he’s slipping in slow motion – a patch of ice maybe? But when he looks down his feet are steady to the ground. He feels a bit lost. Like he’s fallen asleep on the bus with a few jars on him and gotten off at the wrong stop. Everything is different and yet he knows it’s still the same. Theroundabout is missing; that’s it. The roundabout that should be there in front of him, in the middle of that crossroads, right there – is gone. And the pub across the road is all changed; painted a sickly colour for a start with a stupid-looking clock tower stuck on one side. His left arm feels numb – he swaps the bag over to the other hand – still numb. Out of nowhere the Berlin Wall comes into his head and he has to wonder now about the state of his mind, all the things