For boring reasons I won’t go into, I was sitting in Costa without a phone, waiting for somebody.
Perhaps you know what to do without a smartphone to distract you; it turns out, I don’t. I just sat there scanning the room like a naive tourist on the tube.
Lots of noise. One or two laptops. Some tattoos poking out of short tops and summer socks, and a little sipping and a lot of chatting going on. One guy had two laptops out. Fancy. But that wasn’t the main thing that caught my eye. No for that, I was drawn almost magically… to his feet.
This guy, Mr Two Laptops, was wearing my favourite trainers. I mean, the best, the coolest, the most brilliant pair of trainers I ever had! There they were - the exact ones - on his feet, under the table, across the room, time-travelling me backwards to 2006, a world of summery youth and freedom! I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe it.
They were green - both his and mine. Don’t let green put you off though; there are lots of greens. These were racing green, the colour of May grass and sunlit leaves. Burnished with stripes of brilliant yellow, seamed into the soft verdant fabric, and all floating on a sole of pure white, they were spectacularly unique, yet subtle in their style. With sea-green laces through neat white eyelets, they pulled tight until I felt safer than a ship in a harbour. And so cool. I wore them with jeans - no-one noticed. Ankle socks and a pair of Slazenger shorts - perfection. Want to be a little smarter but not glare out the crowd? The miracle trainers could do it. And then every now and then, “Ooh, nice trainers!” to which I’d smile knowingly behind my dark glasses.
It would feel as though confidence! was surging! through me, from the toes up - as though I could run a thousand miles! swirl a football into the top corner like David Beckham (2006 remember), or just fold one supercool foot over the other supercool foot and look like I ought to be in the Littlewoods catalogue!
Inevitably, those fantastic green and yellow trainers fell apart. I wore them until the September grass made my socks wet, and eventually they cracked wide open and flapped about until I (and everyone who loved me) agreed that I really could wear them no longer.
I feel as though ever since, I’ve kind of been looking for those trainers…
And then today, there they were, on the feet of a man with two laptops in the middle of a busy Costa.
I was so tempted to go over and ask him where he got them. It certainly seemed better than staring at them for five minutes as though someone had brought in the actual Mona Lisa. But in the end, I just couldn’t think of a way to kick off a conversation between two strangers that would essentially have been one guy saying to the other apropos of nothing: “Excuse me, I really like your shoes…”
No, I think I just have to let the trainers of 2006 be a happy memory and leave them there, lit by the hazy summer sun and scented by the wondrous freedom of youth’s fast-fading flowers.
Why would someone need two laptops?
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