A letter from a reader

At 57, my friend asked why I keep a packet of plasters in my handbag. I had to stop and work out how long they had been in there.

You should picture me writing this at the kitchen table with a cup of tea going cold beside me, because that is exactly how slowly it has come. I am not a writer, and what another woman keeps in her handbag has never been any of my business.

But four women have asked me about these in the last fortnight, two of them at the same table at book club, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it all down properly.

It started with Bev, in a café in Nedlands, where she was looking for a pen in my bag with my permission. She came up with a flattened packet of plasters, held it between two fingers, and asked why I had them. I said for my shoes. She said what about your shoes. I said in case. And then she looked at me for a second and said it.

You carry first aid in your handbag in case of your own shoes. How long have you been doing that?

I laughed, and then I genuinely had to think about it, and the answer frightened me a little. Since my thirties. There has been a packet of plasters in every handbag I have owned since about 1998, and I have never once thought of it as odd. They go in when I buy new shoes. They stay in because there is always another new pair coming.

I did not decide to spend twenty-five years carrying bandages for my own footwear. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides that. It happens quietly, one new pair at a time, until a friend is holding the evidence up in a café and asking you a question you cannot answer.

How it happens

When I actually thought about why the plasters were there, I understood what I had been taught without anybody ever teaching it to me.

You are told shoes need breaking in. Everybody says it. The woman in the shop says it, your mother said it, and so when a new pair rubs at the back of the heel on day one you do not think there is anything wrong with the shoe. You think you are at the start of a process. You put a plaster on and you wear them again tomorrow.

Hurt now and settle later, or do not buy them. That was the whole shoe shop. Nobody seemed to think a woman might want a pair that was simply comfortable on the Tuesday she bought them.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You buy the shoes. You put the plasters in the bag. And you accept a fortnight of sore heels as the admission price of every single pair of shoes you will ever own.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I suspect I am not alone.

I thought my problem was that I have difficult feet. I have said that out loud in shops. I have apologised to assistants for my own feet, which I would like back, if anybody is offering.

It turns out it was never about my feet.

It is about what the shoe is made of. A stiff upper with a hard edge at the heel has to be broken in, because something has to give and it is not going to be the shoe. A soft upper with cushioning right through it has nothing in it to break in. There is no edge to rub. The shoe is the same on the first morning as it will be in a month, and the fortnight simply does not happen.

It took me until 57, and a flattened packet of plasters, to work that out.

The collection is called the Sneakers

They are from Perth Boutique, a small Australian boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. Bev found them, which after the business with the handbag she is entitled to mention whenever she likes.

There are thirteen styles and they are all the same sort of thing — soft, cushioned, low trainers, in plain colours and a few brighter ones. One of them is a slip-on with no laces at all. They are every one of them the same price, which took one whole decision out of it. Mine are a plain pair and I have worn them most days since.

The softness is the part that matters. There is no rigid counter at the back of the heel, which is the piece of a shoe that does the rubbing, and the whole upper gives where your foot is rather than the other way around. The cushioning runs the length of the sole, so a long morning on hard floors is a different thing. And they are light, which I did not expect, and which is most of why I stopped noticing them.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. There is nothing in them to break in.

What happened on the first morning

The first proper outing was the Saturday markets, the morning after they arrived, which is a thing I would never have done with a new pair of shoes.

Three women asked me about them before I got back to the car. The woman on the plant stall started it, because she said she had been on her feet since six and wanted to know what they were.

The third was Lorraine, who I have known for twenty years and who has never once commented on anything I wear. She looked down and asked whether they were comfortable yet. Yet. I have decided to take that as a compliment, because it told me she does the same thing I do.

What I noticed more than the questions, though, was the drive home. I did not slide a heel out of the back of a shoe at the lights to have a look. I did not get home and go and sit down and peel a sock off carefully. There was nothing to look at, which I had not realised had been the first fortnight of every pair of shoes I have ever bought until it was not.

The plasters are still in the bag. I have not taken them out yet. I am not quite ready. Completely myself.

Three things I have learned since

One. Breaking in was never a process. It was a design fault. Something has to give and it was always going to be me. A shoe with nothing stiff in it has nothing to break in, and the fortnight stops existing.

Two. It is the back of the heel, every time. Not the toes, not the sides. Every blister I have ever had came off the same hard edge, and these do not have one.

Three. I do not have difficult feet. I have been apologising to shop assistants since about 1998 for a problem that was never mine. I am still slightly cross about that.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

They are $69.95. They were $170.00, and all thirteen are the same.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because I have paid more than twice that for shoes that came with a fortnight of blisters included.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no middleman taking a cut, and they have their spring and anniversary sale on at the moment, with free shipping Australia wide, and a little more off again if you take two or more.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and had a proper look before I ordered. Thirteen styles, all at the same price, so you are choosing on what you like the look of and nothing else. I will say plainly that shoes are shoes and mine fit, but there is a thirty day money-back guarantee, which is the only reason I pressed the button on a pair I had not had on my foot.

Then I ordered the slip-on as well, which Bev says is how it starts.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the kitchen with the teapot between us and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If there is a packet of plasters in your handbag, and you know exactly why they are in there, and you have never once thought of that as strange, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of shoes will change your life. They will not. But there is something in wearing a new pair on the first morning and forgetting about them by ten o’clock that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the free shipping goes with it. And it is the plain ones that go first, which I found out because Bev had to wait a week for hers.

I have not put a plaster on the back of my own heel since.

Maggie