The boots

At her lunch gathering, Dawn, 85, asked me how we had spent New Year’s Day. When I told her we had visited House of Bruar, she was keen to know what I had purchased. I immediately thrust my booted foot in the air – knowing that Dawn has a shoe fetish – and said: “These!”

“Oh! They’re lovely,” said Dawn. Jackie and Hazel were looking on, and nodded in polite agreement.

“Try them on,” I said and pulled off my new brown suede calf-high boots, fully fur lined, and piped with sheepskin on the outer seams. Dawn took off her elegant diamante decorated black pumps, and murmured delight at the warmth and comfort of my boots. My size 39s were a bit small for her, but I told her that I was sure they had more sizes left in stock.

“And they were a bargain, only twenty-nine ninety-five,” I said.

“Nooo!” Three heads swirled round on me, as people love a bargain in these here parts.

“Yes!”

“What make are they?”

“Hugs.”

“Uggs?”

“No, Hugs. H-U-G-S. The Uggs were a hundred and sixty pounds.”

Dawn says she may telephone the House of Bruar and see if she can order a pair to be mailed to her. Jackie and Hazel comment on Dawn’s predilection for shoes, and how she only ever buys her footwear from Perth’s most exclusive – and expensive – shoe store. Dawn is quick to explain that she is not extravagant, indeed she is thrifty in her approach.

“I only ever buy shoes in their sale,” she says. “They always have them half price, and offer buy one pair, get one pair free, so I get two pairs.”

The next morning I receive a text message from Jean.

Dawn has tried to get the same boots as you but was told they don’t have any at £29.95, The cheapest ones were £59.95. Dawn heartbroken.

Oh my! I got straight onto the phone to Dawn and had barely given my thanks for yesterday’s lunch but she is telling me her tale of woe.

“I have to tell you - I decided I just had to have a pair of those boots,” she said.

“I couldn’t find the phone number for House of Bruar so I called Jean, and got on to Johnny and explained my problem and he passed me to Jean and she looked the number up for me.

“Well, when I was put through to the shoe department they said oh no, they had never had any boots for £29.95. The cheapest boots they had ever had were £59.95 and they were all sold out.

“Oh no, I said, my friend was quite specific. She had bought a pair just a few days ago for £29.95. Well, I can’t tell you, I was getting very cross with her as she was so insistent that they had never had any boots for £29.95. She was adamant they had never sold any boots that cheap. Finally she told me to try the Sale Shop.

“So I got put through to the Sale Shop and they said the same thing. I really was getting quite angry, and kept telling them that my friend had just bought a pair! I just wasn’t going to give up!”

An explanation: House of Bruar is a terribly upmarket store, eccentrically placed in the middle of nowhere, its gothic towers rising up out of the Highland scenery, which only stocks classic, expensive brands.

If you are seeking bargain basement or high street trendy, this is not the place for you. If on the other hand you need plus-fours for pheasant shooting, champagne and miniature haggis for entertaining the hoi polloi or even a tartan kennel for your pooch, this is the place to find it – at a cost. So to maintain its exclusivity, sale items are tucked away in a separate area – actually, a separate building. In fact the whole of House of Bruar is rather confusing because it isn’t a house, it is more like a housing estate, with several buildings which aren’t interconnected including the Men’s Outfitters, Country Living, Food Hall and cafe, Women’s clothing, Art Gallery, and the Sale Shop. The only thing which does connect each department is the calf length kilts which each sales assistant wears.

I surmise that there is obviously inter-departmental rivalry and little familiarity amongst the staff on What Goes On outside one’s exclusive domain.

“Well they are wrong and you are right,” I said. “But you have to go to the Country Living section. Wait, I’ve got the receipt, I’ll give you all the details.”

Dawn was pixillated with excitement as I read out the name of the assistant who served me, the boots’ description and stock code number. She carefully noted everything down.

“Oh this is marvellous,” she said. “Because you know, I phoned Hazel to say I was going to buy the boots and told her I would have them mailed. But Hazel said, no don’t do that, because she knows lots of people who work at House of Bruar and she would get one of them to drop the boots at her hair salon in Pitlochy and she would then deliver them to me. And of course, I just rang Hazel to tell her that they insisted they didn’t have any boots for £29.95 so I wouldn’t be able to get a pair. Now I shall be able to call her back, I hope.”

Dawn then quickly rang off, keen to pursue the purchase of her boots, size 40, £29.95, no delivery required thank you. We all await the outcome with high anticipation that her broken heart will soon be mended.