A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined

After supergluing the heel of my right boot, I take a journey into the city with the artist, a city of four world heritage sights and over 300 languages, a city of 15 shooting and stabbing victims aged between 14 and 19 in the past six months, a city of music impresarios and suicide bombers. A city - it almost seems frivolous now - of the artist and artist's husband. We hit the chewing-gummed streets. (It never used to be like this: not this good.) Crucial art supplies, parked and perky on clean regimental surfaces, are purchased. (Final touches, before the assault.) Then, across the road in a witty woman's shoe shop, by a shelf of improbably high heels, the nation's second most famous children's author is spotted, and told by the artist how much the artist's daughter loves her work, so the author draws something for the daughter, a face, innocently unaware of the artist's own work, but somehow connected. (Unexpected mission accomplished.) We snatch a hushed, vigilant moment together at the national gallery - the eye, the eye, soft breaths on the neck - looking at an exhibition of 17th century artistic freedom, presumably like the sockless man in bright, almost sculpted, pink lace-up shoes in eggshell-blue trousers I later see outside. And then it's the real world again, coffee with a friend bombed back from Beirut, another walk on foot, fashionistas hand in hand bumping into mirrors, pickpockets lighting expensive cigarettes, hyper-intelligent spinsters dashing in the sun. And, heading back, a man, by the station, scabs on either cheek, a man, broken, bashed, with no shoes.