It all started with a coat

It
all started with a coat.

I got
off the underground in a part of town I didn’t know very well (I don’t know any
part of town very well). It was about 5.30 in the afternoon, already dark out
because it’s January, and cold, too. Really cold. Cold because… it’s January.

I scrambled
in my bag for my Oyster card, sliding out of the way of people getting
impatient behind me. They side-stepped in Commuter Dance around my shoulders and
I said sorry and dropped a glove. Then I interrupted the flow of people again
because I bumped into the arse of a man when I went to pick it up. I found my
Oyster card and joined the troupe to exit
stage left, but I wasn’t as practised as everybody else playing the game.

I
swiped myself through the exit barriers, looking up for the first time since getting
off the train. Busybusybusy. Look at the
ground, count the steps, don’t hold people up. Be somewhere fast. This is
London. I glanced up, and saw the masses of people in a line, waiting to
enter the station. I wasn’t headed where everyone else was.

They
were all being held back by a man in a luminous jacket who looked harassed and
cross and a bit troubled with deep lines in his forehead that reminded me of
the patterns a tractor makes in the soil. He was trying to control the flow of
commuters to the platform without making eye contact.

It
occurred to me that not one of them looked like me. The people waiting were all
men. All had dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. I pulled my headphones from my
ears and listened to words that weren’t from my language, spilling fast and loud
and with more rhythm than my music. (I don’t have very good taste in music.) I realised
the people getting off of the train
hadn’t been like me, either.

Outside
was insane. Different. Exciting. Through shop windows I saw women in salwaar kameez and saris take
down jewelled dresses and headscarves from shop displays, hands unhooking bits here and bits there diligently and rehearsed, whispering at each other and
stealing glances at their men who were the other side on the glass.

On the
pavement white tarpaulin sheets were coming down, the day’s market stalls
dismantled so that in another four of five hours, when I came out of the cinema
and walked down the same road, I wouldn’t have known that fruits and vegetables
and clothes and electrics and books and ‘SCUSE
ME. ‘SCUSE ME. ‘SCUSE ME, MIND YOURSELF LADY, COMING THROUGH, had ever
existed at all.

I’d
told myself that I’d find a café to sit in with my laptop and imagination
before I met my friend in a while. Writing is solitary, no matter how
interesting your characters, so I like to sit somewhere public and be with real
people, too. For company.

Every
café was a hookah bar or halal restaurant, nowhere I could really settle down
into with a politically correct conscience. I walked and walked. I crossed the
road. I changed direction. I knew I wasn’t going to write. I’d changed my mind.
I was exploring, instead. It happens that way.

How does this exist two tube stops from
my house? I
marvelled. It was like being in a Sri Lankan street market or Moroccan bazaar. I felt like I’d discovered
something special, something new. Something mine. Adventure happens that way.

When
I walked past the Islamic charity shop I saw it right away. I peeped through in
passing, seeking out somewhere to eat. I’d gotten hungry. As my eyes searched
for food and empty tables I clocked it, and my brain took a second or two to
register. I had to take three steps back to look again. I stared some more
through the window.

The
shop assistant saw me, and beckoned for me to come inside. We’ve just opened, she said, we’re
open late on Tuesdays.

I don’t know whether that’s to my luck,
or my detriment, I
said. I have no money and expensive
taste.

I
walked over to the back of the store where it hung at the end of a rail. Floor-length.
Black. Lined. Shoulder pads. Fluffy. It
was like a bear hug in a coat.

It
didn’t have a price tag.

There
was a similar one next to it. That one said £7.

The black one is the same price, the lady said.

I
didn’t even try it on.

The
coat happens to be magic. Everybody stares at the coat. People ask to touch the
coat. The coat made me feel powerful enough to walk into a room full of
strangers and say, yes, I want to join
your volunteer club.

The
coat had me call the boy, and tell my boss no,
and meet the kind lady off of the Internet. The coat got me to email the
competition a whim, and then win it, and then it had me cut off all my hair and
buy a bowler hat because the coat just looked better that way.

Some
weeks see all the things happen, that all at once mean nothing and everything
and that somehow, you feel different.

It
all started with a coat.

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