so the case is heavy. If I turn right past the Lock and trundle my case along the towpath, I’ll be home. I can hang up the dresses, kick off my shoes, undo my fitted jacket and relax. Simple choice. Drink, or home?
Before I reach a decision, a woman coming along the pavement catches my eye. I see her now exactly as I did the first time we met, in a series of close-ups – the scarlet lips, the little Chanel suit, the black silk turban covering her dark hair, her sharp little face, faux pearls, a black patent handbag with intertwined Cs hanging from the crook of her elbow. She wears the outfit as naturally as if it’s her skin. It is the perfect fit. With the tick-tick-tick of her heels, she’s a combination of sound and vision – that confident, moneyed walk; chin tilted upwards, completely self-contained except for the way her eyes flick slyly towards me to gauge the effect she’s having.
I’ve imagined this moment for a long time.
I feel a surge of happiness and forget about the Rhum Shack. This is my chance to thank her, I decide, for the way she changed my life one day a few years ago.
I was very down at the time; stuck in a dark place. What turned me around was that she noticed me, a total stranger, when I thought I was invisible; she saw through my misery to the person I wanted to be; she told me in a few kind, well-chosen words how to be the person I could be.
I want her to see my transformation.
Transformation!
What a word.
It’s the best word in the English language.
She made me realise that we’re not fixed, rooted firmly in our inadequacies, but that we can change who we are whenever we choose; we can pick up the kaleidoscope, shake it and transform ourselves again and again. We can choose the way we face the world. We can choose the way the world sees us.
I’m smiling; I can’t help it. I wish I’d been the one who’d dressed her all up in black and white with those bright red lips.
As she gets closer she, in turn, is studying my outfit with equally blatant curiosity, from my shoes to my confidence-boosting slightly masculine Prince of Wales check jacket with shoulder pads and the nipped-in waist.
I lower my white sunglasses and my eyes meet hers.
She briefly raises one fine eyebrow and smiles at me approvingly.
I love that smile. It makes my day.
‘Darling, you startled me, you know!’ she says warmly. Dahlink, you stertled me! … Her accent is German or Austrian, strong and precise. ‘That suit! So chic! Suddenly, it’s 1949 again – I thought I was dead all of a sudden, bof! God knows, I’ve practised, but here?’ A train thunders over the bridge and she looks around, then winces and covers her ears at the trailing noise until it fades.
She folds her arms and looks at me again intently from head to foot, then works her way up once more – shoes, knees, skirt, jacket – and she nods her approval. ‘Perfect.’ She adds in a whisper from behind her slender hand, ‘Except for that suitcase, of course.’
This time around, she’s not looking at me with gentle compassion but with humour.
I look at my scruffy case and laugh. ‘Grim, isn’t it? But it’s practical.’
‘Oh, prektikel! Well then!’
Does she remember me? If she doesn’t, I’ll take that as a compliment because it’s a sign of how much I’ve changed.
Suddenly, her expression changes to one of alarm.
‘Oh! My bus is coming!’ she says. ‘Excuse me! Goodbye!’
The number twenty-four is coming up under the bridge and she spins around and hurries in her heels towards the bus stop, pearls jingling, her handbag swinging from the crook of her elbow. Waving at the driver, she reaches in her bag for her travel card. In her rush, she’s dropping her money. Coins are rolling over the pavement, spinning in all directions.
I crouch to gather them up for her. The number twenty-four bus comes alongside us, gusting warm fumes, and she hurries onto it.
‘Wait!’ I call, picking up as much of her cash as I can, but she doesn’t hear me, so I grab my case and step onto the bus just as the doors are closing. I’ve forgotten just how heavy my wheelie bag is. Before I can hoist it on board, the doors momentarily close on my arm.
As I yelp and let go, the driver opens the door again and a dark-haired, broad-shouldered guy in a pink floral shirt and jeans grabs the case by the handle before it falls to the ground. ‘It’s okay! I’ve got it!’ he says.
I sum him up at a glance. Not the fact that he’s good-looking and his eyes are deep blue; that’s just a quirk of nature and not a good indicator of character. What I notice is that his pink shirt is crisply ironed and he’s wearing tan leather shoes polished to a shine. For that reason, I immediately trust him.
‘Thank you!’ I say gratefully, then I hurry up the aisle to the woman in the Chanel suit and hand back her money.
She looks from me to her empty bag with great astonishment – what? Her cash has been trickling out of it? And I’ve been picking it up as it rolled away? ‘Ach, you are kindness itself!’ she says, kissing her fingers and scattering goodwill my way.
Good deed done, I go to get off the bus, when I suddenly realise that the man in the pink shirt hasn’t got on behind me. I wonder where he is and what he’s done with my suitcase.
And then I realise he’s taken it.
Not straight away – I’m a trusting sort of person and I have to double-check before it sinks in. First of all, I think wryly, ha ha, wouldn’t it be ironic if he’s run off with it when I’m here doing a good turn? And then I turn to the driver: ‘That man who had my bag, what did he do with it?’
The driver shrugs and puffs out his cheeks sympathetically then closes the doors.
‘Stop, I’m getting off,’ I say in a panic.
He opens the doors again, so I jump off the bus and look up and down the road with insane optimism as the bus pulls away.
The opportunistic thief has gone and stolen my case.
I lean against the high stone wall of Stables Market, taking deep breaths and pressing my heart back under my ribs.
This great, indescribable sense of loss comes over me, closing my throat with grief.
Gone. Stolen – my beautiful clothes; the clothes that are my livelihood and my dreams.
A Paul Smith gentleman’s pink slim-fit floral shirt, size medium.
Once the initial wave of shock passes, I straighten up and force myself to think about things rationally. I mean, that suitcase is so hideously noisy that no thief in his right mind would want to drag it for any distance. And who wants a load of old clothes, anyway? (Apart from me, obviously.)
First,
