a pocket full of change

by Karen Jones

I was sitting outside HMV when the woman pressed the one-pound coin into my hand.

I had no idea what to say. She walked off, shaking her head, sympathy oozing through her woollen coat. I looked down at my clothes. It had been another restless night and bleary-eyed morning. I'd chucked on an old pair of joggers and sweatshirt and shoved my hair back into a ponytail, no intentions of going out.

Then I was at HMV in the high street, sitting on the pavement. That kind of thing has been happening a lot lately. I end up somewhere, no memory of how I got there, no reason to be there. It doesn't make much sense. Nothing has made much sense since our baby died.

eing mistaken for a beggar came as a shock, though. I tried to convince myself the woman was crazy, but when I stood up and saw my reflection in the shop window, I could see her point. My hair was matted to my head, the highlights grown out, leaving a brown line at the parting. The sweatshirt was two sizes too big and the joggers were 'old favourites'. I tried to laugh, to smile even; a few months ago it would have been funny. Not anymore. Not since we lost Jason.

I checked my pockets for my car keys—only house keys, so I guessed I must have travelled on the bus.

I went home, took a long bath, chose decent clothes and applied some make-up. When Martin came home from work he looked surprised, but there was a hint of a smile there.

"Laura? What's going on? You look…. Are you feeling better?"

I could hear the anxiousness in his voice, the fear of saying the wrong thing, of pushing me back into the hole I'd been living in.

"Yeah, a bit. Just caught sight of myself in the mirror and got a bit of a fright. You might have said something."

His eyes widened. "Yeah, right, 'course I should. Only, I didn't think it would go down too well."

I wanted to argue, but he was right. I forced a smile. "Probably not. Look, I'm not saying this is it, that it's all over or anything like that, but it's a start, eh?"

"Sure, a start. I can live with that. Do you want to go out for something to eat, or—?"

"No, just phone for a take-away."

His shoulders slumped a little. I had done the whole 'getting dressed' thing, but it didn't seem to be enough. It was the best I could manage. He'd been so patient, so sickeningly patient. Sometimes I wished he'd just scream at me, like I had screamed at him. Anything that would make me feel alive again, anything that didn't involve tip-toeing around me. That's what everyone did, like I was so fragile, and all I could think was please, somebody break me.

We ate, watched a bit of telly, went to bed, cuddled for a little while. We were together and the closest to normal we'd been since it happened.

I knew it wouldn't last.

he next day, I dressed in my old clothes and sat outside HMV.

I watched the beggars, the Big Issue sellers, the buskers plying their trades. Most people ignored them, occasionally taunted them, rarely acknowledged them with a coin or two. So, why had the woman given me money when I wasn't even asking? And why had it felt like the first real connection I'd had with anyone in months?

"There you go." A middle-aged man in a business suit and cashmere overcoat handed me a pound coin. "You should get yourself a cup or a hat or something for people to put the money in, you know." He didn't want to leave me. "You okay?"

I nodded, gave a weak smile, lowered my eyes, watched him grow sadder in my shadow. There was something about me. Somehow I made them care. By the end of three hours, looking straight ahead, not engaging in any kind of communication, I had received twenty pounds.

I was about to go home when I saw a tall, elegant man coming toward me. He looked familiar. Maybe I had worked with him in the past. I panicked; what if he recognize me? What if word got back to Martin? How could I explain this latest bizarre behaviour?

The man reached out to pat my shoulder. I flinched and pulled away. He smiled. 'It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanted to ask if you're all right. You were here yesterday, weren't you?'

I nodded, keeping my head bowed, still sure he had recognized me. He searched in his pocket, brought out a five-pound note.

'Here. Get something to eat.'

I took the money and muttered a hesitant thanks. He wanted to say more, to make a connection, but he couldn't.

That's when I understood: he did recognise me, but not as a friend or a colleague. I looked enough like him, like all of them, for it to be disturbing. Despite the clothes, despite the position, there was something normal about me. Something untouched by genuine poverty, but coated in visible sorrow, something that could happen to him, to all of them.

raised my eyes and saw him shudder at the recognition of one of his own kind.

"I…" He didn't know what to say. If it could happen to someone like me, it could happen to someone like him and too much contact might transfer this disease of despair.

He left, shoulders drooped, step faltering. I wondered how many I had infected. It was time to go.

***

I hid the money in a box at the back of my cupboard. I'd decide what to do with it later. It seemed so unimportant; I didn't need it. One day I'd put it to good use, to a good cause, but right then, I needed to know it was there.

Martin was relieved to find me washed and dressed again. I had made dinner. It was nothing special, but I had done it. His sense of amazement, gratitude and compassion was irritating. Why couldn't I just smile? And why was it so difficult to accept his pity, his concern?

"Laura, this is brilliant. You wouldn't believe how good it feels to come in and find you—"

"What? Not sulking? Cleaned up? Acting like a wife?"

I took pleasure in the hurt in his eyes. It was wrong, I know, but I felt in control of something for the first time in months. I could control his pain, which was more than I could do with my own.

I served the food. For once he wasn't looking at me with those sad eyes, wasn't patting my hand. I sat opposite him and wondered how he'd been feeling these past three months. I'd tried to ask before, but he was always so busy telling me it would be okay, it seemed he hadn't been affected by Jason's death: only by my reaction to it.

It was like he was reading my thoughts. He spoke through clenched jaw, grinding teeth, stretched lips. "He was my son, too."

That should have been all it took; those few words to unlock the anger, pain and despair. I waited for him to fall apart like I had. To claw at the sky, shrieking his rage. To throw things, to shout, to dissolve: to be like me.

He picked up his cutlery.

We sat together, we ate together, separately.

Maybe it was the anonymity of the sympathy that drew me back to that doorway. I'd had so many calls, cards and visits over the past few months. Everyone wanted to jolly me along, to help me get over it, get me back to normal. Here, on the streets, the sympathy was solid, monetary, cold. I could hold it in my hand, keep it in my pocket and, best of all, I didn't have to pretend it made a difference.

But I couldn't get my place that day. A girl with a baby was in my spot. She sat feeding her child, a cup in front of her to collect money, a thin blanket draped around her shoulders.

I couldn't bear to look at her. Hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I knew I couldn't cry there—if I started I'd never stop.

I ran. I ran as though I was being chased, as though there was an earthquake cracking the ground behind me, as though I had somewhere to go.

I heard the baby cry.

I didn't look back.

Martin found me on the bathroom floor, out of tears and out of tissues. He slid down the wall and sat beside me and then I heard it—the noise I'd been waiting for all that time. Martin's sobs sounded like they were physically painful, as if they were being wrenched from his body. I waited for the calm to return.

"Why has it taken so long?"

"Jesus, Laura, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I kept going, you'd get better."

Get better. It sounded weird. Was having a stillborn son an illness? Not according to the doctors, it was just one of those things, it happens. Oh, well, that's okay then. Jason happened, then he didn't. Get over it.

"I don't know what to do, Martin. I don't know how we're supposed to keep going."

"Well ... we just do."

"I saw a girl in town today. She was sitting in a doorway with her baby. She was begging. And I know it's wrong, but all I could think was; she can't even look after herself, yet she gets a baby, and all we get after nine months is a funeral."

He shrugged, sniffed, wiped his hands across his eyes. "We didn't deserve what happened to us; she doesn't deserve what's happened to her—it's all crap."

I looked at him for a minute and could feel a smile tease my lips. "It's all crap. After all these months, that's your philosophical take on the situation?"

"Yep, don't need to go much deeper than that, do we?"

We sat there for a while. Later we ate dinner, we talked, we went to bed and made love for the first time since—well, since it all became crap.

The next day I got up and showered, dressed in a suit, applied make-up—my other disguise. I went into town and watched the beggars, buskers, Big Issue sellers. No one paid me any attention.

It was strange; a change of clothes and I was just as invisible as most of the beggars.

I found the girl with the baby. I watched her for a little while, a tiny part of me wanting to grab the baby and run, or approach her and offer to adopt the child. Adopt? Who was I kidding? I wanted to buy the baby. Solve the problems with money, as strangers had tried to do for me.

I wanted to at least speak to her, tell her what had happened to me. But she had enough problems of her own: what did she care about the rich woman in the designer clothes?

It hurt too much to keep watching. The pain I'd buried lay beneath a fragile surface and I was afraid I'd always be one scratch away from a cold doorway and a plastic cup.

I gave her all the money I had stored, and added some of my own. She didn't look up. She kept stroking the baby's head. Nothing else was important to her.

I shoved my cold hands into my empty pockets and walked away.



About The Author

Karen Jones’   short stories have been published in Wonderful World of Worders, a collection of micro-fiction by 72 writers, from 27 countries, compiled by Jenni Doherty, published by Guildhall Press with support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She continues to write short stories, and is nearing the end of her second novel. She occasionally dabbles in poetry and sometimes she gets caught up in comedy scripts.

Author MySpace and Writer's Page: editred.com

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