Left behind

I’d left my jacket in the hall.  My favourite jacket, left behind above where my shoes had been and now we were on the coach, making our way to the airport.  We were far too far away to go back, there was not enough time.  I had reminded myself not to forget it.  I’d left it there to wear when we departed but it was warm and I forgot to put it on.  I had put everything else into my case so carefully and I had noted everything that I had brought and accounted for it all.  I’d even been round the flat three or four times, looking in draws I hadn’t ever opened, looking under beds that I had never slept in.  You can never be too careful but I wasn’t and I’d left my jacket and with every second it was another few metres away.

Perhaps it was because I wasn’t wearing my hat.  It was warm and it wasn’t wet and I had packed my flat cap into my case.  If I’d left my hat on the chair underneath my jacket above where my shoes had been then it could well have been a different story but I hadn’t and it wasn’t.  I had sat down on the floor by the chair and underneath my jacket to tie my shoe laces and if I had only looked up I would have seen my jacket and it would have been a different story, or there wouldn’t have been a story but I didn’t look up, I didn’t see it and the story hasn’t changed.

OK, so I’d left my jacket, my favourite jacket, the one I had recently bought and had looked everywhere to find but it was only a jacket.  I could ring up and get it sent on.  I would send them the money to cover it.  It would only be a simple financial and logistical transaction to sort it all out.  I came to terms with it.  It was summer and I could do without it for a couple of weeks.  I relaxed back into the seat of the coach and looked out of the window to admire the view and then it hit me.

My car keys were in the pocket of my jacket, my favourite jacket, the one that I had left behind.  They were the keys to the car that was waiting at the airport that was going to take us the hundred miles or so back home.  They were the keys to the car that I needed for work, I needed in order to go to the shops and that I basically needed to live my life.  I turned white, my heart leaped into my mouth and I swore.

‘What’s the matter?’ my wife asked and I explained.  I told her about my jacket and I told her about the keys.  I explained to her about what this would mean, that we would have to get the train or a taxi or ring up a friend to come and collect us and that we wouldn’t be home for ages.  I told her that I wouldn’t be able to get to work or get to the shops and that basically my live was ruined for the next couple of weeks.  ‘Don’t worry’ she said, ‘I brought the spare. But who leaves their car keys in their jacket?’

Today my jacket arrived in the post, my favourite jacket folded neatly into a jiffy bag and the key is in the left hand pocket and my life is back on track.  We’re going out tonight and if it’s not too warm I think I’ll wear my jacket.