Coats

Lunch over, conversation turns to the football; England’s early-morning World Cup win at the Azteca; the stadium where the ‘Hand of God’ slew a previous Three Lions team in 1986.

We are a group of writers on retreat, sitting in glorious sunshine at a long-weathered table in the gardens of a Dorset manor house. Should Miss Marple appear, it would hardly be a surprise.

We chat about Maradona, his traction with the poor in Argentina (home for one of us) and in Italy, in Naples. Mention of the city prompts a memory.

Coming back from a trip to Sorrento, I say, I once tried to sell some coats in Naples. This was pre-smart phones; no GPS, no guide book even. I’m trusting to luck when I set out from the station, buy a sandwich and head down a wide avenue with the vague idea that I’ll eat near the Colosseum.

Eager to share the story, it only dawns later that the Colosseum is in Rome not Naples. But the group is generous; nobody mentions it. So, the fact that I’d opted for Rome because I’d heard things about Naples that made me too chicken-shit to wander its streets alone remains unshared.

The avenue is long, the sun hot but I luck out. Down a side street, shimmering in the haze, rising above the cars and houses in the distance, a curve of broken stone; the Colosseum.

A car speeds past, breaks hard and pulls up sharply. The driver jumps out; comes running towards me.

‘You want to buy some coats? I need petrol money. My card won’t work. They’re good coats. Leather. Come?’

He’s back at the car, opening the boot, pulling coats out of a classy paper shopping bag; the kind with fancy string handles.

‘Please? I’m French.’

I reach in my pocket, ‘I’m on my way home. This is all I’ve got left.’

He looks at the handful of change, maybe there was a five euro note too. He sucks in a breath. Looks from the money to his car, to my face, to the car.

Juggling with invisible balls, he weighs things up.

‘Okay. Okay. Merci.’

He folds the coats, puts them in the bag. The exchange made, he runs to the car, jumps in, guns the engine and races away into the haze towards the Colosseum.

Fancy Italian leather coats; sell them and they’d pay for my whole trip. But this is my first time abroad alone and as I sat beneath the walls of the Colosseum eating my sandwich, I began to wonder … How does Customs work?

I have no receipts, will I be liable to pay excess duty?

How come the guy was willing to exchange hundreds of pounds worth of coats for so little?

Is it a scam?

My mind begins to race.

I’d handed over so little that I couldn’t see what the scam could be.

Is there something in the coats?

Am I being set up as a courier of some kind?

I don’t want these coats anymore. Or at least, not two of them. But one would probably pay for the whole trip.

I feel through the linings. Nothing stashed or sewn into them.

If I keep one, can I wear it onto the plane? Through Customs? Wear it like it’s mine?

The most stylish is a deep oxblood leather bomber jacket, all straight lines, no collar.

I pull it out; slip it on. Roll up the sleeves up to the elbows, Italian style.

Now all I need is to sell the other two.

I walk the streets, looking for an opportunity, running my hands along various parts of my oxblood when I think of another possible hiding place. It’s not weed or a powder and LSD makes no sense.

Stall after stall of tourist ‘I Heart Rome’ crap. The guys working them look like they’d steal toys from children.

The one I choose, there’s an old guy sitting out back, wearing a white hat.

‘You buy?’ I pull a coat half out of the bag to show the young guy fronting things.

He looks into my face. Holds up a finger. I wait. He bends down, whispers to the old guy. The white hat shakes, ‘No’.

I move on. By now, I’m seeing small planes in my mind’s eye; small planes crashing into tall towers. What if the scam’s terror related? Not drugs but smallpox coating the linings?

All I know; I don’t want these other two. I’d put them in a bin but I’m scared I’ll be seen; someone will scream; ‘Bomb!’

I wander, lost in thoughts coming thick and fast.

It registers that a guy with no legs, using his hands to scoot along on a glorified skateboard has not long passed me by. I go back but he’s gone.

By the time I get to the airport, I’m frantic.

Anything to be rid of these things.

I go outside, offer them to a taxi driver. ‘For your wife.’ He looks at me and backs off like I’m nuts.

I find a bar, down a couple of pints.

It helps. I get on the plane.

More drinks and a beautiful Colombian woman in the window seat, and the middle seat empty, helps too.

We land. I breeze through Customs.

At home with the coats, I’m feeling like a right twat for losing the plot like that but at least I still have the other two coats. They’ll pay for my trip.

Saturday night meeting friends in the pub.

My new oxblood Italian designer leather jacket, sleeves rolled up; I waltz into the place.

Clocking me, they explode with laughter. There’s a lot of piss-taking.

Eventually, one takes a closer look.

‘It’s not even leather,’ she shrieks and they explode again; twenty years later, they’re still laughing.

Good story, one of the group at the table says. But now you’ve told a bunch of scribblers, you better write it yourself or …’

So, I have.

Phil Okwedy

Phil Okwedy is a Pembrokeshire based writer and storyteller and was featured as a ‘New Directions’ artist at Beyond the Border Wales International Storytelling Festival in 2021.