Kleinzeit

Hat

The black howled in the tunnels, the tracks fled crying before the trains. Whatever lived walking upside-down in the concrete put its paws against the feet of the people standing on the platform, its cold soft paws. One, two, three, four, walking softly in the chill silence upside-down with great soft cold paws. Underground said words to itself, names. No one listened. Footsteps covered the words, the names.

Sister in the Underground, walking about in corridors. Approached at varying intervals by three middle-aged men and two young ones she declined all offers. There used to be more young ones, she thought. I’m getting on. Soon be thirty.

The red-bearded man came along, took a bowler hat out of one of his carrier-bags, offered it to her with the brim uppermost. Passers-by looked at him, looked at Sister.

‘Magic hat,’ said Redbeard. ‘Hold it in your hand like this and count to a hundred.’

Sister held the hat, counted. Redbeard took a mouth organ out of his pocket, played The Irish Rover. When Sister reached ninety-three a man dropped iop in the hat.

‘Stop that,’ said Sister to Redbeard. 5p more dropped in.

Redbeard put the mouth organ back in his pocket. ‘15p already,’ he said. ‘I could make a fortune with you.’

‘You’ll have to make it without me,’ said Sister, handing him the hat.

Redbeard took it in his hands but did not put it back in the carrier-bag. ‘It blew my way on a windy day in the City,’ he said. ‘Expensive hat, as new. From Destiny, from Dame Fortune. A money hat.’ He shook it, made the 15p clink. ‘It wants to be held by you.’

‘But I don’t want to hold it.’

Redbeard let his eyes become like the eyes of a doll’s head on a wintry beach. ‘You don’t know,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘You don’t know.’

‘What don’t I know?’

‘Morrows cruel mock.’

‘I suppose they do. But they always have done, and people go on living,’ said Sister.

‘Cruel,’ said Redbeard. His eyes looked their ordinary way, he put the 15p in his pocket, the hat on his head. ‘Ridiculous,’ he said, lifted the hat to Sister, walked away.

Sister walked the other way, took a train on the northbound platform.

As she came out of the Underground and was walking towards the hospital she passed a building under construction. There was a little shack against which leaned tripods of iron pipes and blue and white signs with arrows pointing in various directions. Red bullseye lanterns huddled like owls. A shining helmet lay on the pavement.

Sister kicked the helmet without looking at it particularly. She kicked it again, noticed it. What’s a shining helmet doing all by itself in the middle of the pavement? said Sister. She picked it up, put it under her arm, looked round, heard no shouts. Some days it’s nothing but hats, she said, went on to the hospital with the helmet under her arm.