The Jacket

'The Repast of the Lion' by Henri Rousseau ca.1907

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I bought it online from a surplus army store, trailing through various websites for hours trying to find the same one. Crying at the fishing hooks I stumbled upon along the way. In the end, when even AI couldn’t find the exact match, I relented, and then grieved about it for months after my booby-prize purchase.

I could only find an almost-match — the outer shell, missing the warmth of his fleeced lining. I still love The Jacket and, at a glance, when it rests on the back of my rickety but favourite wooden chair, it tricks me into thinking he’s just upstairs, using the bathroom.

It’s green and brown camo, with no bottom front pockets. The absence of those essential front pockets hurt me more than the missing lining, like I wouldn’t be able to hold his hand. That’s always where he held mine — inside his front pocket.

But… it looks almost the same.

Big, baggy, long, hidden hood. Windproof. Waterproof.

Some kid on the high street said, “Nice smock,” when I came out of the sweet shop (liquorice, always) and stared at him and his friends who were blocking the door. His confidence definitely wavered the more I stared from under the brim of my hat, with amused curiosity, assessing his intention. When I just said, “Sorry?” and tilted my head slightly, as if he’d both asked if I wanted a go on his BMX and also that I needed to pay a door tax to pass.

I knew he was probably not taking the piss when he pointed at my coat and said, “Smock. That’s what it’s called.” His tone now less precocious.

I laughed and said, “I don’t call it that, but thanks mate,” and then laughed some more. He moved out of the way. The tax had, it would seem, been paid.

I think I have spent too many moments since trying to decipher the conundrum of whether he was taking the piss, before realising that I never actually cared.

And then realising that isn’t true.

The Jacket (or smock, as Doorway Boy called it) is lightweight, due to the aforementioned missing insert. So instead I bought an army-issue fleece — which efficiently performs as a Victorian pickpocket jacket in reverse — and I spend hours searching for the thing that I ‘desperately’ need and could have sworn was right there, wherever “right there” happens to be. It’s the equivalent of the bottomless handbag, which seems to be every bag, big or small, in the history of bags.

I stand there, huffing and puffing to myself, searching frantically, patting myself down like I’ve lost my passport at the gate terminal. Definitely swearing. Left pocket, right pocket, left pocket, right pocket. Inside pocket, sleeve pocket, inside pocket again.

And then I stop and laugh, because I think of him always doing that exact thing, and how I could create a video montage of all my memories of standing there, patiently waiting until he found it. He nearly always found it. But he instantly thought it was lost. He loved in that way too. I suppose we both did.

When The Jacket zip slides up to my chest, I feel like I am protected from anything and anyone who can hurt me. I know that it’s not true… but I still wonder, as I drive round with the windows down and the rain hitting my face to remind me that I’m still here — in this world, this realm, whatever the fuck this is — whether there is indeed some magic in it. Not the coat itself. Although I do like the idea (Chinese, I think? Or Buddhist?) that all objects have souls. Who knows what kind of emotion is wrapped around me with its history, that I will only feel and never know. Where do I begin and where does The Jacket end?

Either way, I feel safe — instantly. It makes me feel like he’ll always protect me. The biggest benefit of wearing it is that it stops me feeling afraid.

I hang it in the porch by the barn door — on the best wooden hanger that I own (Whistles, if you’re interested). The cream wooden hanger was my favourite thing about that particular purchase. Maroon is not my colour, it turns out.

Whenever I have to stop to get petrol, it becomes a BIG thing for my anxiety. I have to do box breathing on the way there, wind the windows down, reassure myself it’s safe. Everything is safe. It’s okay. (Even though I know that both of those things aren’t Truths.)

The anxiety is always worse when I’m not wearing The Jacket. When I get back in the car from having paid, my leg starts to tremor as I drive, and I have to pull over again, shake it out, breathe it out, tell myself to fucking stop it and that (here it is again), “Everything is okay.”

But when I’ve got The Jacket, I can hide. Everything doesn’t feel okay, but I feel calm.

Safe.

Of course I bought the size that he would have worn, so although it’s too big for me, it’s perfect, because I can wear big jumpers underneath. Never his, though, unfortunately. Out of the two I was given, I keep one in a locked, airtight box. I sometimes wear the other one but, for the same reasons as The Holy Grail Jumper, I don’t allow it to have a life outside of the house — unless it’s an exceptionally bad day, in which it comes on a walk, then has to go back to the cupboard when we get home.

I take The Holy Grail Jumper out of the wardrobe, which smells like my grandparents’ bedroom furniture, and I wonder if it’s just a room odour that one naturally develops over time. I close my eyes and bury my face in it about every six months or so, allowing myself a brief moment with him once more. I force myself to come to — wake up — and quickly put the lid back on.

In case too much of him escapes.

When he wore His Jacket in the forests and hills, as we rambled around — in the aimless sense, rather than the weekend-hobby kind of people — I would look at him wearing it like his own armour. But I was also reminded of how inexplicably he was one with everything around him. I always felt that around him, like the earth itself had carved him from the ground and recognised his familiar presence, welcoming him home.

I remember, with both love and discomfort now, playfully saying to him, when we were discussing what things of one another’s we would like if the other one died, whether I could definitely have His Jacket. It was always a good day when he let me wear it. He would zip me up in it. “Like a bug in a rug,” he would say. It was my favourite thing of his I would wear.

I suppose it might sound morbid looking in, but we would laugh about our plans of an imaginary will that existed only in our minds, together. So naive, thinking we were somehow exempt from death.

Like it was all a game of which we were in control.

As it happens, he also offered, and then promised (when I was delighted at the unexpected offer), his vintage bike jacket that he kept in his wardrobe.

The mediums — both, actually — reminded me of this promise. He described it to them and that he wanted me to have it.

But, despite my best efforts at a reunion, it never appeared either.