Julian Cole

It is a fine coat, the finest he has ever seen. To own such a coat is out of the question. So Frankie Deptford stands in front of the window and looks instead. Through the glass he admires the long coat, which is dark blue and flecked with so many colours the material seems to move, which might have told him something.

A clue might have been contained in the shop too, but Frankie has not been down this alley before, so he thinks nothing of the unexpected bright spot in the bricks of gloom. The gold lettering in the window spells out something beginning with 'S'. Later he thinks the word was almost an anagram of smile.

A cruel December wind funnels down the alley. Frankie steps into the shop without meaning to, setting off an old-fashioned bell that tinkles behind him. He is alone for a while and peers round in search of a bargain, but his eyes are drawn to the expensive-looking coat in the window. The material flickers and sparkles, almost as if the weave were alive, and Frankie thinks of a thousand fishes swimming just under the water, and then tells himself not to be so stupid. He is not one for poetic thoughts and wants to believe that a coat is just a coat and a fish is something you eat with chips. And chips are what his children want to eat all the time. He expects they will insist on chips on Christmas Day too.

Frankie turns round and a man appears, as if from nowhere. He is tall and has greying ringlets and golden stubble on his face. The suit he wears is grey shot through with silver.

"The coat is yours," the man says, and a shaft of light filters through the letters in the window and burnishes the grey of his hair.

"Who's to say I want it?" Frankie says, sourly.

"Oh, but you do," the man says. "Believe me, you do."

Frankie takes off his own coat and tries on the one from the window and twirls about the small shop with abandon. As he is generally not a man who twirls, or makes any unnecessary show of movement in public, especially in a shop with only a stranger for company, this strikes him as peculiar. Odder still that he should buy the coat. The man with the silver ringlets takes Frankie's credit card, turns away and runs the plastic through an electronic till, or so Frankie supposes, though he cannot see a till.

When he gets outside, wearing the new coat, Frankie stands for a moment in the dark alley and looks again at the window with its gold lettering. On either side the alley walls rise up sheer to a darkening sky, and he wonders about the beam of light but forgets and walks off quickly and lightly and soon finds himself in the midst of Christmas shoppers. The sight of so many people usually makes him scowl with fury, but today Frankie smiles benignly. Some people smile back, others look at him with suspicion in their hearts, thinking, "What's he got to smile about?"

No one gets in Frankie's way as he walks along the narrow, busy street. Up ahead, a scruffy busker scratches out a tune on a violin. Frankie takes a ten pound note from his wallet and gives this to the beggar, an act of astonishing generosity from a man who disapproves of beggars and is driven to a rage whenever his daughter practises her violin.

The musician thanks Frankie and plays a reeling jig that somehow manages to contain every carol Frankie has ever heard. This is decidedly odd, Frankie decides, even for a day such as this, so he walks off towards the Minster. Rounding the corner, he comes up against a crowd of American tourists. He smiles at these visitors, and even shakes the hand of an aged and surprised man.

Then, disappearing among the throng, Frankie wishes he could fly home, which turns out to be an alarming desire, for in a moment he feels himself sucked up into the cold winter air. He screams but there is no sound, other than the whooshing of his coat, and no one sees his ascension. Soon he is level with the Rose Window window, then he is above the Minster, racing over the frosted rooftops, occasionally swooping down to look at secret gardens, and swerving back just in time.

He narrowly misses a television aerial over one house.

He has never before seen York from the air, but he can tell he is going in the wrong direction. Surely my house is down there, he thinks. The coat brings him outside the upstairs window of a large house, and leaves him hovering in the dusk. Frankie has always coveted this house. Through a window a woman cries. Frankie has no idea why she is crying. She looks out of the window but does not see him.

In a moment he is gone, up again, over the school, above the local shops and then, with a silent touch, comes to rest on the doorstep of the smallish terraced house he has lived in for too long. He breathes heavily for a moment, then rings the bell. His daughter comes to the door, violin in hand, and says: "I learnt to play Silent Night today, Dad."

Frankie is tempted to say, "Well, we won't be having one of those then, will we?" But instead he smiles and says: "That's nice, love."

His daughter looks surprised, then she notices something.

"Hey, that's a magic coat, Dad."

Frankie smiles and says: "I think you are probably right there."

The credit card bill comes after Christmas. In between a trip to Sainsbury's made especially expensive by all the wine and the bill for a tankful of petrol, there is a puzzling entry. This reads: Simiel's Coats, You Have Been Visited.

Frankie Deptford wears the coat for years, but it never again takes him flying.

23/12//99

If you have any comments you would like to make, contact Julian Cole directly at julian.cole@ycp.co.uk

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.