Wandering Through The Land Of Nod.

A short story of a party, a mistake and a happy ending!

Brr, I shivered and walked quickly along the dark road towards home.  The streetlights reflected fuzzily in the pothole puddles and the night air clung damply to my hair and cheeks.  I tried to pull my coat more closely round me, but it was a struggle.  It felt tighter, I must have eaten more over Christmas than I thought and then even more at the buffet that night.  After all, the coat fitted perfectly when I left home.    

It had been a good night at the village hall, where the Happy New Year banners promised everything that we could wish for in 2026.  Friends and strangers bopped away together on the small, star strewn dancefloor to the skilled and cheerful music of a local three-piece band who understood their audience and played Motown, T Rex and Rolling Stones, so that we forgot the world news and our aches and pains while we relived our school discos! 

While the musicians had a break, we headed for the food table, which, as I hinted earlier, was groaning under the weight of sandwiches, quiche, sausage rolls, crisps and cakes!  None of us held back, after all, we were getting plenty of exercise that night!

When the dancing stars were switched off and the guitar and drums were being packed away, some of us lingered under the harsh fluorescent lighting.  Our magical party room had turned back into a drab and functional space, but we were happy to catch up on gossip which the music drowned out. 

When I finally made it to the cloak room, most people had gone.  It didn’t take long to find my coat.  It’s not an unusual one, made of navy-blue wool.  You’re likely to see one or two on any walk around the village, but it does its job of keeping me warm and dry. 

It wasn’t a long walk home, but the chill was making its way through my gloves so when I turned the final corner, I shoved my hands into my coat pockets.  I felt something hard and round.  I couldn’t remember what it was, so I took it out.  By that time, I was walking up the drive to my front door, and the security light came on, so I could see that in my hand was a shiny grey torch.  I pressed the switch and a bright, thin beam shone out, which was helpful for finding the key in my bag and unlocking the door.

Once inside, I held the torch and began to think.  I felt the tightness of the coat stretched across my shoulders and with a sickening sensation wondered if somewhere in the night, a stranger was fumbling in the dark, searching for their torch in the pockets of a coat which was too big for them and only finding snotty tissues and sticky cough sweets.

My heart pounded, it was nearly half past eleven at night.  What could I do?

I put my hands back into the coat pockets and felt a piece of paper.  It was the corner of an envelope with a telephone number scrawled on it and the words cake recipe, don’t forget!

Was my twin coat wearer wanting a cake recipe or giving one away?

What would happen if I rang that number?  The chances were that no one would answer.  After all, they wouldn’t recognise the caller, and it was nearly midnight.

What to do?  I couldn’t imagine simply hanging the coat up and taking myself to bed for a good night’s sleep and the worst that could happen was I’d get shouted at and told to go away.

I did hang up the coat and found a comfortable chair before I keyed in the number.  Surprisingly, there was a quick response and more surprisingly, a familiar voice on the other end said hello Mandy, are you alright? What are you doing phoning at this time? Did you get back okay?

Oh, I said, is that Jane?

Yes, of course it is, Jane said, who else would be answering my phone?

I took in a deep breath.  Well, erm, maybe whoever is wearing my coat – it’s not you, is it?

There was a pause.  Mandy, said Jane, how much prosecco did you have?  Shall we both put our kettles on; it sounds like this may take some time.

So, a cup of red bush tea later, with my shoes kicked off and a blanket around my knees, three of us laughed over a conference call.  When Jane had made sense of my garbled story, she hung up and called both Kate and me.  Kate had found her coat warm and comfy but was sorry she’d lost her torch and ashamed to find so much rubbish in her pockets!  She was worried she’d lost Jane’s phone number because she’d promised to message her with the best fruit cake recipe in the world. 

We’d all had a good time at the village hall party, and the late-night drama kept us laughing into the early hours.  Finally, I got to bed and fell asleep looking forward to coffee and cake in the village café where coats, torch, tissues and sweets would be reunited with their rightful owners and a recipe for the best fruit cake in the world handed over. 

In this story, any resemblance to the U3A Christmas party is entirely intentional!

Wander Well,

Mandy.

Things I love:

• A good school disco type bop!
• A torch to help my find my keys.
• Red Bush tea.