Wedding Coat

Abstract

Nell snuggled in against the long green coat that hung on the coat stand, stroking a velvet ridge that ran over the wool. She followed a line that started from the first wrinkled leather button near the collar and ran her fingertip over to the side where it curved around the soft fold of the sleeve, around the back, another sleeve, and then straight over again to the buttonhole. Her finger dropped to the next velvet ridge. Like furry black caterpillars they circled their way around the coat. Nell never managed to trace them all. She always started at the top, standing on her six-year-old tippy-toes to reach up for the first one that crawled from underneath the back of the collar. Nell shivered, thinking about touching real caterpillars. Her tongue poked out as she wound her way down, concentrating hard to keep her finger on the line, breathing in the musty scent of patchouli oil that her sister Johanna used. Hippy perfume, her mother called it. Nell had dabbed some of the dark oil on her wrists once but the smell gave her a headache. The pocket crinkled as Nell slid her finger over it. She knew what was hidden in there: Johanna's packet of tobacco and a box of matches. When they went for their night walks with the dog, Johanna wore the green coat and always rolled a cigarette, the tobacco hanging out the ends like a secret moustache hidden inside the white paper. Even though Johanna twisted and pinched the extra bits away, strands of tobacco would still hang off her lips. Nell wasn't allowed to tell anyone that Johanna smoked. It was lucky that their mother didn't wear her wedding coat any more.