‘Layers’

When I was young I had a coat of every colour, handmade by my mother, which changed in light of my mood and my surroundings. It was often wild as a peacock when I awoke in the morning, and sullen as a peahen when I had to go to bed in the evening. Sometimes it was translucent, blinding white – the same colour as my hand held in front of my nose on stormy nights, and bearing the faces of me and my brother and everybody we knew.

When I went to school I got a pukka coat, a coat in which to go out into the world, a coat in which to leave home, and I was very excited. Maroon! Out in the world I will be maroon, I thought, just like the fat man at the bank who smiles at my mother when we come to deposit my father's leatherworking earnings; just like the fat sun setting over the rustling corn of deep summer. Just like my feet, as it turned out, after running an hour to school with my shoes in my bag, so they wouldn't get scuffed.