Some students already had sponsors and received their equipment for free in return for using only the sponsor’s brand and taking part in promotional work. They don’t use the equipment a second time, do they? If it isn’t locked away it can be considered discarded, right?
Jimmy didn’t know much about the value of the different rackets or trainers but he decided it couldn’t hurt to have a quick look around the changing rooms to see what was on offer.
Next door to the changing rooms was the school lost property office. Jimmy’s gaze was drawn to a big sign in the window:
LOST PROPERTY CHARITY SALE.
UNCLAIMED ITEMS FROM LAST TERM ONLY 50p.
ALL MONEY RAISED DONATED TO C.L.I.C.
SALE STARTS 19 FEBRUARY, 1PM.
It was the 19th of February. Jimmy wondered how many of the super-cool, richer-than-thou students would go to a lost property sale. That would be like admitting you were ‘poowah’. Only the proles would be seen at such a demeaning event.
Jimmy needed to get hold of some cash... fast. He could clear the place out and pass it all on to Pete. Even if Pete only gave him a quid an item he would be looking at 100% profit for a few minutes’ work.
The time was eleven o’clock; morning break had just begun. Morning break would run until 11:25am. Jimmy had class from 11:25am until 12:20pm and the sale was at one o’clock, in the afternoon.
Okay... there was plenty of time.
Jimmy checked to see how much money he had in his pockets.
Two pounds and sixty five pence.
If you wanted to buy goods from one of the school shops, you could get a chit signed by either your parents, your houseparent or your group tutor. The purchased item would appear on your bill at the end of term. But Jimmy could hardly ask for a blank chit to take to the lost property charity sale.
He needed cash and he needed it now.
He couldn’t ask any of the other students. That would be admitting that he didn’t have any money. They all knew that he didn’t have any money already, but that wasn’t the point.
He couldn’t ask his father because he was away on business.
He couldn’t ask his sister because she would want to know what it was for and he just didn’t need the headache. Besides, she probably had less money on her than he did.
There was only one thing for it.
Jimmy’s father kept a two-pound-coin jar in the bedroom, for those rare occasions when one would find its way into his change. There were quite a few in there and Jimmy could replace them over time.
He wouldn’t miss twenty quid from there.
Perhaps he could ask the people doing the sale if they could hold them back and exchange them after he had seen Pete and got the money back?
But it was no time for questions.
Jimmy had twenty-five minutes to run to the house and back before class started. A distance of about three kilometres.
His quickest route from the lost property office was to cut down past the staff room, across the rugby pitch, out through the stables and via the main road to the footpath leading to the estate.
It was going to be a close call but, with his mind made up, he set off towards the staff room.
He soon realised, having passed the staff room and hitting the rugby pitch, that he hadn’t chosen the best route for someone wearing black brogues and a black suit. But time was of the essence.
Shoes covered in mud, he shot through the stables and out the gate to the main road. It was all pretty clean from there. If Jimmy got in and out of the house quickly enough, he could run back up the stable road, avoiding the rugby pitch.
He reached the house at 11:10am. He was making good time. He kicked off his muddy shoes and ran upstairs to his father’s bedroom, where he removed ten two-pound coins from the jar, putting everything back carefully so that it all looked untouched.
Jimmy inspected his trousers.
Not too bad.
A little speckled with mud, but fine for class.
The shoes he knew were filthy. He would have to borrow a pair of his father’s. They both wore exactly the same size. But he would have to be bloody careful not to scuff them on the run back.
Time check: 11:14am. Eleven minutes to class, but the class was maths and maths was this side of the school, so there should be enough time to avoid cutting across the rugby pitch.
Jimmy hit the stable gate at 11:22am and realised he could ease down. He still had three full minutes to cover the remaining two-hundred metres to the classroom.
A job well done.
He had enough cash to buy forty items at the lost property sale and, with a bit of luck, there should be some ‘higher-end stuff’ up for grabs.
But at 11:24am, Jimmy realised he didn’t have his books. They were in his locker by the library.
He ran off at top speed again, in a mad panic, towards the library, hoping that Mr. Norman would be a couple of minutes late.
The library doors had just opened for the 11:25am period and the lobby was still full of slow-shuffling students, none too eager to get in and study or clear the locker area.
Jimmy was pushing his way through, towards his locker, to shouts of disapproval: “Hey!”, “Careful!”, “Idiot!” He had neither the time to apologise nor to remonstrate and, as soon as he had hold of his books, he darted back to Mr. Norman’s classroom.
“Sorry, I’m late, Sir,” panted Jimmy, practically falling through the door at 11:28am.
“No problem, Knight,” smiled Mr. Norman. “I’m giving you ten minutes’ detention for each minute. And I make it 11:29am.”
“But, Sir...”
“Quiet, Knight. You’re disturbing the class. We’re going over the homework from the last lesson. Now hurry up and sit down.”
Jimmy didn’t care too much about the homework, but he was doing some maths of his own. Forty minutes detention would take him right up to one o’clock. He would miss the start of the sale. But surely there would be no other takers...
How wrong he was.
He arrived at about four minutes after one o’clock to see crowds of students leaving the sale carrying armfuls of ‘higher-end’ items, as Pete had referred to them. Suits, coats, tennis rackets, even a pair of skis in the hands of one early bargain hunter.
Jimmy headed into the little room to see what was left.
The rail labelled “Suits and Jackets” was empty, except for one or two damaged or garish items. As was the case with the rail labelled “Coats”. There were large numbers of socks, carefully placed in pairs, formal and sporting, still up for grabs. But Jimmy didn’t think he would be able to turn a huge profit on those.
He was gutted.
He was also the only student still standing in the room.
Jimmy was about to leave when Les, the caretaker from the senior changing rooms, walked in with a blue plastic basket. “I’ve got a couple of items which have been sat in my office. They came from one of the boarding houses as being unclaimed.
“May I?” Jimmy asked, before Les had even had the chance to put the basket down on the table.
“Fill your boots, son.” Les handed him the basket. “That lot hasn’t been cleaned like the rest of the stuff here though.”
There was no question about that. The item on the top was a rugby shirt, which didn’t look as though it had seen a washing machine in its life, never mind in the past few days. There were plenty more socks to choose from and a couple of quite good pairs of trousers, but they didn’t have designer labels. Jimmy was about to give up when, right at the bottom, he discovered a coat.
The coat looked pretty good.
Jimmy pulled it out of the basket and gave it a shake.
It was a dark grey, three-quarter length, wool and cashmere trench coat. It felt heavy and good quality. Jimmy looked for a label: “Jaeger”. It was a make he had only previously associated with clothes his mother had bought. But this was a man’s coat and it was in his size.
Jimmy tried it on.
As you would expect at a school lost property sale, mirrors weren’t as abundant as they could have been, but Jimmy could see that the coat was in good condition and well worth fifty pence.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“Ooh, isn’t it lovely,” enthused the shorter of the two ladies behind the counter. “It really suits you.”
“Do you think so?” Jimmy asked, not having considered keeping the coat for himself.
“Very distinguished,” said the second woman. “And very warm, too, I would imagine for this weather.”
Jimmy did feel rather warm in the coat. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted it earlier that morning when he was running back to the house.
“Okay, thanks,” he said, handing over the money. “I’ll keep it on.”
Jimmy felt pretty good leaving the lost property room. He wasn’t one of the monied set in the school, who would hang out in the school quad or common rooms with their Armani and Hugo Boss suits.
He had never even given a moment’s thought to his clothes until one day, in a moment of sudden revelation, one of his best friends examined what Jimmy was wearing.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” exclaimed Xavier. “You’re dressed like a computer geek. And all this time I’ve been hanging out with you.”
“I don’t understand,” replied Jimmy, unsure why he had suddenly come in for criticism.
“Look at this suit!” Xavier jokingly lifted up the tailored flap on the jacket. “You’ve got a bum flap!” He put his hand across his mouth and blew out, producing a farting sound.
“And look at your hair, your shirt, your tie... all lined up beautifully like a tailor’s dummy,” he ridiculed.
“Just because you’re a scruffy, little, French fucker, doesn’t mean you can take the piss out of me for looking smart,” Jimmy retorted.
“I’m sorry,” Xavier put his arm on Jimmy’s shoulder. “I’m taking you shopping next weekend.”
§
When Jimmy’s father received the invitation letter for him to attend the school, one point stood out: “All male students are expected to wear a dark-coloured suit or smart blazer and dark-coloured trousers.”
“It looks like my little boy is growing up,” his father had told him. “And that means it is time to get you your first suit.”
Jimmy was taken to Beau Brummel’s, his father’s tailor, where he was measured up for a grey-flannel suit, with tailored cuts to the jacket, and two pairs of matching trousers.
The suit was completed after two return visits, to make tweaks to the patterns and to adjust the final lengths.
Jimmy set off for school, on his first day, looking every bit the banker. Albeit one in his early teens.
He made friends with Xavier on day one and at no point did anyone mention that Jimmy was dressed in his father’s clothes.
So, how did Jimmy wear his grey-flannel suit for two terms, without any abuse, before Xavier decided, out of the blue, that his friend needed some fashion advice?
It was quite simple.
Firstly, Jimmy didn’t care about, or listen to, what other people said about him. Secondly, Xavier was the most quick-witted, evil-tongued little scamp when it came to tearing people apart. Nobody was going to mention to Jimmy that his dress sense came straight out of the nineteenth century, because Xavier would have proceeded to tear them to ribbons.
He would have given them a tongue lashing for... something.
Anything.
It didn’t matter what.
All that mattered was that they would lose.
And if anyone ever took offence at Xavier’s rapier-like wit, to the point of it getting physical, Xavier had Jimmy.
§
Jimmy felt good wearing the Jaeger coat because it was such an expensive item. At least, it had been an expensive purchase, at some point, for its original owner.
When he went shopping with Xavier all those months ago, he could only afford one suit, which he bought in Next. It was quite cheap – he bought it in a sale – but it was blue wool, the jacket was double breasted and it didn’t have ‘bum flaps’. The trousers had turn ups and the suit was acceptable if Jimmy wanted to hang out in the quad or the common room with Xavier’s fickle new mates.
It didn’t really matter because Jimmy just wasn’t cool enough to spend much time with Xavier after the first year. They were still very good friends, but Jimmy had better things to do than hang out, being part of a stupid clique, which was where Xavier thrived.
Jimmy’s wardrobe had developed from the one Next suit but he had never owned anything as lavish or impressive as the Jaeger coat before.
He wore it proudly for the rest of the day.
He examined himself in the full length mirror in his father’s bedroom, when he slipped the two-pound coins back, after school. It looked good, but it needed dry cleaning. There was no knowing how long it had been living in the blue basket with the dirty socks and rugby shirt.
Jimmy needed to polish his father’s shoes before he could put them back. And he didn’t even want to think about his own shoes, which would need a lot of careful scrubbing.
But he was very pleased with the coat.
The coat was not going to Pete at The Oak.
The coat was the best fifty pence Jimmy had ever spent.
The coat was to become one of Jimmy’s trademarks.
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