Change

I had been planning to leave the bar, but at that moment the rain began to fall. Not a torrential downpour, mind you, but enough to leave you wet and uncomfortable. And of course, I had forgotten my umbrella at my last port of call. So I stayed put, wondering how to spend the hour before leaving for Heathrow Terminal 5.

I reached into my pocket. It was replete with British coins. I would ordinarily have absentmindedly taken them back home, where they would languish forever in a box with other orphan coins. But I had time on my hands and loose change to spend.

I reached in, grabbed a bunch of them and ordered a pint of Guiness draft.

I still had ample change, so I went over to the vintage juke box, the kind that still played old 45 records. I had just enough money with perhaps 30 p to spare.

It was quite extraordinary that the record I was looking for was there. “Don’t let the sun catch you crying…..”

As soon as I heard Feliciano sing “Tonight’s the time for your tears.” my own eyes started to moisten, and then I saw that I was not the only one. A pretty young lady with well-placed freckles had taken out a turquoise handkerchief and was sobbing softly.

I went over to where she sat the bar. “I’m sorry”, I said. “This song means a lot to me. I didn’t think that it would have such an effect on anyone else here.

“That’s all right,” she said. “It’s a song about loving and losing.”

“I have to leave here for Heathrow in an hour,” I told her. “So what do we have to lose?”

We sat and talked. And talked. We walked out into the rain. When dawn broke I was not aboard the plane. And I never did collect that umbrella.