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Tartan Cap

John Farquhar Young

    Sarah, in her early thirties, tall and strikingly good looking, hurries in the direction of a bearded beggar, sitting on a sheet of cardboard near the entrance to a departmental store, her thoughts at that instant harnessed to the many tasks which have brought her to the city.
    The beggar’s head is bowed as if in prayer, his eyes languidly settled on a tartan cap in front of him. Beside him on the pavement, a large, black dog of uncertain breed is sleeping.
    Sarah’s eyes rest for a moment on the cap which, she notes, is a grimy replica of the faintly ridiculous tartan hat which frequently adorned the head of her ex-partner. She smiles briefly as she remembers Dougie. Poor Dougie, loyal Dougie. Dougie, longing for affection, like a big shaggy haired dog, like the dog lying next to the beggar.
    “But why are you getting rid of him?” she recalls a friend asking, smiling but at the same time looking sad. ‘He’s so nice. Loving. Actually, you’re very lucky.’
    ‘Because...” Sarah paused for a moment searching for a plausible way of closing the topic. “Because I feel... so hemmed in by him.”

    
“I hope that you will be happy,” he said quietly as he left the home they had shared. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
    The words have echoed in her mind many times in the following two years and now recur as she approaches the beggar. What is it that I want - really want? she asked herself. Introspection did not come easily to her, but the question always seems to be important.
    She accepts that she enjoys the attention of an audience, the company of people swift to show their appreciation of her turn of phrase, her humour, the silver fluency of her words - the people skills which she easily acquired during her years at an expensive girls’ boarding school and which she now puts to excellent use as a public relations consultant.
    But when she made what she regarded as a clever comment, Dougie would gently smile, his look perhaps carrying a judgement. He thinks I’m a superficial person, she came to think. Am I? The question rankled and still does.
    A small boy and a woman she assumes is his mother stop beside the man. The woman gives the boy a coin. After a moment, and with encouragement, he overcomes his hesitation, steps forward, quickly bends and drops the coin into the tartan cap. Something about the beggar’s eyes, the way he lifts his head in a gesture of thanks, suddenly seizes Sarah’s attention.
    “Dougie!” She stands in front of him astonished. “Dougie! Douglas! Is that you?”
    Both Dougie, and the dog raise their eyes to her in the same instant. For a moment Sarah finds herself speechless. “Dougie! What .... What on earth has happened to you?”
    The beggar is silent then slowly returns his attention to the tartan cap.
    “Dougie!” She grasps his arm. Through the grimy sleeve it seems thinner than she remembers it. The dog stirs itself and growls softly.
    “Dougie you CANNOT live like this,” she exclaims, struggling to find words to encompass the shocking evidence of her eyes.




    
He looks at her again; the eyes which once spoke of his fondness for her are now stone hard. “Can’t I?”
    “We have to do something,” she exclaims, although at that moment she is clueless as to what that ‘something’ might be.
    His voice is soft and even. “Go back to your life and leave me to mine.” He languidly dismisses her with a contemptuous wave and returns his gaze to the cap.
    She pulls some notes from her purse. “I want to help, Dougie. Let me help you in some way. Please.”
    “Just go away. Just go away.” The words are spoken quietly.
    As Douglas continues to ignore her, she scrambles to grasp the reality of the moment. Incredulity mingles with anger. He’s crazy.
Does he actually hate me?
    Does he blame me for being in this state?
    “I am not the reason for you being ...” she is struggling to find words, “...for you being like this.”
    She becomes aware that passers-by may be looking at her with interest - a clearly agitated woman arguing with a beggar. I can’t take this, she suddenly thinks then still stunned she finds herself walking briskly away.
    In the hours that follow, the tasks and meetings that brought her to the city fill her mind, gradually blunting the shock of her encounter with Dougie.
    But as she starts her journey home the image of her ex-partner again dominates her mind, and for several moments she wonders if she should take a slightly longer route back to the rail station to avoid passing his spot. But then she thinks experiencing a flash of anger. Why should I? Life is full of accidents, she concludes. And Dougie, you’re proof of that! The question which has recurred many times since Dougie’s departure again lances into her awareness. What is it that I want? What don’t I want? “I don’t want entanglements,” she murmurs.
    As she walks, she begins to accept a hardness within herself. “There are limits to caring,” she finds herself saying. Caring is resource! The words crystallize her thinking. She smiles. I don’t have much of THAT commodity in reserve. Some sort of character flaw? She shrugs inwardly. That really is a matter of no consequence. That’s just the way I am - the way I am content to be.
    As she briskly passes Dougie his words hover in her mind: “Go back to your life and leave me to mine!” Excellent advice Douglas! she thinks. As she is about to turn a corner, she glances back at the beggar sitting with his back against the wall and the dog slumbering beside him. A woman is dropping something into the tartan cap.

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