​​​​​​​Choices

The goggles had probably fallen from a child’s swimming bag. I could have hung them from a nearby railing, but they might have belonged to someone who couldn’t afford to lose them...

- Teresa Ashby

It’s been an odd sort of day all round, really. It’s no excuse for how I’ve ended up here, but I don’t have anything else to say in my defence, although I think the handcuffs are a bit unnecessary.

Things started to get strange when I got off the bus and stood on some swimming goggles, turning my ankle. Luminous yellow and green they were, but worn in patches as if they’d had a lot of use — the goggles, not my ankle, although later the ankle did turn shades of green and blue.

I looked up and down the road, hoping to see someone who might have dropped them, but apart from the newspaper vendor on the corner and a couple of men in business suits hurrying along, there was no one.

The goggles were small and probably fell from a child’s swimming bag between their school and the swimming pool.

I could have hung them on a nearby railing and had done with it, but such things aren’t cheap and for some families, finding the spare cash for a new pair of goggles isn’t easy.

I remember my mum getting upset because I lost my swimming hat when I was 10. You weren’t allowed to swim without one and I said with all the sensitivity I didn’t have, “You can get me another one.”

“Oh, I can, can I?” she said. “Just like that.”

“They’re not expensive,” I said. “Miss said you can pick them up cheap in the sport’s shop.”

“They’re not expensive,” she said softly. “But when you only have 70 pence left in your purse until pay day, everything becomes expensive.”

For all I knew, the goggles might belong to someone similarly pushed.