Money Talks

“Oh, look! A penny!”

The lady bends down and picks the coin up from the damp car park floor. “Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck!” she says to herself before opening her handbag and tossing the coin inside, clicking the bag shut, and continuing her day, feeling slightly more optimistic.

With a whack, bang, and clatter, the coin collides with a phone screen, bounces off a lip balm, and crashes into a set of keys before landing in some severely tangled earphones. She opens her eyes. 1p had been sitting in that puddle on the car park floor for days; she didn’t think anyone was going to find her! She looks around at the strange place she’d suddenly found herself. It’s dark, and the ground is shaking beneath her. She tries to move, but she’s completely caught up in the wire.

“Hello?” she calls out into the cluttered darkness, “Can anyone help me out of here? I’m a bit tangled.”

“Well, well, well…” comes a voice in the distance, “what do we have here…”

1p holds her breath as a silhouette of a fellow coin rolls into view from behind a scrunched-up receipt.

“Oooh, we have a newbie! Everyone, come look!”

1p hangs in bewilderment as the sudden sound of jangling comes from all directions. Rolling over sweet wrappers, dropping out from an old coin purse, and all congregating underneath her is a whole assortment of coins, all staring up at her in a mix of curiosity and confusion.

“Hello! I’m 10p,” says the first coin, “We haven’t had a new coin in a while.”

“I can’t see! Shift your rusty tails out of my way!” A small 5p barges the others out of the way, causing a 50p to bumble around, trying to get his seven sides out of the way. 5p looks up judgily at the newcomer, “Oh, it’s just another penny, we’ve got a million of them.” he turns his back, “She’s not even that shiny.”

“Don’t be rude, 5p,” says 10p gently, “Our new friend is probably confused.” 10p reaches up and helps 1p out of the wires, “At least you had a soft landing, 2p over there wasn’t so lucky.” She points over to a sad-looking bronze coin with a half-sucked boiled sweet stuck to his behind, “He’s been like that for two weeks now.” He appears to have collected a paperclip, a hair tie, and a whole load of dust.

“Thank you,” says 1p, dusting herself off and looking around, “What is this place?”

“This is the land of Handbag,” says 10p in attempted grandeur, “It’s your new home for the foreseeable future, until Margery up there decides to pay with coins again instead of her fancy new credit card.”

1p looks up to the small gap of sunlight from the top of the handbag; she can just about make out Margery’s nostril.

“Which will NEVER happen!” shouts 5p, “She hasn’t used coins since £1 left us for that dreadful street performer.”

“Never say never 5p!” says 10p kindly, “We’re just waiting for our day to come!”

“How long have you been waiting?” asks 1p.

10p shifts her glance away awkwardly. “Urm, I’ve been in here for a little while.”

“Seven years. That’s how long 10p has been stuck in here. Seven long years,” shouts 5p, who has tucked himself back into the crevice of the balled-up receipt.

1p feels her tails tremor, “I’m going to be here for seven years?”

“Not necessarily!” 10p starts, “There’s plenty of reason why she might need you. Isn’t heads or tails still a game the kids play?”

“Your coin date is showing”, says 5p, “1984…” he sniggers.

“Oh shush, 5p, just because you were made in 2021 and still have your shine doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone else.” 10p snapped, “The older the coin, the more interesting its background. We all got here somehow.” She takes a deep breath and faces 1p “What’s your story then, newbie?” asked 10p.

“Story?” repeated 1p.

“Everyone’s got a story of how they ended up here!” She points at 50p, “He used to belong to Elton John.” She gestures to a 20p, “She was mistakenly made without a date and is worth a fortune. There’s a whole coin-collector community on the hunt for her. Margery has no idea.” Finally, she turns her attention to a dashing £1 perched on a pen, “And that chap over there was given to a little girl by none other than the tooth fairy herself, believe it or not.” She 10p turns back to 1p, “And you?”

“Well,” begins 1p, taken aback slightly by the request, “I don’t have a story involving fairies or celebrities.”

“That doesn’t matter,” says 10p encouragingly, “We want to hear it!”

1p takes a deep breath, “For a very long time, back when I was a shiny youngster, I lived in a jar filled with money. This is back when people still mostly used coins. I was a newlywed’s savings, for a holiday, I think. There were so many of us. I was so excited for them; they got so close. I remember them both staring in at us whenever they added a new coin to the pile. The smiles on their faces…

“But things changed when the baby came. They stopped smiling as much, and they started using their savings for other things, like food and clothes. They started arguing… It was awful…

“I still remember the last day I was with them, the baby crying, and the man couldn’t take it anymore. He took the very last handful of us out of the jar and stormed out. He used us to buy alcohol.”

There was a sudden silence in the handbag.

“I lived in the cash register for a little while after that, as most of you have, I’m sure. Until the next person picked me up. I went from person to person, but for a long time, no one quite stuck in my mind like that happy couple, and what I could have been with them.”

The other coins listen intensely, even 5p pokes his head out from behind the receipt. 10p gives 1p a sad pat, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

1p smiles, “The past is the past, I’ve had lots of other owners since then, like when I was a lucky coin!”

“Tell us about it,” 10p says enthusiastically.

1p takes a deep breath, thinking back throughout her busy past, “I was just a coin in a woman’s purse for a long while. I thought I’d never get spent. One day, though, she took me out and gave me to her son as a lucky coin. It was his first day at high school. All the other boys and girls around him seemed so big. I’ll never forget how tightly his sweaty hands gripped onto me as we went down the corridors, or how he’d carefully place me on his desk and glance at me now and then during his lessons. He didn’t talk to anyone, and he didn’t have any friends, but he did have me. I remember he couldn’t find me one day, and he refused to go to school until we were reunited. Eventually, he found me stuck between his maths book and a calculator. He drew a face on me so that he’d never lose me again. He needed me.

“The kids were mean to him, though, and they caught on that he’d become dependent on me. So they swiped me from his desk when science class ended. It was horrible, I can still hear my boy’s cries, and everyone laughing at him, at us. Then, when we were outside, the bully held me up and said, ‘Heads, you get your coin back, tails, it’s mine.’ My boy watched as I was tossed up into the air and landed heads up. I remember the relief, the smile on my boy’s face, that is, until the bully shouted ‘PSYCHE’ and threw me as hard as he could over the school.”

The other coins gasped. Their eyes locked onto 1p. 50p starts sobbing quietly. “It doesn’t sound like you were a very lucky coin,” muttered 5p. 1p ignored him.

“I landed in a bush, and that was where I stayed for many, many years. I saw my boy sometimes, playing football in the field or running in races. I watched him grow up and meet people. He ate lunch with them on the field in the summer, and he even met a girl. One day, though, he was playing football, and the same bully wouldn’t pass the ball, so he purposefully kicked it into my hedge and had my boy go collect it. That was when he found me; he knew it was me from the face he’d drawn on me. I remember his smile. Something clicked inside of him that day, and he stood up to that bully, asked the girl out, and smashed his exams. All because we were reunited.”

10p smiles, “So, what happened after that? How come you didn’t stay with him?”

“I think he realised he didn’t need me for luck after all, it was all his own doing, he’d survived the majority of high school without me. I just gave a gentle nudge of encouragement. Shortly after he’d finished school, he was on a date with the girl, and he handed me to her at a wishing well. She tossed me gently into the cool water, where I sat for a very long time. 

“What’s it like being a wishing well coin?” asks 2p, adjusting the sticky butterscotch, “I doubt I’ll ever be one…”

“It really is lovely, especially hearing what everyone’s wishes were. Of course, a lot of coins are wishes to win the lottery, which seems rather counterintuitive if you ask me. Others, though, are real wishes. Wishes for love, wishes for friends and family to get better, wishes for dream houses or dream jobs, for dogs and cats, for babies, or trips to Disneyland.”

“So, what happened after that?” asks 10p.

1p thinks back, “Eventually, we were all scooped up, and the cycle continued from cash register to pocket to purse, then for a long time, I ended up living down the side of a sofa with a trolley token. Once I was found, I was dropped into a charity bucket. The little old lady would go from door to door asking for any spare change to help the local church. She managed to collect a lot of coins, which she’d use to buy cigarettes from the corner shop. Looking back, I’m not sure how that helped the church.”

The other coins look at each other, not quite sure how to react. But 1p is so into her own story that she doesn’t notice.

“But the final story I remember vividly came shortly after that. I lived in a little pot with some other coins and paperclips, and whatnot, in a family home. There was a Mum and a Dad, and two little twin girls. They were a really happy family, every Friday they had a board games night, and I remember the twins would do dance routines for the parents to watch, which they always did with their full attention. Every time.

“But things changed one day when one of the little girls got ill. She started spending a lot of time away from home, and she lost a lot of weight very quickly and stopped dancing with her sister. There were times when the whole family would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, with the dad carrying the little girl down the stairs and running out of the front door. It was scary to watch. The Mum was on the phone a lot, too; she’d pace around the house, doing the same route every time, around the kitchen twice, up the stairs, then back down and around the coffee table until the call ended.

“I remember one day, the Mum and Dad were sitting in the kitchen, right next to me in my pot, discussing the girls. I remember hearing ‘waiting list’, ‘too expensive’, and ‘six months’. The Mum started to cry, and the Dad held her for a very long time until she fell asleep in his arms. He took her upstairs and then spent all night in the kitchen on his laptop. The bluelight was glaring into his watering eyes for hours. He was applying to jobs, I think, multiple jobs.”

“Did he get one?” asks 5p, who’s crept quietly closer without anyone noticing.

1p shook her heads sadly, “I lost count of the number of phone calls or rejection emails he read out loud. The last call he got, he slammed the phone down particularly hard and stormed out the door. He was gone for hours. When he came back, his hands were full of small pieces of paper. He spread them out on the kitchen counter, slightly manically, and for the first time in months, I was picked up; it made me jump. And before I knew it, I was being scraped along the paper; it caused a right mess, and he did it for every piece, muttering numbers under his breath.

“The Mum wasn’t happy with what he was doing, saying it was a waste of money, but he kept on his mission. Every morning, he’d disappear and come back with different scratch cards, and every time he’d use me to reveal the numbers hidden beneath, but each time he’d simply toss the paper to one side or rip it up into tiny pieces.

“One day, the Dad was mid-scratch card when they suddenly had to rush off to the hospital yet again. The three of them returned home in silence a couple of hours later when it had gone dark, and Mum and Dad went straight up to bed. The little girl, though, stayed up to get some water, sobbing quietly as she filled her glass. As she turned off the tap, she looked down at me and the scratch card next to me, the one Dad hadn’t finished. She took me in her little hand and gently used me to scratch away the last number.

“The three of them danced in the kitchen that night. They hugged and kissed each other, they kissed the paper, and they kissed me. Things got better after that. The poorly girl slowly started getting better, and the twins were able to dance together again. It was so lovely to see them together again. She still had what the family would call wobbly days, but overall, the days were brighter.”

50p starts crying again, knocking 5p over as he turns around to dry his eyes on a tissue.

1p takes another deep breath, overcome with emotions after reliving her past, “Anyway, I returned to the pocket to purse cycle a couple of years later, then finally, I was given as change and dropped in that car park, which is where I’ve been for the past few days.” She looks around at her audience of coins, “That’s me, that’s my story.”

50p gives her a round of applause.

“Thank you for sharing,” says 10p, guiding 1p away from the large group that has gathered around the newcomer, and into a small corner between a pen and a pack of mints, “I know this handbag probably isn’t the most exciting part of your journey, but it’s a home for now, and you’re not alone.”

“I’m happy to be here,” says 1p brightly, “I’ve never told my story before. It was nice.”

10p smiles, “You’ve led an incredible life, 1p.”

1p smiles back at her, “So, 10p, what’s your story?”