Three Hundred and Forty Pounds and a Photo

It was under the seat in front of me on the 73, a brown leather wallet, fat, and I'd like to tell you I picked it up and handed it to the driver without a thought. I picked it up. Then I sat with it on my knee for four stops. It was heavy in the way a wallet with cash is heavy. I opened it because you have to open it, that's the story you tell yourself, you're looking for a name. There was a name. A driving licence, a man called Emeka, forty-four, an address in Walthamstow. Bank cards. A loyalty card for a coffee place with nine stamps on it, one off a free one. And three hundred and forty pounds in twenties, which I know because I counted, which is not a thing you need to do to find a name. I'm not a thief. I've never taken anything. But I was on the 73 in November with an overdraft that had a letter attached to it, and three hundred and forty pounds was, that month, the exact difference between a bad month and an ordinary one. I want to be precise about this. It wasn't a fortune. It was exactly the amount that made it a question. Here's what went through my head, in order. Nobody saw me pick it up. He's probably got insurance. Cash isn't insured. He's got a decent coat, going by the licence photo, he'll be fine. I don't know that. If I hand it to the driver it'll go in a box and some other person will have this exact thought about it, and their overdraft might be worse than mine. That's not my problem. If I post it back to Walthamstow without the cash, he gets his cards and his licence and his coffee stamps and that's most of what matters to a person, isn't it. Isn't it. Four stops. There was a photo behind the licence. A little girl, four or five, in a paddling pool, laughing with her whole face. I want to say the photo did it. That's the story where I come out well. The truth is the photo made it worse, because now I was a person thinking about robbing a man with a laughing child, and I still hadn't got up.

What got me up was smaller than that. It was the coffee card. Nine stamps. One off a free one. It was such a stupid, specific, hopeful thing to carry around that I couldn't stand being the person who took it off him. I got off at Stoke Newington and walked back to the bus garage, because handing it to the driver felt like handing off the decision, and I wanted to make it myself, all the way. The woman at the desk took my name and his name and counted the cash in front of me. Three hundred and forty. She wrote it on a form. "Most people don't bring the cash," she said. Not judging. Just information. Emeka rang the next day. The garage had given him my number, which I hadn't expected. He said thank you about six times and then said, "You counted it, yeah? It's all there?" and I said yes, and there was a pause, and I knew he was thinking what I'd thought, in reverse. He offered me forty quid. I said no. Then I said, actually, yes, and he laughed and said he'd post it, and he did. I'm not telling you this to look good. I sat there four stops. I'd like to know what I'd have done with five.