**Diary Entry**
“Mum, that tramp is here again!” My daughter wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“He’s not a tramp! He has a room—just a troubled soul, that’s all.”
With that, my wife dashed to the front step, smiling warmly, urging the man inside. He hesitated, shuffling awkwardly before finally asking for a loan. She handed him the money, along with a few sandwiches wrapped in a plastic bag.
“Here, take these. Get yourself something proper to eat.”
He grinned, his front teeth missing, and promised to repay her in a week before shuffling off to join his ragged friends waiting outside.
“Why do you always give that… that *tramp* money?” my daughter huffed, stressing the word. “He never pays you back!”
“Sometimes he does,” my wife replied calmly.
“Oh, come off it! Once or twice, maybe. And why’s he called ‘Hang On,’ anyway?”
“It’s his favourite phrase. He tells everyone to ‘hang on’ when life gets tough. Pity he couldn’t do the same for himself. He’s not even old—drink ruined him. And a broken heart didn’t help. He loved me, you see. I didn’t love him back.”
“*Loved you?!*” My daughter’s eyes widened. “Wait—did you two…?”
My wife hesitated, then sighed. “We knew each other years ago. When I was young, I had a row with my boyfriend one night and found myself stranded in the middle of London with no money. No mobiles back then, no one to call anyway. I was walking home when taxis kept stopping—either refusing me or making crude offers. Then along came Alex—he was a cabbie then. ‘Excuse me, love,’ he says, ‘any idea where I can find Blackpool Sands around here?’”
“I didn’t realise he was joking and started apologising that I didn’t know. He just laughed. ‘Hop in, gorgeous—we’ll find it together!’ Later, I learned it was a seaside town up north. We dreamed of going there—blue skies, green hills, the sea. But then he introduced me to his mate, and that was that. I fell hard. What a fool I was.”
“They were best men at our wedding, but my first husband turned out to be a womaniser. Took me a year to see him for the waste of space he was. I got pregnant—contraception wasn’t exactly advertised back then, and abortions… well. He talked me into it. Smooth talker when it suited him.”
“I agreed. Worst mistake. The clinic was like a factory—no proper anaesthetic, just agony. Afterwards, I sat in the ward with the other broken women, seething. Then the nurse walks in with a bucket of daffodils and a massive cake—strawberries and cream, from that posh bakery near Kensington. There I was, surrounded by flowers, stuffing my face, crying happy tears. ‘He loves me!’ I thought. Until I read the icing: *‘Hang On, Nat!’* Then I knew—it wasn’t my husband. It was Alex.”
“I left my husband, but nothing came of me and Alex. He was kind, decent… but I felt nothing. When he realised, he vanished. Went up north for work. Later, I met your dad. Got lucky.”
“Alex came back in the early ‘90s—rough time then, gangs running wild. My sister visited from Birmingham, and some thugs grabbed her in the street. Dragged her toward a car. No one stepped in… except Alex. He was drinking cheap cider with mates, already half-gone. One thug knocked him down, but he got up, smashed their car window with a brick. They turned on him instead. Beat him senseless.”
“I visited him in hospital. Four days before he woke, whispering. I leaned in—he was singing some old song: *‘The doc cut me up and down, said “Hang on, mate,” so I hung on.’*”
“But the gangs didn’t stop. Made him sell his nice three-bed in Chelsea. Traded it for a bedsit, handed over the cash. They’d have taken that too if they hadn’t been arrested. But by then, Alex was done. The doctors said… well. He wasn’t a man anymore after that beating. Gave up on life after that.”
She fell silent. So did our daughter—what could anyone say?
*A year later…*
A knock at the door. A solicitor, handling a deceased’s estate. Plane tickets to Palma de Mallorca—open-dated—paid for in full. The rest of the money from Alex’s sold room. And a note, just two words:
*”Hang On, Nat.”*
**Lesson:** Some debts aren’t paid in cash. Some kindnesses linger long after the giver’s gone.
