‘Thanks,’ Ben replies. He checks his pockets and wrist one final time – keys, wallet, phone and watch – then he pulls the door closed.
I stand alone in the hall for a moment, watching through the rippled glass of the front door as his silhouette shrinks its way to the end of our driveway.
‘See you later,’ I repeat, this time to myself.
Chapter One
I’m not sure if there are many things more humiliating than looking at a rolly-eyed bus driver and saying, ‘Don’t you recognise me?’ He has tufty gingery hair and is wearing the weary expression of a man who can’t wait to finish his shift. I get on this bus twice a day, five days a week. He drives it three or four times of those ten journeys. We do not know one another, but there’s still indignity in that I recognise him, while he’s sure he’s never once set eyes on me.
‘It’s two-twenty,’ he says with yet another roll of the eyes. I can practically hear his thoughts. Not another nutter…
‘I’m not trying it on,’ I reply, ‘I really do have a monthly pass. I use it every day. I was hoping you’d know me…?’ I tail off, knowing I’ve lost the argument.
The person behind me in the queue to get on shuffles and sighs. I’m one of those people. The ones who can’t simply get on a bus without causing trouble.
My purse gives no clues as to where the pass could be. I always leave it in the front window section, precisely so that it’s impossible to lose. It’s not there and neither is it in that compartment.
‘Two-twenty or you’ll have to get off,’ he says.
I half turn, ready to get off, but it’s at that moment the rain starts to thrash the windscreen like a kid playing whack-a-mole at the fair.
Losing something is surely one of the worst feelings in the world. I’ve known real loss and pain, but there’s something about the way a person’s stomach sinks when a valued item has gone astray.
I start to fumble through the coin part of my purse, but this is about more than the two pounds and twenty pence. By the time I’ve paid rent and all the other bits and pieces, there’s so little left that everything else is brutally budgeted. This extra £2.20 means I’ll probably have to miss a meal. It’s a straight choice: Food – or a six-mile walk home in the pounding rain.
‘I’ll pay.’ It’s the man behind me in the queue. No, not a man. A teenager at most. He’s probably fifteen or sixteen, clutching a backpack.
I start to say no, but my heart isn’t in it because everything about me must be screaming yes. Before I can make any sort of fake protest, he’s passed a five-pound note to the driver and told him to take it out of that.
I mutter a ‘thanks’, but it doesn’t feel like enough. A wave of relief slams into me as if the bus itself has thundered into a wall. I try to take a step, but my knees wobble.
For his part, the kid shrugs away my thanks with a, ‘no problem – it’s only two quid’. He offers a thin smile and then edges past, manoeuvring his way as far back into the bus as he can manage.
Only two quid.
Only.
It’s funny how far I can make only two quid stretch.
I’m lost for a moment, but, as more passengers get on, I find myself following the flow until I’m clinging to a pole. The engine rumbles like a low-level earthquake and then everyone shunts forward as we set off.
It takes me a few seconds to realise that the man next to me has gone full-on chemical warfare. If any government agencies are still hunting for weapons of mass destruction, this guy is hiding in plain sight. He’s clinging onto one of those plastic loops that hang from the roof of the bus, thrusting his armpit to within a few centimetres of my face. Showering is free and even I can afford deodorant. How hard is it to not smell like mouldy cheese?
What is wrong with some people?
The man is oblivious, holding his phone with his other hand and thumbing his way through Facebook. Someone named Jenny has some seriously ugly children. Someone called Dave has posted a map of the route he ran that morning. Mr Stinky types ‘Good going dude’ into the comments and presses ‘post’. In all the millions of words that have been added to the internet since it was invented, I wonder if there has ever been anything more inane.
I’d move away but it’s a Friday, so the number 24 bus is full. I’m never quite sure why so many more people appear on this one single day of the week compared to any others. It’s a throbbing, sweating pit of humanity.
I attempt to ignore the smell while also trying not to worry about my missing bus pass. It will be in my bag somewhere. I had it this morning. I still have the receipt at home, too. If need be, I can go to the bus station and get it replaced.
The bus slows and the floor starts to vibrate as the driver pulls into the next stop. There’s a collective groan from the people around me. As if the bus isn’t full enough. We’re British, though, so nobody says anything.
No one gets off, but passengers start to shuffle into one another as, presumably, more people get on. I can’t see much past Mr Stinky. His armpit edges ever closer, the chloroform about to smother its target.
I’m in the front third of the bus, with people standing all around me. The unseen door hisses closed again and there’s now no room to move. Barely room to breathe. We’re packed in like beans in a can.
As the bus pulls away, I wobble slightly and tighten my grip on the vertical metal pole with one hand, while trying to cling onto my bag with the other. It’s no wonder the roads are full of cars. Who’d choose to travel like this? To pay to travel like this?
It feels as if everyone around me is so much taller than I am. As well as Mr Stinky’s armpit, there’s a woman in gym gear with one of those drawstring bags over her shoulders. She’s holding onto a pole with one hand and thumbing away at her phone with the other. If nothing else, modern technology has turned us into a population of multi-taskers.
The groan of the engine changes as we slow for a set of traffic lights. I take this bus so often that I know the potholes, the traffic lights, the junctions, and the give-way signs, even though I don’t own a car of my own.
There’s a scuff of feet from behind, but I’m too crammed in to be able to turn. A man in a beanie hat lurches sideways and lightly treads on my foot.
‘Sorry,’ he mutters, straightening himself as the bus speeds up again.
He’s young; early twenties or late-teens. Probably on the way back from college, something like that. He’s got a kindly smile but immediately looks back to his phone.
‘It’s fine,’ I reply, though he doesn’t acknowledge it.
The bus slows and someone from the back shouts that this is his stop. After that, it’s a series of oohs and aahs as a succession of people squeeze through the crowd to get off via the front door. The man in the beanie disappears, along with the woman in gym gear. There’s suddenly a little more space and I try to do-si-do myself away from Mr Stinky. There’s little respite as he slides around half-a-dozen newcomers who scramble to get the most secure handholds. I’m left clinging to a new metal pole, slightly nearer the front.
The bus surges forward and I’m two stops from sanctuary. There are traffic lights between here and there, which means another wobbling lurch of bodies swaying into one another.
Mr Stinky is still on Facebook, telling someone named ‘Big Tom’ that his pimped-out twatmobile of a car is ‘the dog’s’.
We stop at my penultimate bus stop. The boy with the backpack who gave me two pounds wriggles through the horde and gets off. He clutches his phone in his hand and doesn’t acknowledge me. I’m not sure why I thought he might, or should. For him, the two pounds was a shrug. It was nothing. He might have rich parents. It simply meant he could get on the bus quicker. For me, it was a gesture that means I get to eat this weekend.