public transport — Fiction — In the footsteps of an Itinerant Child

“I say, I can’t bloody believe it.” The elderly man smacked his lips together in derision, shaking his head as he shuffled his pale blue leather suitcase at his feet on the bare concrete floor. “I can’t remember a summer like it. I just don’t know what July’s coming to these days.”

“Oh, I say.” Agreed his wife who was shuffling her matching suitcase and staring glumly out into the vertical sheets of torrential rain which lashed the serrated edge of the iron and perspex bus station and bounced inches off the floor with every tiny impact as though trying to leap back into the clouds.

A ghostly chill rose up a whistled around the feet of the waiting passengers. The elderly man peered out into the storm. Across the forecourt aging larger coaches stood waiting to whisk people away to the sodden green of the middle England countryside coughing out great plumes of black smoke as their engines turned over.

Behind the couple a dozen people cowered in the fragile shelter of the newsagents. Feigning interest in anything they could get their hands on in an attempt to stay in the store and not incur the wrath of the increasingly flustered Indian shopkeeper as he dashed around them asking if they needed any help. No one knew how many more, “Oh no thank you, I’m just browsing.” He could take before the red mist descended.

The elderly woman pulled her pale blue anorak tighter around herself as she turned to look at the new arrivals to her vigil as her husband continued to glare into the weather. She looked down with snooty disapproval at the two young school aged boys who were dressed in matching sportswear and deeply engaged in an animated conversation about the best way to knock someone out. They argued and flailed like masochistic air hostesses’ moments before their nervous breakdowns kicked in.

“You gotta hit ‘em under there.” Said the boy swinging at his companion’s jaw. “Put ‘em right down like.”

“Nah, I saw on WWF last week, you gotta hit ‘em there.” Came the temple targeted reply.

“WWF’s bollocks! They don’t even ‘it each other!”

“Do so!”

“Do fuckin’ not!”

They paused only for a moment to point and giggle at the breasts of the girl who had become the latest arrival to the group. She had dressed for summer and the two boys stood mesmerised by her pert nipples standing to attention beneath her flimsy top. Her boyfriend stepped from the newsagent to join them and slipped his arm around her slim waist.

The old man began a renewed campaign of muttering. He cursed the rain, the buses, the architects who had decided that a soviet gulag would be such a great thing to base the design of a new bus station on in those dark days of the mid-sixties and the general sorry state of affairs he saw the whole world in at that moment.

“Oh, I say.” Implored his wife once again.

A small single decker bus pulled into one of the nearby stalls and the ever-growing group of passengers watched jealously as the strangers began their journeys. On the bus, people took their seats with relief, only a few more moments now lay between them and sanctuary of hot cups of tea, which waited at their destinations. Secretly they gloated to themselves.

The queue had grown again. A pair of young mothers with push chairs and a small flotilla of children had pulled up and now stood talking in the universal nasal voweless accents of council estates up and down the land as they smoked their silk cut ultras.

The children amused themselves. The eldest stood quietly perplexed by the scratched perspex and the even scratchier image of the world beyond as the icy wind whipped around her knees. The youngest clambered on the barriers and handrails, hauling himself through any number of precarious contortions. The middle child chose to quietly amuse herself by picking a large grey piece of chewing gum from the dirty concrete floor.

Then came a sight which made hearts leap. In the distance, appearing like a ghostship at sea a bus cruised ethereally through the storm. Its yellow number 8 glowing like a beacon of redemption. Soon they too would be sipping sweet tea and watching Gloria Hunniford’s Open House.

It drew up slowly in front of the crowd. They moved forward in a cautious flock, herding, sniffing they air, watchful of any predator who may leap out and snatch them away so close to end of their ordeal.

The driver sensed the pack’s hungry expectancy, his ears pricked up and his eyes opened wide as he saw the herd of beasts shuffling forwards. They were almost upon him. In a few moments they would be at the door, his shift had finished and he wanted his tea just as much as they did. He slid down slowly in his seat, canines exposed in a deterrent snarl. He gathered his things tentatively and took his chance. Launching himself out of the door in one movement and disappearing into the rain. The crowd bayed as one, collectively wounded.

The crowd didn’t relax though, they paced and snarled, they swung and picked, they argued and muttered, they hugged and gazed. They knew all they needed was a matter of a couple of seconds to get on board. The elderly couple used their years of experience as they moved into prime position using the suitcases as concentric lines of matching defense. The rest of the crowd sniffed the air and chewed the conversational cud.

Time crept by and slowly a driver appeared. Emerging from his den, standing timidly upon his hind legs and surveying the scene. All heads turned towards him, his slight build disguised by the heavy raincoat. The doors flicked open and he stepped aboard.

The elderly couple sensed their chance and made their move but old joints and bones coupled with the terrible dampness of the weather slowed them. They were seconds too late, the doors snapped shut leaving them stranded in the rain.

The driver opened the cabin’s door and began to remove his raincoat. He glared down on the elderly couple with malevolent rodent eyes, plotting. He broke his gaze to glance at the two boys who now paced, swaggering in front of the vehicle.

“C’mon driver! What ya fuckin’ doin’?”

“Yeah! Start the fuckin’ bus!”

The driver peered at them through beady eyes, staring cautiously along his thin, steep sided nose, his raincoat still hanging off his skinny shoulders.

“I don’t believe it.” The elderly man turned to his wife. “What does he think he’s doing leaving us out here like this with these heavy cases?”

The elderly woman stepped forwards, rapping her knuckles sharply in the rubber edged folding doors. The driver’s head spun around, startled, his beady eyes gleaming in fear and plotting. “What do you think you are playing at, leaving us out here like this with these heavy cases?”

He did not reply. “Driver? Driver?” She turned towards her husband. “He’s not listening, what does he think he’s playing at?”

“Are you listening? Can’t you see its raining? What do you think you’re playing at?” The driver switched his gaze sharply between the elderly man and woman and then scanned the crowd milling behind the thin perspex.

The middle child finally won her battle and pulled a dirty grey glob of chewing gum triumphantly from the floor and held it aloft, gazing deep into it like an ancient relic, waiting for it to yield its mysteries. Slowly, she began lowering it to her mouth with apprehensive curiosity.

Her younger brother, swinging on the handrail paused momentarily to witness the event.

Her mother raised her lighter to another cigarette. She spied the girl and the epiphany about to take place with only seconds to spare.

“Kylie!” The shrillness of the call tore through the crowd, startling one and all. None of them had expected any calamity among their own ranks. Even the elderly couple strained their necks to investigate.

The mother lunged forwards, catching Kylie’s wrist in the nick of time. The small girl looked up at her mother’s red and bloated face, fear and confusion welling in her eyes.

Her sudden movement had dislodged the empty pushchair sending it arcing out of control.

One of the handles caught the caught the climbing bother square on the arse, knocking him clutching and sprawling from his precarious vantage point. His flailing legs catching one of the school aged boys on the back of the head.

He turned on his matching chum. “What ya fuckin’ do that for?”

“What ya fuckin’ talkin’ about?”

The mother saw the falling toddler too late. She charged across to him in vain, forgetting that she was still holding Kylie by the wrist. Swinging the petrified child through the air like an ineffective fleshy kite and into the young couple’s legs.

“Callum!” The boy hit the cold ground with a dull thwack and began screaming instantly. The crowd panicked at the sound, the distress spreading bovinely throughout the herd. Kylie immediately followed suit.

The eldest child looked up, calm and bemused, as the second mother dashed to Kylie’s defence. She looks at the summer dressed girl in disgust. “What have you done to the poor kiddy eh?” She demanded, yanking Kylie away again, this time by the other wrist.

“Ya fuckin’ hit me on the head!”

“I fuckin’ didn’t!”

“Ya callin me a liar?”

“I’m callin ya a fuckin spaz if ya fink I hit ya!”

“What are you playing at? Can’t you see we need to put our bags on the bus?”

“Kick a little girl will you! Well! You’ll no hurt ma baby!” The second mother launched at the young couple, her greasy bulk clattering clumsily into both of them. Her TV dinner weight too much for the boyfriend to hold off.

The melee quickly spread. “Who ya fuckin’ callin’ a spaz?”

“What ya fuckin’ gonna do about it?” The two boys now launched at each other.

Kylie and Callum screamed, their faces turning blue with the effort as the first mother shouted her support for her greasy counterpart.

The elderly couple rapped harder and harder on the doors of the bus. “Driver! Driver!”

The rest of the crowd fled in perplexed embarrassment. Some out into the rain, some in panic onto random buses and some into the newsagent, battling against the shopkeeper who was intent on locking the door and keeping them out. “Only paying customers please!” He grunted, holding the door with his considerable bulk. Quickly adding, “early closing! Early closing today! Shop shut! Please be going away!”

The driver seized his moment. He threw off his heavy raincoat and dropped into his seat. He reached one hand up and began spinning the destination board instinctively, he reached one hand down and jabbed the start button.

The engine barked into life. The headlights startled the writhing mass of bodies. They froze, all turning their gaze back to the rodent faced driver. Startled into forgetting their aggression. They just wanted tea again, tea and the number 8. The number on the front of the bus spun wildly, finally resting halfway between 21 and 22. The mass let out a collective groan of disappointment.

With a great clutchless roar of grinding gears the driver wrenched the vehicle into reverse and sped off backwards in mortal panic with the handbrake still firmly on. Disappearing into the storm, engine whirring in mechanical pain.

“Well,” said the elderly woman, turning towards her husband. “I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.”