On The Buses

On The Buses

It took Richard several seconds to realise that his car had been
stolen; the first thought which passed through his mind was that he
had, for some reason, parked away from the house - or had he, in fact
used the garage? But the Golf which had been relegated to a runabout
for Anna was taking up the garage space, and a tell-tale dry rectangle
in the damp street indicated where his recently-purchased Peugeot 307
had stood. He went inside to tell Anna the bad news and to phone the
police.
The business with the police took him less time than he had
anticipated; he had expected them to send someone round to interview
him, but, after taking all the details, they merely gave him a crime
reference number to pass on to the insurance company, whom he rang
immediately afterwards to request a claim form. Having done this, his
mind turned to thoughts of how to get to work; Anna offered him the use
of the Golf, but he couldn't deprive her of her newly-acquired lifeline
to her family in Knutsford and the supermarket, especially as she was
nearly three months pregnant - he would just have to get the bus.
Richard knew that there was a bus service on the main road - he had
been stuck behind the bus on journeys to and from the city more times
than he cared to remember - but, as he walked past the old village post
office, he realised that he had no idea at what time the bus was due.
As he emerged from behind the bend in the street which, he suspected,
had been deliberately re-aligned and tree-lined to conceal the small
modern estate from the passing traffic on the main road - or maybe the
other way round - he was pleased to see that the bus stop bore what
appeared to be a timetable board although, perhaps ominously, there
were no other intending passengers. He read the fading print on the
timetable; the first bus appeared to run at some unearthly hour around
seven, followed by others at 08:15 and 08:42 before the timetable
settled into a regular pattern at twenty-three minutes past each hour.
Today it would have to be the 09:23 which was due in some fifteen
minutes; Richard made a mental note to time the journey into the city
to determine which of the earlier buses he would need to catch until
his car turned up.
The 09:23 arrived on time; Richard boarded and asked for a ticket to
the city centre, putting his pound coin into a tray next to the ticket
machine.
The driver's hand moved towards the ticket machine and froze: "It's
one-eighty to town, mate," he advised, his hand hovering. Richard
flushed and searched his pockets, managing to find another pound coin
to place beside the original. The driver punched the ticket, scooped up
the pounds and dropped a 20p coin back into the tray; Richard took his
change and went to sit down - as the bus was less than a quarter full,
he found an unoccupied double seat halfway along. For the next couple
of miles the bus made rapid progress, only stopping once to pick up two
passengers at a crossroads, but, shortly after passing an ornate sign
which proclaimed the city boundary, the bus turned off into a council
estate.
Richard knew the estate was here, of course, but he had never had cause
to make this detour. It was obviously profitable for the bus company to
do so, however, as at each stop there were a small group of people,
mostly women with children in pushchairs, waiting to board. Richard
scrutinised the new passengers, for he had never before seen such a
motley collection of undesirable women. Childbirth, it seemed, had
deformed each of these women in some way, some becoming obese, bulging
through strained blouses and unflattering leggings, whilst others were
lank and skinny, possibly anorexic. He thought warmly of Anna, who
always strove to look her best, even to go to Sainsbury's.
A dirty posse of young children tottered down the aisle as their
mothers crammed the pushchairs into the luggage rack. He hoped
fervently that there would be enough room for all the women and
children to sit together, but that was clearly not to be:
"Sit with that mister, Damien!" ordered one woman as she and her friend
squeezed into a double seat, leaving a shaven-headed snotty young boy
eating crisps to bounce down on to the seat alongside Richard, who kept
checking his watch and sighing. The journey into the city centre took
thirty-three minutes; it would have to be the 08:15 in future.

His office colleagues at the insurance company were tolerant and
sympathetic when they learned of Richard's plight, though they turned
out to be rather in the mould of Job's comforters. Kevin had once had a
car stolen which was later found burnt out on the banks of the
Manchester Ship Canal; Janice's Metro had been retrieved from the M6 in
Cumbria when it had run out of petrol and the thieves had escaped
across the fields; Zoe cycled to work and didn't own a car but her
dad's Astra had had the best parts taken and welded on to another which
had been an insurance write-off. Peter, the office manager, had, not
surprisingly, lost a top-of-the-range BMW which he was sure had been
stolen to order and was now living a new life in the Middle East. All
agreed that he would be very fortunate to see the Peugeot again in one
piece. Zoe advised him that he could buy a weekly bus pass for ?11.99
from the transport office, so he went out in his lunch hour and did
so.
The journey home on the 17:12 was, if anything, even worse than the
inward journey. Although there were less pushchairs, snotty kids and
dowdy mums, there was a small element for whom the day had been one
long drinking session, plus a number of sober, resigned-looking people
whom Richard assumed were fellow workers from shops or offices in the
city. The day had been warm, the bus was full and smelt unwholesomely
of consumed beer and sweaty bodies; the overripe atmosphere became
somewhat more pleasant once the council estate had been circumnavigated
and the remaining passengers could open a few windows.
On the second day of Richard's enforced travel by public transport he
caught the 08:12 bus which came on time, picking up himself and two
girls from the stop nearest the village; there was relatively little
custom from the council estate, most of whose denizens were no doubt
fast asleep, although the bus had to inch its way round a ratty old
sofa which had been deposited in the road overnight. The return journey
was, again, not entirely congenial but Richard supposed that one soon
got used to this sort of thing; Zoe informed him that she had travelled
from Delhi to Cochin by local bus during her gap year compared to which
even an overcrowded bus in Cheshire was a kind of palace on
wheels.
But the third day was horrible beyond expectation; despite a poor
weather forecast, Richard had not thought to take an umbrella along
with him, and the spots of rain, which fell spasmodically as he left
his front door, had become a steady downpour by the time he reached the
bus stop. Fortunately the two girls huddled together with him such that
their umbrellas could cover the three of them, which was just as well
as the 08:15 bus failed to appear and the three of them had to wait
until a single-decker, obviously the late-running 08:42, turned up at
ten to nine already well-filled with wet and disgruntled
passengers.
At the corner of the entrance road to the council estate a bus
inspector was waiting; he boarded and stood alongside the driver. The
need for his role as shotgun rider soon became evident as the bus
filled to the limit with schoolchildren; the inspector checked their
passes and chivvied them down the bulging bus. The cramped conditions
in the bus meant that Richard became privy to several adolescent
conversations, and he was shocked at the coarseness of the estate
children's language. Not that he was a prude; all the words he heard
spoken on the bus were ones which were familiar, indeed they were
sometimes used in the office, but sparingly, perhaps to season an
ordinary joke or to enhance the telling of some mundane domestic
episode. But here amongst the city's underclass they were used very
differently, as crude verbal weapons to hurt and intimidate, a limited
toolbag of hate-filled nouns, verbs and adjectives. At least, thought
Richard, there would be little chance of meeting these dreadful
children on the journey home, for he would have to put in some overtime
to make up for his late arrival.
Richard stayed at the office until everyone else had left, then made
his way to the bus station just after half-past five and was gratified
to find a bus waiting on the stand ready to depart. The bus was only
half-full and none of the passengers were ones he recognised from the
morning journey. The reason for this became clear when the bus emptied
in the council estate and Richard found himself to be the last
passenger; the driver made to turn the bus round at a small roundabout
but stopped when he saw Richard still seated.
"Where d'you want, mate?" the driver queried. Richard told him where he
wanted to alight.
"Through bus to Ellesmere Port in about fifteen minutes," the driver
advised. Richard was learning about the vagaries of bus travel; he had
merely boarded the correct number bus without considering that it might
not be travelling the whole route.
"Do I have to wait here?" he asked anxiously. He didn't like the
ambience of the immediate surroundings.
"Up to you,'' suggested the driver, "you've got a pass, you can get
back on and come back to town if you like. But you might miss the next
bus coming the other way."
Richard couldn't afford to miss yet another bus; he got off and the
empty bus returned to town without him.
He felt trapped in what was obviously the decaying heart of the estate;
round the bus stop clustered eight shop buildings in two small parades
on either side of the road, but only three were occupied - a betting
shop, a newsagent-cum-off-licence and a takeaway food shop which was
not yet open for the evening and was therefore heavily shuttered. The
other five shops were boarded up and covered heavily in graffiti, which
he tried hard to avoid reading. Several youths were loitering around,
and one youth yelled something unintelligible, cackled and pointed to
Richard who suddenly felt very self-conscious in his work suit, so he
ducked into the newsagents. This shop appeared to purvey very little
news, but had a fair supply of magazines, none of which interested
Richard as they mostly featured fierce-looking dogs, weapons and
scantily-clad girls. He hung around for a few minutes until his fear of
missing his bus overcame his fear of ridicule or worse at the hands of
the youths, bought a chocolate bar and, as he emerged, was greatly
relieved to see the promised Ellesmere Port bus approaching.
When Richard recounted his day of horror to Anna he was surprised how
phlegmatic she was about it all; she informed him that he was na?ve to
assume that the deprivation he had witnessed earlier was only a feature
of Manchester and Liverpool, or perhaps some unemployment-ridden
ex-mining town.
"In many ways it's worse here, because you're an island of poverty in a
sea of affluence," she explained. "Big cities puts lots of resource
into social projects for the inner suburbs and council estates, but
here the poor are just an embarrassment."
Richard could just about understand but found it much harder to
empathise with the council estate dwellers; he had chosen their
semi-rural village as a place where their unborn child could start life
surrounded by nice neighbours with considerate children who went to
good schools, a place where he or she could play out safely and not be
plagued by muggers, molesters and drug-pushers. He hadn't realised that
there was such a cesspit full of evil only a five-minute joyride away.
Or, since the joyriders had stolen his car, a ten-minute bus ride
away.
But Richard was back behind the wheel sooner than he had anticipated;
for what should he see from the bus window the following evening but
the Peugeot 307! The cocky little toerags hadn't even hidden it away;
it was parked outside a house on the main road running through the
council estate. He jumped up, pushed his way past the alighting
passengers, leapt out of the bus and ran towards the car. A young man
was lounging in the driver's seat but that didn't deter Richard; he
screwed his face into a scowling mask, flung open the car door and
pitched the driver on to the pavement, all the time uttering
foul-mouthed threats in a thuggish slur that he had learnt from the
schoolchildren. He switched the engine on, engaged first gear and swung
the car out into the road, only to stop a couple of hundred yards down
the road as the CD player was thumping out some infernal racket. He
ejected the CD, opened the window and flung it into a filthy puddle, a
residue of the rains earlier in the week. The CD case, which pictured a
quartet of grimacing black men adopting menacing stances, followed it
into the mire. He glanced in the rear view mirror to see that the young
man had recovered his wits and was haring down the road waving his
arms, but he didn't stand a chance; Richard was off again in less than
ten seconds and made his escape.

Safely back on the main road, Richard permitted himself a smug smile of
triumph; his approach had of course been the correct one; these
criminals were cowards at heart and could be intimidated by anyone who
acted decisively. If he had called the police they would still be there
talking. He felt manlier than he had done for quite some time, and was
sure that Anna would be pleased. As he entered the tree-lined
cul-de-sac in which he lived he peeped the horn in triumph; Anna, plus
one or two neighbours, came to their doors to see what all the noise
was about.
But as Richard's victory parade rolled to a halt outside his house he
noticed something curious; the upholstery appeared to be somehow
slightly different, and bore numerous signs of liquid spillage - what
had they done to his car in so short a time? He glanced at the window
on which the registration number was etched, and it appeared to have
been changed - only by one letter or one digit perhaps, he always had
to stop and think exactly what his registration number was, but ?
He looked over his shoulder, and what he saw on the back seat filled
him with horror and apprehension. For there, amidst a layer of dummies,
plastic feeding bottles and soft toys, was attached a baby seat which
was only too obviously occupied by a still-sleeping baby. And then he
knew, without any doubt, that Anna would most certainly not be pleased
at all when she found that he had just stolen someone else's car.