Jelly Park

I must have fallen asleep on the bus.
It was the late night that did it, playing Portishead records with a bottle of Jack D and a packet of black Sobranies for company. By twelve o'clock I was singing, 'Nobody loves me¦' in a hoarse growl. By two I was attempting to play solo Twister to prove that friends are just not necessary in life. By three thirty I had stolen the pot plant from outside flat six and chucked it out of my top floor window. I've had enough of decorative frippery for one lifetime.
I don't remember going to bed, but that's because apparently I didn't. I'm still not sure how I made it to the bus stop, but I must have, because I definitely woke up on the top deck of a double decker and the view from the window was definitely of a run down depot. My watch read 10.30am and the voice on the answering service of my mobile said, 'You are so bloody fired, you bitch.'
That was my ex-boyfriend, and now, my ex-boss speaking. From the smug tone, he meant it. He had been looking for a way to get rid of me, and I wasn't sorry I had finally given it to him.
So I was no longer a legal secretary.
What was I?
'You're in the wrong place, lovely,' I heard, and it took me a second or two to spot the speaker. He was half-hidden behind the rail leading to the spiral staircase: only his head and hands were visible. He was Welsh and grizzled and wearing a blue hat at a rakish angle.
'Sorry.'
'This here is the end of the line, so to speak,' he said. 'At least, for passengers it is.'
'Yeah. I can see that.' I slid my mobile phone back into my bag.
'Passengers shouldn't really go any further than this, see?' the Welshman, who must have been the bus driver, said. 'Company employees only beyond this point.'
'Beyond -? But this is the depot.'
'Ohhhh yes. This is the depot. It's the depot alright.' He sniffed, and rubbed the skin under his large nose with one finger. I noticed he had very long fingernails. 'But there's more to life than the depot. At least, for us drivers, there is.'
'Like what?'
He winked. 'Got you curious, have I? Well, it just so happens that we're looking for new recruits right at this moment. Would you happen to be looking for a job?'
'Um¦' I thought about the phone message. I thought about my ex-boyfriend and ex-boss, and the ex-friends who had sided with him after the break up. What was I? 'I suppose I could be a bus driver,' I said.
'Great!' He took off his hat and threw it to me. 'Put this on, lovely, and wait here.'
He disappeared back down the spiral staircase.
I looked at the hat. It had a shiny black peak and a silver badge had been sewn on to the soft felt material on the crown. The badge read, 'Next stop: Jelly Park.'
I had never bothered to read the badges on bus drivers' hats before, but I'm fairly sure I had never suspected they said that.
At that point the piped music started. It was a bouncy little tune, a brass band I think: I looked around and spotted the orange and yellow striped speakers situated in each corner of the bus, just below the roof. It's funny how unobservant people are on their daily commutes.
Then I heard the singing. It started very softly, and as I strained to hear, it got louder and louder, until a sudden burst of volume hurt my ears. A stream of bus drivers in their blue caps and uniforms poured out of the depot building in a crocodile line, two by two, holding hands and singing with their chins tilted up to the sky.
They marched to the bus, and I heard the collective earthquake of their feet tramping up the spiral staircase. Before I could consider hiding or jumping out of the window, they were on me, filling the seats around me, jamming themselves into every crack. They came in all shapes and sizes. There were only two things they had in common: their uniforms and their singing. They were all perfectly in tune with the piped music, and they all knew the words.

Keep your sponge cake,
Fling your flan,
Stick your doughnuts,
Cream and jam,
Leave your custard
In its can
And give us all some jelly!
Jelly is the bouncy treat,
Never runny, always sweet,
Squishy underneath your feet '
Give us all some jelly!

I have to admit it was catchy.
A young Asian woman with lustrous black hair took the seat next to me, and gave me a wave. 'Hello!'
'Hello,' I said.
'Not singing?' she said.
'I don't know the words.'
'But you can sing?' she asked, rather anxiously, I thought.
There was a tap on my shoulder. I swivelled in my seat, and looked into the beaming red face of a middle-aged man who had an enormous monobrow. 'Of course you can sing, love,' he said in a South London accent. 'I'd bet you sing those nasty nineties songs about nobody loving you and what have you, and you only sing when nobody else is about, right? But you can sing. Come on, let's have a peep out of you. Give it a go.'
He looked at me with expectation in his eyes. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth. As if of their own accord, words poured out of me, in perfect time with the music:

In a trifle,
From a mould,
Rabbit shaped or
Ice cream cold,
Nothing better
(So I'm told)
Than a lovely jelly.

Everyone joined in on the chorus:

Jelly is a bouncy treat,
Never runny, always sweet,
Squishy underneath your feet '
Give us all some jelly!

'And we're off!' cried the monobrow man. Sure enough, the bus starting moving slowly out of the depot and along the familiar streets of London.
It was a highly enjoyable journey. The singing never stopped, and it was fun to wave at all the annoyed looking pedestrians standing at bus stops as we cruised past them. Soon the city melted away into green fields and sunshine, and I actually began to feel like one of the gang.
But still the mystery remained ' what was Jelly Park?
'You'll see,' the Asian woman said, and winked.
The green fields soon became studded with grey buildings once more, and the sunshine disappeared behind a big cloud. It started to drizzle.
We drove past a Mars Bar factory.
'This is Slough,' I said to my neighbour.
She gave me a mysterious smile. 'We're nearly there,' she said.
'But this is Slough. We just drove past the Mars Bar factory.'
'Here we are!' they all cried at once, and we made a sharp turn left, everyone leaning against each other and clutching the rails on top of the seat in front of them. We pulled up with a screech into a large, empty car park, and I looked through the window at a squat, dilapidated building with a large open gateway.
'This is a warehouse,' I said to my neighbour.
'Oooh, so close now,' she said. 'Get ready for a treat.' She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. We joined the jostle to squeeze down the stairs and out of the bus. As we passed the cabin, the grizzled Welsh driver gave me an extra big smile.
We got into formation and crocodiled through the open gateway into the shadowed, musty interior. All around us, piled high, were hundreds of cardboard boxes.
The Asian woman let go of my hand and the other drivers scattered apart, all running to a box each, whooping and grinning. 'Jelly Park,' they breathed as a collective sigh. Then they opened the boxes and delved inside.
I stood just inside the gateway and watched them pull out multicoloured rectangular packets, no bigger than a fist.
'Catch!' the monobrow man called, and threw a packet straight at me. I caught it as an instinctive reaction, and turned it over in my hands.
The label read, 'The Jolly Jelly Company. Break cubes apart and add one pint of boiling water. Pour into mould and refrigerate to set.'
'It's jelly,' I said. Or, more precisely, jelly cubes. Packets of instant jelly cubes. Mine was lime flavoured.
The others were ripping their packets open, tearing the cubes apart, and popping them into their mouths with accompanying noises of intense delight.
'Is this it?' I said. 'Is this Jelly Park?'
'Good for your hair and nails,' the monobrow man called.
'Yes, but ''
The Welsh driver had come up behind me. 'Well, what were you expecting, lovely?'
'I don't know. Something else.'
'Like what?'
'I¦I'm not sure I belong here.'
'Then where do you belong?'
The others stopped chewing and looked at me expectantly.
What am I?
Am I a whisky-drinking, cigarette-smoking, Portishead-listening and pot plant-throwing kind of woman?
Or am I a jolly bus driver: a singer, a laugher, and a regular at Jelly Park?
I ripped open the packet, tore off a cube, and popped it in my mouth. It tasted delicious.
So now I drive the number 67 with a smile on my face. Nobody looks at the badge on my hat and nobody notices the yellow and orange striped speakers above their heads.
But if you were to fall asleep while riding my route, and found yourself waking up at the depot feeling a little lost and lonely, I might just invite you along to Jelly Park with me.
Whether you come along is up to you.