On the Buses

Thinking today how you made the ordinary extraordinary.
A bus ride, for example.
To see the excitement in your eyes, your barely contained delight as you stepped up, strode along the aisle; your giggles as you were bounced back against the seat as the bus pulled away...and all those nice metal bits to bang!

To you it was an adventure. And we'd have to pull you back to the seat, time and again when you leapt to your feet like a jack-in-a-box, unable to contain all that energy.
Your joy was so evident that even though your unfettered, gleeful yells turned nervous heads, people couldn't help but smile.

This past week ferrying suitcase-loads of stuff from old flat to new flat I've been averaging around three bus rides a day.
I'm thinking how much you would have enjoyed them.

They can be a bit perilous though, to put it mildly. If you don't hang on tight you can be in big trouble and I've seen passengers tumbling and crashing into each other, caterpulted onto laps, people tottering helplessly from front to back as the driver puts his foot down and the bus leaps from a standing start.

Most journeys pale in comparison however, to the one I've just stumbled off.
How to describe?
Well, there's that long scene in one of the Harry Potter films when young Harry is on a bus, a magic bus. It leaps and it veers, it sweeps and it swerves, it careers into traffic and, at the moment when collision seems inevitable, it veers again, avoiding calamity by a hair's breadth.
Being on this particular bus was like this. Only no magic, just madness.

It was clear the driver was in a mood. He'd already speedily left the terminus having briskly shut the doors  ignoring the pleading cries of several people running to catch it, hoping to be let on. A lot of people do this and most drivers are more than tolerant.
Then, next stop along, 20 or so businessmen (I think they were Russian) got on.

None of them had the required tickets or permits and, as they coppered up and loudly debated among and themselves, minutes passed, the tension grew and the driver fumed.We feared an explosion.
Anyway, they all paid and ambled on board, smart suits, identical folders, and they lined up in the already-full aisle, grabbing the hanging safety straps above them and the bus finally lurched away.

The driver clearly felt the need to make up lost time and stepped on it...and braked hard, sounding the horn at some helpless motorist who'd got in his way....and put his foot down again. They looked comical, these businessmen, all standing together, all in a line, and as the bus speedily swerved its way up-town they lurched first one way and then the other, then forwards and back again, all in rhythm, all in time, exchanging 'can you believe this!?' type glances.

Two stops later, break slammed on, a final lurch and the doors opened. The men let go of the straps, one rubbed the reddening weals on his palms, and they stumbled off, a bit dazed by the look of it.
At this stop two women got on; one of them much, much older than the other. A frail mother and her large, in charge, daughter.

The daughter positioned her clearly-confused mother near the front in one of the few spare seats. She shouted a few commands at her and then lumbered towards the back, scrappily, bad-temperdly nudging people out of the way.

I lost track of them for a while. But suddenly the daughter was in front of me again. She was pressing the 'next stop' buzzer and gathering herself and her bags, readying to get off.
But her old mum was still in her seat.
The bus stopped, the doors opened and the woman looked about her, possibly as if she'd just remembered she'd forgotten something.

Then loud, shrieking panic. She whipped round to look at her mother, bags flailing and, like rounds from a machine gun, rattled forth a series of commands at high-pitched top volume. Her mother, dazed, startled, began to slowly lift herself from her seat.
The driver hadn't heard all this...or had he?

Anyway, too late. Too late.
As the old lady staggered towards the exit, the doors closed. Mother inside, daughter outside and the daughter thump, thump, thumped on the door and shouted and someone on the bus shouted at the driver....but he was on his way.
The woman left behind loudly howled. It was quite distressing.

 A woman moved to reassure her and another passenger said he was getting off at the next stop (fortunately just a short distance along the same road) and said he would make sure she found her daughter again. He helped her down, put his arm around her...the kindness of strangers....and we saw no more.

Relief on the bus was short-lived however.
For then came the next batch of passengers and now the bus was heaving. Among them was a woman and children: an older girl, a smaller girl and a baby in a pushchair. The woman, their mother presumably, though who would know for sure, pulled a shopping trolley.

It was the eldest girl who got our attention.
For 'eldest' read about 11 or 12.
She got on last and was trying to manage the heavy pushchair and a huge bag of shopping and, as mum pushed her way to stand at the back, it was clearly also down to the girl to sort out payment with the driver.
She struggled valiantly, speaking in a language the driver couldn't understand and he was quite aggressive with her.

The shopping, in a large, full-to-bursting plastic bag, was heavy and she staggered and dropped it, groceries spilling out.
The driver made no allowances for this. When the bus sprang forward, the pushchair - no brakes - lurched with it, dragging her down to her knees across the aisle, one hand scrabbling for the shopping while the other hung on to the pushchair.

The baby began bawling and she tried to shush it, tried to pop the dummy back in its mouth, still on her knees, feeling under chairs for tins and packets.
When she finally righted herself, pushing her long mousey-brown hair away from her face, there were large dark bags under her eyes. She was pale and clearly a very tired girl.
I thought about your average 11 or 12-year-old and how they would have reacted with all this going on. With anger? Upset? Tears? Embarrassment? A plea to mum?

None of these things happened. Her eyes though suggested a weary resilience far beyond her years.
Each time the bus lurched she lurched too, struggling with shopping and pushchair and baby, hands full, unable to use the hanging handles above. Indeed, unable to reach them.

The woman ignored her; her little sister, all blonde curls and snotty nose, clung to the shopping trolley.
Then, after the bus veered so wildly that she almost toppled again, a young man a few seats away, stood and offered her his seat.
The girl looked awkward for the kindness, but then made as if to manoeuvre the pushchair towards it. Her little sister was faster though. She got there first and plonked down, defiant. Thumb in mouth.

I was enraged by this. Waited for mum to say something. To do something. I caught the eye of the man who'd given up his seat. A shrug. What could we do?
The girl stayed standing, dead eyed, exhausted, and a couple of women near her held on to the pushchair to try keep it from rolling away again.

When the bus reached their stop, spilling the family on to the street - the girl to a future unknown - a small squad of burly, uniformed men leapt on to the bus - I genuinely thought for a moment it was a police raid.
One of them spoke loudly and everyone began rifling in pockets, handbags, rucksacks.

It turns out the ticket inspectors operate mob-handed here. The driver, suddenly quiet, lingered at the stop as the seven-strong team, navy-blue uniforms, large ticket scanners resembling old fashioned brick mobile phones slung from their belts, moved through the coach. No-one escaped the inquisition and I don't think anyone was found wanting...this time.

And then I got off Thomas.
The whole adventure made me remember that funny story we used to read of the Naughty Little Truck that caused chaos 'with a rattle and a rumble and a jangle, screech, vroom!'.

I know, I know. This was a bus, not a truck! And it was hardly fun, this journey. But it was a story all of its own, all the same....