Page 3 of A Face in the Crowd
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 makeonlytwo 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 iswrongwith 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? Topayto 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.
After he’s off, more people get on. The bus is now so full that passengers are standing level with the driver. He shouts something about moving to the back, but there’s nowhere to go. Someone presses an elbow or an arm into my back, but I don’t have enough room to see who it is. In the meantime, a woman who is wearing what can only be described as a faded curtain treads on my toe without apologising and then swings her oversized handbag into some bloke’s stomach. He grunts in pain, but she doesn’t notice because she’s busy huffing something to the woman next to her about ‘foreigners filling up all the buses’. She then turns to Mr Stinky and tells him to put his arm down because he ‘needs a wash’.
Mr Stinky eyes her incredulously but lowers his arm and puts his phone away, suitably chastened. Turns out there’s a hero in all of us – even the racist lunatics.
One more stop to go. Two minutes at the most. After the bus pulls away, I stretch for the bell and the most satisfying ofding-dongsechoes along the length of the aisle. Mandela might have had a long walk to freedom, but I’ll be damned if he ever spent twenty minutes on the number 24 bus on a Friday.
I’m counting the seconds when the floor rumbles and the bus slows. Moments later, everything swerves to the side and the doors fizz open.
This time, it’s me apologising as I clasp my bag to my side and try to clamber around everyone else. I trample on someone’s foot, accidentally elbow someone else in the hip and then almost grab a man’s crotch as I reach for a metal pole to try to support myself. He snorts with laughter as I apologise and, in fairness, it is the most action I’ve had in longer than I care to remember.
There are a few more steps, the customary ‘thanks’ to the driver, more through habit than actual gratefulness, and then – finally! – the crisp, cool, clean air of the real world. My sentence has been expunged and I can walk free with a clear conscience.
