The Busconductor Hines

by James Kelman

  When he was in beside her she clung to him, still shivering.

  Naw, he laughed, there’s plenty of time.

  There better be.

  They were kissing then and very soon he moved to enter her. Once he had climaxed she told him it felt good. His breathing wasnt right to answer yet. But he kissed her, and eventually rolled onto his back; she laid her head on his chest, then said. What a waste!

  He chuckled.

  Well, you’re still hard.

  No I’m not.

  Feels like it to me.

  Ah you could probably bend it in two the way it is.

  Rab!

  He laughed. And you’re the one that wanted to be a nurse too!

  She shuddered: a mime, the way she could shudder in the circumstances. He held her there, on his chest, stroking the side of her arm, her hair on his left cheek.

  When have you got to go back?

  A while.

  Are you sure?

  Aye. He sniffed slightly, gazed at the ceiling for a moment, before shutting his eyelids. He opened them again.

  The man on the kerb was sitting so that he seemed to be attempting an actual connection of his feet with the tar and stonework. How to manage it; there are the feet encased in the socks and the boots and there is the street upon which they have settled. Shoes he’s wearing, not boots. A man of uncertain age but a dosser of course, and waiting for the garage canteen to open to strangers, strangers not being permitted entry until breakfast has been eaten by the garage employees. He stares at the shoes on the street; a rigorous posture though it could appear relaxed, his elbows fixed or resting on his raised knees. The cigarette Hines has been smoking he chips to land less than a yard from the man’s left shoe but the man made no outward movement. He steps in the man’s direction, as though preparing to clobber him a hard one on the shoulder but instead of doing that he just continued along the street.

  A driver came striding round the corner and nodded to him in passing, then he called something which Hines ignored.

  Along the pavement of the main thoroughfare he was swinging his machine-case while walking. Snow started to fall. The bus was at the stop. Beside it stood another driver and a bespectacled Inspector by the name of Mackie. Then out from a shop doorway strode a busconductor exhibiting a mixture of relief and annoyance, the annoyance now taking precedence; and he headed toward Hines. Fuck sake Rab what happened to you?

  Slept in, grinned Hines. He drew the cuff of the sleeve of his uniform jacket under his nostrils and sniffed. He smiled at the Inspector. But the deepest form of frown screwed the Inspector’s eyebrows and he was wanting to know what bloody time this was to arrive. Hines chuckled. Aboard the bus the faces of the passengers. And the driver already inside his cabin and adjusting his seat and rear-view mirror. As soon as Hines stepped on the automatic doors banged shut and within moments all moved at a fair clip. He blew his nose into a piece of toilet paper before arranging his machine and cashbag. Some passengers watched. He shook his head with a smile and was soon conducting his duties. And his nose dripped again, 1 drop on his wrist while another onto the ticket he was issuing to an aged male passenger. The poor auld latter! What he did was hold the ticket by the skin of its teeth then place it with tremendous aplomb on the spare bit of the seat beside him. Blooming nose, said Hines, been like this for months so it has!

  He continued down the aisle, collecting the rest of the outstanding fares.

  Soon he was asking the driver to halt at the next convenient general stores. And he got off to buy a packet of paper handkerchiefs as well as the ½ ounce of tobacco, making the payment from the cashbag. When he came out the bespectacled Inspector was there – he would have been on the bus immediately following that of Hines. He gazed sternly, saying: Name and number?

  Hines grinned. He replied and yawned, proceeded back onto the bus, to be followed there by the Inspector. Opening the packet he took out a handkerchief and blew noisily into it. The blow was a good one but and he felt the benefit. Am I being booked? he said.

  Course you’re being bloody booked, whispered the Inspector, glancing over his spectacles at the passengers; then he began to write into his notebook.

  Hines nodded. He enclosed the pinkie of his right hand in the handkerchief and stuck it up his right nostril, and he yanked about there. That’s how I went into the shop, to buy them, these handkerchiefs. Runny noses! Murder polis so they are.

  Get the bus moving, the Inspector told the driver.

  Is it no a bona fide excuse?

  Under no circumstances is a conductor allowed to leave his bus, as well you know. He lowered his voice. And dont try to take the effing piss out of me Hines, I’m warning you.

  Hines sniffed and looked at him.

  The bus had been going. Just before the next stop the Inspector nodded at the driver and soon the bus halted, and he got down onto the pavement to stand there with his hands clasped behind his back, and facing away from the bus. Then the bus moving and the driver engrossed in that, the passengers gazing at various objects of interest but not connected to this situation. It was quite peculiar in a sense, and Hines raised his left arm though soon he lowered it. He muttered.

  What was that? said the driver, his head twisting to the side then back to the front. What d’you say Rab?

  Mackie.

  Hh. The driver shook his head. I mind him before he became an Inspector.

  So do I. I conducted to him quite a few times.

  Did you? the driver glanced round.

  Aye. Hines sniffed. I hadnt long started in the job right enough.

  The driver nodded, turning his head but then returning it at once and he was hitting the footbrake . . . Knew he was going to do that, stupid fucking . . . He shook his head, and he glanced back to Hines.

  Aye, quite a few times.

  Hh! The driver now reaching behind his seat for another bottle of milk and he swigged a long one then replaced it and getting a packet of his tipped cigarettes from the panel above the dashboard, and glancing at Hines and also to the front while extracting a cigarette.

  Aye; I hadnt long started in the job right enough.

  The driver fiddling with the box of matches, eyebrows raised. Hines turned and began to manoeuvre the farestage numbering device on his machine; he shrugged and went up the stairs. It wasnt busy. Towards the rear he sat down and he rolled a cigarette.

  Once she had gone into work he went back to bed and attempted to sleep but this was not to be possible because of the boy who was both playing with toys and watching the television. He got up. He too watched television, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes; then he went to the front room with the quilt, put on a record and lay stretched out on the settee. Paul entered. He got up, he walked to the windows. Aye, he said, real winter stuff the day. He frowned at the sky.

  Paul continued to stand near the settee. Hines sniffed and nodded to him then returned to the kitchen. The atmosphere had clouded, the tobacco smoke. He leaned over the sink to force up the window a bit. One of its sides was jammed. He tugged on the other side first then applied pressure with both hands to the jammed side; it appeared stuck fast; he got a small hammer from the toolbox beneath the sink and gave it a few taps until able to move it by hand. Paul was watching him. Hines nodded. It’s these auld mineworkings son, causes subsidence. He shrugged, filled a kettle to heat for tea, or possibly coffee. What about you? he said, d’you want some milk or what?

  Yes.

  Milk you mean?

  He nodded.

  What about a piece? want a piece on jam or something?

  Paul grinned.

  Hh; god. Hines shook his head with a smile.

  This rectangle is formed by the backsides of the buildings – in fact it’s maybe even a square. A square: 4 sides of equal length and each 2 lines being angled onto each other at 90°. Okay now: this backcourt a square and for each unit of dwellers up each tenement close there exists the midden being equal to 2 dustbins. For every 3 closes you have the
1 midden containing 6 dustbins. But then you’ve got the prowlers coming round when every cunt’s asleep. They go exchanging holey dustbins for nice new yins. Holey dustbins: the bottom only portionally there so the rubbish remains on the ground when said dustbins are being uplifted. What a bastard. Lift a dustbin then aware of how light it feels and then to be finding all the rubbish lying in a heap on the fucking floor – having to rush out to the midden-motor and get your shovel and back again to swipe it all away before the animals get a whiff and come out to get into it. Animals eat everything. No matter what it is they’ll fucking eat it. They’re starving right enough. And they are not to be having anywhere to live. They keep trying to stay one jump ahead of the demolition men. You get the building knocked down and then the equipment gets transferred round the corner, and so on down the line, getting nearer and nearer to this very window. And all the time the poor auld fucking animals go running for cover, scrambling along beneath the floorboards and up and down the stair they go dropping between walls, in behind all those layers and layers of fucking wallpaper dating back to christ knows when son it must be near a hundred bastarn years the dump has been standing, which throws you a century’s rodent shit plus the decayed corpses all lying wedged here there and everyfuckingwhere no doubt supplying sustenance by christ to lesser mites so that springing to life the rising generations and even evolution for fuck sake what next.

  The District of D.

  There can be long hot summers in the District of D. Dont let anybody tell you different. And it can be good in the long hot summers. Even the fucking buses, these early mornings, before the bastards are up and about and jumping aboard your platform. Great, the dawns, when the alarm goes off and it’s daylight already and there you are there you are there you fucking are right enough. It is baffling. It is baffling and yet it is not fucking baffling. Here you’ve got a family comprising husband wife and wean whose astounding circumstances are oddly normal. This trio are as 1. But the husband is to be no doubt leaving his job of work to take to another. And the reason is clear: he has failed to make a go of things at this the third time of asking. It is his considered opinion that the door must soon be shown him for being a bad busconductor. And in the long run it’ll probably prove possible that just being an actual conductor will be reason enough because 1-man-buses are the vehicular items of the not too distant future. He would to have become a busdriver in view of this, to have been preparing for that. But there is now no hope of his ever becoming a busdriver. Okay: so, either he leaves of his own fucking volition or else he gets the boot. Fine. And the broo does seem the thing to do. Fuck sake but he has been knowing that for a while. Let it pass, fine, okay, as long as the course is foreseeable past opinions on the future are irrelevant. Shut all that kind of stuff away, away. It is a straightforward matter, a simple question of producing the finishing line. And the actual means of production though important are nevertheless not too important. Of course you’re still left with the fucking house.

  What might be worth noting here is the strange kettle of cabbage. It is fucking a strange carry on altogether. Here you have a house – a flat – a flat cum house – up a close in a tenement building. Now: there is a – many in fact – singular bits involved in this problem about the house. Not least is an item of an apparently insurmountable nature. It calls for wide heads. The past and the present have got to be considered. When the immediate past is not only today but also tomorrow. What the fuck. The time things they set you up. 5 years is never to be described as 10 minutes. That would be fucking ridiculous. 5 years is a host of days; then for each 1 you get 3. Even if you only want the 1 you’ve got another 2 stuck on. You’re best paying no attention. You just go along. You can just go along okay. You can be getting along fine, just going along, you can eh – then the house coming on top of the job or maybe beforehand, the flat, it is to be being demolished so the flit out from here to the next place and getting the space, clearing for the space, getting shot of the auld brickwork and concrete, the debris, you get it stacked then wheel it away in your wheelbarrow, right up the ramp and into the skip, the debris. Your head gets thick. You can be watching and waiting. It is fucking a strange carry on because then there you are. And you are not able to look properly.

  She had spoken. He glanced at her, replied, and she nodded. When she got to the oven she switched off the gas and poured the boiling water out of the kettle into the two mugs and added the milk and the sugar, and carried one to him and the other back with her to the chair; sitting down there and resuming reading; about four inches of wrist showing beneath her jumper sleeves; her chin resting on her cupped left hand, hair shielding most of her face. He said that the coffee was good and she asked if he wanted anything to go with it, there being biscuits in the tin. And the movement of the book as she settled into position, the concentration, left leg crossing to the right, the foot to be resting halfway there on it, between the knee and the crotch; she scratched at her ankle. When she had walked to the oven her steps appeared as though measured.

  She asked if he wanted the telly on it wouldnt bother her but he said no, only if she did. She looked at him. A moment later he looked away, shrugged; he reached for the tin and got the lid off, the cigarette made.

  She was yawning. Closing her book she got up and left the kitchen. The lavatory door creaking; soon the plug being pulled and the crash of the cistern emptying. Then her footsteps from the front room; she was now undressed, and getting into bed, to be facing into the recess wall.

  Eventually he turned the gas-fire down to its minimum power and settled his heels on the fender, lifted the cigarette from the ashtray, but put it down again and lay back on the chair; he looked at the ceiling and smiled, shaking his head briefly. It seemed as though there was nothing to say. That that which could be said must have been said already. She was in bed and facing the wall, her breathing inaudible but eyes maybe open, attentive – waiting for him to move, even for the match being struck perhaps that a further 10 minutes till the light went out and he in beside her. They had looked at each other. What could be sadder than that. Nothing could be sadder than that. It is terrible. Nothing has ever been more terrible. In 10 minutes she would be asleep. She would be unwilling to sleep so soon but soon she would be. She can sleep like a trooper. Then next day; it will soon be Christmas and the New Year comes next and the house to be tumbling and the layers of wallpaper, the slow thud of snow on the window, the poor auld fucking eskimos right enough. Hines is to get away, away; he is to get away. There is the red and there is the white, the pure and the pure, this is the trouble nowadays, not being 5 years or even 6, not being the 6 but today, this night, her facing the wall from him and their inability to talk, he having nothing to say, and it being that that she is so well aware of, that has stopped her from talking. Here he is and they are here, the unit, the trio. And it is all so fucking long, so long, and yet here he is, still fucking here and not doing, not doing anything, still here, on the buses, back on the third term. And if the connection is now to be severed there can be no return. It is the third term of transport and fourths are not having ever been heard of. Thirds are unlikely and fourths are out of the question. He was fortunate to get reinstated the last time and is to have been being on his best behaviour throughout the term. Nothing further can be said. He should just never have returned. It is bad that here he is. Sandra told him he was daft, that returning was a step to the rear, steps to the rear not being of the present. But if he was daft he was also not daft. The latter stages of the last spell on the broo had blinded him to certain items. These items are not always apparent. Life on the broo had not been good, however, offering as it did, nothing. And so he neglected to consider the certain items.

  Now, these items, while of great importance on some occasions, are not too important on others.

  He slithered through the snow for the last few yards up to the corner, and walked along to the stop. Several moments passed before the staffbus came bombing along. A loud screeching as the
driver moved down through the gears instead of applying the footbrake normally. Hines was positioned at a spot beyond the stop so that he could jump aboard and grab for the handrail, and as the doors bounced open at that instant beyond the stop he had jumped aboard and was grabbing for the handrail, and the doors had shut, the driver hooting his laughter while ramming the gearstick from 1st to 2nd that Hines was jerked down the aisle but managing to grab onto the safety rail by the luggage-compartment, swinging himself round to be sitting on the seat there. He gazed at the rear-view mirror, seeing the driver laughing at him and he frowned.

  Heh, called the driver, dont go blaming me now Rab I mean it’s a hell of a shoogly bus they’ve gave me. No my fucking fault; how can it be my fucking fault! Never mind but at least it’s waking every cunt up. Eh?

  Hines ignored him, got the lid off the tin. The driver was still laughing and glancing into the rear-view. Come on down and talk, he called. Heh, I dont even know last night’s football results. Eh? Heh you hungry? I’ve got a couple of chits left from my dinner here you want them? Eh? Heh Rab you wanting them, I’m no feeling like them man you’re welcome. Eh?

  Hines had a brief coughing fit on the first drag on the smoke and then was rising to push back the small window above the big window, and he spat out the catarrh.

  Heh what d’you think! last night, point for discussion, prostitute gets on my bus. I’m stopped at the lights up the top of St Vincent Street and I opens the door – thought she was just wanting to ask me the time or some fucking thing but naw, on she gets. Yoker she says but I’ve got no money. Aw aw I thinks. None at all she says. Know what she does? now I’m no kidding you man she must’ve been near 50 years of age: at least, at fucking least. Know what she does? hooks up the kilt. Hooks up the kilt man I’m no kidding you; I’ve no money she says. What I says get to fuck, big smelly fanny like that you kidding, and anyhow I says it’s a staffbus, staff only. What d’you mean she says. No passengers allowed, that’s what I fucking mean. Well what did you stop for in the first place ya stupid looking clown ye. Eh? I mean . . . eh? Fuck sake I mean I wouldnt take that kind of patter off the wife never mind a clatty auld cunt like her man I mean – heh I says down you go before I put one on your chin. Aye just fucking try it she says and I’m no kidding you man she’s all set to get the coat off and go to the boxing games. Eh? Heh Rab know what I done! Eh? Heh Rab wait till you hear this yin man: know what I done! drove right into the polis fucking office!