“I dunno,” she said.
“Righteo. Well then, are you gonna tell me why you’ve been following me?”
For the first time, he wasn’t watching cartoons. He was looking dead at her.
“No,” she said.
“Well, that’s no way to make friends. Do you like stuff?”
“What?”
“You know, stuff… stuff that people like. What do you like? What do you do? For a kick and a buzz, not for livelihood. That’s how the kids say it, right?”
“What does it matter?”
“Just being friendly.”
“I don’t need a friend.”
“Where do you think this bus is taking us? A bus full of priests, nuns, rabbis, and bloody yoga instructors; packed to the teeth with bombs and whatnot. This ain't the bus to Disneyland , love. This is a vehicle of reckoning and we are alongside some pretty terrible company, so…”
He stared back at the cartoons for a second.
“A distraction ain't all that bad,” he said.
“You’re old.”
“Clearly,” said The Old Man.
“I was never any good at decisions. I never really had any practice. I just did what I wanted to do, or what I was supposed to do. But I never really had to make a decision that made me feel the way I do now.”
“I had a few of those in my time. I’ve no idea what you’re feeling right now, but I can tell you honestly that I’ve felt it before.”
“And? What did you choose?”
“That’s not important.”
“What is?”
“What’s going on right now. Whatever is rolling around in your head, you’ll get past it, and eventually you’ll get over it, no matter which one you choose. Everyone always does. But this feeling…it’s a good feeling.”
“I feel like shit.”
“Everyone usually does.”
“So what’s good about it?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying to lighten the mood. Take the mind off of…”
The Old Man’s voice trailed off into a murmur. He kept talking, but he sounded like some mad drunk, shilling out rows and rows of consonants, but not one legible word. The Girl looked at him. He had his hands clasped together trying to keep them still but it was no good. They, along with his legs, shook uncontrollably. It was spasmodic, but it was noticeable. It was in his eyes, though, where The Girl cast her most blatant stroke of worry.
“You ok?” she asked.
He didn’t respond, not with words anyway.
“You don’t look right. You look sick.”
Immediately she kicked against her cage and rattled on her chains.
“Someone help. This man is sick. He needs a doctor. I think he’s having a stroke. Driver. Please.”
She was polite at first. Her tone was soft but urgent. It was also respectful. A minute later, she resorted to profanity and name calling, and the less reaction she got, the more perverse became her slurs and violent taunts. She kicked her cage until she could no longer feel her feet, and she only stopped swinging her chains when someone behind complained about the blood that was being flung from them. And when she tired, she composed herself, and when she got her breath, she started the cycle again.
“It’s alright, girl.”
“No. Someone has to do something. They can’t leave you there to die.”
“Die? You’re reading between the wrong lines, love.”
“Look at you. You’re having a fit.”
“It’ll pass, it always does. Just give it a second.”
He was still shaking, but it had settled somewhat.
“Told you so,” he said whilst panting madly. “I’ve braved far worse than this. It’s just the nerves, is all.”
The look he gave her was enough to quell her concern and suspicion. He was a master of this look, just as he was, a master of controlling his urges and his fevered desires. Though his hands and legs succumbed to his control once more, what The Girl couldn’t see or hear was the nerve in the back of his thoughts, the one that was sometimes felt as in his heart or buried deep in his gut. She couldn’t see how terrifically it glared, whiter and more blinding than the sun. And she couldn’t hear how its itch spent every waking second convincing The Old Man to indulge himself in the guiltiest of pleasures.
“You sure you’re ok?”
“I’m fine, though I could do with a piss.”
The thought alone made her aware that she had needed to go for the last 2 hours or so, but had just been too busy.
“You too?” asked The Old Man.
“Can’t believe I lasted this long,” she said, squirming in her seat.
“Bigger problems.”
“I’ll cross that bloody bridge… Right now I just don’t want to have to piss my pants, and then get blown to shit.”
“Does anyone else have to do their business?”
The Old Man threw his question to the back of the bus.
“I do,” said a bunch.
“I did,” said another.
“Driver,” shouted The Old Man. “I know you can hear me.”
The engine roared a little less, and The Old Man’s voice carried further.
“I can appreciate your wanting to get this waggon to where it’s headed – and timely no doubt. But here’s the deal. You have at least ten to fifteen folks here who are on the verge of either pissing or shitting their pants. Now I understand our comfort is of little concern, but I’m saying this in respect to you. Because whatever the plans are for those explosives, the last thing any of us need - especially you - is to spend from here to eternity in an open bloody sewer, if you catch my drift. Now, I don’t know if there’s any kind of rest stop or a big fucking tree you can park in front of… We’re not looking for trouble; just maintain an inch of our dignity before we die. So whatta ya say?”
The Driver didn’t respond but the bus slowed somewhat and further on down the road – a lot further down the road – its breaks squealed and its engine hissed, and it slowly and awkwardly pulled off the highway and into a roadhouse parking lot.
Everyone waited silently. They could see other buses outside their windows, along with lines of cars filled with families either travelling for the fun of it or escaping from the chaos and confusion of their towns. After about ten or so minutes, The Driver’s door opened. He stepped out from behind the wheel carrying a pistol in one hand, and a rolled up newspaper in the other.
“Pregnant one first. Then the old geezer. Then the rest – by age, or seat or ethnicity, or whatever .”
“Sir, please, let him go first,” said The Girl, hinting at The Old Man.
“Whatever,” said The Driver, opening The Old Man’s cage. “You so much as blink and I’ll rape you,” he said, still talking to The Old Man. “And as for the rest of you. This thing is armed. And you can call out as much as you want, nobody is gonna com to your aid. This here,” he said, sticking the pistol in the air. “This is here to protect you. Fear me, yes, but you should fear them even more.”
There, on the sidewalk, shuffled a busload of pensioners. They all had their bum bags filled to the brim with coins and they walked in slow single file towards the bingo room. They were old, yes, but it was their military precision which struck the greatest chord. Each of them looked focused and somewhat happy, but only as long as the line continued to move.
“Two minutes,” said The Driver, shoving The Old Man through the toilet door.
The Old Man entered, his hands still shaking. He still felt warm on the back of his throat. His saliva tasted rank and musky. And there was a ball in his throat that he just couldn’t swallow. It was like his mind knew. Not just his mind. His whole body knew what was to come. As much as this itch was torturous, this point, the second or two before a relieving and bloodthirsty scratch, this was the best part of all. This was, more than anything, was when he truly felt alive.
“Good afternoon, sir. Or should I say… fellow traveller.”
A young man e
ntered the bathroom. He was well dressed and handsome. He smiled at The Old Man and nodded before quietly entering the furthest stall from the door. As he undid his buckle and went about relieving himself, The Old Man took the piece of bloodied string from his pockets and tightened it around his knuckles.
“Sure is a lovely day,” said The Young Man.
The Old Man said nothing. He merely stood by the stall with the string pulled tight and his mouth salivating. Every muscle in his body was soft and loose, but in a second, in one foul strike, they would tighten and stiffen – and they would never let up.
“Damn,” said The Young Man, sounding brutally disappointed. “Always the way. No paper. I tell you, buddy; I have the worst luck sometimes.”
XXVI
“Wow, you look great. What the hell did you do there?”
He did look good. The Old Man caught his reflection in the window as he was being sat down and re-shackled. His complexion had returned, and so too had the steadiness in his hands, and in his legs and feet. He was no longer sweating profusely, and the grinding of his teeth had all but stopped. He looked good – nothing like the man that had walked out a short time before.
“Had an itch to scratch, that’s all,” he said.
“You look good.”
“Thanks, darl.”
“Took your time,” shouted someone in the back.
“Yeah, we’re all dying back here.”
The Old Man affixed his belt.
“You have no idea,” he said, before turning to The Girl. “Want and can are too separate things. Sorry about the wait, love. There’re some things you just can’t rush, not at this age. You never know when you’ll get another chance.”
As The Driver went to unshackle The Girl, a commotion started in the back of the bus. It quickly developed from some mere griping to a cacophony of bitching and insulting, which ended with a barrage of threats and demeaning insinuation. It was when the prisoners starting spitting that The Driver had any sort of reaction. He didn’t say anything per se. He made no threats or accusations. He didn’t imply one thing or the other. He merely walked up to the next cage, and when he was sure that everyone was looking, he put two rounds in the prisoner’s temple. Then he went back and unshackled The Girl, carefully helping her up from her seat and off the bus. He treated her with care and compassion like he would any invalid.
The Girl thought about escaping several times. She thought about it first when she stepped off the bus; it must have been the country air on her face. The next time was when she sat down to pee, and then again as she was washing her hands. Maybe it was the sound of the running water, flushing out the running dialogue in her head, or maybe it was watching the water escaping down a tiny drain to probably end up in some ocean on the other side of the world, or in a tea cup or a swimming pool of some rich socialite – and it would probably be fragranced too. She didn’t think about how she would escape, that part wasn’t important. She just thought about having escaped, and continuing to be so.
But by the time she had amassed any type of a plan, she was already back in her seat with her hands and legs shackled, but this time with a soft pillow tucked behind her back.
“So where’s the father?” asked The Old Man.
It was amazing how sombre she became, and how fast too, whenever the topic turned to the foetus in her womb. She immediately closed in on herself like a frightened slug, and she cowered over her belly, half protecting it from harm and half from the shame and ridicule that she herself felt.
“He’s probably dead,” she said.
“Can I ask why you wanna get rid of it?”
“I can’t have it. It’s not right. It’s no kind of life.”
“For you, or for it?”
“I never asked to be put in this spot.”
“So you don’t want it?”
“No.”
“Then why all the kerfuffle?”
“I can’t do it myself,” she said, caressing her belly. She sounded sorry and laden with guilt. “I want to, but I can’t.”
When the last prisoner was caged and shackled, The Driver went back to his post. But before he did, he unplugged the television and set the radio to talk back. It was low at first but when the engines started, he adjusted the volume so the banter was akin to shouting. And as the bus slowly pulled away, there came shouting from outside, followed by knowing and banging on the door.
The bus stopped abruptly, and everyone was thrown about.
“Geeze Louise, you nearly bloody left us behind.”
It was the voice of an old man. He sounded bitter, tired and irate.
“Honey,” said his wife, sheepishly.
“Not now, would ya.”
He gave The Driver’s door a stern look, and you can be sure, if he could see The Driver himself, he’d be giving him just as severe a look.
“Bloody hurry up, would ya,” he said, turning to his dawdling wife.
She was as old as he, but nowhere near as rough around the edges. She did put on her worried face, though, the one that said, ‘I understand your concern’, and at the same, ‘I’m doing my bloody best’.
The elderly couple got on the bus and before they had even turned to face the aisle, the door had closed and with a sudden jolt, the engine roared and the bus was back on the road again, continuing toward its ill-fated destination.
“Honey, can I…”
“Hold your horses, Dawn. Don’t get all talkity.”
By the sounds of it, they’d already had quite a morning, and he’d already had quite enough. They walked down the aisle – he, fumbling through his money bag for some ear plugs and gum, and she, anchoring onto his every step; pulling on the back of his shirt, and eyeing every inch of the bus – including the prisoners and its explosives.
“I think we got the wrong bus, Harold.”
“Shut it.”
He didn’t even look up from his bag.
“Ohhhh.”
“Don’t be such a negative Nelly.”
“No, no, you’re right,” she said, huddling behind him and trying her best to keep from looking anywhere other than the tufts of white hair that stuck out like an unkempt hedge from her husband’s t-shirt. “You’re always right,” she said, wishing it were true.
It was a minute or two before Harold finally found his gum. He shoved three pieces into his mouth, and it was maybe another minute before he got his chewing under control and saw that something wasn’t right.
“Is something wrong, love?”
“Nope,” said Harold.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep,” he said.
He always spoke in single syllables, whenever something was awry.
“I thought we booked seats, did we not?”
She was staring straight at them – in Harold’s hands.
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Seems odd is all.”
Harold grunted.
“Sorry, dear. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just, I think this isn’t our bus.”
Harold breathed heavily now, sounding like some hydraulic press. He did this whenever he was upset. And he was only ever really upset whenever he did something wrong – whether it was buying the wrong type of lactose-free milk, calling grandchildren by the wrong names, or losing track of birthdays and anniversaries altogether. He didn’t like being wrong – nobody did. But Harold, he especially didn’t like it.
“It’s the right bus,” he said. “I’m not an idiot.”
XXVII
When they passed the first stop, poor old Dawn was on the verge of jumping out of her skin. As it popped up over the horizon, her every nerve and muscle clenched and twitched so that she almost tore through the back of Harold’s shirt, and at the same time, she nearly ripped one of the cage doors off its hinge. When it passed, her heart sank. She swallowed it. It was thick and lumpy and tasted like day-old coffee. By the fifteenth stop, she had grown tired of its taste. She w
as full and could not stomach one more pass. And at the fiftieth stop, she decided to say something.
“Excuse me,” she said, ever so polite.
She chose The Girl for obvious reasons. She could have asked anyone else. She could have even gone and knocked on The Driver’s door if she wanted to if it weren’t for all those scary looking wires and blinking lights. The Girl, though, was pregnant. And though she was caged and cuffed and looking a bit solemn, having a foetus meant her hormones might probably allow her an inch more compassion than any of the other passengers. She called them passengers, but she knew they weren’t.
Before The Girl could speak, Harold whipped old Dawn around. He gave her a look. It was a narrow-eyed, scrunchy-faced look. His whole face looked like a shrivelled beetroot, a month or two past its expiry.
The look said, ‘Don’t you dare’.
Dawn gave her own. She wasn’t entirely submissive. Hers was kind of contrary. She widened her eyes until the folds in her forehead looked like a sunburned wave pool. She also contorted her lips strangely, as if she were puckering up for a kiss, or trying to reach a very distant straw.
Her look said, ‘I’ll do what I please’.
Either that or, ‘Don’t make a scene’. Either way, Harold was not impressed.
“Driver,” he shouted.
There was no response up front so he shouted again.
“Excuse me, driver. Hey, stop the bloody bus, would ya?”
The bus kept on driving. At the speed they were travelling, it was lucky the highway had not a single twist or turn.
“I don’t he can hear you, dear.”
“Where is the blasted bell? There should be a bell. Isn’t there a bell?”
Both he and Dawn looked up to the ceiling and onto the ends of each of the seats. The usual dinging bells weren’t to be seen. Instead, there were locks and wires.
“Excuse me.”
Dawn was back talking to The Girl.
“Does this bus pass Tangerine Grove? We have a burial today. Harold’s second cousin.”
The Girl stared at her. Though she had done her best to wash the blood and dust from her face, she still looked dishevelled. Her hair stuck out on all sides. If she tried to pat it down, it would just spring right back up. That, along with the scratches on her cheeks and the missing front tooth; she was a sight to behold.
London When it Rains Page 13