Ger was considering getting a bank loan when I left to get the number eight into town. We’d written out a big shopping list for things like eggs and brown bread and yoghurt. Maybe if we were healthier we’d stop hearing the noises.
There was a woman with a load of children at the bus stop. She wasn’t that old, about twenty eight. I had a guilt problem when I saw mothers. I didn’t know where to look. And it was half embarrassing, too. The children milky, like nakedness of some sort.
We waited ages for the bus. A fine misty rain was falling. I gave the mother sympathetic looks and smiled at the children. Of course one smile was no good. They wanted you to keep at it. Hiding round the bus stop, peeping through their fingers, all that sort of stuff. If I wasn’t careful, they were going to get me playing with them.
I looked distant then, pretended not to see their insistent stares, hating myself the whole time. There was an old child behind who was wearing brown boots that were either fierce trendy or old fashioned but I couldn’t see his face.
The bus swayed up, big and unwieldy. Some fool of a man in a blue suit and biscuit-coloured sheepskin gloves was trying to buy a ticket with a twenty-pound note and holding us all up outside in the rain. The mother was trying to fold up her pushchair.
“I’ll lift her in to you,” I said, picking up the toddler, when at last someone gave twenty pence to the man with the twenty pound note and we could all start getting on.
I felt so chivalrous helping the woman that I began passing all her children up the steps. Some of them were quite heavy and I wasn’t sure if the older ones wanted to be lifted because they started to wriggle. I decided to be firm and lifted them all up, even the biggish one with the brown boots and what I could now see was a black balaclava over its head.
It was a bit of a struggle, but I flung it in ahead of me and clambered up the steps, shaking the rain off my head. That’s when I saw it wasn’t a child at all. Just a very small man who was now screaming at me in a funny voice. A voice like a thirty three record played on forty five.
‘Ya saucy pup, ya young blackguard! Ya scut of the highest order.’
I was mortified. It
was a terrible thing to do. Picking up a dwarf, slinging
him on to the bus! Surely no one would believe that I’d do
it deliberately? I was surprised the way the bus driver was
allowing him to go on.
I sat down in confusion, right opposite the little man who
was swinging his legs furiously, blowing his cheeks in and
out. The mother and children had gone upstairs without a
backward glance or a word of thanks.
He snatched off his balaclava and I had to sit there with
everyone looking at me. He was bald-headed, scowling, fifty
at least. A small version of my father.
‘Ya lighting hoor, ya interfering jade, ya septic oinseach,
ya black Protestant!’ he shouted on and on.
I thought someone might stand up for me, or at least tell
him to shut up after I whispered sorry a couple of times,
but they all stayed quiet. The man with the twenty-pound
note had a faint smile which he tried to hide with his
biscuity gloves. Two young boys were craning forward
shamelessly to get a better look at my face and a thin grey
widowy woman kepy saying ‘disgraceful’ under her breath.
I stood up and rang the bell to get off. The rain was
teeming now, waterfalls gushing down the window panes. I
didn’t know where we were or where we were getting off.
‘That’s right, run away when you’ve had enough of your
blackguarding. You’ll be old some day. See if you like
being carted around then. Like a sack of spuds. Oh you
thought you were funny, but did you see anyone laughing?’
The man with the twenty-pound stopped smiling, everyone
looked straight ahead. It galled me. Why should I think I
was wrong because the rest of the world were a crowd of
cowards! I swayed right up to where he sat with his brown
boots dangling two feet above the floor. ‘One more word out
of you and I’ll lay you out.’ His brown boots rose and went
straight out as he put his hands over his head and ducked.
He nearly got me in the stomach and he wasn’t even trying.
‘Oh mother of divine Jesus,’ said the widow. The two young
boys started giggling and I thought the man with the
sheepskin gloves would get up to apprehend me.
‘Now fuck off home to Snow White!’ I shouted and sprang out
as the doors swished open.
I had about two minutes of dark glory, flames of triumph
that burned along my limbs.
The flames died down very quick when I started feeling bad.
Taking advantage of his size, flying in the
face of the almighty.
Safely on the pavement, I looked around, hardly able to see
with the weight of the raindrops hanging off my eyelashes.
I realised that the bus had only gone a couple of yards.
Even taking account of the heavy traffic, we must have been
on the bus only a few minutes.
I couldn’t help thinking that he had the face of a rat. The
rat in the gutter who roared PASSPORT! PASSPORT! in The
Steadfast Tin Soldier. STOP! STOP! YOU HAVEN’T PAID YOUR
TOLL!
I walked along the pavement feeling damned.
You’ll have no
luck for it! You were supposed to
be kind to your parents and unfortunates. Because. You’ll
be old some day.