Rollback...

This story first appeared in the Dangerous Creatures newsletter in December 2001.

On the Night Bus
by Debbie Moorhouse

Sitting on the night bus, eyes closed, head leaning against the cold glass, Jack wondered why he hadn't reached this point earlier. Everything was so obvious, so clear. The woman sitting next to him jogged his elbow. She smelt of something leathery and wet.

"Got a light, lovey?" When he squinted at her, she leered back at him out of an ugly old face.

"No."

"No need to be like that about it." Eyes half-closed, she drew with apparent pleasure on an unlit cigarette. "Some of us fought in the war, you know." She winked lazily at him, and the cigarette dropped to one corner of her mouth, as she tried a smile.

"Tank commander, were you?" His grandad had driven a tank at El Alamein, or so he'd always said.

"Ferry pilot."

"Yeah, right." He remembered the last time he'd flown. Bit like this, really, going on and on to no apparent destination, in the dark. The conductor came up and stared the old woman's cigarette back into her handbag.

"Fares."

"There you go, lovey," the old woman said, cheerfully. "Stepney Green, three and fourpence." She offered up a bent fifty pence, which was accepted.

"End of the line," Jack said, holding out a handful of coins.

"D'you know where that is?" the conductor asked.

"Doesn't matter." His meaningless smile came effortlessly. "If I see a better place, on the way...I'll get off there." He tipped the silver and copper coins into the conductor's hand. "Keep the change. In fact, keep the ticket."

"What makes you think I want it?" The ticket unfurled from the ticket machine, and was dropped into Jack's lap, since he refused to take it in his hand, and from there to the floor.

"Don't know where you're going, lovey?" the woman asked. The conductor moved further down the bus, and woke up a drunk, at arm's length.

"Fares."

"Don't care," Jack said. He glanced out of the window. Same old streetlights, same old dying trees, same old shop fronts and flats and houses. Dog shit and broken glass on the pavements.

"Flew all the way to Australia, once." She re-opened her handbag, and took out her packet of cigarettes. When she shook it, it made a dull rustling sound.

"Why?"

"That's where the plane was going." Cigarette in her mouth, she jogged him again. "Wife leave you?"

"No."

"Kids spit in your face?"

"No."

"Got your 'ealth?"

"Yes." He sighed, and heard her contemptuous snort.

"Don't see what you've got to fret about, then." She drew heavily on the cigarette, still unlit. "Don't make these like they used to, neither." Screwing up her face, she bit off the filter tip, and spat it onto the floor. "That's better." She put the cigarette back in her mouth, and then took it out again, and licked her lips. A stray strand of tobacco worked its way from one side of her mouth to the other.

"There's just no point to anything," Jack said, heavily.

"Well, that's obvious, lovey. Isn't it?" She licked her lips again, and then restored the cigarette to her mouth.

"What?" Roused, he stared at her.

"Bleeding obvious, if you ask me." Contentedly, she snuggled back against the stiff, lumpy cushion. "Spend eight hours in the flaming dark ferrying this stupid Lancaster from A to B. No stars to see by, no working compass, just point-to-point reckoning. All that and keeping awake and being afraid." Again, she drew on the cigarette. "And what happens? First mission, the crew fly it into the drink." She laughed, hoarsely. "Bleeding waste of time. Thought everybody knew that."

"You mean there really is no point?" He spoke slowly, wondering if he'd understood her correctly. Was she drunk? Was she mad?

"What point could there be?"

"No purpose in life?"

"Like what?" Eyebrows raised, she laughed again.

"No secret?"

"Oh, there's a secret." Her face changed, became slightly suspicious. "Least it's a secret from you. Apparently." She peered past him into the dark, and then reached out a long, scrawny arm, and pressed the bell. "This is my stop." Clutching her handbag, she began a shaky struggle to her feet.

"This isn't Stepney Green."

"Get your act together, lovey." She loomed over him, for a moment, but then resumed getting up. "This bus doesn't go to Stepney Green." She sniffed. "Fare isn't three and fourpence, neither."

"I know that."

"So you do know something," the woman said, with another sniff. "That's a relief." She winked at him, and then started shuffling down the bus towards the exit. She swayed as the bus swayed. Jack leaned his head against the cold glass, and stared out into the darkness. The bus was slowing, alongside a red Ferrari that had parked in the bus lane. Tiny points of yellow light blinked at its corners.

Of course, Jack thought. Hazard lights on, car is parked on double yellow line. He took a deep breath, and let it out. How much simpler life had suddenly become. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it, but if there is nothing to wish for, nothing to get, nowhere to go...then you just carry on going there. Filled with a whole new sense of purpose.

Copyright 2001 Debbie Moorhouse