Displacement activity

176. 5pm. Top deck, a third of the way down on the left.

In the row in front of mine, two women in their mid-twenties were circling round a difficult topic – something to do with a relationship that was basically over but kept lurching back to life when everyone least expected it to. The woman on the left was keen to workshop this with the woman on the right, who seemed less keen, and the two of them performed the familiar dance of touching on a topic for a few moments, bouncing off to talk about something more lighthearted, returning for another instalment, darting away again, etc.

At one point, the woman on the right took out her smart phone and pulled up a YouTube video.

The woman on the left glanced at the screen. ‘Why are you looking at seals?’

‘They’re otters. Have you seen this one? It’s so cute, they’re bonding with their pups.’

‘Did you see the penguin programme the other day? You should get it on iPlayer, it’s so cute.’

‘Seriously, just watch this.’

The two women leaned close together to watch otters doing their thing online. They were quiet for a while. Then:

‘So cute.’

‘So cute.’

It was raining again, and the top deck’s damp coats were making its windows steam up. Someone had got as far as writing ‘MERRY CHR’ on the big window by the stairs before, I guess, moving on.

Women’s Christmas

New-style 24. 3pm. Facing forwards, near the back.

Women! Do you feel shackled to the kitchen stove at Christmas? Are you sweating away all your make-up balancing pots and pans, basting the turkey, making sure the gravy is the right consistency and the potatoes are crisping up according to schedule? Are you pouring the brandy, serving up the pudding and tidying away the Christmas crackers while your good-for-nothing male relations nod off in front of the television?

No? Well, hooray for the twenty-first century! For anyone still in this sorry situation, there is light at the end of the tunnel. This woman was on her phone opposite me on the 24:

‘Sure well why don’t youse come over to ours for a Women’s Christmas in January then? That’s what we call it in Ireland, when the women can go out and have a good time. No men allowed! We’ll really let our hair down… Well you’ll let us know sure if you fancy it.’

This shouldn’t have to exist! But it’s sort of splendid that it does.

Night bus

59. 12am. Bottom deck, stuffed into the aisle, very near the front, with the whole of south London.

‘You lot have GOT to calm down!’

‘Oh my DAYS!’

To my right was a group of laughing teenaged girls, heading to their respective homes after an evening out. They were the classic girlfriend-group mix: a supremely confident one, a couple of giddy ones, one who was used to speaking her mind with authority, a very pretty one who didn’t say anything, and a dappy little one who was the butt of all jokes.

This one said, ‘Can I have some bubblegum?’ which caused a torrent of cackles.

‘Did you HEAR what she just said?’ said Authority-girl, to another chorus of ‘Oh my DAYS!’

To my left was a pair of shivering friends, one of whom had sore feet. They were continually craning their necks to see beyond the laughing girls and keep an eye on the Number 3 bus which was ahead of us. They were trying to pull off the trick where you jump off one bus and immediately board the next in your journey, but they needed the two to get closer together before risking it.

The bus was totally rammed. At first I thought this was because we south Londoners know how to party on a weeknight, but it turned out that there had been some sort of control-room disaster and the buses were all out of sync. Our driver spoke to his controller several times on our journey, receiving new instructions to manoeuvre the service back into order. Every time the radio went on, the laughing girls yelled out, ‘Shut up SHUT UP he’s saying something!’ which made me laugh because it was as if we were waiting by an FM radio for the Lotto results.

Right ahead of me (yes, in the luggage tray) was a scraggy Caribbean man who stank of tobacco. He spoke in very slurred Italian to some friends several metres away (I guess they had been separated by the oncoming tides of passengers), and punctuated his exclamations by waving a bottle of wine in the face of the girl with sore feet. He was a sort of magnificent, Byronic hero.

The laughing girls were debating their next move.

‘I could get the Tube you know, I’m telling you it’s not the time to be getting another bus.’ This was Confident-girl.

Authority-girl retorted, ‘Who gets the Northern Line from Victoria?’

‘No-one. We’re at Oval.’ Wow, I would love to be able to give withering looks like that.

Dappy-girl piped up, ‘I could get off here and walk!’ which, again and inexplicably, made everyone else cry with laughter.

One of the giddy girls said, ‘Do what you feel, nigger,’ to cause a bit of scandal.

The controller came back on (‘Shut up SHUT UP!’) to tell the driver to go as far as Brixton, and then wherever else he took his passengers would be on his own time. I passed the message back to the girl with sore feet, who passed it back (ducking the waving bottle) to the person behind her. News trickled back, as if along a desert caravan. Of course, most people seemed to be joyously drunk so I have no idea what the message was by the time it reached the rear window. The point is we listened as a sort of cobbled-together team, swayed together, made way for each other and actually talked to each other, and by the time I was squeezing my way to the back doors to get off I felt full of the joys of spring and humanity.

And then the doors opened and winter slapped me in the face. Ah, December!

Taking stock

59. 7.30pm. Bottom deck, by the back doors.

Two teenaged girls got on the bus, loudly debating a key lyric.

Girl in denim jacket: Well I’m singing it so isn’t it just I wish you a merry Christmas?

Girl in hijab: I think the point is it’s about being together innit? Like with your family and all that, sharing the good wishes. So it’s we wish you a merry Christmas, I reckon.

Since I started this little blog in April, readers have responded by telling me many, many of their own bus stories – on Twitter, by email, even in person (sometimes addressing me, winningly, as ‘Ericapig’). In 2013 I will start a strand of guest posts so you can enjoy other people’s adventures: the bus that caught fire on Waterloo Bridge; the vicious attack by three young men to which all the other passengers turned a blind eye; the bus driver who took my friend all the way to her house at 3 in the morning because she was a bit drunk.

Thanks very much for reading and sharing this year. Have a happy Christmas and see you in 2013!

Jingle jingle

Outside Brixton station. 1pm.

I saw two teenaged boys standing outside Brixton station as I got off the bus. They were wearing matching yellow hi-vis vests and Santa hats, and swinging plastic charity buckets. What I noticed first though were their massive grins – and the fact that they were singing their hearts out.

I stopped to watch them for a few minutes. They had a repertoire of all the hits –  ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, ‘Merry Christmas, Everyone’… er… ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, ‘Merry Christmas, Everyone’ – which they delivered at full volume, the bells on their red hats jingling along with their buckets.

A few feet to their left, the steel-pan band (a regular fixture outside the garish windows of Iceland) was grooving on a reggae riff that had nothing to do with Christmas. But this didn’t stop our boys, who managed somehow to hold on to their own clashing melody and tempo. If anything they got louder as they egged each other on. They wouldn’t necessarily score big points on Singstar, but their attitude was unknockable.

If teenaged boys can give up their weekends to raise money for charity then there is hope left in this world. I’ll let them sing me out:

Snow is falling (snow is falling!),

All around us (all around us!),

Children playing, having fun!

Tis the season, of love and understaaaaaaaaaanding,

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

Begone cynicism!

185. 5pm. Halfway down the stairs.

As I was clinging on for dear life, I noticed a small Indian boy on the bottom deck speaking with an elderly white man who had a walking stick. Their voices were gentle, their heads were bent towards each other, and they were smiling. I felt, as I was thrown this way and that by the impatient driver, like I was looking through a frosted window into a cosy scene lit by fresh logs. The small boy started singing, very softly, a meandering tune that sounded both warm and vaguely mournful. I’m not sure whether it was due to the cold outside, or the strange twilight coming in through the windows, or the benevolent space that had opened up around the boy and the man, but I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting, Tiny Tim-style, ‘And God bless us, every one!’

Honestly, some kind of cynicism-deactivator must power through this city when they turn on the Christmas lights. I don’t mind it at all.

Three little birds

171. 8.30am. Bottom deck, at the back on the left.

I see these three little girls a lot on my way to work. They are sisters, and usually dressed in complementary shades of purple and pink. They are all under the age of ten, and accompanied by one parent – a white mum in a tracksuit or an Afro-Caribbean dad in a tracksuit, invariably looking exhausted and a little bored.

It was coming up to Christmas, and the girls bounded onto the bus, followed by Tired Dad, chirping away like little birds. They squeezed onto a double seat and the sight of them, fluffy smiling heads bobbing up and down, was enough to melt most hearts on the bus. Tired Dad sat a little way behind, playing Snake on his mobile phone.

As more of their friends boarded the bus, the girls became increasingly excited, and finally one of them – I think the eldest – decided that they should do a run-through of their school Nativity song. Off they went, a merry gang of them, at the tops of their voices, ‘Jesus! Mary! Joseph too! / In a manger! Yes it’s true!…’ It was cold outside but on the 171 it was definitely Christmas.

Tired Dad didn’t look up. He really was very good at Snake.

A few days later I saw the girls again, this time with Tired Mum. They were having a gripe at each other and it took me a few moments to work out why: they had just one pair of gloves between them.

If you’re thinking about what Christmas charity concert to go to this year (and there are lots to choose from in this fine city) please consider the Choir With No Name’s Union Chapel bonanza. It’s huge fun and an excellent cause.