I’ve just been going through old files (I never delete anything I write) and found this beginning to a story I was going to write a few years back.
I’ve never been really sure of my ability to write good prose; it always seems a bit too wordy when I read it back, and I’m always afraid that my attempts at descriptions are like bad teen fiction (that’s fiction written by teens, not for them).
Anyway, I’ll throw this one out there for you to read. It follows a bus-driver doing his job, and the lives of those who get on and off his bus. I think the last couple of paragraphs are especially crap, but there are at least a few good ideas. Here it is:
The Bus-Driver
Tom sat, his eyes fixated on a small droplet of water which had just landed on the screen about a foot above him. “Bloody rain” he thought, as the noise echoed tinnitus-like on the flimsy metal panels. The droplet begrudgingly began to slide down the pane, nudged and prodded by other, bigger droplets like a timid schoolchild in a new school. After barely a second, it was slipping excitedly down the screen with the others, leaving Tom pondering the idea that life was one big wet slide down a wind-screen, and that it would be better for everybody if God just switched on the wipers and put us all out of our misery.
“Time to wake the giant” thought Tom, and he turned the key in the ignition. The framework of the bus shuddered, as if it had been rudely awakened and realised how chilly it was in the depot. Any droplets that were left clinging on had now been shattered by the vibration, and new droplets that had just fallen were now violently shaking and juddering and thinking it might have been nicer to have fallen into a hedgerow or a birdbath.
Tom’s watch confirmed that he still had three minutes before he was due on route. He grasped the wheel with outstretched arms, pushed himself back into the soft leather seat and sighed. What a challenge today would be! A truly appalling morning; sticky, drizzly, seep-down-your-back rain, gloomy sky, poor visibility. And he knew that the cold Arctic wind would add even more to the misery, skilfully whistling its way through bus-shelters that must have been designed in the Caribbean – the only place where a Perspex house on stilts with two gaping holes is an ideal design for a shelter.
Thank God he was there to add a touch of brightness to people’s lives. From the vantage point of the driver’s cab, he could see the world rotate about him. Drivers, delayed and stressed, to his right. Passengers, forlorn and trapped to his left. And ahead, a journey with him as the host, turning a humdrum trip into a shelter from the elements, an opportunity for thought, or just a shared experience with fellow human beings. Before setting out, he always tried to imagine what his future passengers were doing right now. Some had undoubtedly already left the house, and were battling with mischievous brollies that flapped and twisted themselves inside out at the merest hint of a breeze. Those boarding later on would probably still be stirring sleepily from their dreams, or having a desperate attempt at last-minute sex before being rudely interrupted by Terry Wogan, a medley of Bert Kaemphert and a traffic round-up.
“Wagons roll…” he mumbled, and swung the double-decker out of the gates with the power of a charging elephant.
______________________________________________
It was to be Maureen’s third interview that month, and she was dreading it. Things had already begun to fall apart – she’d lost the piece of paper with the job description on, and so wasn’t even sure what the job entailed. It was certainly a managerial position, that much she could remember. Her boyfriend had grown tired of seeing her trapped in a role “on the front line” as he’d called it. It certainly could be demoralising, answering the phone all day to customers wound up initially by the interest charged on their statements, and then even more by a five minute wait on hold listening to 3 different orchestral arrangements of “All Kinds of Everything”.
But did she really want the extra responsibility? She didn’t really know much about organising things, she was just good at talking to customers. And she enjoyed it. She didn’t enjoy interviews. All those questions you were meant to have prepared for. Her last interview was in front of a panel of six. One of them, who she could have sworn was her old maths teacher, looking exactly as he had done thirty-five years earlier, asked her what her two greatest weaknesses were.
“Cream-horns and George Clooney” she had answered. She didn’t get the job.
Just time for one last check through her handbag. Mints for her breath, tissues, bottle of water, mobile, Good Luck card from Andrew, pen, lucky thimble that her nephew had found in the gutter (!?), tampons, lip-salve, address book and purse. Oh yes, and she’d better take one of those breakfast muesli bars in case her stomach started to rumble – the worst thing that could happen in a silent room while you were being questioned about corporate responsibility.
A glance in the full-length mirror revealed an efficient-looking business-woman with lofty aspirations and the ruthless nature to achieve them. The woman who had just dashed upstairs to change her skirt because she’d splashed toothpaste down it was nowhere to be seen.
“Come on girl, you can do it.”
And so, at 8.33 Maureen stood on the doorstep dressed in a white blouse, dark grey jacket and skirt, black shoes, with a black leather attaché case under one arm and a Burberry handbag slung over her shoulder. She inhaled the fresh dewey air and, looking up into the foreboding, waterlogged clouds, put up her Scooby Doo brolly, and closed the door.
__________________________________________
At the bus-stop, the schoolchildren were doing what they do best.
Natasha, who was going out with Simon, but who had snogged Raj outside her mate Sarah’s house last night was dying to ask Leone for advice about either dumping Simon because he was a lame kisser or sticking with him because he had a four-door Cinquecento.
Hilary was worried that Louise wouldn’t be her friend any more because Matt had invited her to his birthday party but hadn’t invited Louise who secretly fancied him and was the whole reason Hilary had started talking to Matt in the first place, because Louise really didn’t know what to say, and boys weren’t that interested in boybands or make-up anyway.
Ian was praying that Michael had done his maths homework so he could copy it on the bus because Mr Thorley had said that anyone who didn’t hand it in this time would be put on report, and his parents were already unhappy about him using the pedal bin as a lavatory when he came in drunk from Sarah’s on Friday.
It was rush-hour. An endless procession of white labourers’ vans with tattooed arms pushed up against the passenger windows, grey family saloons with grey-collared executives mentally calculating their grey month-end bonuses to fund their even greyer lives, and 4-wheel drive monsters utilising all of their traction, gear and 7-litre engine capabilities to transport little posh children to school. And, like the smug hare mocking the weary downtrodden tortoise, they occasionally stopped in front of the piss-stained shelter to inspect the unfortunate victims of a public transportation system that thinks two buses an hour is a bit of an extravagance.
The school-kids bickered, sniped and gossiped with each other, oblivious to the 93-year old lady waiting patiently alongside – outside – squinting through the drizzle in the direction from which the bus would eventually arrive. And when it did, she mourned the silence now broken by the noise of the engine, and wondered what the nice quiet children had been doing, tapping away frantically on their small telephones with only the occasional bleep of the gadgets breaking the silence.
