I never used to talk to people on buses. I just wouldn't. I would create a zone of no talking by ostentatiously reading my book or the freebie papers people leave in dishevelled piles. If anyone said anything I would reply non-commitally without even looking up, and then carry on reading, my coat pulled tight around me.
I never meant to be rude, but that half hour on the bus was my 'me time'. In the morning it was my time to step away mentally from John and his incessant nags and digs. The verbal punches and kicks where he would undermine me, slowly but surely sapping every scrap of confidence. In the evening it was how I would switch off from work, trying to untangle myself from the stories of physical abuse from the women who streamed through the shelter. Trying to forget the sight of all those bruises. I didn't see the irony. I didn't see a lot of things then. He sat down next to me, breathing a heavy Monday morning sigh. He was pleasant looking, or at least the bit between his hat and scarf, was. He wore thick gloves and heavy boots, and was probably slim, but it was difficult to say under all his layers. I was reading Women Who Love Too Much, and he looked down at my book and grinned. He tried to make conversation, but I smiled, nodded and went back to reading. The same happened each day that week – he sat next to me, whether there were spare spaces elsewhere or not, swathed in woollies. He tried to talk, I let him down gently and read my book. The next week, I saved a seat for him. Not obviously, just putting my handbag down next to me on the seat, and moving it as I saw him coming down the aisle. Still not talking but exchanging smiles. He wasn't there the Monday after, and I felt oddly let down. Tuesday, I was scanning the line of people climbing onto the bus, when I saw him running up the road. He flumped down in the sear next to me. I was dying to ask him where he had been the day before but that would have meant breaking my rule. He fished in the pocket of his voluminous coat and got out a book. I spotted its handmade cover, pink paper with a title written with a Sharpie – Men Who Sit Next To Women Who Read Women Who Love Too Much On The Bus. I couldn't help it. I laughed. And then we started to talk. He was Harry Willcox, single, recently split up from a long-term relationship and gently, wittily self-deprecating about men and women. He made me laugh. And he made me talk. I told him stuff that I had never told anyone else, about John and his words. It was my morning therapy. We would get off at the same stop in town, and chat before our ways parted at the War Memorial, at top end of Broad Street. Over weeks and months, we grew close, but I was still too absorbed in my relationship with John, still too convinced that it was all my fault. Still not able to see a good thing for what it was. "Linda Carbone, that man doesn't deserve you. You are beautiful, clever, funny and really rather wonderful." He leaned across to kiss me. That was just all too much. I ran out in front of the bus, just as it pulled away. Harry doesn’t travel on the bus any more. Neither does the driver. But I always do. There's usually someone to sit next to, whatever the time of day or night. I listen to their stories. I tell them that I know not all bruises are visible. And if there’s no-one, I read, my coat pulled tight around me.
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October 2024
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