The bus lurched clumsily as it turned into the main street, Paul gripped the handrail to steady himself. Sat next to him was a freaky looking man with an impressive monobrow, oily grey hair and a filthy green anorak, and Paul wanted to keep his distance. A foul odour was hanging in the air around him, like an invisible damp fog. Paul could feel it contaminating him; reacting with his after-shave; fixing with the wool in his navy blue over-coat. It was in his nose and he swore he could taste it.
The journey was always five minutes too long. Irritation at the sleepy teenager who was noisily hacking up phlegm, and the snot-nosed brat who was drawing faces on the misted windows, intensified as his fingers found hardened chewing gum stuck to the handrail. As the bus pulled into the bus stop, he stood to make his escape.
'Excuse me, mate.'
The freak grunted as he swung his knees out into the aisle. Paul squeezed past him, fighting the spasm that threatened to bring up his breakfast. Stepping onto the pavement, he sucked in the sweet diesel fumes of the departing bus.
He had arrived at Bishopwood. a nondescript little town, about nine miles from his home town of Huntsbury. Over the past few months Paul had tried to feel some affection for it, but its tired, down-at-heel character underwhelmed him. Rows of cramped little Victorian terraced houses had been built for workers of the hosiery factory, which was now being offered as a 'Redevelopment Opportunity'. Nobody else ever got off here. There didn't seem to be any reason to. A large dog turd sat on the pavement outside the graffitied bus shelter. Paul stared at it, amused. Who would he be today if he had grown up here?
Stephen James Patrick Wilcox, probably.
He admitted to himself that his natural curiosity about Susan Wilcox, had now become an obsession. It wasn't that he had found life difficult without her, but rather he felt that he ought to get to know her. She might, after all, feel the same way he did.
Tracing her couldn't have been more straight-forward, as she had never moved from Bridge Street. The address was on the file they handed him on his eighteenth birthday, along with a phone number. A few weeks after sending her a letter, he had gone to the phone box at the end of his road and called the number.
'Bishopwood 830786.' It was her. He knew, because he felt a blow to his chest that paralysed his lungs.
He felt small, as if he was shrinking. One, maybe two seconds pause. Talk to me.
'Hello?....... Who is it, please?' There was definitely impatience in the tone.
Whilst his palms were wet, his mouth was dry and the words got stuck in his head. Somehow he'd managed to whisper,
'Sorry, wrong number'.
He had pressed his index finger on the switch-hook and kept the receiver pressed to his ear, the rubbery cable bouncing against his chest, as he listened to the empty, neutral dial-tone, not wanting to let go.
So began the weekly visits to Bishopwood. His routine didn't vary that much: Pretending to read his paper, he would usually just sit at the bus stop and wait for the return bus, with one eye on the headlines and one on the street; only occasionally walking past her house. As he glanced through the unveiled lounge windows of the neighbours, he wondered how many of them had known about him. Strange, how they might know, and yet he did not.
Number 32 Bridge Street was an understated little house but it boasted a beautiful brass lion's head knocker. He remembered it wasn't as heavy as it looked, and how he had been surprised at how freely it had swung on that wet November morning two years ago. He was shocked when a sharp, ratty-faced woman opened the door; then disappointed. He'd got it wrong. This woman was too wrinkled, too old, too alien; with her cropped, dyed black hair, fuchsia lipstick and walking stick. Susan's mother she'd explained. Susan was out shopping. A flood of warm relief. The smell that came through the front door; lamb chops, cigarette smoke and a waft of heavy perfume. Rose pink carpet and the sound of the television in the front room.
Trusting his instinct, he mentioned the letter he had sent; the letter that had never had an answer, as raindrops soaked the back of his trousers and pearled on his rain-coat. Dark eyes that had started to show polite friendliness, narrowed to mere slits as she drew up her chest and clenched her fuchsia claws around her cane. Her twitching, twisting fuchsia mouth exposed stained and crooked teeth, as she recoiled, hunched and spitting:
'Get away. Don't you ever come here. D'you hear me? EVER.'
The knocker clattering as the door slammed shut. The lion with his barred teeth. There was that feeling again; shrinking telescopically into another dimension.
Paul settled himself on the bench in the bus shelter. Half an hour to kill before the bus came back for the return journey to Huntsbury. Maybe twenty minutes before Susan came down to the bus stop. Wednesday was her shopping day, he had his grandmother to thank for that information. He had changed his shifts at the hotel once he knew. They had exchanged 'Good Mornings' the last few times and the familiarity had pleased him. What would the old bitch think about that? Smiling, he opened the newspaper and waited for his mother to arrive.
