His bus map told him that having taken the 127 to Gower Street he could change there to a 163 and, via Chelsea, Putney Bridge and Southfields, be transported to Colliers Wood. That was what he did. On this journey he had remembered to bring the 'Times' crossword puzzle but the lurching and plunging of the vehicle at the various irregularities of the highway, together with the difficulty of the dues, led him to stop it soon. He was also distracted by the very loud unsteady wailing noise to be heard whenever the driver used his brakes. The view out of the windows south of the river, after the 163 had passed under a couple of dozen railway bridges in a mile or so, was definitely less attractive than what was to be seen from the 127. Here were derelict churches covered with grime, yards of hoardings with no posters on them, dining-rooms and small draper's shops such as he hadn't seen since the "30s, waste lots big enough to accommodate a shopping complex barely to be dreamed of and, beyond them, hulking greyish towers of offices or dwellings that loomed in the smoky distance. He supposed that people who lived here might well vote for or against somebody at an election, neither of which he had bothered to do since 1945 (Liberal). The ones he saw had an archaic look too, dumpy, dark-clothed, wearing hats: the infiltrators from Schleswig-Holstein had not reached here yet.
Sitting near the front of the bus on the upper deck he became aware by degrees that a sort of altercation was going on behind him, the sort, as it soon proved, in which only one voice was to be heard, a woman's, deep and powerful, projected with that pressure of the diaphragm used by actors.
"It isn't right, is it? I mean do you think it's right? After all these years and all I been through? I said I've had enough, I done everything you told me and I've had enough, I said. I told him straight. What's in it for me, I said, yeah, what's in it for me? I've had e-bloody-nough. Now that's my rights, isn't it? I reckon that's my rights, don't you? I said don't you?"
He looked over his shoulder to see what kind of unfortunate was having to put up with this, and found that nobody and everybody was, staring hard out of the window or at a newspaper or into space. The speaker wore a dark-brown coat flecked with green and a very pale lilac-coloured silk scarf round the neck. That neck looked too slender for the job of connecting the broad-shouldered trunk to the large round head. The woman's complexion was dull, her chin pointed, her nose thin, her hair straight and dry, standing out and up from her scalp. While she continued to talk she seemed never to look directly at anyone, always between people.
"I'm not going to say there," she repeated several times in the same tone as before, accusing rather than angry. "I told him so. I said, I don't mind coming along, well I do, but I will. I don't mind coming along but I'm not going to stay. I've had enough of that. Where's it got me, that's what I'd like to know. It's not fair, it's taking advantage, that's what it is. He's got me where he wants me and there's nothing I can do about it. I been given a raw deal, haven't I, a raw bloody deal. Don't anybody think I've been given a raw deal?"
Jake had turned back to face his front after one good look. The sound-quality of the last couple of dozen words told him that the woman had got up and was moving towards the top of the stairs, presumably on the way to getting off the bus. On an impulse he didn't at once understand he shifted round in his seat and said, "Yes, I do."
Now she did look straight at someone and he saw with unusual clarity that everything about her face was wrong. The tip of her nose was a narrow white peak above a pair of ill-matched nostrils partly outlined in red; her eyes didn't so much protrude or glare as have no discernible sockets to lie in; her eyebrows were irregular streaks of bristle; her ears were set a little too far back on her skull; the borders of her lips were well marked at one corner and blurred at the other; the state of her skin showed him for the first time what it really meant to say that someone was pale and drawn. That's right, he thought to himself: they're not just mad inside their heads, they're mad to their fingertips, to the ends of their hair. And he had spoken to her to make her give him the straight look he had needed in order to see that in her.
What might have been the beginnings of a smile showed on the woman's face in the second before she stepped clumsily to one side and passed out of view down the stairs. Soon afterwards the bus stopped and from his position above the pavement he saw her walk away, swinging her arms a lot. Some distance ahead lay a small piece of park or public garden, a grassy triangle where, with a show of energy unexpected in these latitudes a group of men in helmets and jerkins were attacking some trees. Products of their labours were strewn about them in the shape of much sound timber and vigorous foliage. The peevish wavering groan of their saws could be clearly heard through the noise of the traffic. At first idly, then with concern, Jake took in a rusty street-sign that said Trafalgar Place. Distracted by the incident of the madwoman, he was about to overshoot the stopping-point he had picked out on his deluxe 'A to Z.' He toiled his way downstairs at his best speed but no kind of speed shown by him would have affected the progress of the bus, which finally dropped him a couple of hundred yards beyond the turning he wanted.
It was raining slowly but, with his umbrella and navy-blue light mackintosh, he found this no great infliction and set off with a brisk stride, a touch elated at having successfully brought off what was for him an out-of-the-way journey. There were six minutes to go before his appointment, which should be enough if the hospital was reasonably close to the main road. He had nearly reached the corner when he saw something he did find a great infliction, a figure he recognised standing on the opposite pavement and looking at him. Of course the McDougall was a psychiatric as well as a psychological joint; of course those who attended it regularly knew the nearest bus stop to it; of course chaps who were fool enough to speak to people like that deserved all they got. And of course his first thought was of flight, but he loathed being late for anything. If he had known the district even slightly he might have risked a detour but again he didn't. So he turned the corner and quickened up to light-infantry speed.
"Excuse me!"
It was harsh and hostile and he ignored it.
"Excuse me."
This time he thought he detected a note of appeal and found himself half-turning and slowing down so that the woman could catch him up. "Yes?"
"I seen you on the bus, didn't I?"
"I believe so, yes."
"You said you thought I been given a raw deal."
"Yes, I .. .
"Why d'you say that?" she asked merely as if she wanted to know.
"Well, I thought you seemed a bit upset and I wondered if I could cheer you up, that's all."
"You're the first one as said I been given a raw deal for I don't know how long. They all say I get the best attention and all they want to do is take care of me but they got a funny way of showing it is what I say. I was in the hospital for five months and all they done was boss me around. The doctor just give his orders and never took a blind bit of notice of how I felt or what I thought. It's not fair, it's taking advantage."