It was a Saturday morning. I must have been in my early twenties. I was with an old companion whom I have since lost touch with. She was older than me and was taking me to a new shop in Soho she wanted to visit that sold expensive, designer underwear. We boarded the bus on Balls Pond Road. As soon as I stepped on board I knew something was wrong. The driver was glaring at me. He held out his hand suddenly, beckoning me to stop. I waited, thinking that a young mother, or an elderly lady needed to get on the bus before me. I turned around: four regular-looking passengers were waiting there, the driver asked them on board before me with nothing, as far as I could see, that suggested they should each receive preferential treatment over me. My friend was waiting for me upstairs. I waited patiently until the four ordinary passengers had paid their fare.
“Excuse me …”
“Yes?”
“Why did you just halt me to let other people on before me?”
“You know why?”
“Pardon?”
“I said … you know why.”
“What do you mean?”
“I said you know why?”
“What!”
“Last night …”
“Last night?”
“Yes.”
“What?!”
“I remember you from last night … You were on my bus …”
“Last night? I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were!”
“I wasn’t … I didn’t even get a bus last night.”
“Don’t fuck around with me! I’m calling the police. It was you who spat at me. Last night, as you were all leaving, after I asked you all to leave my bus for harassing passengers …”
“Look here, I have no idea whatsoever what it is you are talking about. I didn’t get on a bus last night.”
“Don’t fuck with me. I’m phoning the police …”
“I’m not fucking with you, I’m telling the truth …”
“I’m phoning the police.”
“Why!? Why!? Why!? What have I done? I just want to get on your bus!”
“Right. I’m radioing the depot right now … H-H-H-Hello … Y-Y-Yes, Okay, I need the police, I am the driver of …”
The driver proceeded to inform the depot of his exact whereabouts the previous night when the alleged incident, supposedly involving me, took place. He described me to the person on the other end of the line. I realised that he could have been trying to frighten me, though, as some act of revenge or something. After the phone call he turned back to me. People started to grumble and complain. His face grew redder with each second that passed us by.
“Listen, here, get off my fucking bus! If you get off my bus now the police won’t arrest you. Get off my fucking bus …”
I realised his call to the depot had indeed been faked.
“No. It’s my right as an innocent person to remain on this bus …”
“If you don’t get off my bus this instant I will turn off the engine and no one will go anywhere …”
“Turn it off … I’m going nowhere.”
He turned off the engine.
The entire bus became silent.
Then, when the passengers had finally realised what was happening, everything seemed to erupt: a cacophony of anger and hatred. All it took was the silence; the sense that things had stalled.
The passengers’ shrill voices cut into me.
“Get off!”
“Get off the bus, you fool!”
“Get off! I need to be somewhere!”
“Now!”
“Leave, fuckin’ innit!”
“I’ll throw you off if you don’t move!”
“Get off now!”
As all this was happening, the driver stepped out of his cabin. He was small and stocky with a low centre of gravity. He gripped me by the collar, and in one swift move managed to open the emergency exit and throw me off the bus and onto the pavement. I noticed my friend, halfway up the stairs to the upper deck, looking down at me. Before my friend could get off the bus the driver shut the door, started up the engine and resumed his journey. I can still remember each face, peering down through the window as the bus trundled away from me, bathing me in its rotten fumes.
It was at that moment, there on the cold pavement, that I realised I was ordinary and not destined for great things.
ten
We were at the top end of Essex Road, near to Balls Pond Road. She suddenly turned right, heading east into De Beauvoir Town. The traffic was noisy, that incessant London drone. Gaggles of scooterists were hogging the road, reviving their hairdryer-like engines at the lights, cutting corners and generally terrifying any pedestrians who attempted to cross the road before them. Some took particular delight in inching forwards, as if attempting to mow one down, as people crossed at the pelican crossing. The road seemed to be filled with them, buzzing about like swarms of angry wasps without a care in the world. It was completely depressing.
I’ve never wanted to hang around in packs. Even when I was at the age I was supposed to, and my friends ventured off to Highbury to watch the Arsenal every other weekend, I would make my excuses until they eventually stopped asking me.
She had stopped running and was walking along quite slowly now, naturally puffed and out of breath. She stopped a couple of times to stroke a cat that had been following her; a small tabby cat that looked undernourished, though probably wasn’t — being as most domesticated cats are overfed and quite fat. She crouched close to it, down to the ground, the cat looking up, circling her, rubbing its scent glands against her shins, lifting up its tail, exposing its anus for her to sniff, to inspect, to classify DNA, then falling to the ground, rolling onto its back in complete and utter submission.
I stopped walking and rested by a garden wall to watch. She obviously knew I was there, watching her and the cat, but she didn’t once acknowledge my presence behind her.
The cat soon trotted away, content with itself, as an Islington Refuge Collection van pulled into the street, its pack of binmen it contained quickly scurrying in and out of gardens, rummaging around for black sacks of rubbish. The cat fled quickly, down into a basement flat’s front garden — if you could call it that — and out of the way.
Again, she began to walk, although she set off with a little bit more purpose this time. It seemed she had finally decided where it was she wanted to go. I naturally presumed she was going home, back to the safety of her flat, but she turned immediately right onto Southgate Road, heading in the direction of the canal again. It made perfect sense to me: she had to find somewhere she could feel anonymous, where she could observe and become invisible — where she could belong. I followed her along Southgate Road, past the Northgate Pub and the small cluster of shops next to it. The canal wasn’t that far away.