This host of assorted aspects made the VPB very popular indeed. It was a world-famous, double-decker bus, and by comparison the single-decker paled into insignificance.
“What about trees?” said Jeff.
“What about them?”
“‘When trees hold sway, buses keep a low profile’.”
“Well, of course,” Edward conceded. “You’ve just quoted one of the oldest sayings in the book. Certainly, the single-decker earned its rightful place in the menagerie of buses.”
“Did it ever pose a threat to the VPB?”
“Never,” said Edward. “That dubious honour fell to the advent of pneumatic doors.”
He glanced at his watch, stood up and walked away from the table, leaving the rest of us to ponder his words.
“I thought Edward favoured doors on buses,” said Jeff.
“Yes,” I said. “He does.”
“So what did he mean by ‘dubious honour’?”
“He was a reluctant convert,” I explained. “He still has his doubts.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I’m glad there are doors on buses,” said Davy. “Imagine driving along the bejewelled thoroughfare without any. There’d be people piling on every time you pulled up at the traffic lights.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ve got those long bus stops which take three buses at a time. If you couldn’t keep the doors shut you’d have sheer anarchy. It would be nothing less than a free-for-all.”
“Funny enough, I don’t mind how many people get on my bus,” said Jeff. “It’s getting rid of them again that’s the problem.”
We all agreed about that. Dropping people off was a drag, the trouble being that the rear exit doors would only operate if you stopped and applied the hand brake. By contrast, the front doors swished open at the mere touch of a foot pedal. My personal preference was for a double-decker bus with just one set of doors at the front. There were still a number of these buses at sundry outlying garages, but lately they were becoming few and far between.
“Why didn’t they equip the VPB with doors?” said Jeff. “Then they could have had the best of both worlds.”
“Don’t ask me,” I said. “That remains one of the great unanswered questions.”
Eight
The road was clogged with slow-moving traffic. I’d been sitting behind the same lorry for almost half an hour as we inched glacially towards the southern outpost. On the back of this lorry was a sign that said: IF YOU CAN’T SEE MY MIRRORS I CAN’T SEE YOU.
I had read these words so many times during the past thirty minutes that they’d become stuck in my head. I’d even set them to music and convinced myself I had the makings of a pop song:
If you can’t see my mirrors
I can’t see you any more
I can’t see you…any more
If you believe in mirrors
You won’t see me any more
You won’t see me…any more
All I needed now was an agent.
Sitting in a bus composing songs might seem pointless, but there was nothing else to do. My people had long since departed, having finally summoned up the courage to ask me to let them out of the bus. Now I was quite alone, and had to entertain myself somehow. As a matter of fact I couldn’t see his mirrors, but in truth I didn’t care any more. I was right up his arse, as we used to say, and that was where I was staying for the foreseeable future. The queue of vehicles appeared to go on forever. Periodically, we’d all start moving forward and hopes would be raised. Then after a few yards we’d all stop again. About ten minutes previously the cab radio had woken from its slumbers with a ‘bus-wide’ announcement concerning a burst water main near the southern outpost. I remembered the antics of the man with the large key and decided he must be responsible for the present situation.
More time passed, and eventually a bus came along travelling in the opposite direction. Driving it was Coleen. She stopped beside me and spoke through her window.
“Fucking chaos down there,” she said. “I’m forty-five minutes late.”
“Any officials?” I asked.
“Only Baker,” she replied. “He’s running round like a headless chicken.”
After Coleen had gone I reflected on her words. There were many inspectors who flapped at the first sign of crisis, and Baker was indeed one of them. It required someone of the calibre of Breslin to sort things out properly. I wondered if he was riding to the rescue at this very moment. Probably not, I concluded. All the inspectors travelled by bus, and the southbound buses weren’t going anywhere. The service on this particular route was sporadic at best. Today it was virtually non-existent.
After an age of progressing at little more than walking speed I arrived at the point where the mains had burst. It was exactly the same place I’d been held up the other day: a disaster area with water flooding all over the road and water company vans parked everywhere. I could also see the matter wasn’t being helped by the temporary lights that had recently been rigged up. These were meant to alleviate the problem by regulating the flow of traffic. However, it was immediately clear to me that the timing was all wrong. The only passable section of road was narrow and very muddy. Accordingly, some motorists were advancing with extreme care and caution. Whoever was in charge of the lights had made no allowance for this, so that they turned from green to red while vehicles were still only halfway. Traffic then began coming through from the other end. As usual nobody would yield to anyone else, and the result was stalemate.
As I sat surveying this scene I noticed the man from the water company standing by his van. He happened to glance at my bus and appeared to recognise me from our previous encounter. Then he came walking over, grinning as if we were friends from way back when. I decided to go along with it.
“More problems?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “The pressure became too much, I’m afraid.”
“Be able to fix it, will you?”
“Eventually, yes,” he said. “Could take a few days though.”
“I see you’ve got some temporary lights.”
“Indeed we have,” said my friend from the water company. “I was instrumental in setting them up.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything further, and to my relief he was called away by one of his colleagues. As I waited for the lights to change it struck me that there were a lot of people who ‘knew’ me from the buses. The garage currently employed about two hundred drivers, and until a year ago there had been just as many conductors. I was also on speaking terms with several drivers from other garages. Then there were all the people who had tried the buses and left to do something else. Busmen (and buswomen) were divided into three main groups. Firstly, there were the long-termers like me, Edward, Davy and possibly Jeff, who were established in the job and quite liked it (despite our moaning). Next came the ones who stayed about eighteen months before moving on. Finally there were those who completed their training and disappeared after only a few weeks because it just did not suit them. The middle category was by far the largest and consequently there were countless ex-busworkers whose faces I recognised. From time to time I’d see someone from the past and, depending how well we’d got on together, we would exchange greetings. I remember once I was obliged to slow down and manoeuvre my bus round a van that was being unloaded on the ring road. As I did so I noticed that one of the blokes involved had been a driver at our garage about two years earlier. I hooted my horn to say hello. His natural reaction was to scowl angrily. Unloading was illegal on this stretch of road and he doubtless thought my hoot referred to the fact. The moment of recognition came just as he was about to make a rude sign at me. Suddenly he was all smiles and giving me the ‘thumbs-up’. Quickly he came over to the bus and we shook hands and asked one another how we were. (We were both fine.) It was only after I left him behind that it occurred to me we’d barely spoken a dozen words when he worked at the garage. I had no idea what his name was and never saw him again after that.