Despite his best intentions, Greeves had seriously miscalculated, and I was now faced with a number of choices. Officially, if one bus caught up with another the second bus was supposed to hold back and give the leading bus a chance to get clear ahead. Another option was for the follower quickly to catch up and overtake the leader, and then play a game of leapfrog in which both buses travelled in tandem working alternate stops. This required the cooperation of the other driver, of course, and was usually reserved for when both buses were late and trying to make up lost time. A third approach was for one bus simply to follow the other at close quarters, nose to tail, and make absolutely no effort to separate. Understandably, the Board of Transport took a very dim view of this last practice; and the leapfrogging was hardly less frowned upon. In the opinion of the Board, two buses running together only counted as one bus. The infringement was considered even worse when there were three or more buses in the equation. Few of us were innocent. I once participated in a convoy of nine vehicles, all bound for the same destination. Such a sight could turn the officials quite apoplectic because it ran counter to their guiding principle. The maintenance of headway was sacrosanct. Any violation threatened to undermine an entire ideology. Hence, they feared if all the buses came at once, the walls of their citadel would tumble.
For these reasons I decided not to get involved with the bus in front, and instead kept my distance. I could just make out its upper deck disappearing gradually over the horizon, and it struck me, not for the first time, that the distinctive red paintwork had been selected especially for this purpose. The subject had been under debate for years. Some experts claimed buses were painted red in order to make them look bigger than they actually were. Others said it was to prevent them from clashing with the telephone boxes. Yet again, there was a widely held opinion that the man who ordered the original batch of paint was a communist trying to make a particular point. Whatever the explanation, the fact that the bus ahead of me was a conspicuous red made it very easy to keep track of.
Carefully I followed it southward, over the bridge, stopping and picking up the few stragglers who had somehow managed to miss it. By the time I reached the common I had half a dozen people on board, most of them fairly content because they’d only had to wait about a minute before I came along. Drawing near the underground station I saw Breslin standing at the side of the road. Unusually, he didn’t glance at his watch as I approached, but merely gazed in my direction. He gave me a satisfactory nod when I passed by, and I concluded Greeves must have been in touch with him. All was as it should be, apparently, so I continued my journey. When I neared the garage some fifteen minutes later, however, I was in for a surprise. There on the pavement stood Mick Wilson, and he was wearing the smart black uniform of a fully-fledged inspector of buses. The moment he saw me he looked at his watch, then instantly began flagging me down. At first I pretended not to notice him, and rolled on for another thirty yards before finally coming to a halt. When he got to me his feathers were all ruffled. Obviously he had not seen the funny side of my ‘jape’.
“Alright, Mick,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“You’re twelve minutes early,” he said, by way of answer. “Why’s that?”
Twelve minutes? I looked at my time card and sure enough, I was twelve minutes early.
“Ah yes,” I replied. “I’m working under special instructions.”
Mick peered at me from beneath the brim of his black peaked cap. “A likely story,” he said. “Whose ‘special instructions’ exactly?”
“Greeves’s.”
At the mention of this name Mick winced a little. Then he moved away from my vehicle and began jabbering into his walkie-talkie. Meanwhile, I watched in disbelief. Could this really be our friend Mick, who until only a few weeks ago had shared our table in the canteen? Who had joked with Edward, Davy and me about running early and jumping bus stops? It seemed impossible he could have undergone such a change in outlook in so short a time. Yet here he was, marching up and down as if he’d been a member of officialdom for years. He was now deep in conversation with someone at the other end of the line. As he spoke he looked alternately at his wristwatch, his schedules book, and me. Eventually he came stalking back.
“Alright,” he said. “Carry on as you are.” And that was it. Without so much as a second glance he dismissed me and walked off to deal with other matters. Clearly, Mick knew nothing about the exercise Greeves had set in motion. There had been no forward notification, which suggested he was still regarded as a novice by the other officials. Nevertheless, I realised I was going to have to keep an eye open for him in future. As I pressed on towards the southern outpost I felt somewhat saddened by this turn of events. I’d always thought of Mick and myself as being like-minded, but evidendy it was no longer true.
§
The southern outpost was a remote and desolate place. In the previous century an enormous glasshouse had stood here, high on a hill, boldly reflecting the achievements of empire. Thousands of citizens had flocked to gaze upon it, but eventually it had collapsed under its own weight. The glass all shattered and it could never be rebuilt. Nowadays the site was used as somewhere for buses to turn around. I dropped my remaining people, then pulled onto the stand and switched the engine off. In the ensuing silence I pondered the ironies of life. Normally I would arrive here for a so-called ‘recovery period’ of about ten minutes. This was just enough time to allow me to sprint up to the tea shop and back before I had to depart again. Actually, there was a van selling tea situated immediately next to the bus stand. I’d discovered in the past, however, that the vendor knew less about making proper tea than the trained chimpanzees they used in the television adverts. Consequently, I preferred to go to the shop up the road, even though it was further away. Today, of course, I had plenty of time on my hands: twenty-two minutes, to be precise. But because I’d come here via a short cut it was barely an hour since my last cup of tea. I had no desire to drink any more!
That was typical of this job. When you needed more time there wasn’t enough; and when you didn’t need it, there was ample to spare.
A second bus was parked at the front of the stand. I gave my own vehicle a cursory inspection, then wandered along to see who the other driver was. Sitting behind the wheel was Dean. His doors were open.
“Morning, Dean,” I said. “Want a cup of tea? I’m just going to buy some.” (Actually I wasn’t, but for the sake of the conversation this was a reliable opening gambit.)
“No, thanks,” he replied. (I knew he’d say no. He always did. I’d offered to buy him tea on countless occasions.)
I tried a different line of attack. “Nice view from up here, isn’t it?” (The southern outpost afforded a marvellous vista across the garden suburbs south of the city, extending on clear days to the wooded shires beyond. To see it properly, though, you had to get out of your bus.)
“Can’t say I’ve noticed,” said Dean.
I had never known Dean to emerge from behind his steering wheel during a spell of duty. He just stayed sitting there, looking at the road through his windscreen. It was a habit he shared with many of his colleagues. These were the drivers whom Edward referred to as worker ants. The title, however, was misleading. He’d given them this name not because they worked hard, but because they made hard work out of an easy job.