Late-night bus journey home (London)

My old friend and the most avid reader of my blogs, Valerio, said after hearing about my “Food from heaven” adventure (blog of the same name):  “Here’s another good point of your job: your commuting to and from the pub seems to provide a lot of material for stories…”

Indeed.

When I first transferred to the Wood Green branch of the pub chain, I’d just pull my jumper over my work top after the closing shift, and jump on the night bus — first the N29 to Manor House, then the N253 for the last two stops to my house in Stamford Hill.

On one of the N253 journeys, I noticed the driver looking fairly intently at me as I was getting on, even turning round in his seat and craning his neck at the next stop when I went and stood just out of his direct line of vision.  This freaked me out a bit, thinking he probably fancied me.  

You see, I’d been approached before by men on buses and at bus stops, striking up a casual conversation, starting with asking if I was going home from work, then moving on to whether I wanted to go for a cup of coffee or a walk in the park, but they’d all been earlier: around 9/10pm, a sunny late afternoon for the-walk-in-the-park one.

This level of interest at 3am by the bus driver was a bit too intense for my comfort.  After I disembarked, I dawdled around the bus stop, waiting for the bus to move off, as my house is by the main road, only ten yards from the bus stop, so I didn’t want the driver to see where I lived.  He, on his part, wouldn’t drive off immediately either.  And so, there we were:  each idling at the bus stop, in a kind of a stalemate for a while.  This only confirmed my initial judgement of him.  He’s persistent, I thought, and making his interest very obvious.

The next time, it was a different driver.  This one actually asked, also turning round in his seat and craning his neck, “Where are you going?”  What a strange question!  Why did he want to know?  What’s the matter with all these male drivers, I thought.

Another post-shift night, as I was waiting for the night bus at 3am, I happened to look down and noticed that because I hadn’t taken off my work apron — which had a big pocket in front and into which I often stuffed spare paper napkins for wiping up greasy spills — I looked about eight months pregnant under my jumper.

Penny dropped:  those bus drivers were probably wondering what this heavily pregnant woman was doing, being out and about at 3am.  And an Oriental woman at that too, which is unusual, as Oriental women don’t go gadding about at 3am, even less when eight months pregnant.  

Also, because it was a different driver the second time, he didn’t get to see that I was still eight months pregnant three months later.

I now make sure to remove my work apron when I finish my closing shift.  No more staring from the drivers after that.

(London, 2016)

Update 031218:  Another penny's just dropped (yes, the brain has arrived on the slow bus).  The drivers might've been worried that I might end up giving birth on their bus, hence the level of interest!

* See also "Catching the last Tube train" and "How to expedite matters"

Surrealistic journey home on the night bus (London)

After a post-shift drink at the end of the closing shift at the branch of the pub chain where I worked, I jumped on the N29 bus at Wood Green at 3am.  

There were already two men on board, both in their late 20s or early 30s.  One of them seemed very angry, yelling and shouting — I wasn’t sure if it was at his friend or at the driver, as I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying, only picking out the words “Oyster” [a bus/Tube fare payment card], “payment” and “violation”.  Must be something to do with fare payment, then.  

People have told me that Wood Green is a rough area, and this wasn’t the first time I was witnessing a late-night / early-dawn incident.  A month ago, a passenger who couldn’t pay just sat down and refused to get off the bus.

After a minute or two yelling at the driver through the cab window, the shouty man then came and sat behind me, with his friend in a seat the other side of the aisle. 

He carried on shouting at his friend, on and on, stop after stop.  

At one point, I thought perhaps I could calm him down a bit by distracting him, so I said, “Would you like a slice of angel [sponge] cake?”  He stopped yelling at his friend, turned to me and said in a polite voice, “That’s kind of you, darling, but no, thank you, darling,” and went back to shouting at his friend.  

I found it most interesting that he was able to switch from being so cross to being courteous, then back to being so cross again.

Some ten stops later, I got up at Manor House to get off.  He interrupted his shouting to say to me, “Bye, darling, take care, mind how you go!”  I thanked him and wished him a safe journey.

I went the rest of my way home thinking what a surrealistic experience that had been, but smiling as well at how the angry young man still managed to be so polite to me.

(London, 2016)