The Bus Crash

If my dad wants to see me and Sol, he waits outside our house in the morning to drive us to school. He drops me off first because you pass my school before you get to Sol’s. I have to say ‘Good morning, Dad’ when I get into the car, otherwise he won’t speak to me. After I say ‘Good morning’, my dad tells us stories about the customers who have come into the garage and the party he went to with Uncle Papafio on the weekend. Sol laughs at all the right parts of the story but I don’t know how to. Everyone thinks that Uncle Papafio is my dad’s brother but they are just friends, best friends. Sol does most of the talking. My dad never remembers to put cocoa butter on his hands. I think he has thrown his wedding ring in the bin.

My dad still lives in Brixton. Sol says it takes eight minutes to walk to his flat, but I have never been there. My dad rings the doorbell to our house anytime he wants to see Sol. He rings it in a special way, so Sol knows it’s him, like a code. I try not to open the door but if he rings the bell too many times, my mum gets upset. When I open the door, I just say ‘hi’, and then I call Sol. My dad normally gives Sol money when he visits. He offered me some money once, but I said, ‘No, thanks,’ even though it would have been good to have £5. Sometimes my dad gives Sol trainers like Air Jordans or a Nike tracksuit instead of money. Other times, he brings him rice and stew in a Tupperware which he says he made himself. I have never seen my dad cook, but now that he is divorced from my mum, he says he cooks for himself all the time. On the weekends, my dad and Sol go to watch Crystal Palace play at Selhurst.

 

In September, my dad comes back from holiday in Gambia. He doesn’t ask me or Sol if we want to go with him. Even if he did, I would have said, ‘No, thanks.’ My dad is taking us to school. When he turns left out of Nursery Road, I notice that he has a new ring on his wedding finger; it is silver instead of gold. When I ask my dad why he has a silver ring on that finger, he tells me that he is married – to a new wife. Her name is Auntie Coumba; she is from Gambia. I have never met Auntie Coumba before but Sol has. Once I heard my mum say to Auntie Baaba that ‘that Coumba woman’ is my dad’s girlfriend.

When I ask my dad if he had an affair with Auntie Coumba, he slams his foot down on the brakes and shouts from the front of the car, ‘What do you mean?!’ I feel like time stands still when he does that. The traffic lights are green, but my dad doesn’t care about traffic lights. He won’t stop staring at me in the rear-view mirror. The car behind us is beeping, but my dad won’t move. It reminds me of the time he was driving me home to pour palm oil and hot water and spinach all over me. I don’t want to see his furious eyes. I look outside my window and whisper-say, ‘Nothing.’ My dad is becoming a beast, again, from the front seat of the car. He won’t stop shouting at me. I don’t know if I am ever going to get to school. My dad says that I am ‘rude’ and that I ‘don’t respect’. When he stops the car outside my school, he is still shouting horrible words at me. As usual, Sol is busy looking out of the window as if he can’t hear what is happening. He sinks lower and lower into his seat to try and make himself invisible. Sol is five foot ten inches tall and silent. He never sticks up for me. He has never stuck up for me, not once in my life. He has never asked my dad to stop shouting at me or beating me or making me wish I was never born. And I know my dad would listen to him. Sol says he ‘hates confrontation’. I don’t know what that means or why it is important when it comes to sticking up for what is right. I can’t wait to get out of the car and get to school. I slam the door without saying thank you. I know that I am never going to get in my dad’s car again.

 

That is why I am in an ambulance on my way to King’s College Hospital. Ever since the day my dad shouted at me for the last time, I wake up early to take the bus to school. Sol waits behind for my dad to give him a lift.

The bus is climbing the hill like a rollercoaster at Chessington before the big drop where everyone screams with their hands in the air. Two more stops. I am thinking about the word ‘brinkmanship’. Mrs Wardell taught us that word. Mrs Wardell is the most glamorous teacher at Sudbourne. She teaches history and is the head of middle school. Mrs Wardell’s nails are always painted red. If there is not silence in class and she is waiting to start the lesson, she taps her nails on the table to make a ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ sound that makes everyone be quiet. We love it when she wears her bright blue leather skirt. It’s basically electric blue. In winter, she wears really expensive cashmere jumpers and pashminas. After assembly, everyone says, ‘Did you see Mrs Wardell’s shoes?’ Mrs Wardell drives a Porsche. Her husband gets her a new one every year. She calls ‘history’ ‘herstory’ and teaches us how to write in shorthand. Mrs Wardell says this is a ‘skill’ that we will use for the rest of our lives. When she talks about the girls in middle school, she calls us ‘my girls’.

Brinkmanship is when you push someone to the point where they might break. I think my dad is good at brinkmanship. He pushes and pushes and pushes until you feel like you are going to explode into a million pieces that scatter so far and wide that no one can put you back together again and make you whole. You’re not even sure you know what it feels like to be whole. Or whether being alive makes any sense. I feel like I don’t want to be Stella any more when my dad sends me to the brink. Even though I don’t like brinkmanship, me and Kemi find this word funny.

Kemi is one of my friends at Sudbourne. We laugh every time we say ‘brinkmanship’. Mrs Wardell thinks we are being silly. This makes us laugh even more. Kemi lives in Catford. She is from Nigeria and she gives me a reason to laugh every single day. We really want to know who built the big cat outside the Catford shopping centre and why it has been there for so many years. Tomatoes are disgusting; the jellied pips make us shudder. We would never eat a soft banana with black spots all over it because that is gross. The smell makes us want to throw up in our mouths. On her birthday, Kemi brings in puff puff to share. Puff puff is basically the same thing as bofrot but that’s what Nigerian people call it. Bofrot is a type of Ghanaian doughnut; everyone loves it. We surprise her with a sponge cake from Marks & Spencer: vanilla buttercream and raspberry filling. ‘Oruko mi ni Stella’ means ‘my name is Stella’ in Yoruba. That’s what Kemi is, Yoruba.

 

The bus does not stop at the top of the hill where it is supposed to stop. It does not stop at all. Instead, it hits an oncoming car: a red car. I hear the sound of crumpling metal and see how awful it looks up close. Everyone screams as if we are watching a horror movie. Everything happens really slowly and really quickly after that. The only thing I can think about is the man driving the crumpled red car. We need to call 999 and ask for an ambulance for the man who is dying in the red car. I am at the back of the bus but I wish I was at the bus stop in Brixton or asleep in my bed instead.

 

The bus driver is screaming, ‘I tried to bank it, but it won’t stop!’

He is Jamaican. I don’t know what ‘bank it’ means or why he won’t stop the bus. I think he is supposed to slam the brakes really hard like my dad did when I asked him if he was having an affair with Auntie Coumba. The bus is crashing into a wall made from bricks. I think when you look down from the brick wall, there is a railway track below. I am falling. Free falling. Like a drop of rain from the sky. There is no wood to touch. And I cannot make the sign of the cross. The blood is rushing around my body and my heart is trembling in my chest. We are falling. In the bus. Over the bridge. Onto a railway track. I am screaming and bouncing around the bus. Why are buses red? I don’t know when the bus will stop falling, or how. We are going to die. In a few minutes. Or seconds.

 

When it stops, the bus lands on its right-hand side, like a toy that has been flicked over by a little boy’s finger. I have to get out of the bus before it bursts into flames. I’ve seen that happen on TV, and then you die from burning. If God calls me now – before the fire gets me – I can go and see Coral and I won’t have to feel the power of the flames. I can see her face for the first time and we can be sisters. Everything looks strange inside the bus because it is on its right-hand side, not upright like it’s supposed to be. I can’t see her, but I can hear her. A woman is talking.

‘It’s okay, everyone, just keep calm. Keep calm and try and find a way out.’

‘Miss Wilks?’

Miss Wilks helps me to stand up and stay upright by holding my arm with hers. She guides me slowly and carefully to her house. Coral is waiting for me inside. I can hear her. She is calling my name. Miss Wilks tells me that I’m okay; it’s okay. She can see the wreckage of the bus from her living room window if she looks but she doesn’t. She looks only at and after me. I am bleeding on her blue carpet, but she doesn’t even care. Her carpet is the same colour as her eyes.

There are no straight lines when I finally open my eyes, just blurred shapes against a confusing background of colours. I have to blink slowly, open my eyes wide and concentrate before I can understand. There are so many houses around us and lots of parked cars. But the bus finds a space that God made especially for it. It landed next to, but not on, the houses or the cars or the children’s play area. In the news, the reporter will say it fell forty feet.

A lady who held a pole as we fell looks like she has walked on her knees in smashed glass for a mile. I don’t try to help her. I am trying to understand where I am in the sideways bus. A boy who was sitting in the front has broken his leg. He is trapped. I don’t try to help him. I don’t even see him. I am just trying to follow the sound of safety. A girl who was coming down the stairs when the bus started to fall is badly injured. She is screaming as if she is already on fire. I don’t hear her. The only screaming I hear is my own. I climb over the Perspex sheet that covers the driver to get out of the bus. His front window is smashed; it is the new exit. Lots of people come out of their houses to see the wreckage and the commotion. Some of them are wearing dressing gowns, others are dressed for work. I am out of the bus. I am running so the fireball won’t catch me. I fall. I get up again. I am running. And falling.

‘An ambulance is on its way.’

 

‘The bus driver is okay and there are no fatalities, thankfully.’

The doctor says that I have a kidney contusion, caused by blunt force trauma to my lower back, but it will heal. I have been incredibly lucky, and I will be okay. I don’t feel lucky. I don’t feel lucky at all.

My mum and dad both come to the hospital. This is the first time my mum has seen my dad since he got a new wife. She is calling her friends on her mobile to tell them what has happened. She tells them that Sol is fine because my dad drops him to school but he makes me take the bus. She makes sure my dad can hear her when she says this. I want them both to leave the room. My dad says that he will take me to school from now on and that I won’t have to get the bus ever again. I am purple and yellow and blue and green all over my body. Even though I almost died, that is not going to make me get into my dad’s car because I am fed up of brinkmanship.

Because I almost died, everyone is so nice to me, especially my dad. He rings the bell and asks for me when Sol opens the door. He has brought me a bag of pick ‘n’ mix sweets from Woolworths and some DVDs. He will come again to see me tomorrow. Sol is being the best big brother. I hear him on the phone to his friends. His little sister was in a bus accident and she almost died, so he’s not going out this weekend. He wants to stay home so he can look after her. He doesn’t go to rugby or hockey or tennis practice for a week. My mum can’t stop shaking her foot when she sits down and tells her friends that her daughter almost died in a bus accident. She can’t stop praying the rosary either.

 

When I get the bus to school again after half term, I have a new phobia of rollercoasters. Every time the bus climbs the hill, the things that happen to me are: my blood turns to Tizer – after you shake the bottle – my heart shakes in my chest, my skin prickles and my blinking gets really loud. Every time the bus climbs the hill, I am scared that the driver will say he can’t ‘bank it’ and that we will start to fall. I never hold on to the pole because I don’t want to be like the woman who walked on her knees in smashed glass for a mile. Every time the bus climbs the hill, the accident plays like a video over and over again in my head but the ending is different because I die. Every time the bus moves, I squeeze my bus ticket tightly. Paper comes from trees. Trees are wood. Touch wood. I always make the sign of the cross. And I always blink hard when I say ‘Amen’.

My dad parks outside the house very early so I will see him when I leave for the bus stop. He says, ‘Good morning, Stella. How are you?’ without waiting for me to say it first. I say, ‘Fine, thank you,’ and carry on walking. My dad asks if I am going to get in the car, when I say no, he says that I am being ‘defiant’. Sol doesn’t want to carry his hockey stick on the bus. He doesn’t understand why I won’t just come in Dad’s car.

After I almost die, my mum has to pick me up from behind Morleys in Brixton at 5.30pm every day after school. That means she has to change her shift pattern at work so she can leave early. She has been given special dispensation by Dr Gates, Consultant Neonatologist and NICU Lead, in these ‘exceptional circumstances’. He saw the bus accident reported on the news and he can only imagine the impact on me and the whole family. I can’t walk home from the bus stop on my own because I am too shaky. Even though I did it before the accident. Even though nothing can happen to me. And even though it’s only a ten-minute walk from the bus stop to my house.

 

I am standing outside Morleys waiting for my mum but she is not here. My watch says that it is 5.36pm and she is supposed to be here at 5.30pm. At 5.42pm, I am a statue. I cannot move. I am shaking and frozen, both. She has forgotten me. And I have forgotten my way home. I cannot control my blinking. It is so loud. There are so many people in the street. Too many people. Brixton feels like Cape Coast Castle in the open air. But there is not enough light. I cannot move because the fishermen have cast their net over me. I am their catch of the day. A concrete statue beaten by the waves. They will watch me die on the busy shore. Gasping for air like a fish. I don’t know where she is. ‘Mummy, where are you?’ She is supposed to be here. To pick me up. That’s what she said before I left home this morning.

‘See you at five thirty behind Morleys. Have a good day, Stella.’

 

When I see my mum’s car, it is 6.04pm. I slam the door as hard as I can when I sit down. My mum jumps.

‘Sorry, Stella. One of my preemies was very sick today. We thought we were going to lose her and I had to stay a little later than planned. Sorry I’m late. How are you?’

I say words that a Ghanaian girl should never say to her mum. I am The British Bulldog and I wrestle her with words from my mouth. She does not even know about WWF wrestling and she does not know how hot my blood is right now. I play the bongo drums on the dashboard of the car with my fists and wet it with my tears.

My mum is sorry. She will never be late to pick me up again.

We drive home in silence.

 

After I almost die, I can choose if, and when, I see my dad. On my birthday, he knocks on the door and asks for me. He can’t ring the doorbell any more because my mum has disconnected it. She has had enough of him trying to control her life from outside her home. Ringing the bell six times a day, or more, to deny her peace, to harass her. My dad doesn’t usually remember my birthday but when I come to the door, he gives me a card. My lips are really stiff when I try to move them to say thank you. My tongue rests against my teeth and won’t move. There is a £50 note inside the card. It is big and pink and crisp. It has never been folded before. If I take it, my dad will think that I will come to the door the next time he knocks, or that I will let him take me to school in his car, but I won’t. Because you can’t pay someone to make them forget all the things you did to them when they made your blood boil.

‘Thank you.’