Chapter Seventeen

 

That morning was Sunday, so they had a reasonably early start, as they had another two sets to play, one at noon, the last at four. Sue met Roger at breakfast, joining him at his table, nudging feet and doing intimate things that new lovers do. They soon left for the bandstand, meeting the others there. The two gigs went without incident, if anything they seemed to play a bit better together, with not so many discordinant sounds. The first went particularly well, probably because Cedric hadn’t had the opportunity to drink too much, and there wasn’t a great gap to the second set so it was quite a happy band that met for the return journey home. Roger was more than a little surprised when his bus was full and packed for him, with only him and Sue missing, especially as the other two buses were all ready to go as well. There were so many people inside he could have sworn that there were more for the return journey, but he had the same number so the responsibility lay with others. It had been pre-arranged that they would have a stop just before the French border at a little village that specialised in selling tobacco and related products, but Roger was a little surprised to see that there were still people inside the other two buses when they went to buy their purchases. As a non-smoker he wasn’t bothered about buying some duty free tobacco, but had been asked to purchase some by a couple of his college pals, who rolled their own cigarettes. The saving on this tobacco was quite considerable, as the Belgian shops were geared up to sell to the British customer. He hadn’t been there before, and was amazed to see that some of the shops were open 24 hours a day. Roger made his purchases, then went to the toilet for his comfort stop. He returned to his bus via the chocolate shop then stowed away any purchases that his passengers might have made. There were four or five people getting onto the other buses, and he was amazed to see that he didn’t recognise them. He was just about to say something when he was aware of Cedric being the person guiding them into the buses, and was even more surprised when Cedric looked at him, drawing his hand across his throat followed by holding his hand up against his mouth, in the universal sign to say nothing or it’ll be the worse for you. Roger looked around to see if anyone else had seen anything, but strangely they were looking the other way. If that’s what they wanted to do, then it wasn’t up to Roger to do anything about it. There was a time and place for everything, so Roger was quite comfortable doing nothing. Soon the convoy was back on the road again, Roger still at the back, and when they arrived at the tunnel entrance the same procedure applied, only this time UK customs officers required all the passports of the people in his bus. They didn’t have to get out to show personally, all Roger had to do was wind the window down, show the number of passports was the same number of passengers, and no photos were examined. Very easy, as both the other buses had done the same while Roger was patiently waiting. Some of the other bus passengers remained in their vehicles while all Roger’s lot went into the terminal, to have a pee, and to buy refreshments, also an English Sunday newspaper. It was easier to drive onto the train this time, as Roger knew what to expect, so soon they were parked inside, waiting for departure, as some of the other bus passengers went to the toilet at the front of the train. They seemed to be the ones that hadn’t got out at the tunnel terminal. Strange, that. Roger read his paper, going first to the football results. Fulham had drawn at home again. Same procedure as before, when the train arrived in Folkestone, he drove straight off, no passport control or customs, as they had already been dealt with on the French side.

They got back by ten o’clock UK time, parked the buses up, and Roger and Sue walked home along the seafront, too weary to think about sex, hand in hand with their small cases.