Evleen Towey
From the small village, in the black and yellow bus filled with cigarette smoke, they travelled daily to the secondary school in the city. It took over an hour each way. They often had to stand, squashed between the sweaty working men and women. If they had a seat, they read a book, or did their homework. The insides of their shirt collars were dark with grime each night.
But they noticed a wider world through the windows of the bus. City people walking purposefully to their offices; hairstyles like on the telly; wearing fashionable clothes like in the magazines. Occasionally, expensive cars like a Rolls Royce with a personalised number plate swept by. There was money in the city.
Eventually making new friends, they used their bus passes on a Saturday: swimming in the Olympic-sized pool, fearlessly jumping off the twenty five metre board; going ‘round the shops’, dreaming of buying a knickerbocker glory in the café where the rich kids went after school. Some parents even held accounts for their children in the department stores, so they could buy whatever clothes they liked. Jealousy and camaraderie walked hand in hand.
After they outgrew window shopping, they took the bus to the theatre: ten of them turning up for an evening performance – still in their school uniforms – then queueing at the stage door for the actors’ autographs. The city cinema showed foreign films and once or twice, they were allowed to go to a pop concert.
Next they were special bussed to the nearby boys’ school: a weekly debating club (for grand ideas); a termly disco (for snogging). One early morning in a cream and red single-decker, the hiking club took them out of the city to the hills. They could look back at the smog and the factories, see the spires of churches and cathedrals, wonder and worry about the smoke from the hospital incinerator.
A special bus took them to Prize Night at City Hall, with the mayor handing out book tokens and sound advice. They sang their hearts out on the school song. They will never forget those words.
Then they were gone, as far away as possible, to other university cities.
They’ve been back, of course, for their reunions: by train, by car and by taxi to the wine bars and restaurants. But there’s rubble where the chapel was, and a prefab on the playing field. City Hall looks naked, cleaned of its sooty cloak. The skyscrapers have copulated and brought forth. The hills have receded, like their hair.
One day a smartly dressed Professor looked up and saw, sitting on a bus, the ghost of the girl she used to be. They smiled at each other, understanding that the bus had lifted them up out of the village and set them on their feet. They’d been planted like seeds in the city, where they were fed and where they flowered, casting their pollen to the wind and grey skies.