Read Online Last Days of the Bus Club by Chris Stewart - Free Book Online
Authors: Chris Stewart
Ads: Link
now.’
‘I’m Chris,’ I said offering my hand to shake.
Jim looked for some time at the hand before shaking it, slowly and firmly. I climbed into the smoke-filled interior, and slowly, ever so slowly, Jim urged the old car out onto the empty road.
After a few minutes of painfully slow progress I felt the need to say something, to break the silence. I know it was only five thirty in the morning, but I had just walked briskly in the cold for fifteen minutes and was wide awake.
‘Pleased to meet you, Jim,’ I said breezily.
He seemed unaware that I had said anything. But after a considerable lapse of time, he removed one hand from the wheel, extracted the pipe from his mouth, and rather like a turtle, from beneath the carapace of the hard yellow hat, turned slowly towards me, considered my fatuous conversational gambit for a moment, and returned in silence to his earlier position.
For a while I contented myself with looking through the side windows, where the first light of the day was bringing a little colour to the fields and trees. Then I eased back in my seat and tried to doze. But no, it was all too exciting. I tried again: ‘How far is it to the job … you know, the site?’ I wasn’t quite sure what to call it.
I looked over at Jim as he commenced the process of replying. Out came the pipe, the head swivelled towards me, a moment’s reflection.
‘About forty-five minutes.’
I thought about this for a bit. ‘So what time do we start work, then?’
A pained expression passed across his features. ‘Eight.’
I considered this information and looked at my watch. It didn’t seem to square up: in forty-five minutes it would be only half-past six. Why would a person want to get to work an hour and a half before it started? Obviously I didn’t know much about the nature of work, but this didn’t make any sense at all.
I decided to venture another question. ‘Um, Jim?‘
A withering look.
‘Why are we getting there so early, then?’
Jim frowned and changed gear to negotiate a hill. He sucked deep on his pipe and shifted from one buttock to the other. It appeared that he hadn’t heard. We kept silent for a while as we passed through Ockley and Beare Green, then turned off towards Abinger Hammer and Friday Street. The early morning light began to flood across the fields and woods, and the North Downs loomed before us.
Finally Jim had an answer, and he put in motion the mechanism to deliver it. ‘I tell you what, Chris … I likes to get up an’ breathe the fresh air ’fore any other bugger’s’ad a chance to fart in it.’ And he permitted himself a little chuckle. I chuckled too, to show that I was not above enjoying such indelicacy, and for a few miles we chuckled on, both getting the most out of this sagacious little conceit.
At half-past six, give or take a minute or two, we pulled up in the middle of a beech wood. There was a brick bridge over a single-track railway and, in a small clearing by the road, a big green wooden hut. Jim fumbled with the keys of the hut and disappeared inside. I stood outside for a bit, breathing in that morning beechwood air as yet untainted by human flatulence, and then walked out on to the bridge and leaned on the low brick parapet. As I stood there the first rays of morning sunlight came shimmering and gleaming along the rails from Effingham Junction and Dorking.
During the journey I had managed, with some difficulty, to elicit from Jim the facts about the bridge. It was called Deer Leap Bridge and was a Victorian construction of dark brick and a certain architectural distinction. Unfortunately the weight limit was three and a half tons, and some lunatic lorry driver had seen fit to drive his fifteen-ton articulated lorry over it. This had cracked the bridge so badly that it was no longer deemed safe for traffic, and our job was to build a hideous and utterly undistinguished new concrete bridge beside the old one. The road, which was a little back lane
‘I’m Chris,’ I said offering my hand to shake.
Jim looked for some time at the hand before shaking it, slowly and firmly. I climbed into the smoke-filled interior, and slowly, ever so slowly, Jim urged the old car out onto the empty road.
After a few minutes of painfully slow progress I felt the need to say something, to break the silence. I know it was only five thirty in the morning, but I had just walked briskly in the cold for fifteen minutes and was wide awake.
‘Pleased to meet you, Jim,’ I said breezily.
He seemed unaware that I had said anything. But after a considerable lapse of time, he removed one hand from the wheel, extracted the pipe from his mouth, and rather like a turtle, from beneath the carapace of the hard yellow hat, turned slowly towards me, considered my fatuous conversational gambit for a moment, and returned in silence to his earlier position.
For a while I contented myself with looking through the side windows, where the first light of the day was bringing a little colour to the fields and trees. Then I eased back in my seat and tried to doze. But no, it was all too exciting. I tried again: ‘How far is it to the job … you know, the site?’ I wasn’t quite sure what to call it.
I looked over at Jim as he commenced the process of replying. Out came the pipe, the head swivelled towards me, a moment’s reflection.
‘About forty-five minutes.’
I thought about this for a bit. ‘So what time do we start work, then?’
A pained expression passed across his features. ‘Eight.’
I considered this information and looked at my watch. It didn’t seem to square up: in forty-five minutes it would be only half-past six. Why would a person want to get to work an hour and a half before it started? Obviously I didn’t know much about the nature of work, but this didn’t make any sense at all.
I decided to venture another question. ‘Um, Jim?‘
A withering look.
‘Why are we getting there so early, then?’
Jim frowned and changed gear to negotiate a hill. He sucked deep on his pipe and shifted from one buttock to the other. It appeared that he hadn’t heard. We kept silent for a while as we passed through Ockley and Beare Green, then turned off towards Abinger Hammer and Friday Street. The early morning light began to flood across the fields and woods, and the North Downs loomed before us.
Finally Jim had an answer, and he put in motion the mechanism to deliver it. ‘I tell you what, Chris … I likes to get up an’ breathe the fresh air ’fore any other bugger’s’ad a chance to fart in it.’ And he permitted himself a little chuckle. I chuckled too, to show that I was not above enjoying such indelicacy, and for a few miles we chuckled on, both getting the most out of this sagacious little conceit.
At half-past six, give or take a minute or two, we pulled up in the middle of a beech wood. There was a brick bridge over a single-track railway and, in a small clearing by the road, a big green wooden hut. Jim fumbled with the keys of the hut and disappeared inside. I stood outside for a bit, breathing in that morning beechwood air as yet untainted by human flatulence, and then walked out on to the bridge and leaned on the low brick parapet. As I stood there the first rays of morning sunlight came shimmering and gleaming along the rails from Effingham Junction and Dorking.
During the journey I had managed, with some difficulty, to elicit from Jim the facts about the bridge. It was called Deer Leap Bridge and was a Victorian construction of dark brick and a certain architectural distinction. Unfortunately the weight limit was three and a half tons, and some lunatic lorry driver had seen fit to drive his fifteen-ton articulated lorry over it. This had cracked the bridge so badly that it was no longer deemed safe for traffic, and our job was to build a hideous and utterly undistinguished new concrete bridge beside the old one. The road, which was a little back lane
Similar Books
