Pretend you hadn't noticed

Chapter Eight

"SAY something to him! Just lower your hands and speak. You coward! Pretend that you haven't noticed him. Don't let him see that you're scared. He'll like you to be scared. Why should he? God, what's happening! He only wants your fare".

Then, as if they had a will of their own, my hands lowered. I kept staring at his legs as I gained control of my hands and placed them on my knees. A movement that must have seemed affected.

Again an image of the driver's face came into my mind, and I realised that I did not want to look at the conductor's face. But I had to look up! I lifted my eyes a little and caught sight of my bowed reflection in the metal ticket dispenser strapped around his waist.

A distorted image. His hands were placed on the dispenser. They were large hands, hairy with long fingers. My mind raced, trying to think of something to say. Something ordinary, something normal, just to open up a conversation and break the awful silence.

An impulse to giggle bubbled up inside me. I repressed this insane impulse but could not stop a grin spreading across my face like a worm across a clean sheet.

I looked up.

My grin melted like hot wax. For a moment I thought that the driver had left his cab to confront me, but at the very moment I looked at the conductor the engine ignited and the bus began to move.

Yet the conductor looked so much like the driver that he could have been his double; both had the same horrible simian features. That they were twins I had no doubt.

It seemed bizarre that the bus should be staffed with twins, but not impossible. But twins who were so ugly! I felt the blood drain from my face. I had called his brother a 'dickhead'.

His eyes held mine. He looked at me with, not an expression of anger as I had expected, but with an expression of insolence. A smirk sat on his face like an imp on a bed rail.

I tried to meet his expression with a look of confidence, but his gaze so disconcerted me that all I could manage was a cowardly half smile. I noticed that there was something wrong with the way his eyes met mine.

Unlike the driver, the conductors left eye slanted inward so that he was both looking into my eyes and over my shoulder.

"A cross-eyed ape!"

The thought popped into my mind and laughter rose up inside my chest like a bubbles through a funnel. I fought to plug the rush.

I could not laugh in his face! He would go berserk! I began to shake. Then with an effort I bottled my laughter and said, "Listen, I'm very sorry to be such a nuisance, but, as I have already said, my car broke down and I was left stranded and I had to get transport and I didn't realise that I had no money and so I hope you will, um, see your way..."

I burst out laughing. I doubled over and fought to smother the laughter by pretending that it was a cough.

I coughed hysterically. I gradually calmed. Wiping my tears I tried to think of an excuse for my outburst.

"It's the cold. This freezing weather is getting to me."

"Fares please."

"What?" I said, surprised.

"Fares please." He spoke as if nothing had happened.

"Yes, of course", I said, "But that is just the problem. I don't have any money."

"Fares please!" he screamed.