Magnus Mills: The Maintenance of Headway

“How could your leader be ten minutes late on a day like this?” I asked, when he came back. “It’s as quiet as anything.”

“Because my leader was Mrs Barker.”

“Not her again,” I said. “Flipping heck, she’s a nuisance.”

“Yeah.”

“Not to worry, though. Breslin might never get round to filing his report, if you’re lucky.”

“Maybe not,” said Davy. “I noticed he was writing my details in pencil, not biro.”

“There you go then.”

We drank our tea.

“By the way,” he said. “Changing the subject slightly, do you want to swap holidays this year?”

“Why, where are you going?” I asked.

“The seaside probably,” he replied. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, if I’m swapping holidays I want to know where I’m going to spend them, don’t I?”

“I don’t mean swap places,” he snapped. “I mean swap dates. I’ve got spring; you’ve got autumn. Do you want to swap or not?”

“Yes, alright.”

“Thought so,” he announced, producing a docket. “I’ve already filled in the relevant details.”

The docket was pre-signed by Davy, so all I had to do was add my own signature and the transaction was complete. He then pulled out a whole wad of similar dockets and began leafing through them.

“I’ve got one or two job swaps here as well,” he said. “Might interest you. Let’s have a look.”

Davy habitually carried a number of these exchange dockets with him. There were forty rostered duties on our route, covering almost twenty-two hours each day. Different drivers had different preferences about which hours they worked, and therefore a great deal of swapping took place. Some favoured those duties which were spread over a longer period of time, and which as a result paid higher wages. Others liked to work in the late evenings, which left them the daylight hours to pursue other pastimes. My personal predilection was for dawn starts, but these types of duty were rare and you couldn’t always get them. Which was when it was best to speak to Davy. He acted as a sort of broker between drivers, arranging two- and even three-way swaps on their behalf. Officially there was a clerk downstairs in the duty room who was supposed to handle this kind of thing, but most of us found it easier to use Davy’s services. Whenever I was looking for a dawn start he invariably had a suitable one hidden up his sleeve.

“Here you are,” he said. “Two weeks’ time. Number three duty.”

“Great,” I said.

“Right. Sign here.”

At that moment the canteen door swung open and Hastings burst in looking very red-faced.

“Whose bus is that out there full of people?” he demanded.

There were about a dozen drivers sitting round the various tables. Nobody answered. Hastings stormed out again.

“Six weeks’ time you’ve got a spread-over,” Davy continued.

“Have I?” I said.

“I’ll take that and then fix it for you to do Fitzroy’s job. OK?”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“So you need to sign this. And this.”

I did as he asked. “Anything else?” I enquired.

“Not for the moment, no,” said Davy.

Again the door swung open and Hastings reappeared.

“Look,” he said. “It must be one of you lot. I’ve been round the whole garage and there are no other drivers about. That bus has been waiting almost ten minutes and the people are on the verge of rebellion. It won’t be long before they turn into a baying mob.”

Hastings looked desperate, so I said, “Why don’t you try that bloke over there?”

In the far corner of the canteen was a rest area equipped with a television set and a few soft, low chairs. The TV was never switched off and had been stuck on the same channel for at least four years. It was strategically mounted on a shelf directly opposite the west window, so on summer evenings, as the rays of the setting sun beat in through the glass, the television screen was completely obliterated.

Slumped on one of the low chairs was a driver, fast asleep. I happened to know he was a recent recruit, and clearly he was not yet accustomed to the regime. Hastings marched over to him and there followed an unfortunate scene in which the poor fellow was woken unceremoniously from his slumbers. Then, still in a dazed state, he was ordered downstairs to take over the stranded bus. I was glad it wasn’t me.

Davy and I finished off our business with the dockets. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes remaining. Just time for another tea.

“Look,” said Davy. “There goes Mick.”

I glanced across the canteen. Mick Wilson had just come in and was heading towards the officials’ annexe, accompanied by two inspectors. They were both in full uniform and walked one on each side of him. We gave Mick a wave, and he nodded in reply. Then he was gone.

“I wonder how long it’ll be before he undergoes his conversion?” I said.

“Same as the others, I expect,” said Davy. “Virtually instantaneous.”

“I’d have thought Mick would hold out for at least a short while,” I said. “After all, he’s an archetypal early man.”

“That doesn’t seem to make any difference,” replied Davy. “Look at the way Barrington was transformed in a matter of only a few days.”

“Oh, yes, Barrington,” I said. “I’d forgotten all about him.”

“Exactly,” said Davy. “He used to be very much one of us, yet he accepted the entire doctrine in a twinkling. No questions asked. Needless to say it did him no good at all. Two years, he lasted, before vanishing into obscurity.”

“Friendless and forgotten.”

“Indeed.”

“I hope that doesn’t happen to Mick,” I said.

“Well, it might,” Davy answered.

“There’s no excuse for being early,” said Breslin.

“No, I suppose not.”

“None whatsoever.”

“No.”

“It is forbidden.”

“Yes.”

This was the second time in a week Breslin had pulled me up for being early, and he would have been well within his rights to throw the book at me. He was quite correct, of course. There was no excuse for being early. Today, however, there was at least a reason. During the morning a water main had burst on the approach road south of the river, and the ensuing emergency repairs had blocked the route to the common. A diversion was put in operation which sent all our buses along the embankment. It so happened the repair work had been completed just as I came over the bridge. The diversion was therefore lifted and I continued along the normal route. Now generally on these occasions the first bus to arrive after a long interval gets clobbered with people, and there were indeed a lot of them waiting at the stops. By some fortune, though, the ones who came onto my bus were what I called a ‘good sample’. This was my term for people who didn’t dawdle when they came on board. They knew where they were going, they had the correct fares ready beforehand, and they didn’t waste time bewailing the lack of buses. They were on their way to work, mostly, all heading for the same destination, namely the underground station at the far side of the common, and it was in none of their interests to delay the bus. Once I’d served the first few stops I was packed to the gunwales, so I put my foot down and pressed on, my priority being to get these people on their way as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until I neared the edge of the common and saw Breslin standing there that I bothered to check the time. I was six minutes early. He flagged me down and I stopped.

“You’re six minutes early,” he announced.

“Yes,” I replied. “But I’ve got about ninety people here.”