Station to Station by Andrew French

Andrew French has previously been shortlisted

Avon, for the 2019 HarperCollins crime-writing competition,

the Strands Publishers anthology and Eyelands 7th International

He is twice Short Story Contest. a winner and four times a runner-up

in competitions. When not writing or reading

he rides a bike a lot.

like this one, it usually happens around three in the morning when the clubs have closed and the children of the night have nowhere left to go but home.

The gang shout at each other and stumble up to the top deck; those on the bottom breathe invisible sighs of relief. I look across to the other side, trying to distract myself from what’s happening above. A familiar face smiles at me. I don’t know her name or anything about her; all I know is that she travels on the buses like me, spending as much time as she can away from the streets, finding warmth and a small degree of safety on this transport. It’s difficult to tell her age behind the dirt and weariness engulfing her face. Her long hair is matted and clumped onto her head, thick and dark; it could be any colour underneath the dirt.

My smile cracks through my lips, my fingers going to my face and finding a harsh beard. I do my best to avoid my reflection in the window. If I don’t see how I look, sometimes I can pretend to be the person I used to be.

The drunks upstairs are singing; there’s joy in their voices, no trace of anger, only an expression of happiness. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that. The smile I return to the woman is one of survival; of knowing we should be okay, at least for one more night.

It’s safer and warmer here. Even in the summer, when the tourists flock and their numbers increase, danger can spring from anywhere. More often than not, there’s no warning, only the sudden thrust of a fist or a boot into the face, into the body. The body is preferable because the number of clothes I wear, even in the warmer weather, can cushion the blows. The face and head have no protection. Other times, the warning comes first; only it isn’t a warning, but those familiar three words. Go back home.

Sometimes followed by you don’t belong here.

I had a second home when I first arrived in the city. They forced me to work in a factory, putting things into boxes and bottles, and the owners provided beds for all the workers. I suppose it wasn’t home, but it was something. Then one day the factory burned to the ground, and twelve people died; the authorities never investigated, but accusing fingers pointed at the strangers, at the people like me; so I ran away. I lived on the street for a while before someone told me about the night buses; how you could get on and off all the services in the city and usually the drivers wouldn’t bother you.

You can live on the buses, travelling from station to station. It seemed a crazy idea. And how could I do it without money, when I had nothing but the rags on my back?

Find a Good Samaritan to buy you a monthly bus pass. They made it sound so easy.

But there were plenty of good people in this city: charities, churches, food banks, and community centres. Some offered a bed for the night, but once I started travelling, I never wanted to sleep in those dorms. And I got to see more of the city than most people did.

During the day I spend my time doing voluntary work in some of those churches and charities; other times I wander into the public libraries, which don’t throw you out or won’t let you read the books without a library card. I can’t have a library card because I don’t have a permanent address.

I’ve spent my days reading the complete works of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Thomas Hardy. Sometimes I pick up old paperbacks for free and when I can’t sleep on the night buses, use the time to flick through the pages and imagine I’m Jack Reacher or Elizabeth Salander. I tried to be Harry Potter or Lyra Belacqua, but the reality of life around me wouldn’t allow my brain to disappear into those realms of fantasy. It had been the complete opposite when I was a child; I spent so much time in Oz, and through the looking glass, I dreamt of living in another world.

And now I was.

When not on the bus and in the library, it was a case of finding somewhere to wash and get clean: a proper toilet was a bonus. Most of the public toilets in the city weren’t free. Once darkness descends, or in the spring and summer no later than nine o’clock, I head for the station and the night buses. I soon discovered which were the best and the ones to avoid. The worst are the services along the routes which take in the most pubs and nightclubs; the drunks aren’t always violent, but they can intimidate you in other ways: verbal harassment in spades, insults hurled at you because of the clothes you wear, the sound of your voice, or the colour of your skin. And then there were the ones who loved to bait you.

Go back home.

You don’t belong here.

How many times I wanted to rise, to shout, and say I had no home to go to. And then there were other times when I wanted to scream that this was as much my home as it was theirs. But mainly I just want to sleep, and that isn’t easy on a night bus, even in the early hours of the morning. Then, when the bus pulls into the station, the driver usually turfs you off, and it’s a case of finding the next bus, the service that starts the earliest.

After sleep, when the body barely feels rested, the next search begins; for food and water. The day starts all over again. Then, at some point, the three words arrive.

Go back home.

So I do, heading for the nearest bus, travelling, always travelling. From station to station.

A stranger in a strange land.

RUNNER-UP AND SHORTLISTED

Runner-up in the Stranger Short Story Competition was

Katherine Waldock, Milton, Derbyshire, whose story is published on www.writers-online.co.uk

Also shortlisted were: Karen Ankers, Holyhead, Anglesey; Dominic Bell, Hull; Dan Bentley, Woking, Surrey; Dianne Bown-Wilson, Drewsteignton, Devon; Jodie Rose Carpenter, Birmingham; Ellen Evers, Congleton, Cheshire; Lisa Harrison, Stafford; Binti Kasilingam, Purley, Croydon; Jennifer Moore, Ivybridge, Devon; Sarah Oxley, Ulverston, Cumbria;

Janet Rogers, East Preston, West Sussex.