Number 36

Number 36

It was only Victoria and the number 36 was dragging its wheels as usual. Outside, the monotonous rain beat the roof and gusts of March wind caused the double-decker to sway ominously on the aged suspension. The tone of the Standard matched the moody Monday evening commute; economic woe and political unrest competing for space with Old Bailey acquittals and Council underfunding. Eyes drifted down from the celebrity page as Martin calculated Camberwell Green was still an hour away and dinner an age; as his stomach reminded him of his lack of lunch, a faintly familiar smell occupied his sense as his head dropped against the misted window etched with drips of water in exhausted boredom.

Why was it familiar? He’d been aware of the cheap musky perfume a few times recently and, on leaving his seat to exit the bus, had fruitlessly scoured the people seated around him to locate the redolent odour. It was definitely female and definitely known to him; somehow it meant something but he couldn’t remember what.

The lights were out at the Oval and the traffic backed up around the featureless stadium. The one-handed conductor with the brown leather glove for a prosthetic hand shouldered his away along the upper deck.
“Fares….anyone?” No replies to the grunted request. Turning swiftly at the front as if to catch an evader slipping swiftly towards the stairs, and using his flat-capped head to brace himself against the wallowing deck, Archie the clippie sent a stare over half-moon specs to all those seated. He could tell; he would remember. Still no response – passengers either looked away in embarrassment of the stare or, like Martin, remained immune to the call as they slumbered their journey home with their passes still in their hands. Convinced that the upper deck numbers had swollen since his last visit, Archie tutted loudly and started back towards the stairs. Spying the face of someone two rows in front of Martin that he’d not seen before and whose eyes were closed shut he stopped; leaning his left leg against the apparently sleeping man’s seat as if to steady himself, he stood stock still and gazed apparently absently ahead. The man suddenly looked up and took a sharp, loud intake of breath and his body stiffened in the seat; much to the smug amusement of some of the regular passengers who knew of the conductor’s methods and buried their faces deeper into their papers. The steel casing of another prosthesis beneath the regulation LT trousers which supported Archie’s left leg from the knee down, had squeezed the resting man’s fingers tightly against the metal frame of the seat.
“Tickets!” the call was loud and clear and deftly directed at the passenger with the throbbing fingers. A moment of scrabbling in a trouser pocket produced the required fare which was swiftly rewarded with a ticket. Nothing more was said. Archie carried on up the bus and down the stairs. The man stared behind at the vanishing conductor and looked hurtfully again at his fingers as if not understanding how the mere pressing of a leg could cause so much pain. The woman next to him with the high-collared coat and thick winter hat stared out of the window with patented commuter denial.

Working was one of the few positive elements of Martin’s life; the studio gave him peace and protection from the outside world; a silent, muffled world of knobs and dials and thespian tones from behind the glass reciting hour after hour of audio books. He never cared what they were saying or what they were spouting about; he just monitored the levels and queued them in and out - they liked to be queued; as if they were making an entrance to a non-existent audience who were waiting, breath baited, for the explicit enunciation of words whose meaning they rarely understood. Yes, work in the Chalk Farm studio was safe, predictable and warm. Challenging? Yes, that too; this was the premier studio for this work and his skills, for which he had worked hard to perfect, were in demand. Martin knew how to bring a voice to work. He knew how to occupy the dull hours of readings with regular breaks and friendly, positive advice about projection and other such inane subjects which made actors feel needed and cuddled; that’s all they needed, really.