The Maintainance of Headway (1987) (6 page)

I arrived at the common and saw Hastings standing outside the underground station, where peace had returned after the chaos of the morning rush. How a place could change in so short a while! All was quiet now, yet a mere two hours ago the pavement where he stood had been seething with people. It was the same every day. From seven o’clock until nine, swarms of them emerged from the escalators in a continual surge. Woe betide a bus that happened to arrive just after a train had come in. Within seconds it would fall victim to the sort of feeding frenzy usually associated with the jungle: a grazing beast laid low by predators. Even when the bus was full the people kept trying to get on, and the besieged driver could do little to relieve the situation. Strictly speaking there existed an imaginary line in front of which passengers weren’t supposed to stand. This was difficult to enforce, however, when people simply kept piling onto the vehicle. In the past I’d tried making announcements in which I’d ask them ‘not to stand forward of the imaginary line’, but they never took any notice. The only solution was to close the doors and hope nobody got squashed. Sometimes I shuddered when I thought of the interfering politicians who were trying to get the doors removed from buses. Politicians liked nothing more than to be photographed on the open platform of a bus, preferably in the company of a smiling conductor. They assumed the pictures would win them votes and, therefore, they opposed doors on buses. The impracticality meant nothing to them.

I was pondering all this when I suddenly noticed Hastings was flagging me down. I pulled up and glanced at my watch: I was one minute early. Hastings came to my window.

“Swing her round the arch for us, will you?” he said. “Then can you come straight back and run her into the garage?”

Hastings belonged to the old school of manners and continued to refer to buses as ‘her’ and ‘she’. Furthermore, he always gave instructions in the form of a question, so that it appeared as if you were doing him a good turn. Unlike Greeves, though, he wasn’t one for providing explanations to drivers, so I had no idea why he’d curtailed my journey. All the same it was quite a result. It meant I would be on my way back in about an hour’s time! Hastings signed my log card and I changed my destination blind before proceeding joyously towards the arch. The usual mid-morning quiet spell had now begun in earnest. I crossed over the bridge amidst a light flurry of traffic, collecting unhurried passengers here and there as gradually I made my way north. It was a very pleasant ride: even the lights were obligingly green. At one point I passed Kenny Barton bringing a bus the other way, and as he went by he gave me a very odd signal. He sort of pointed behind him with his thumb, at the same time shaking his head in mock despair. He’d gone before I was able to decipher precisely what he meant, but I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Skirting the corner of the royal park, I suddenly came upon one of our buses not a hundred yards ahead of me. Even at this distance I knew who was driving. I could tell by the body language of the bus. It was Mrs Barker!

Mrs Barker had been based at our garage since time immemorial, though nobody could quite work out how she had lasted so long. Put simply, she did not seem to realise that she was part of a coordinated operation, which ran buses at specific times, calling at designated stops and charging predetermined fares. Instead she tried to provide a sort of ‘social service’, allowing people to get on and off where they pleased and pay according to their means. She had been known to remain at a bus stop for as long as ten minutes while she worked out a ‘special rate’ for someone, or waited while they went back for the dog they’d forgotten, or even cashed a cheque for them. Actually it didn’t make any difference whether it was a proper bus stop or not. She halted at all sorts of places to pick passengers up and drop them off again: zebra crossings, T-junctions, traffic lights (especially green ones). All the people she helped in this way thought she was ‘an absolute treasure’ and undoubtedly she did have a heart of gold. I had often noticed, however, that just as many people fled her bus if they saw another one going in the same direction. This, I presumed, was due to her ‘ultra-defensive’ style of driving. She steered well clear of other vehicles and always yielded to them at roundabouts and intersections, even if she had the right of way. Not only was she wary of oncoming traffic, which made her doubly hesitant, but she also kept well clear of the kerb, so that queues of irate motorists built up behind her. True, she had never been involved in an accident. Even so, I suspect she would have witnessed dozens if she’d ever bothered to look in her mirror. Despite her best efforts to serve the public, Mrs Barker caused nightmares for the officials. She ran late from the very outset of her journey, with the result that they had to make compensatory adjustments to other buses.

Today was clearly no exception. As I watched her brake lights come on, go off, come on and go off again, I decided I had better overtake her. The alternative would have been to maintain strict headway and stay eight minutes behind, but then it would have taken forever to reach the arch. Mrs Barker was best left to her own devices so I passed her at the first opportunity. As I did so I took note of her running number. This told me she should have been four buses ahead of mine in the sequence. Which explained why Hastings had curtailed me. Mrs Barker was supposed to be coming back the other way by now, but instead he’d directed me to turn round at the arch and cover the southbound section. Meanwhile, she would continue her painstaking odyssey towards the cross.

All this ‘adjusting’ and ‘curtailing’ and similar tinkering by the officials came about due to the so-called ‘service requirements’ laid down by the Board of Transport. These dictated the minimum number of buses per hour on any particular route in each direction, thereby providing a viable ‘through’ service with other connecting routes. Officials were expected to juggle buses to make them conform to this master plan, while at the same time trying to ensure the maintenance of headway. Yet because they only had a finite supply of vehicles, they were obliged to curtail certain journeys in favour of others. No wonder the travelling public despaired. The idea of curtailing bus journeys in order to provide a better bus service defied logic, but, needless to say, the Board of Transport had a logic all of its own. How else could it accommodate drivers like Jason and Mrs Barker under equal terms? They were totally incompatible: Jason could complete a trip to the cross in half the time it took Mrs Barker. Such evidence alone exposed the maintenance of headway as a false idol. Indeed, back in the dark ages, when buses were first invented, there was an altogether different ruling maxim: ‘the bus will always get through’. In those days, every vehicle travelled from one end of the route to the other, no matter how long it took. The only buses available were the ‘old heavies’: no power steering, no sprung suspension, and, originally, no windscreen. Nevertheless, they plied back and forth through hail and highwater, undeterred by adverse traffic conditions; and curtailments were unheard of.

This, of course, was the ‘pure’ form of public transport advocated by Edward. He argued ceaselessly that the maintenance of headway was unattainable and should therefore be abandoned. In its place he suggested an organic system where each bus operated at its own speed until a perfect service developed. Perfection, he conceded, could take forever to achieve. The existing arrangement, by contrast, had imperfection built in from the start. Essentially, the job of a bus driver was to hold the bus back (but not quite as much as Mrs Barker did).

§

My return journey was uneventful and I rolled into the garage with forty-five minutes to spare. A gratifying end to the working day. The shed was just as I’d left it, completely empty, so I could park the bus where I liked. It so happened, however, that Steve Jennings was emerging from the engineers’ office just as I arrived. He gave me a wave and I stopped beside him.

“Do us a favour,” he said. “Stick it straight in the wash, can you?”

“Righto,” I replied. “Night shift miss it out, did they?”

“Yeah, lazy sods.”

“Do you want me to switch it on?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Course I don’t.”

“OK, thanks.”

As Steve headed off towards the inspection bay I drove my vehicle into the bus wash. Then I went round inside and closed all the windows. Next I walked over to the control panel and pressed the green button. Instantly, the great rollers began turning, slowly advancing on rails towards the waiting bus. At the same time jets of foaming liquid squirted it from all directions.

Watching the bus disappear under the deluge, I was suddenly reminded of what Thompson did. I smiled to myself and left the machinery to finish the job.

T
here was a man standing in the road holding a large key. He was surrounded by a circle of traffic cones, in front of which was a red and white sign:
ROAD CLOSED
. I pulled my bus up and spoke to him through the window.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning,” he replied.

“Busy?”

“Will be in a minute,” he said. “I’m just about to relieve the pressure.”

His van was parked nearby. He was from a water company.

“Would it be possible to let me go past before you start?” I enquired.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I’ve already put my cones out. Can’t really bring them all in again.”

I counted the cones. There were seven in total. Meanwhile, the man raised a small iron flap in the roadway. Then he inserted his key and gave it a turn. Seconds later there were gallons of water gushing all over the road. Then it was hundreds of gallons. Quite a lot went over the man’s boots, which were laceups. Casting me an embarrassed grin he retreated to his van. This was emblazoned with the words
WE CARE ABOUT YOUR WATER
. When he returned he was wearing a pair of Wellingtons. The waters continued to flow.

I cursed heavily. The unscheduled halt had put paid to all my plans. A short while ago I’d been coasting towards the southern outpost with not a care in the world. I was almost there. I was running five minutes early and had ten minutes’ recovery time at the end of the journey, which gave me a comfortable fifteen minutes for a cup of tea. Comfortable, that is, until the man from the water company made his appearance. Now I sat watching him as those precious minutes ticked away. He seemed in no hurry whatsoever to turn the water off again. It just kept pouring into the drains while he stood there, apparently mesmerised. Perhaps he, too, was counting the minutes. At the far side of his cones I could see a line of vehicles waiting to come by; in the mirror I saw a similar line behind me. My people, I was pleased to note, were sitting quietly in their seats. How long, I wondered, before they would start asking if I could let them off the bus. Officially this wasn’t allowed: there were signs on the doors saying as much. Then again, I didn’t believe in holding people captive for long periods. Generally, most of them were afraid to ask in case the driver was rude to them. Instead they just sat waiting meekly. To tell the truth, most drivers weren’t rude: all the rude ones had long since been siphoned off to work on the underground, where they could disappear into dark tunnels and not upset anybody. Nonetheless, bus drivers had a reputation for being rude and only people of exceptional courage asked to be let off the vehicle between stops. Conversely, if they didn’t ask, I didn’t let them off. So it was that we sat in silence watching the performance of the man from the water company.

Operation ‘flood the road’ was at last coming to an end. Replacing his key he turned it clockwise and the flow ceased. More or less. As the waters subsided I noticed a small trickle persisted in bubbling up, despite the man’s repeated struggles to stop it. Eventually he gave up, removed the key and shut the flap. One by one, in a methodical way, he carried the cones to his van and put them inside. Lastly he removed the
ROAD CLOSED
sign. I was now free to go.

“Sorry for any inconvenience,” he said, as I passed.

“My pleasure,” I muttered.

The delay had been about fifteen minutes altogether. The road was still wet, but as soon as we got moving the cars and vans behind us began overtaking. Without exception they all gave me a derisive hoot as they went by, as if the hold-up had been my fault. This was not unexpected: the buses always took the blame.

Heading south, I became aware of a great many people waiting at each of the northbound bus stops. This didn’t concern me much as I knew there were at least two buses due to leave the outpost before me. Oddly enough, though, there was no sign of these other buses. Just a gradual build-up of people at every stop. Finally I arrived at the alighting point and emptied out. Why, I wondered, hadn’t any buses departed yet? I soon got my answer. Driving through the turnaround and onto the stand I saw at once that it was eerily devoid of buses. I pulled up and took stock of the situation. Never in my experience had there been a complete absence of buses at the southern outpost. There was always at least one waiting in readiness, and usually two or three. Clearly someone had blundered. Whoever was controlling the southbound buses must have received word about the chaos being caused by the man from the water company. I guessed they’d overreacted and pulled all the other buses back. Which left me here on my own to fulfil the role of sacrificial lamb.

I glanced at my time card. According to the schedule I should be leaving immediately. The rule book, on the other hand, stated I was entitled to a minimum recovery period of five minutes. In view of the waiting crowds, however, further delays would have achieved little. Therefore I decided to take only two minutes. Then I braced myself for the onslaught and set off northward again. When I emerged from the turnaround I saw Breslin standing in the road. This was all I needed. He flagged me down and I stopped beside him.

“There are about a hundred people waiting up at the parade,” he announced.

“Yes,” I replied. “So I noticed.”