Chapter 1
I opened my eyes. I felt somewhat shocked to find myself seated in the lower deck of a half-full public bus. It took me a moment to figure out just where the hell I was. Shite, I'd fallen asleep on the bloody bus again, but how long for was anyone's guess.
I yawned. I shook my head and cleared the sleep from my eyes. I then steadied my gaze and focussed out of the window. It actually seemed like a pretty fine day out there. Slight clouds of grey braided with patches of bright blue lingered in the heavens above over a spacious and charmingly-scabby street.
Ah! Slowly but surely, I began to recognise this familiar place gradually passing me by at a grinding slog. It was the infamous Leith Walk, stretching more than a mile long from tip to tail, City Centre to almost the dockland. The bus seemed to be heading southbound from the top of the walk, right down towards the centre of Edinburgh town.
Phew. I felt a great wave of relief. I hadn't missed my stop on Nicolson Street way over on the other side of the old town.
With a clearer mind I glanced around the inside of the bus. A couple of old-age pensioners sat in front, deceivingly minding their own business for appearances sake. Secretly though, I could see their beady little eyes darting around as they discreetly observed every little square detail of each single passenger on board. More likely to have some new, chinwag gossip, to report back to their other pensioner, chattering cronies in the Edinburgh bingo halls and tea rooms later that evening.
Also Joining them at the front, and sniffling away for Scotland, was a young mother with a freakishly heavy cold. Every few seconds she would keep blowing her big snout into a small, dirty handkerchief before quickly stuffing it back into her pocket where a half-eaten chocolate bar was peeking out. After her umpteenth nasal clearance in a row, it was as if she might be holding the contents of half her brain inside that small tissue.
To my right rear sat a young Chinese girl along with a Scottish-looking lass directly behind her. Then a young, spotted guy with glasses sat behind her. It dawned on me that everyone here was seated with a double seat all to themselves. No one sat together. No one. Not even me. Oh, how we all love our own little bit of space and comfort in this day and age.
The bus pulled over, ripping me away from my train of thoughts. Nobody got off, but at least a dozen or so new passengers all queued up to board. Gradually, I browsed along the long queue of folk standing outside on the grey, dreary street. One by one they all stood, similarly and respectively, behind the other, duly minding their own business, each of them appearing so different and unique in their own various, external appearances, yet, internally, very much alike in each their own emotional turmoil, stresses, joys, woes, and insecurities of everyday life.
Thereupon I saw her.
And my heart skipped two beats. An extraordinarily, pretty, young blonde girl, casually dressed in a close-fitting pair of jeans and a cute, slim, summer-brown, leather jacket. She clung to a folded tourist map of Edinburgh at her side like her life depended upon it. In an instant, I felt utterly overcome by the most curious symptoms of joy, for I have found such a beautiful creature. It was accompanied by mental anguish upon realising that I would never actually get the chance to speak with or know such an angelic creature, and a bout of déjà vu. It dawned on me that perhaps, somehow, I knew this girl from somewhere, some time, some place, long ago. But that was impossible. She looked barely twenty years of age. Yet I felt consumed by the utmost feelings that I'd actually sat on this very same bus, on this very same day, on this exact same route, and with the same people at some point before in my life.
It was the damnedest of feelings. Almost like it were meant to be. Most likely though, it was only the ghostly sensation of all the other girls I'd seen and made a mental connection with at some point in my thirty-year existence, yet had failed miserably to do a damn thing about it. But whatever these feelings were that now overwhelmed me, it couldn't deter from the fact that I really, for the life of me, could not withdraw my eyes from this girl.
Then the most magical, outrageous thing happened. She glanced right at me, directly into my eyes, stealing both my heart and soul with one look. She smiled shyly too as I stared, dumbfounded, right back at her through the glass. Then her eyes moved back towards the queue as the people in front of her shuffled forward a few steps more. I continued to watch her, still hypnotised by her warm smile, her radiant glow, and that friendly glance she'd just pierced my heart with.
Soon, she paid to board and slowly made her way towards the seats at the back of the lower deck and, bizarrely, straight towards me. I noticed that there were spare seats close to the front of the bus, left and right, and plenty more upstairs, still she approached my seat as our eyes met once more. She hesitated and glanced around at the other empty seats around her. My heart raced. She glanced at me again and smiled. I nervously returned it. Then she gestured towards the empty seat right beside me and spoke like it was the most natural thing in the whole wide world.
“Is it okay to sit here?”
I said nothing, just nodded and smiled back at her like the dumbstruck buffoon I'd felt myself transform into. I felt completely taken aback, to tell you the truth, that such a beauty had preferred to sit down beside me. The bus was moving now. I half turned to the girl who was now furiously studying away at her wrinkled-up map of Edinburgh while half biting down her lower lip, which I found completely adorable. I desperately wanted to say something to this girl, anything in fact.
Hey! Nice map of Edinburgh. How do you like the city so far? Is your name Anna? You look like an Anna. Where are you from? Nice jacket by the way. Nice hair. Nice map. Nice shoes. Nice smile. Hey! Did you know that Edinburgh has a castle? What are the odds of that, huh, especially in such a small country like Scotland with all its medieval history and whatnot.
But the words just wouldn't come out. Nothing. Nada. Zip. So I decided to glance through my window again. As I did, I caught her reflection on the glass. It looked as if she'd pried her eyes away from her confusing map to glance over at me, but then again she could just have easily been staring out of the window too.
Only one way to find out.
If I turned back around to face her and she quickly glanced away, then no doubt about it, she was definitely checking me out. Absolutely. But if she kept staring through the window and out at the tenement building scenery and the consistently repetitive pub and shop, shop and pub street views then, shite, I guess she really was just looking out of the window after all.
Decisions, decisions.
I took a deep breath and turned around to face her. Quick as a flash, she turned back to her map. Damn, I was right. This girl was checking me out. Jesus! But now what? This was my chance to say something, anything.
I took a long, deep breath... then became quickly distracted by some scruffy, grungy, little smug, student git, standing across from our seat in the aisle. He smirked and eyed up the blonde girl like he could sense exactly what kind of emotional-turmoil minefield was going off inside my head. So, of course, I hesitated again. My Dutch courage swiftly evaporated and I said sweet F.A.
The bus continued to chug along at a crawling pace. I turned away and glanced back through the window, desperately trying to search for the most perfect words to exit my mouth. Words that would kick start the most wonderful, thrilling, and mind-blowing conversation. But the more we travelled along in silence the more difficult and awkward it soon became to throw out anything at all. I turned one more time, burning, itching to say something. But then that blasted shaggy-looking student continued grinning smugly right back at me. Wanker. I wanted to ask him to choose a bloody window so I could punt his arse right threw it.
The bus finally approached the Omni Centre and the very end of the vast Leith Walk. I wondered how much time I'd have left with this girl. How many more chances would I get to make an impression and have our two worlds collide? I was travelling all the way over the North Bridge, past the Old Town, and down towards Nicolson Street where I lived. She, indubitably, would be getting off somewhere touristy, which meant nearby and soon.
Suddenly, the girl answered my own question and stood to her feet along with some of the other passengers, including that smug little student. The bus then pulled over not far from the Omni Centre. People began to move. The doors opened. People started to leave. The blonde girl longingly glanced back at me while moving forward with the departing cattle herd. It was too late. She'd departed the bus. I continued watching her through the window as she paused at the bus stop in a half lost, half confused daze. She opened her map again, studying it hard.
If she looks up at me, one more time, I'll get off this damn bus, right now, right here, I swear it. So help me God, I demanded to anyone listening inside my simple mind.
The bus was ready to pull away. The blonde beauty, as if hearing my anguished cries from within the eternal and abysmal, raging fires of my soul, looked up from her map and gazed right into my eyes, right into my soul, wholly stealing my heart away for a second time.
She smiled too and all I could do was return it like a lovesick fool. The bus pulled away. Shite! I let out a deep, frustrated sigh. With a will and a monumental courage that came from somewhere unbeknownst to me, I pounced up onto my feet and slammed my hand against the ring button for the bus to stop immediately.
The bus did not stop as quickly as I had expected. Instead, it kept moving right towards the beginning of Princes Street, finally stopping at a red light just opposite the Balmoral hotel. I hurried towards the driver. The traffic lights would take an eternity to change as they always did here in Edinburgh City Centre, even when there was absolutely no traffic coming from any other direction.
“Please driver, I need to get off this instant.”
“Next stop is North Bridge, pal, it's no far noo.”
“Please, no, you don't understand. I need to get off this bus right this very second. I have to go back to the last bus stop there.”
“Sorry, pal. Same rules apply. Ah cannae let ye oot til we reach the next stop, ma man. They the rules.”
“I fell asleep. My stop is back there. Please!”
“It's no a long walk back pal, honestly. Five minutes is all.”
I pulled out my wallet along with a crisp ten pound note from my back pocket which I swiftly waved in the driver's face.
“Please. Just let me out.”
The driver hesitated. He glanced down at the money, then back at me.
“Am sorry pal. Ah jist cannae. Ah could lose ma job, ken?”
I pulled out a crisp twenty pound note next.
“Please. I really need to get off this bus right this very instant, or it's over. I'll lose her... I'll lose her forever.”
The driver glared up at me. I could see that his annoyance had quickly turned into sympathy. The traffic lights were still an agonising red.
“This is for a bloody lassie, isn't it, aye?”
“Aye,” I shamefully replied.
“The lassie sat next to ye, just noo? The one ye never even said a single bloody word to in ten minutes of travelling?”
“Aye. But how did you...”
“Am the bloody bus driver, pal,” he roared. Like he, too, knew what it was like to have loved and lost once upon a time. “Ah thoroughly observe aw ma passengers. It's ma bloody job tae ken just whit's whit oan ma ain bleedin' bus, pal.”
He then gave me a sly, hopeful wink, took a deep breath, and pressed the button to release the doors.