Magnus Mills - The Maintenance of Headway

• Название: The Maintenance of Headway
• Автор: Magnus Mills
• Издательство: Bloomsbury UK
• Жанр: Современная проза
• Год: 2009

It's a matter of procedure,' I explained. 'Strictly for the record. You don't get sacked from this job unless you did what Thompson did.' 'What did he do then?' 'We never mention it.' In Magnus Mills' brilliant short novel he transports us into the bizarre world of the bus drivers who take us to work, to the supermarket, to the match and home again. It is a strange but all too real universe in which 'the timetable' and 'maintenance of headway' are sacred, but where the routes can change with the click of an inspector's fingers and the helpless passengers are secondary. The journey from the southern outpost to the arch, the circus and the cross will seem as familiar as your regular route, but then Magnus Mills shows you the almost religious fervour which lies behind it, and how it is fine to be a little bit late but utterly unforgivable to be a moment early. 'To write one unique book is a rare achievement. The ability to produce several is truly special.' Independent

---

Sometimes during the rush there would be holdups at places where traffic was particularly congested. On these occasions inspectors would suddenly pop up and curtail certain journeys, much to the disdain of the passengers. The travelling public seemed to think the purpose of curtailment was to give the driver a rest at their expense; the real reason, in fact, was to turn the bus round and send it back in the opposite direction.

So it was the following day that Greeves intercepted me at the cross. I was just about to depart when he appeared at the side of the road and flagged me down.

“Right,” he said. “I’m going to adjust you and I’ll tell you why.”

Then came the usual explanation about how there were too many buses down the outpost and not enough up the cross.

“Turn round at the common will you?” said Greeves. “I need you back here as quick as possible.”

He wrote down the details on my log card and sent me on my way.

Now, as everyone knows, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Another thing you can’t make him do is read what it says on the front of a bus. I altered my destination blind so that it clearly indicated I was only going as far as the common. All the same, I knew that only a few of my passengers would bother to read what it said. The rest would take no notice at all; instead they would be sinking back into oblivion after a hard day’s work. I firmly believed that if a bus was destined for HELL AND DAMNATION the people would still blithely climb aboard. Equally, they would moan and groan if they were kicked off before they expected to be. Which was indeed their fate this evening. As predicted, they bleated like abandoned sheep when I deposited them at the common. Yet it was hardly my fault.

“It couldn’t be helped,” affirmed Edward when I met him later at the garage. “You were only obeying orders.”

“Why don’t they ever read what it says on the front?” I demanded.

“You must forgive them their frailty,” he said.

At this time of the evening the garage was very quiet. Edward had finished work for the day and only came up the canteen to keep me company. The place was practically deserted; just one or two drivers on late turns sitting around waiting to complete their ‘second halves’. It was entirely different from the early morning period when the ‘run-out’ was in full swing. Then the shed was packed with buses getting ready to leave; engines were running; drivers were marching round with watering cans; inspectors were examining their schedules books and making sure headway was being maintained. Any outsider who happened to wander in would probably assume the garage was a hive of efficiency. In truth, of course, it wasn’t. The officials were more likely than not to drop a spanner in the works, despite their best intentions. Greeves happened to have got it right during this evening’s rush, but I was convinced it was only a matter of luck.

“I wonder if he says that to his wife at bedtime,” remarked Edward.

“Says what?” I asked.

“‘I’m going to adjust you and I’ll tell you why’.”

§

After my break I resumed work again. This involved taking over a bus on the road from another driver. I waited in the darkness opposite the garage. It was now almost half past nine and the traffic was at last beginning to settle down. At precisely nine thirty-two I heard the tortured engine of an approaching bus, and a moment later Clarence came roaring up. We nodded at each other, and he slipped out of the driving seat.

“Bus is OK,” he said.

Clarence originated from a far away tropical island. He was a deeply wounded man. Hidden somewhere on his person was a bullet hole which he’d incurred years before during pre-independence rioting.

“Nothing to do with me,” he always insisted. “I was in the public library when the riots kicked off.”

This bullet hole lent Clarence a certain element of coolness unmatched by other bus drivers. No one messed with Clarence. He was one of the few drivers who actually preferred to do late-night duties; in fact, I had never seen him during the day.

“I like to start work just when it’s turning duskish,” he once told me. “I get out of bed when I want.”

Clarence owned about seventeen hats, caps and berets (plus a bandanna), all of which suited him perfectly. He wore a different one every evening, according to his mood. Likewise his collection of shirts, which were varied and many; the official uniform was an optional extra. Rumour had it that sometimes, after midnight, Clarence took his bus along roads other than those specified by the Board of Transport, just for a change. This was the bus drivers’ form of jamming. Clarence was undoubtedly his own man.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, ambling into the moonlight.

When I was ensconced behind the wheel I reflected on the very different ‘tone’ of bus driving at this late hour. There was no longer any rushing about: instead, buses roamed placidly through the night. Fridays and Saturdays were exceptions, of course, when the bejewelled thoroughfare and its environs were thronged with revellers who didn’t go home until the early morning. For the rest of the week, though, a certain calm lay over the proceedings. Desultory buses appeared as travelling beacons of light in the surrounding blackness. On some journeys there were only a dozen passengers; on others there were none at all. To some observers the sight of empty buses patrolling deserted roads may have seemed to be a pointless waste of resources; but to others this was an essential element of public transport. In Edward’s words, “The bus should always be there whether the people need it or not.”

Buses, he suggested, were similar to the post horses of olden days: constantly ready and waiting on the assumption they may eventually be required. (Indeed, the bus went a step further than the post horse because it made the journey even when nobody was travelling.)

§

Gradually the evening went by. I drove up to the cross, back to the southern outpost, and then up to the cross again. As the hours passed, buses began to drop out of circulation, one by one, and return to the garage, until finally there were only six vehicles going round and round. Six buses to serve the entire route! The headway was now lengthened to fifteen minutes between each bus. Clarence had completed his break and was back on the road again. There was another late-night specialist called Fabian who was also out there somewhere. The remaining drivers were me, Cedric, Dean, and a new recruit whose name I didn’t know.

One other difference about these evening duties was the fact that after eight o’clock we were supervised not by roadside officials but by means of radio transmissions. Occasionally a laconic voice would call up and enquire about a bus’s position or state of progress. This was usually at weekends when city centre traffic jams could occur even at midnight; in these cases the controller would issue appropriate instructions to any bus that may have been held up. Most of the time, however, the radio stayed quiet. Buses ran unhindered through the empty streets keeping roughly to schedule, and drivers didn’t need to worry about inspectors lurking in the shadows.

With these thoughts in mind I completed my final journey to the southern outpost, arriving five minutes early. There, to my surprise, I saw Mick Wilson standing by the side of the road.

“Evening, Mick,” I said, through the window. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Evening, driver,” he replied.

“I do have a name you know.”

Mick ignored my comment and stood examining his schedules book by the light of an electric torch.

“You’re five minutes early,” he said at length. “Why’s that?”

I had no hiding place. The evidence was plainly visible: namely, me and my bus, five minutes earlier than we should have been.

“There’s no excuse for being early,” I said in a resigned way. “I suppose you’re going to book me.”

Mick gazed at me for a long time before he spoke again.

“As a matter of fact I’m not going to book you,” he said. “Instead I’m going to offer a word of advice.”

“Oh yes?”

“Tell me something,” he continued. “Do you believe in the maintenance of headway?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Truly believe?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’ve recently been associating with a known dissident.”

“You mean Edward?”

“I’m not saying who,” Mick rejoined. “Merely that you seem to have been led astray by this individual.”

“But he’s my friend.”

“Friend or no friend,” said Mick. “You should keep well away from him. Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of the entire bus service.”

“This is ridiculous,” I protested. “Edward is a busman through and through. He’s only seeking improvement by alternative methods.”

At these words Mick appeared to undergo some sort of electric shock. His face went completely blank and the pupils of his eyes dilated. Furthermore, he ceased breathing for several seconds. When at last he spoke again his voice was cold and flat. “There are no alternative methods,” he said. “The only true path is the maintenance of headway.”

A long silence followed, during which the bleak winds of night played around the idling bus. Sensing I may have pushed the argument too far I decided to attempt a compromise.

“Alright,” I offered. “I’ll try not to be early tomorrow night.”

Mick, meanwhile, was quickly recovering his composure.

“Give me your log card, will you?” he said.

I handed it over and he wrote something in the ‘remarks’ box. Then he passed it back and vanished into the darkness.

I peered at the card. Mick had written only one word: ADVISED.

§

By the next evening the weather had begun to deteriorate. Yesterday’s sunshine was rapidly forgotten as heavy rain moved in from the west. The prospects for rush-hour travellers was formally classified as ‘grim’. Not only did they have to endure the usual torments of jostling crowds and packed buses: now they had to contend with repeated downpours and the resulting puddles everywhere. As the drains reached capacity I watched the people’s struggles from my warm, dry vantage point. In these conditions the job of a bus driver suddenly came into its own. Waiting passengers were genuinely pleased to see us when we arrived. They regarded the bus as a safe haven from the rain and clambered thankfully aboard. Reality returned when they got off again (especially if they’d left their umbrella behind).

By late evening, however, the constant rain was beginning to cause problems for some drivers too. About half past eleven I was working my way towards the southern outpost when the cab radio crackled into life.

“We’ve had a bus gone missing from our radar screen,” announced the controller. “I’m looking for running number three: can I have a response please?”

(They didn’t really have a radar, of course: this was simply a figure of speech.)

After a short delay another voice could be heard.

“Running number three receiving,” it said. “Over.”

I didn’t recognise the voice, and therefore guessed it must belong to the new driver. It was most unusual to be able to hear both sides of a conversation and I presumed the radio was stuck on an open channel. (I wasn’t sure whether this was due to the weather.)

“What’s your location, number three?”

“About a mile from the southern outpost,” came the reply. “Heading north.”

“What’s happened?”

“My windscreen wipers have packed in. I can’t see to drive so I’ve had to stop.”

“What have you done with your people?” enquired the controller.

“They’re still here with me,” said the new driver. “I keep telling them there’ll be another bus along in a minute, but it’s almost half an hour now and there’s no sign of one.”

The poor bloke sounded quite desperate. It was an unenviable predicament for a driver to be marooned with a load of passengers. Why, I wondered, hadn’t the next bus arrived to take them off his hands? I got my answer a few minutes later when I came upon Cedric, parked at the side of the road with his hazard lights flashing. I pulled alongside him and asked what the trouble was.

“The back doors keep opening and closing of their own accord,” he answered. “This bus isn’t going anywhere.”

Behind him I could just discern the doors swishing open, then closed, then open again.

“There’s another driver stranded up the road as well,” I remarked.

“Yeah,” said Cedric. “I heard it on the radio.”

I bade him farewell and continued on my way. This was beginning to look very bad. A little further along I passed the stricken northbound bus. Inside was a group of about thirty passengers, along with a very sorry-looking driver. The rain now seemed even heavier than before.

What I couldn’t quite work out was how this new recruit came to have so many people on board in the first place. Normally on a wet night like this there would hardly be anybody bothering to travel. Even allowing for the long gap between buses it was an uncommonly large number. The only conclusion I could draw was that the new driver had been running late even before his windscreen wipers stopped working. He had plainly fallen victim to the Law of Cumulative Lateness: late buses always carried more passengers; therefore, once a bus was late it could only become later still. Now, it seemed, his lateness was compounded beyond redemption.

What was also becoming clear was that the next bus in the sequence was mine. The three other functioning buses were somewhere at the northern end of the route, their drivers probably unaware of the critical situation in the south. The stranded driver had assured his people that another bus was coming to save them from their plight, and in a sense he was correct. Yet prophesying buses was a perilous exercise. I still had to complete my southbound journey before I turned around and headed the other way again. The bus he had foretold would be a long time coming.

Eventually I arrived at the southern outpost and paused briefly. There were no ‘intending passengers’ at the bus stop; neither were any officials to be seen. The absence of Mick Wilson and his comrades on such a horrid night was quite noticeable: inspectors of buses, I’m afraid to say, were merely fairweather friends.

A few moments later I set off north. By my estimate the people in the faulty bus had been waiting for almost forty-five minutes when at last I approached. I could see their anxious faces peering through the rear-window as I drew up. Most anxious of all, of course, was their driver. Frantically, he leapt from his bus and began flagging me down, thinking perhaps that I wasn’t going to stop.

I halted and he ran over to my window.

“Thank goodness you’ve come,” he said. “It feels like I’ve been with this lot forever.”

“Well, it’s all over now,” I replied. “Do you want to transfer them?”