Note 5

Nothing aids respite from alien forms better than the stillness of winter in a British bus. The experience is unbearable for many as it is sweet liberation for me. One eavesdrops on various forms of life: in the front, bespectacled asians bunched up and huddled in coats, twittering like sparrows, in the middle czech boys and black men, middle class university types expressive of melancholy roots sitting in odd positions, weirdly incongruous and emblematic, black coats against a gentrified landscape of neat blue seats, and elsewhere the whites who seem to perform a division of labour according to time of day: nerds in the day and drunkards at night, silence and contemplation in sunlight and morning, and freedom and matehood and cunthood against the dark, streetlighted panes, while the chill of damp evenings fall around us.

The bus ambles past the Sainsburys before turning into the highway. There the factories give way to a view of the full green countryside, bound by trees shaded in green, orange and yellow, planted in neat rows set against a gently sloping valley. The golden sunlight plays upon our faces, and the dews on the windowpanes glitter. Then the factories approach again, and so the University comes into view.