gloves

They were pale, pale pink. Salmon pink, perhaps. A pastel colour that was not quite baby pink. They were made of soft material. And they were old as the hands inside them, folded on the seatback rails in the bus. These gloves were old and a bit of an anomaly. They were worn, like they’d been pulled on every day, or like they’d started their glovely journey many years before. The backs of the hands were stitched in lines, three little pinches of the fabric, over-sewn in three little rows, splaying slightly towards the knuckles, the widest point. They looked beautifully made of the softest felt, not wool and not leather. And they were perfectly pale all over. How could they stay so perfectly pale and have been in such frequent use without any sign of dirt or grubbiness?

They were of the palest pink. They looked much loved, a favourite comfort perhaps, as the wearer made her intrepid way out on the bus, maybe screwing up her energies to venture out with shopping trolley, face mask, and an overcoat quite unnecessary for the weather. Alongside the face mask, perhaps the gloves spoke of an unwillingness to come into contact with other touched surfaces, or a suspicion of anything whereon the dreaded virus might have alighted. We are all more alert to the transfer of unsavoury life forms these days. But if they were worn for that reason, felt doesn’t seem a good choice of material so soft and absorbent as it is.

If they were worn for warmth, they stood out even more strikingly because the fabric at all the fingertips was worn and holey. The living hands could be seen inside the soft pink, through seams pulling apart at each finger end, and along the first joint of each finger. They couldn’t have been worn to keep hands warm, any cold air would have had no difficulty entering at each extremity, ensuring her hands would certainly be cold. They offered little protection from bumps or scrapes either, as using an outstretched hand for this or that would expose all the edges and extremes where there was no material left. They weren’t supposed to be fingerless. They were worn, to a most extraordinary degree.

I’m all for holding onto one’s favourite things, finding it hard to let go of much-loved pieces of clothing. At that moment (yesterday) I am actually wearing a pair of trousers from exactly that family. I watch the seams of these trousers almost daily to make sure I won’t miss the moment when the bobbled stitching along the inside leg leaves nothing to hold the fabric together and the thinning, fading, softening trousers that I love so much will be impossible to get away with wearing anymore. Maybe she had pulled on those barely functional gloves in the way that I had pulled on my trusty favourite things as I found myself struggling to leave the house, or to drum up the appropriate momentum to get to the dentist at the right time, even though pain had given me the push to make the appointment, and the fear of losing it through lateness might have been expected to hurry me thither.

Somehow, I was sluggish and stupid leaving the house. Slow, uncoordinated and creaky. Misjudging the bus times, I watch it go past the end of the road with a pathetic moan of protest and feel absolutely incapable of running to catch it. I look belatedly on the app for the next expected bus. Still plenty of time. You’re tired today from much walking, vague worry and low-level pain. No need to rush. It’s OK. Reaching the bus stop I gaze unseeing and, frowning at the stop itself, try to work out whether both bus options are possible in the time, wondering whether I have the energy to walk, knowing I am standing on the cusp of familiar paralysis and panic.

I watch myself lock onto a fixed position desperately willing a bus to come round the corner, muttering incoherently under my breath, wanting to cry or scream or throw myself at something, and unable to tear my eyes away from the oncoming cars, though how that could influence the arrival of the bus I don’t know. There is that familiar unwelcome feeling of compulsion, imperative. I can feel the noise in my ears start to rise. I’m tutting, muttering, everything is too loud, too stupid, so typical (rolling my eyes), meant to punish me, for not moving faster in the first place for the last bus. Open the app. Refresh it. 261 in 1 minute. Then two minutes (it's late). Then one minute again, then due. Then 2 minutes of eyes unblinkingly locked onto the corner trying to conjure up the bus through sheer force of concentration. It doesn’t come. The app says, left 2 minutes ago. The water comes up around my ears.

I am not aware of the other people around me, the weather, the early autumn day, the bus hasn’t appeared. A queue of traffic is building up in the direction I don’t want to go. And the voice in my ears is going into shouty overdrive: Typical! Something has happened up ahead, and the buses coming this way will be held up. But how does one know? When could some information be drawn from this? My phone is clutched white knuckled in my hand. Refresh the app again. I feel possessed. And again. Again. Even though it’s clear it doesn’t know where the bus is.

Would it be better to walk? Could I get there in time? The map won’t load. Can’t wait for it to load and eyes whip back to locked on to the oncoming cars. Some do come, but no bus. Could I be there in time if I walk? It would be in a frenzy. I’d be hurrying and for about half an hour. I’d get hot and bothered, short of breath and the storm in my over-pumping heart will ratchet up and up and up. I don’t want to do it. I couldn’t get there in time that way now. But you could have done before. Why didn’t you just walk straight away? Why did you wait? Why didn’t you know what to do? Why couldn’t you decide? Eyes locked on the corner. Refresh the app. Refresh the app.

And there’s a new dilemma. One bus takes slightly longer. I’ll now be late in every possible way of getting there. Please don’t let the little bus come first. If it does...  And here it comes. All the gentle old ladies standing at the stop congenially, want that one as well. It’s almost as good as the other for their purposes. They gently confer allowing me maximum anguish to teeter at the doorstep in the grip of this bus takes longer and it’s not the same route. The other bus is not here. I might just miss it as we turn the corner. It will come as soon as the doors close on this one. This bus is here. The other may never come. Better to stay put or to start moving? I’ll have to phone the dentist anyway. Please don’t let my appointment go, I don’t know why I couldn’t get a bus. (Perhaps she can hear all the other voices screaming at me that I should have left earlier, planned better, thought about it, got moving. Why can’t you move quicker, go faster? Why are you so pathetic? And how are you in such a ridiculous state because you're going to be late? People get late. Things happen. It’s not the end of the world). I feel like I’m being spun around my own head, squealing like a wind-filled whirly-tube, a danger to myself and all around me.

I get on the small bus and instantly regret it. There are no seats and I look around at all of these gentle older folk and feel how I must be radiating a sort of poisonous venom into the atmosphere with my jerky tense body and muttered mumbling protests. (Did I say anything out loud?) I can’t master myself. This is such a stupid route. Why does the bus come down here? There’s no room to pass. All the learners are out who can’t just nip into a passing place to let him pass. And also, people have to learn, be kind, isn’t it good that learners come out at a quiet time? How can anyone rely on a timetable when there are these hail and ride sections? The road is too narrow. Don’t stop here again. And also, how kind of the the driver to give this elderly gentleman with the walking stick, battered old hat and the hearing aid a chance to catch this bus without having to run up the block. But I am late! Every pore of me screaming and there’s nothing I can do. Get a grip. Pounding the seatback makes no difference at all to anything and you’re attracting worried looks.

‘It’s 7 minutes.’ Through the bleary fog swimming around me, I hear one of the gentle ladies from my stop talking to me, as she checks the app on her phone. ‘It says 7 minutes,’ comes just as we round the corner that takes us away from the other, quicker route. I don’t know what she means, but I manage a thank you and mutter something to try to explain my agitation. Go and sit down. Are you okay in this moment?  Yes. I know I am. But I’m screaming inside and the soft still presence can’t get a toehold in the spiralling down. What about breathing? Try that. Hold an in-breath for a while and then slowly breathe out. Don’t call it anything or use any words at all. Just do it again. Loosen your fingers. Look out of the window.

Muscles are standing out in your wrists and arms. Let go. Let them go. Breathe. Slow. Try again, try again. Look at the weather, there is sunshine through the rain threatening shadows, there’s the place where you have often stopped to capture the evening sun through those blush-pink blossoms... But try as I might to hold on to something, I’m like a strand of straw in a hurricane. Velocity peels me away from the things onto which my attention might catch. Breathe slowly again. Try again. Maybe inside the bus.

There’s a lady in the seat in front, with crutches. My seat is much higher than hers. She’s starting the manoeuvres to get off. One arm gropes behind her back awkwardly, she is trying to catch hold of the string of her little duffel bag. It’s like an old-school shoe bag that she has one arm in, while her crutches slip and slide to the floor. (They always do, I know.) With the crutches, the way she’s moving says she might be in pain. She can’t find the thin strand of cord behind her to catch hold of it. It’s just by my hand, gripped on the handrail, and I lift it clear to meet her reaching fingers. She can’t understand how that has happened turning half round with a jerk and I lose my courage. On another day I might have spoken to her to reassure her that such seemingly intimate assistance could be offered sincerely by a friendly stranger. I might have helped her free her hood, too, and broken the ice between us, but I can’t do it.

I get a waft of the unwashed smell of her greasy grey hair as she tightens the band on her ponytail. I don’t speak to her about the eye rolling tendency of crutches to never stay where you stand them, which seems like a deliberate kick in the teeth when you have them because you can’t easily move or bend to retrieve them. Another time I might have felt equal to bridging this distance, might have been able to reach out to connect knowing how that can make things better for both of us, can take me out of the maelstrom of mind, and remind me there’s a world out there beyond me. I decide instead that she’s giving me a dirty look, suspicious and critical. I can’t find a smile for her, and I retract, snarling.

Nothing is working. Nothing is going right. I make no progress whatever. I’m the same dumpy teen hiding in oversized ugly men’s jumpers, sporting a short haircut style that makes me look like a boy and feel deeply hurt once when a bus driver address me as such. This bus journey, that bus journey, perceived slights, wrongness, stormy overworked core hidden inside the fat and the fierce crust, far away from help. These bus journeys fuse in the early habit of hurt and connect through time again and again and again. Now? Always?

And then from nowhere, those gloves. I see them once the lady with crutches and a stringy duffel bag gets off.

Elderly hands neatly folded one on the other on the bar above the seat back in front of her. Upright posture, quiet dignity, a winter coat too heavy for this early in the year. A still, set face above a Covid face covering that is not now required. Old fashioned tartan shopping trolley parked neatly at heel, by her side. An old lady who got on the bus at my stop is wearing the softest pale pink gloves. And the gloves are full of holes.