THE COACH TRIP

An odd journey on a modern coach.

“Ain’t these modern coaches dead good?” cackled Maureen Tuftnose to her best friend Gertie Gander, “I mean, there’s even a bog on board if you get caught short!”

Gertie nodded. “And they go dead fast too,” she commented, “hurtling along the motorways as if time didn’t mean nothing any more!”

Maureen sighed and inclined her head. “Trouble is,” she whispered confidentially, “trouble is some of our fellow travellers ain’t so decent. I mean, did you see that old bald bloke in them shorts?”

“Him as is at the back with them there old birds fluffing their wings at him as if they was in an avery?” asked Gertie, knowing exactly who Maureen meant but needing to emphasise something or other, she wasn’t sure exactly what.

Maureen grinned. “I knew him when he was a roisterer at school,” she hissed, “and that were so long ago it’s a shock he’s still alive. I mean, he knew how to disport hisself, he did, he knew all about being a roisterer, and no mistake. And you wouldn’t’ve seen him in shorts back then! Name of, let me see, what was it? Ah, I remember, Stevie Sandbank. Fashionable, he was, drain pipes and a quiff!”

“Eh, Maureen, did he try it on with you, then?” asked Gertie, prying surreptitiously.

“He might have,” sniffed her friend, “and he might not have, and that’s all I’m saying. I was never the sort of girl to let a roisterer free with my under things, that I wasn’t!”

“Nor me, a kept them firmly to meself” confirmed Gertie, “though I couldn’t say the same about Midgie Holland on the back seat! A right harlot she was in her day!”

“I don’t think I rightly know her,” frowned Maureen.

“You didn’t know Midgie?” cackled Gertie, loud enough for the couple sitting behind her to shuffle uncomfortably and hiss “shush! We’re trying to sleep here!”

“Midgie was a game girl,” grinned Gertie, ignoring the two sitting behind her but quieter anyway. “And by game I mean game! She never did a decent day’s work in her life, did Midgie, but was never short of a bob or two even when the men were all on strike! It was the greatest shock on Earth to me when I heard that she’d changed her ways.”

“What’d she do before that, then?” asked Maureen, knowing exactly what her friend meant but enjoying the implication of a kind of life she pretended to abhor.

“Men, that’s what she did!” hissed Gertie, earning another hush, we’re trying to sleep from the seat behind. She leaned closer to Maureen and nudged her, “And I’m not making this up, but it was said by those in the know that she could make her way through a dozen young roisterers in a day, and each at a tenner a time when a tenner was worth having!”

“You don’t say?” creaked Maureen, “The dirty hussie!”

“That she was,” sighed Gertie, “not that I’d ever do anything like what I heard she did! Never in a million years! Where are we, Maureen?”

“Just a minute,” said her friend, “I’ll take a peek at my map.”

She openedthe book on her knee at a page that she’d previously marked with a slip of paper, and looked out of the window, getting her bearings.

“I make it a couple of hours from the ferry,” she said, informatively. “When we get on the ferry we’ll see a thing or two, that we will. You can tell what a creature’s like by the way they walk on a ferry when the sea’s up!”

“Will you two ladies lower your voices!” came a hiss from just behind, “it’s still nearly dark out there and we’re trying to get a bit of shut-eye!”

“Begging your pardon, but we’re just passing the time,” hissed Maureen, turning round to see who the complainant was, and then starting, a surprised look on her face. “And why, it’s Spud Johnson! Fancy you and me sharing the same coach!”

“It’s a long time since anyone called me that,” groaned the voice from the seat behind, “and there’s no way I recall ever having seen you before!”

“We were at school together, way back,” Maureen told him, “I remember the trouble you used to get yourself in!”

“That history teacher was a sadist and a bully,” muttered Spud Johnson, “he was the only one who punished me for anything, and he did it often, believe you me.”

Maureen nodded. “I remember,” she said, “I often wonder what became of him when they stopped corporal punishment.”

“I went to his funeral,” grinned Spud, “I had to because I was the one in charge for a change. And when I prayed that his soul would find its way to Heaven I had all my fingers crossed in the hope that it wouldn’t!”

“And your toes, Edward,” put in the lady sitting next to him. “Now will you lot stop chattering and let me get some rest while it’s still night time!”

Spud (or Edward) nodded and the two women on the front seat turned back round.

“Who would have thought he’d become a man of the cloth,” whispered Maureen when they had settled back in their seats. “I remember him at school. Actually, I fancied him for a while, but he doesn’t seem to be able to remember me any more. Shame, really. That must be his wife with him. I don’t know her.”

“Nor me,” replied Gertie, equally quietly, and “not that I’d expect to,” she added.

“I’ve not been on the ferry before,” breathed Maureen, changing the subject. “I haven’t even had a passport before now. But I couldn’t miss this trip.”

“Nor me,” smiled Gertie, “I’ve not been abroad either, but a voice in my head said I should, before I pass on to the great big ghost ship in the sky!”

The driver chose that moment to switch on his microphone and inform his passengers that they would be arriving for at the port in a few minutes.

“It’s been a long journey in the dark, but there will be time for a cup of something hot on the ferry,” he said, “Meanwhile, when we’re all sitting comfortably I’ve got a little quiz for you all to take part in if you want. There’ll be a prize for the winner...”

“What sort of quiz?” came a voice from the back.

“That’s Stevie Sandbank,” hissed Maureen, “still sounds a bit of all right, don’t you think? I bet he can still roister with the best of them!”

“Bearing in mind who you lot are and where you’re going I’d have thought that much was obvious,” replied the driver, “but if it’s any help I’ve got three questions here, only three, but you’ll need an in-depth knowledge of the good book to answer them...”

“That’s all right then,” whispered Gertie, “I’ll gladly take part.”

“And me,” said Maureen, “I’ve spent long enough with my nose tucked into it, learning it by heart, days and nights for years!”

Then the coach pulled onto a ferry that wasn’t there, and the passengers trooped off, one by one, collars shining white under a silvery moon. And as they stumbled along each and every one of them was shocked to hear a door somewhere above them, somewhere in the skies, clanging shut when its keeper saw who they all were.

Dave the driver sniggered, and reversed his coach back onto land.

© Peter Rogerson 21.05.18