The Last Passenger on the Bus
The torch was tiny, no bigger than my index finger, hanging from a woven cord. I didn’t notice it immediately. At first, I spotted the man.
A March night. Route number eleven. The terminus at Foundry Road and back again. An empty bus, streetlamps flickering through the windows, the smell of diesel, rubber, and just a hint of coffee from my flask. I’d been driving this route for four years. And for four years, Id preferred the night shift to the day.
At night there were hardly any passengers. Drunken ones spilling from the pubs on Kings Streetthey always boarded in packs, shouted, dropped bottles, and disembarked after a couple of stops. Nurses from the late shiftthey boarded quietly, shut their eyes, and slept until their stop. Security guards. Taxi drivers whose cars had broken down. All of them came and went, none memorable.
But this one, I remembered.
A man in his sixties. Short and sturdy, with a dark jacket and a hood. His right foot stepped wider than his left, as if used to uneven floors. Always took the same seatthe third row on the right, by the window. Paid cash, exact change every time. Rode to the last stop. Then back. And never got off.
It was early March when I noticed him. The sky hung low, and the city outside looked dreary even in the dark. Yet there he sat, a yellow dot in the grey, fiddling with something in his hands.
After that, I started counting. Five nights in a row with him, two nights without. Then five with him again. Like clockwork. As if riding the night bus was his job.
He didnt sleep, read, check a phone. Didn’t pull out headphones or unfold a newspaper. Just sat, stared out the window, and twisted something small in his hands. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the faint yellow flicker, on and off, like a trapped firefly searching for an escape.
I was forty-four. Not quite forty-five, but already accustomed to people not bothering to ask my agethey just looked and guessed. My hands broad, the skin on the fingertips tough from years on the wheel, nails cut short in a neat arc. My spine slightly curved to the rightan old habit from constantly reaching for the door release. Professional deformation, Id joke. Even at home, sometimes Id catch myself with my right shoulder pitched lower than my left.
Twelve years on my own. My son, Charlie, was twenty-two now, living with his girlfriend at the other end of town. He called on Sundays, if he remembered. I never reminded himit wasnt that I didnt want to talk, but if I rang, hed answer with, Mum, is everything all right?more worry than happiness in his voice. Mum calling meant something had happened; it just wasnt done to call for no reason. It used to be different.
My ex-husband left when Charlie was ten. Walked out for Linda from accounts, clearing out his jackets from the halland the kettle, for reasons only he ever knew. The flat got soldhe took the two-bedroom, I got the one-bed on Churchill Avenue, third floor. At the time I thought, fine. Ill cope. But in the end, there was less to get through than I expected. Just quiet. And the quiet stretched out to twelve years.
By then, love meant about as much to me as pegasuspretty, but imaginary. Friends told stories about their husbands; Id listen and nod. Id turn off films about love halfway through. Not from resentment, just disbelief. Like Father Christmas when youre a child: you believe, then you spot your dad in a dressing gown and cotton beard, and you see the truth.
The night route suited me. No need to smile at passengers. No dealing with grannies with trolleys or school kids with massive rucksacks blocking the aisle. No phone arguments or someone chewing a kebab in the back row. At night, it was just the road and the silence. And that silence fit me perfectly, a jacket tailored to measureneither tight nor baggy.
Yet this passenger disturbed the silencenot with words, just by being there. Like a stone in your shoe: small, but impossible to ignore.
Two weeks I just watched him. He became part of the routine. Oakfield Gardenshed board. Foundry Roadhed be seated. Back to Oakfieldhe stepped off. A nod to me, as though to an old friend. Id nod back.
Every night, the flicker. Dim and yellow in his hands.
Liz, do you reckon hes homeless? Tamara asked in the depot before my shift.
Tamara had been a dispatcher for eight years. Tall, auburn hair always twisted up and stabbed with a biro. She knew everything about every driverwho was divorcing, whod started drinking, who might soon. I trusted her.
Homeless folk dont pay, I said. He pays. Coins, exact, every time.
Might be odd, though?
Hes quiet. Sits, gazes out the window. Doesnt murmur, doesnt fidget. Just rides.
Tamara pondered this, poured tea from her flasklemon and mint, like every shift.
Maybe his wife kicked him out. Sometimes blokes row with their wivesshe screams, Get out! and he goes riding the buses to cool off.
Every night? For a month? Thats not an argument, thats a divorce.
She snorted.
You know, Liz, love is when someone waits for you with a kettle. Everything else is just stories. And night buses.
I smiled. There was no one with a kettle waiting at home. At home waited George the catginger, chubby, arrogant. Only interested in food.
Still, the question gnawed at me. Where was he going, this man? To the terminus and back, five nights a week, a whole month now. Who does that? And why?
Maybe insomnia. Maybe dementia. Maybe just habitused to night shifts, now doesnt know how to stop.
Logical, but I knew it wasnt the truth. In the mirror, Id catch his eyesclear, calm, focused. Eyes of someone who knew exactly where he was going.
I resolved to ask.
***
It took three days. Silly reallyI saw him every night but felt nervous to ask one question. Thats city life: so near, yet never together. Dont interfere in others business, dont intrude, dont ask. Boundaries. Four years of boundaries, and it suited me; other peoples lives didnt interest me.
But this passenger, for some reason, I wanted to know. And that annoyed me.
He climbed aboard as always at Oakfield Gardens, twenty to one in the morning. Dropped coins in the tray. Third row, right, window seat. Pulled something out on a cord, cupped it in his palm.
We travelled in silence. Streetlamps sliding by, shuttered shop fronts, empty stops. The city abandoned, a theatre set after the plays done. The two of usactors who hadnt gone home.
At the end of the line, Foundry Road, we paused for three minutesan official stop. I killed the main lights, left just the dim ones. Soft yellow gloom. I stood up, stepped out from my cabin.
He was still in his seat. Still.
In his handsthe torch on the cord.
Excuse me, I said, May I ask something?
He looked up. His voice was low and gravelly, as if a crumb clung to his throat.
Go ahead.
You ride every night. Ive noticed. A month now. To the end of the route and back again. Where are you going?
He paused, studied my faceneither alarmed nor annoyed. Just weighing up if it was worth answering.
Then he said, To my wife.
I was baffled. I checked the timetwenty past one.
To your wife? Now?
Daisy works nights. At Progress Works, quality control. And I ride with her. Not with hernear her. The bus passes the WorksI flash her a signal with this.
He raised his palm. The small torch, yellow light. The casing was worn, the plastic pale from being squeezed every night for a year.
With this, he said.
I took the seat opposite, my legs aching after six hours at the wheel.
You mean, every night you catch this bus, go to the end, flash your wife through the window, and return?
Yes.
Every night?
Five nights. Her rotas five-on-two-off. So, five times Im here. Days offwere both home.
I was quiet. So was he. Outside, Progress Works loomedthree stories of tired brick, built back in the 60s. Peeling plaster, rusted pipes. But the top floor windows glowed yellow. Night shift.
But why? I asked.
He looked at me as if Id asked why people breathe.
Wouldnt you?
No, I wouldnt. My ex never got off the sofa to open the door for me, even when I came home loaded with shopping. I remember dragging bags from Tescotwo in one hand, one held by my teeth because I couldnt reach for the keys. I rang the bell. He opened, looked at me and said, Youre late. Didnt take the bags, didnt budge. Just asked, then went back to the TV.
But this man rode right across town every night to wink a torch up at a third-story window.
My names Richard, he said. Richard Palmer. Friends call me Dick.
Elizabeth, I replied. Liz.
He nodded. Looked out at the factory.
Daisy and I have been together twenty-five years. Got married in 2001, she was thirty-three, I was thirty-six. Late for both of us. It hadnt worked out before. I was a toolmaker, shes in QCsame place. Thats how we met. I retired four years agoearly, health thing. Shes still working. Three years now on nightsforty percent extra pay. Were saving for a little patch in Kent. Small house, bit of fence, apple trees. Daisy dreams of strawberries.
He said all this plainly, without pity or bravado. Reporting the weather, or the train times.
When she started nights, I couldnt sleep. Id lie awake, thinking: Is she alright? Dark outside, cold. Walks to the Works alone, two hundred yards from the stop. What if she slips? Or someone follows her? Couldnt callno mobiles allowed on shift, they get locked away.
Then I thought, the eleven runs right by. Ill ride. Shell see Im close. Not in person, butclose.
And she saw you?
Not at first. I rode and flashed her for a week. She didnt realise it was me. Just light from the bus, she thought. Then at home I said, Daisy, Ill flash you every night, from the eleven. Look out when it passes. Next morning she called: Dick, was that really you with the torch? I said it was. She cried. She said, Do it again.
My throat tightened, as if a crumb had stuck there too. Silly thought, but no better comparison came to mind.
And back again? Why do you ride?
Where else would I go at this hour in an industrial estate? Fences, tarmac, the odd lamp, most broken. So I ride back, head home, and get up at six to meet her off her shift.
Off work?
Yesmake her breakfast. Porridgeshe likes it with sultanas. And tea. With mint; we grow our own on the balcony. Dried in winter, fresh in summer.
Tamaras words about the kettle resounded in my mind. Love is when someones waiting with a kettle. But this was more than a kettle. This was a torch, a night bus, and porridge at six a.m. Twenty-five years and mint from the balcony. And saving for a Kent cottage.
Three minutes at the terminus were up. I got back in the cab. Richard took his seat. The torch on his knee.
Driving through empty roads I thought, Twelve years alone, not once flashing a torch for anyone. And no one for me. My ex took the kettle and left me with a cat and the night shift. NoGeorge, a tom that greeted the tin of food, not me.
Yet this didnt sting. Instead, I was amazed. Such things happenednot in films, not novels, but on the number eleven, Oakfield Gardens to Foundry Road. A real man, with a battered torch, riding through the city so his wife could see a sign in the night.
At Oakfield Gardens, he alighted. Nodded, as always.
I watched him make his way homesteady, a bit uneven, in his dark coat. An ordinary pensioner. And not.
***
Next night, I paused a little longer by the Works. Not at the stopjust past it, where the road runs right under the third-floor windows. Technically against the schedule, but whod notice at two in the morning?
Richard retrieved his torch. Pressed the button. Three quick flashes. Three slow. Three quick. Fast and sureas though counting out rhythm. His fingers moved with the ease of a man whod handled tiny parts his whole working life.
I watched in the rear mirror. Then up at the windscreen. Third floor, leftmost windowa light blinked. Dim, faint. Andthree quick. Three long. Three quick.
She answered.
I felt my breath catch. I sat at the wheel, watching the two glimmersone in the bus, one in the factory window. A hundred yards of darkness between. Brick, glass, March air. And across it all, two yellow beams that found each other.
Just a torch. Just a window. Just two people signalling across the night. Yet I knew I was witnessing something real. Not the sort of thing that makes you switch channels. Real. The kind of thing that stings your nose and makes you want to look away, embarrassed to intrude.
At the next terminus, I climbed out.
That your code? I asked.
Richard stood by the door, torch pocketed.
Ours, he said. Not Morsenever did wireless. Just made it up. Three quickmy heart beats. Three slowholding her close. Three quickletting go. Daisy laughed when I showed her. Said, Youre a right romantic, Dick. But Im not. I just miss her. Even with a wall between us. She remembered the code in one night. Now, every shiftme to her, her to me.
How long?
A year. Every night. Rain or frost. Remember that freeze last January? Bus was late. I waited forty minutes, feet numb, but waited anyway. Flashed her. She told me, I saw. You were seven minutes lateI counted.
A year. Five nights a week. Over two hundred and fifty journeys for a few seconds of light.
Once, Id have called it daft. Obsessed. Or just bored. But now, I had nothing to say. All my words felt feeble next to that torchlight.
I headed back to the wheel. In the mirror, Richard sat in his seat, looking calm, even content. Every night, the same routineand every night it was enough.
The next few nights, I watched. Tried to see if it was all in his head. Perhaps Daisy no longer looked, the light only a habit. Maybe it was just routine, not lovea ritual long drained of meaning.
But on the fourth night, as we passed the factory, I saw someone press their face to the window. The outline of a woman, chestnut hair braided. And a torch of her own. Small, yellow. Like his.
She was waiting. Truly waiting. Every night, she stood up, approached the window, and watched for his light.
A week later, the bus broke down. Compressor or brakesI didnt try to fix it, just called repairs. The dispatcher gave me a replacementa rattly old mini-bus, narrow seats, the heater warming only the driver.
Richard boarded as usual, paused at the sight of the replacement, then got on. The first row was the only free seat, near my cabin.
It was a rougher ride. Engine roaring, body shaking, springs knocking with each bump. But Richard clutched his torch and gazed ahead as if in a limousine.
At the terminus, I got out to stretch. He joined me at the open door. April night, but coldyou could see your breath. Above the factory, third-story windows shone yellow.
He flashed. She answered. Just as always.
Richard, I asked, twenty-five years is a lifetime. Has Daisy never grown tired?
He smiled, not offended. Rubbed his hands together, the fingers red from cold.
Shes tired. Of course she is. And so am I. Were not young. Shes nearly sixty, Im over it. Knees, back, teethdont ask. But it isnt about being tired. Its about being used to things.
Used to means bored?
No. Used tomeans you cant do without it. I got used to smokingthen quit. That was hardthree months of misery. But with DaisyI dont want to quit. See the difference? Some habits break you. Othershold you up. Daisy holds me up.
And do you, her?
I hope so, he said. I never really know. She doesnt say, Dick, youre my rock. She says, Dick, get some bread. Or, Dick, shut the window. But I know in her voice. When Im close, she breathes easier. When I go, something shifts. She tenses, as though raising a shield.
I listened. Overhead, a lamp still worked in this forgotten estate. The rest had blown.
Love, he said, isnt when your heart leaps. Its when your heart knows its way. Legs carry you, no thinking. I get on this bus every night and dont wonder why. Just do it. Like breathing. Try not breathingyoull fail. So do I. I couldnt not go.
And if youre ill? Or the bus is cancelled?
If Im ill, Ill get a cab. Got two thousand stashed by the mirror just in case. No busI’ll walk. Four milesbe there in an hour. Did it once last November. Bus broke down, I walked. Daisy asked, Why were you limping? I wasnt. Just tired.
He chuckled, rough and low. And I thoughtheres someone who truly knows why he keeps going. Not in the big picturejust in the small moments. In torchlight, a bus, porridge and buying bread. And I envied him, not his wife, not their lovejust his certainty.
All my life Id thought love was epic. Declarations, sacrifice, poetic lines at sunset. Instead, its a worn torch on a string, a quiet man on the night bus. And that meant more than anything Id seen in forty-four years.
We squeezed back into the mini-bus. I started up, warm air billowed across the windscreen. Richard slipped the torch under his coat, hand pressed to his chestI watched in the mirror.
We travelled in silence. At Oakfield Gardens, he got out, nodded. I watched him walk homeright foot wider than the left, unhurried, hands in pockets. Ordinary. And not.
At home, I changed, fed George, went to bed. I found my phone, scrolled to Charlie. Stared at the screen. Nearly 4 a.m. Too early. But the number glowed in the dark, and I slept with the phone in my hand.
***
I rang the next day, at two in the afternoon. Charlie was surprised.
Mum, is everything all right?
All fine. Just calling.
Pause. I could hear him thinking: Mum, just calling? Mum who never rang first for six months?
Mum, are you sure youre okay?
Perfect. How are you? Hows Hannah?
Were good. Working. You all right?
CharlieI havent told you lately. You matter. Thats all. Wanted you to know.
A long pause. I could picture him standing in the kitchenhe always takes calls therenot sure what to do with his free hand.
You too, Mum.
Short, gruff. All the men in our family are like thatmy dad was, and granddad too. Couldnt talk about feelings, as though their mouths were taped up. But I was content. I smiled, hung up.
Then I got dressed and popped to the corner shopEverything Household, mixing the smell of glue, laundry powder, and the tang of new buckets. I found the torch aisle. There mustve been twenty of themhuge ones like a truncheon, down to tiny keyring ones.
I picked a little one. Yellow light. No bigger than my finger. No cordI could fix that later with string, like Richards. The cashier, a plump lady in a blue apron, asked, Need batteries?
Yes, please, I said.
At home, I pressed the button. A yellow circle on the ceiling. George leapt off the table, thumped to the floor, and hid. I shone the torch at the wall. A patch of warm light, small as the ones Id seen from the bus.
I tried. Three quick. Three long. Three quick. Fumbled at firstmy fingers slipped on the stiff switch. The long ones dragged out the second time, the third set had too many short blips. But fourth try, it worked. Heart beats. Hold close. Let go.
I didnt know who Id signal to. My son. Myself. Maybe just the darkness, like Richard did before Daisy knew. A week of signaling, expecting nothing in return. Just not able to stop.
The torch slipped into the pocket of my coat. I felt calmerlike I now knew a code, my own.
That evening, I came on shift. Tamara poured tealemon and mint, same as every time.
Still got your strange passenger? she asked.
Hes still riding.
You find out why?
I did.
And? Dont hold back.
Tamara, I said, You were wrong. Love isnt waiting with a kettle. Love is riding across the city with a torch. Every night. A year. Through frost. Never a single complaint.
Tamara looked at me as if Id gone mad. Opened her mouth, closed it. Then said, Liz, have you gone and fallen for your passenger?
No, I said. Not that. Ive just seen something.
She didnt understand. I didnt explain. Some things have to be seen at two in the morning, out of the bus window, when the city sleeps and two people flash torches across a hundred yards of night.
Night. Route. The bus was fixedold one, familiar, thick with diesel, rubber, and a waft of coffee from my flask. I started the engine. The tachometer needle trembled. The motor hummed.
At Oakfield Gardens, at twenty to one, Richard boarded. Coins in the tray. Third row, right, by the window. Torch in hand, on its cord. The same as every night.
I drove through empty streets. Lights blinked ambernight mode. No cars, no pedestrians. The city slept. But we moved.
At Foundry Road, I stopped. A little further than usual. Right where the top-floor windows were closest.
Richard took out his torch. Three quick. Three long. Three quick.
I stared at the window. One second. Two. Three.
A glimmer. Faint light from the third floor. Three quick, three long, three quick.
Daisy replied.
Richard pocketed the torch. Leaned back in his seat. In the mirror, he was smiling. And something shifted inside me too. Not sadness or envy, just the feeling of being beside something real.
I put my hand in my coat pocket. The torch was there, small and warm. I gripped it tight.
Then I took it out. Looked up at the factory window, where the light was out again. Daisy back at work. Then at the dark road aheadthe lamps, slick tarmac, the April sky with no stars.
I pressed the button.
Three quick. Three long. Three quick.
A yellow beam struck the windscreen, scattered over the wet road. No answer. But it didnt matter. Id flashedand felt warmer. As though someone had seen me after all. Somewhere. Someone.
In the rear-view mirror, Richard looked at me. Nodded. Didnt say a word. Just nodded.
I put the torch away. Set off. Drove him backtowards home, morning porridge, mint on the balcony, Daisy returning at six a.m. to say, Dick, I saw. You started two seconds early tonight.
In March, I hadnt believed in love. By April, a torch lived in my pocket.
And every night, at Foundry Road, I flashed into the darkness. Three quickmy heart beats. Three longI hold. Three quickI let go.
The scent of diesel, rubber, and, just a little, hope.
