It’s strange what stays with you. Not the noise but the faces – the way the air felt afterwards, brittle and off key. ‘They have taken my phone!’ she gasped. And sure enough two youngsters scampered off, booty in hand, leaping from the bus and into the crowd. For a moment I sat there wondering if I should offer her a banana – the only thing I had to hand – before realising it had gone soft and slightly rotten in the day’s heat. It was an absurd, although somehow easier to manage than the look on her face. She had two children with her, both wide-eyed and yet she was the first to recover ‘It’s alright,’ she said briskly ‘It was my work phone – I have another.’ The words were too tidy somehow, rehearsed even. For a moment I wondered if the whole thing was real, or some small performance staged for the inevitable audience – the kind of trick that only makes sense to an insurance firm. There was a touch of theatre about it all – as if she had played the scene before. Somewhere out in gangl...
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