Chapter 2: Departure and Direction

Once he had settled himself into his seat, Monty did his side mirror and rear view mirror checks, noted that the gears were in neutral and, once the ignition was turned on, that all the dials were lit up, before starting the engine. Monty seemed quite surprised that the engine started first time and sounded to his rather untrained mechanical ear as in good nick. The vehicle was old, to Monty it seemed old and underpowered and had accumulated a whole lot of mileage covered under the bonnet, but Sofija knew that the bus was regularly well maintained and its safety certification, checked by Northamptonshire County Council at regular intervals, was satisfactorily kept fully up to date.

“Hey Sofija,” Monty asks, “How do I use the microphone?”

Sofija points out the button on the dashboard with the illuminated logo of a microphone on it.

“Hello, everyone,” Monty says over the loudspeaker, “I’m Monty Smythe, KC MP, your Member of Parliament for Songlebridge South and Deputy Speaker at the House of Commons. I am your volunteer driver for this weekend to sunny and no doubt at this time of year brisk and breezy Weston. Now, if you want to speak to me while I’m driving, you will have to stand up and announce who you are and then make your short request, so I know who it is who wants to speak and then sit down when you’ve finished. If there is a need for supplementary questions, then you must stand again before being called upon to ask your question. Do you all understand?”

Most of the passengers look at each other before nodding.

This was a new development, they’d never had such a request as this on the bus before. On occasions when Sofija or one of the other three or four volunteer drivers took them out on local outings, like the post office, library, town centre shopping and garden centres for cream teas, the driver just silently drove the bus. The driver was supposed to know where he or she was going and had never had need of input from the passengers before. So, rather bewilderedly, they simply nodded their acceptance of Monty’s odd request.

“Now,” continues Monty, still in tannoy announcer mode, “according to the Sat Nav, the journey will take about three and a half hours on the road but Claire’s itinerary includes three comfort breaks of half an hour each at Rugby, Worcester and Bristol and a lunch break for at least an hour at Newport. Now, all that time spent on stops seems a little excessive to me. I think we should simply drive straight through via Milton Keynes, Swindon and Bristol without stopping. We could get to Weston at about a quarter past twelve at the latest and have lunch there, taking half the driving time to get there and the driving would also be nice and easy as it would be fast motorways and dual carriageways all the way. Everyone agreed?”

Again, the passengers look at one another in response but then they slowly start to shake their heads in total agreement, this clearly couldn’t do, couldn’t possibly do, and a degree of panic starts to set in.

Sofija, sitting up front particularly looks aghast at the announcement from the volunteer driver that had been imposed on her without any consultation. “Monty—” she starts.

Monty cut her off before she could say any more. “If you want to address me, Nurse Sofija, you do need to stand up and identify yourself.”

Holding onto the strap above the seat, Sofija tries to stand up, but finds she has to release her seat belt, which sets off the flashing and beeping alarm on the dashboard.

All around the bus, there are murmurs of “No!” And several passengers also try to stand up and finding that in order to do so they have to release their seat belts too.

“Order! Order!” Monty calls out over the tannoy, “this will not do, sit down, do up your seat belts and sit quietly. We’re not even under way yet! We will have to do what we did when we were young boys at boarding school and had to hold our hands up and wait to be called. Right, you can go first Sofija.”

“Look, Meester Monty,” Sofija starts normally and then drops her voice to a whisper, “Ven ve is transporting ze older citizens in ze bus, vell, ve haff to consider zere ... er comfort ... in a bus viz no ... facilities, you know? Zis means zat on a trip zis long ve haff to stop many times for ze vee-vee breaks.”

“Vee-vee breaks?” Monty asks unsure what this actually meant.

“Da, vee-vee breaks, uvvervise zay vill all vet zemselves and it vill be very messy in ze bus, und I aff to clean ze bus before ve can use it again. Zat’s vhy Claire has taken ze slow route, ze vun viv lots of conveniences along ze vay.”

“Oh Tosh!” snorts Monty, “they can’t be that bad, surely it is only a few hours. Okay campers,” he called out over the tannoy, “who needs to go to the toilet within say the next two or three hours?”

Every hand goes up, including, though a little less urgently, Sofija’s.

Not quite every hand, though, as Elsie sat strapped securely at the back of the bus in her wheelchair, she didn’t even know whether she wanted a wee or not from one day to the next even. In fact, she could only tell after she had been to the toilet from the sudden flood of temporary warmth from time to time, so she simply smiled benignly at the driver’s question.

“Oh for crying out loud,” Monty says in an exasperated tone, “Well then, please tell me, who needs to go within say, the next hour?”