I had to move my bag to make room for him. It wasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a sardonic, “Happy New Year!”
“You a Swansea boy?”
“Pontypool,” I said.
“The Pontypool Front Row! Remember them?”
“Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham Price,” I said.
“More of a Neath boy, me. From Resolven I am … you’d think I’d be one for making New Year’s resolutions, wouldn’t you? It’s in the name.”
I let the chug of the bus answer.
“The number of times I have given up fags and booze … Eventually, the penny drops, don’t it. No point making yourself miserable.”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, just past mid-day.
“The Missus, now – a different kettle of fish altogether. If she fell off an horse, she was the kind to jump straight back on. Weight it was, with her. Every January, the same. I told her, don’t be so soft – you’re not fat. Chubby you are. A good cuddler! But she wouldn’t have it. The nurse had told her she was borderline obese. That was it. She was going to lose a stone in a month.”
I looked at him. He wore a flat cap that looked as if he’d been born in it. There were leathery creases around his eyes and his mouth had come to rest, lips slightly apart, in a silent chuckle. His small dark eyes flashed, as he turned to me.
“I lost her 17 months ago,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It came out muffled, as if I didn’t really mean it, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“She did me a big favour.” There was a pause. “She was a Tonna girl, see, and after I lost my job behind the bar, when the Working Men’s Institute closed down in Resolven, she set her heart on going back to Tonna. Four years we had there before she passed away. Best thing we ever did. The people there are so friendly. I got more friends in Tonna than I ever had in Resolven. I got people coming round to see me; calling out my name in the street. It’s amazing. I got a strange name, see.”
He looked at me as if he might have said enough for me to make a guess.
Then he gave me a clue: “Where did Cardiff City used to play”?
“Ninian Park,” I said.
“That’s it. That’s my name! Ninian!” It was as if I was the first person he had ever told.
The bus was already pulling in at his stop. He got up, explaining that he was off to spend the night at his daughter’s, the same every Monday since his wife had died.
“Good to meet you, Ninian,” I said.
As the bus pulled away, he waved at me through the window. I waved back. It was January 5th. I resolved to speak to people on buses more often.
