by Unknown
The two beers, the lateness of the hour and the depression of the weather contributed to Steve’s lethargy. His eyelids drooped. The vision of travelling in endless circles entered his mind as he imagined sleeping past his stop.
Steve presumed he dozed. The occasional ding of the bell, as a lower deck passenger requested to alight, barely registered. No-one, though, came to join him on the upper deck.
They were passing Acocks Green railway station when he felt the tingle of apprehension that jerked him awake. Staring from the window he could make out the façade of the station as the bus slithered past as if the vehicle itself had decided that stopping was not an option.
He turned his attention back to the road ahead. Traffic was sparse yet he had a distinct feeling that someone, something, was behind him. He stared at the dark window, examining the reflection. All he could see was a distorted version of himself and the edges of the empty seats. He resisted the temptation to look behind again, already knowing no-one was there. He moved the guitar case closer to his thigh for protection; though whether his or its he wouldn’t have been able to say.
As the bus slowed for the roundabout by Yardley cemetery he began to relax again. Until something brushed the back of his neck; a feather-soft touch. Instinctively he reached up. His fingers came away sticky with cobweb. He saw no sign of a spider nearby. Perhaps it had been on his coat when he caught the bus and the warmth had dried it out? The slight breeze from the ventilation must have wafted it from collar to neck.
The cold air, when he dismounted at the stop close to Bordesley Police Station, was surprisingly pleasant after the cloying warmth of the bus. He glanced up at the rear window of the vehicle as it drew away and saw what must have been the bare branches of the winter trees reflected and waving. He clutched the guitar case closer and hurried home.
*
It was another four weeks before Steve made that trip again. He had almost forgotten about it as he settled in the front seat of the late night bus. The evening’s air had a sparkle of latent frost and he could appreciate why poets likened the stars to diamonds. They had a sharp, hard glitter about them. The gig had gone well and he was in a good mood as he mounted the stairs.
He wasn’t alone on the top deck this time. A girl with a bright, knitted hat pulled down over her ears sprawled on the back seat frantically texting. She didn’t even look up as he sat down and he ignored her. She was just another traveller.
The feeling of being watched crept up on him after the bus had paused at the train station to take on passengers. He heard voices drift up the stairwell just before the cemetery as several departed. Steve stared at the reflection in the window; a double image of the girl. She was sitting bolt upright now, staring forwards. It must be her he’d sensed watching him. He tensed but refused to turn around. He didn’t want either to encourage her or give her the wrong impression.
Then without warning she screamed and lurched along the aisle towards him. He turned to see what the problem was. Her eyes were wide and scared. Her hat had fallen off revealing tight braids. She breathed heavily. Every exhale was a small scream. She stumbled as she reached the stairs and for a moment Steve thought she would fall head-first down them. At the last moment she grabbed the rail and slithered down the spiral. Steve was on his feet, worried for her safety.
The bus lurched towards the kerb-side jerking to a stop. She was shouting, ‘It touched me. It touched me.’
The driver was half out of his cab as Steve reached the bottom of the stairs. A burly, crop-haired man intercepted him on the last step. ‘You’re not going anywhere, mate,’ he said blocking Steve’s passage.
Steve backed up a couple of steps in the face of the belligerence. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.
‘Don’t sound like nuffink.’ The man gestured behind him to where the girl was crying to be let off the bus.
‘Police will be here in a moment,’ the driver said. ‘Station’s just down the road. Can’t open the doors ‘till they’re here. Rules.’
Five minutes is a long time. Steve knew there was no point in saying anything, he hadn’t done anything wrong He knew the bus’s cameras would prove it, but there was no point in saying anything. He was a black guy in his thirties and in the eyes of the crop-headed passenger that made him guilty.
The doors hissed and folded back as the cops arrived – one male, one female. She took charge of the girl – he came for Steve. ‘You coming quietly?’ he said.
‘Are you going to read me my rights?’ Steve asked.
‘Why? What have you done?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘Then you’re a witness. You’re coming to make a statement, ain’t you?’
‘Yes, officer.’ It was safer. If he didn’t go, it was likely he’d get done over before he was a hundred yards up the road. His self-appointed guard wasn’t alone.
It wasn’t the first time Steve had been escorted into an interview room and left to wait. It had been a hazard of being a teenager in a city. Once he had been guilty; when he and several mates had dared each other to nick stuff from Tesco’s. The biggest problem was boredom. The walls were a uniform off-white and unadorned. The furniture just as uninteresting. He had no choice but to sit and to wait. For an hour.
Finally, a slightly paunchy, detective with receding hair ambled into the room. He sat down opposite Steve and observed him for several minutes. He supposed the attitude was supposed to intimidate him but Steve found him a relief from the boredom. He knew better than to break the silence first.
The detective reached out to turn on the recorder and made the usual statements of time, date and name. He said, ‘For the record, will you state your full name and address.’
Steve did so.
Bates said, ‘This is a witness statement. Will you state in your own words what happened on the bus.’
Steve did so despite not really knowing what had gone on. Only that the girl had started screaming and rushing for the stairs.
‘Was there anyone else on the top deck?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘So you attacked her?’
‘I was no-where near her.’
‘By your own admission, you were the only other person on the deck.’
‘I didn’t touch her.’
Bates signed out, turned off the recorder and left the room. Another forty-five minutes passed before anyone else came. This time it was the female cop who had got on the bus. She said, ‘The CCTV images show that you did not attack the girl. You are free to go.’
Steve nodded towards the recorder. ‘Could you record that for me?’
She sighed and did so. ‘We will be in touch if we need to question you further.’
To himself Steve said, ‘I’m sure you will.’
Instead of heading home to his flat, Steve left the Police station and set off back towards Acocks Green on foot. He didn’t trust the busses any more this night. He knew they were in radio contact with the depot, and he suspected all the drivers on the night bus rota would know about the incident by now. Perhaps it was paranoid to think that they would all be watching out to deny him travel.
He made his way along the dingy back streets to his Grandmother’s house. Whatever time he arrived, even in the middle of the night, she was up and ‘about to put the kettle on’. The early hours of this Sunday morning were no exception. It was almost as it she were expecting him.
He welcomed her fussing around, pouring him a mug of strong tea and producing a plate of toast. She put butter and jars of jam on the table for him to help himself before sitting down with her own tea.
‘Now ... tell your old Grandmother all about it,’ she said.
He told her what had happened on the bus and being carted off to the police station. ‘It seems daft,’ he said, ‘but I had the feeling that there was someone else there. Someone I couldn’t see.’
‘Have you had this feeling before?’
‘Once. Last time I took that particular night b
us. It sounds stupid but as the bus pulled away after I got off, I swear I saw these hairy legs waving at me from the back window.’ He sighed. ‘It was probably just the reflection of tree branches.’
His grandmother patted his arm. ‘Perhaps there was something there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘People settle in cities from all over the world. They may think they leave their pasts behind but the old ways still cling. What if the things that made the superstitions came with them? What if the myths figures come with them?’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Steve said.
Grandma reached over and plucked something from his shoulder. ‘Where did this come from, boy?’
He stared at the little piece of grey fluff. ‘It’s a cobweb. They’re all over the place.’
‘You bin marked. Anansi wants you.’
‘What in hell is an ansi?’
‘An-an-si. You’d not pay attention to the tales your old grandma told you when you was a child?’
‘You mean the fairy stories from back home.’ Though he’d been born in Britain, Steve had always been taught to refer to Jamaica as back home. For his elders it was.
‘Who calls them fairy tales, boy? All them stories ... they have truth behind them. Sometimes it finds you.’
‘But Anansi? That was just to scare us.’
‘An’ teach you better.’
‘Grandma, Anansi doesn’t exist.’
‘Then you better watch yourself, boy. He’s a tricksy one, that Anansi.’
*
Steve waited for the night service bus with some apprehension. It wasn’t just the memory of the last time he’d used the route but echoing in his mind were his grandmother’s words. And it wasn’t that he believed her stories; more the way that they had reminded him of how scary they seemed when she had told them to him on dark nights when he was five. Then he’d imagined the shadows in the corners of his bedroom were the waving legs of the Great Spider coming to wrap him up in silk and devour him. The shiver that wiped its fingers down his spine now was not just because the night was cold.
Just after midnight, Steve found himself once again on the top deck of the Outer Circle bus; travelling widdershins. This time, though, he went right to the back. From there he’d be able to see everyone that came up the stairs and not have to rely on the distorted reflections in the glass. And no-one could creep up behind him.
The seats at the rear of the deck were not his favourite place. The debris left by earlier travellers was always greater there. A beer can was squeezed down beside the seat, the remaining liquid inside sloshing and splashing the cushion as the bus navigated a small roundabout. Another rolled into the aisle and back again leaving a sticky trail. A mess of evil smelling chip papers and crisp packets had been dumped. His fingers encountered discarded chewing gum on the back of the seat in front of him. A tattered cobweb had escaped the daily cleaning and clung to the top edge of the window. Steve was reluctant to put his guitar case down in case it picked up something unsavoury, and very tempted to resume his usual seat.
He laid his guitar across his lap, reluctant to put it down in case it picked up something unsavoury. Despondently, he stared out of the window. Winter darkness swallowed hope.
‘Not very pleasant is it?’
The voice startled him. Steve hadn’t noticed anyone come up the stairs. He didn’t remember the bus stopping, either. Turning away from the window, he found a short, skinny Rasta sharing the back seat. The man wasn’t young, the dreadlocks, spilling from under his red green and yellow knitted hat, were mixed with grey, as was the stubble on his chin. His smile showed gaps in his teeth but his eyes were bright.
‘The young these days have no manners. No respect for their elders,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No belief in the old ways.’
‘What do you mean?’ Steve asked. He felt uncomfortable, trapped. To escape his travelling companion he would have to push past him. The odour emanating from him was more like dried twigs that anything more unpleasant.
He sighed. ‘Do I really have to spell it out?’
‘I think you may have to.’
‘Well, if the driver take a look at the video, all he see is a crazy black man talking to himself.’
‘You or me?’
‘You, of course.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m just a figment of forgotten beliefs.’
‘Who do you think you are?’ Steve hadn’t intended to ask. The question said itself.
‘Anansi.’
Steve laughed. ‘According to my grandma, Anansi’s a trickster. So, like I shouldn’t listen to anything you say.’
‘Is true. Is also true that Anansi always return his favours.’
‘So what kind of favour do you want from me?’
‘I want off this bus.’
‘Then just walk off at the next stop.’
‘It not that easy. It’s a long way from here to the doors for a little spider.’
‘If I see you get off the bus, what happens then?’
‘I’m in your debt.’
There didn’t really seem to be much harm in seeing that this old man got off. ‘Which is your stop?’ Steve asked.
‘Same as yours.’
‘Okay. What do I do?’
‘See that web in the corner? Pick it off and put it on your coat.’
‘You joking?’
‘No, man. An act of faith.’
Remembering the last time he rode this bus home, Steve decided that humouring the man was a small price for not being marched off the bus again. That would be totally embarrassing. He reached up to scoop up the dusty fragment of web.The strands felt velvety smooth as he transferred them to the sleeve of his jacket. In the dark glass Anansi’s reflection grinned at him.
‘Is that okay?’ Steve asked, turning back.
He was alone. Steve shivered. It wasn’t possible. Seconds earlier the man had been on the seat next to him and there had been no time for him to reach the stairs. The idea that he had ducked down and crawled beneath a seat seemed ridiculous. Steve wasn’t about to start looking for him. Instead he swayed along the moving deck ready to alight at his stop.
*
Sunday Steve slept late, rising in time to just get across town for lunch with his mother. There were no excuses for missing this ritual. All his siblings were expected to be there, even his married sister. Duty done he met up with friends in the City Centre for a jamming session that tended to go on late. He’d intended to regale them with tales of the weird old man on the late night bus, but somehow the opportunity didn’t arise and he wasn’t prepared to stay late. He was working the late shift all the next week.
The DIY store where Steve worked was a huge, echoey aircraft hanger of a space. The shifts were long with only the legal minimum of breaks permitted. He was on his feet all day and weary by the time he checked out. His only desire was to get home and slump in front of the TV with a microwave meal.
There was no shortcut to his bus stop, just a trek across the dark and deserted car park. Shutters were down over the closed frontages and it was raining yet again. The street lights beyond the edges of the parking area cast weird shadows turning bushes into demons, winter-naked branches into the waving legs of giant spiders.
Something startled him as it skittered under a hedge. A rat or a wind-blown wrapper, neither sinister nor unexpected. Steve glanced around. He was alone; except for the shadow that detached itself from the line of chained trolleys. It appeared to salute him. Steve looked away, almost tripping over the kerbstone that demarked the lines of parking spaces. Looking round again, the shadow had gone, absorbed into the general blackness. He hunched down into his jacket and cursed his imagination. It was a relief to step onto the brighter pavement and to stand with the other three passengers awaiting a bus that was inevitably delayed in traffic.
On such a miserable night, Steve was glad to turn into his street and trudge the few hundred yards to his block. He held the door open as Lily-Anne, the single mother
that lived in the flat under his, manoeuvred the push chair containing little Rhianna out into the night. They exchanged a few words before the door snicked shut. He didn’t ask where she was off to; it was none of his business. In the rain-speckled brightness of a street lamp an old man with dreadlocks and a Rasta bonnet sauntered past. He turned his head towards Steve and nodded.
The shadows in the stairwell didn’t bother him. They were benign compared to those lurking in the deserted corners of the outside world. He shivered as he pushed the door open, stooping pick up the junk that had been pushed through the letterbox during the day and wondered where that thought had come from.
*
The banging woke him. The DVD he had been watching had come to an end long ago. He had fallen asleep in his only comfortable chair. Disorientated, Steve took a moment to realise the sound was coming from the front door. Dozy from sleep he staggered towards it, the fog in his mind clearing just enough to wonder what the time was. He squinted through the peep-hole to see a distorted face. It took him a moment to recognise Lily-Anne. He fumbled off the chain and yanked it open, half-expecting her to tell him that something had happened to the baby. She looked scared. She rocked from foot to foot in a semi panic.
Once the door was wide enough, she thrust a bundle at him. ‘You gotta look after this for me,’ she said.
He grabbed it by reflex. She turned and ran down the stairs.
‘Hey! Lily-Anne!’ he called after her. Below he heard her door slam.
Perhaps he should have gone after her but something in her expression suggested otherwise. He backed inside his own flat and secured it with lock and chain before even thinking to examine the bundle. It was too small to be the child though it was wrapped in a blanket. He sat down and put it on the table before peeling back the layers.
‘Shit.’
He stared at the revealed handgun. Whatever the world thought about kids growing up in Handsworth, Steve had never seen a real gun. He’d carried a blade as a teenager; they all did, until one of his classmates got knifed in the playground. This was different. It seemed to loom at him, big and black and ugly. Tentatively, he picked it up. It was heavier than he expected. He wondered if it was loaded, and put it down again quickly. He didn’t want this thing in his flat. He didn’t even want to speculate where Lily-Anne had got it from, or why she had it. It was an alien presence.
