I was jolted into fully-fledged adrenaline-fueled consciousness by the bizarre scene that unfurled as I put my bag down on the pavement to wait for my National Express:
A large (most likely pregnant) woman, in her early twenties stood beside the bus shelter, gently pushing a buggy containing a mixed-race toddler. Inside the shelter (around 15ft away from the woman) slouched a short black man in a scruffy tracksuit - a handsfree set/ipod headphone plugged into one ear. An empty push chair was positioned close to him.
Like a car chase scene from an action film (minus the handsome hero), a people-carrier taxi swerves across the oncoming lane (facing the wrong way in the bus bay), bumping the curb and screeching to a stop. An angry fat man with grey joggers and a massive paunch bounds into the bus shelter and begins to shout a derogative steam of abuse at the black man - their foreheads practically touching. In fact I initially thought that a headbutt was surely going to be planted.
The crux of the fat man's 'beef' I began to realise was the idiocy of the black man and his treatment of the woman standing by... who was trying her hardest not to react to the scene. I swiftly realised that the black man was the father of the toddler (and potentially the unborn child?). Their distant stance at the bus stop definitely pointed at some recent feud or breakup. But why did they have a push chair each, and what part did the fat taxi man have to play in this obscure situation? After a few more very loud expletives at close range, the taxi man stormed out of the shelter, pointed a threatening finger at the woman accompanied by a sentence along the lines: "You're both as bad as each other - should of bashed your heads together..."
Without any though to the highway code or road safety, the taxi sped off again, crossing lanes- screeching tyres leaving black marks on the tarmac.
I was shocked and wished I was anywhere else. I was the only person witnessing the scene on their side of the street, and now I had to endure the aftermath.
The black man came to the edge of the shelter and mumbled to the woman, who tended to the toddler - who remained remarkably unscathed by the shouting. Maybe it was used to this kind of behaviour from its parents. The woman mumbled back, though neither looked directly at each other. Intermittently, she angrily answered her phone with, "WHAT?!", listened for a minute or two and then hung-up on the caller. The woman hide her dismay well, but did look round at me a few times anxiously. The man kept trying to get the attention of the small boy, cooing at it but not daring to go any closer. She continued to argue with the man and the person on the phone until their bus pulled in. Half of me wanted to get on and follow the story, but I also wanted to get out of this hellish situation.
She pushed her toddler on and paid for her ticket. The man followed soon after with his empty push chair. I watched curiously as the woman sat down near the front and the man folded his buggy, put it in the storage area and then took a place right at the back of the bus.
Did he have another mistress and another baby to attend to? Or were they going to swap the toddler into his buggy at their destination and go their separate ways? What had the man done to spark such a violent attack from the taxi man?
Perhaps I will write a script which explores a possible situation.
