I'm on the bus.
I'm sitting on the front seat with my feet on the window, dreaming about my perfect weekend when a Muslim woman squeezes in next to me. I do tend to be a little expansionist with my occupation of the front seat and so I shift obligingly to one side. The fact that there is still more bum on the seat than there should be is unfortunate. Feeling full of the joys of spring and weekends past, I smile at her blindingly, and see she's one of those beatific women with a round, perfectly happy face who almost convinces you of the merits of religion, who smiles shyly back at me as her round, equally generous bottom squashes mine. A second later she rises again and shifts across to sit next to her equally happy son who looks like being on the front seat of a double decker bus in London has been the summit of all his ambitions. The father sits behind them and they chat in heavy Arabic that I can't understand, and which may even be Malaysian for all I know as I can only pick out the 'hamdalilah's and inshallahs' which are ubiquitously Islamic and may have nothing to do with their native language.
I fade them out, and drift back to the lush countryside, then press Replay in my head, and watch the edited highlights of my lovely weekend flicker through my memory.
The bus shudders up to Marble Arch and the family are gone. I only realise this when an Asian woman with very pronounced freckles gets on and attempts to sit in the front seat next to me, then hesitates.
Her eyes see a carrier bag at the same time mine do.
I press pause in my personal slide show just as I was getting to the good bit.
The woman slips tentatively into the seat behind, her gaze still fixated on the carrier bag. She looks at me and then back at the bag. I look at the bag and then back to her. This continues for several seconds until I break bus protocol and actually speak. Eventually I tell her that I'm sure it's nothing. It's a mistake. There was a family sitting there. They simply forgot their shopping. I keep the Muslim part to myself.
'Do you think?' she says.
'Sure...it's going to be fine' I answer, only just resisting the impulse to run off the bus in panic.
'But...' she says.
'No, really, I'm positive it's just a forgotten bag. If we start to hear ticking, we should worry,' I joke.
Never joke with women on the bus when your sitting beside an unaccompanied parcel. She looks alarmed and jittery.
'So you think we should tell the bus driver.' She's dancing on the edge of her seat like she's just had five pints and there's no public loo for five miles (probably fairly accurate).
'I'm only kidding,' I say and picture the bus driver - a boy who looks like he was at university a year ago, and who has convinced himself that this is just a temporary job while he's waiting for the Foreign Office to relax their intake requirements. I then picture myself, standing outside Primark for an hour while the bus-driver radios the station and the police come to cordon off the area with yellow tape, and then the bomb squad arrive, and the traffic is backed up along Oxford Street and no other buses can pass. I glance at my watch. It's 2.15. I really want to go to the gym. I've told my daughter I will be home by 3pm. Noprmally a bomb scare would be sort of welcome as a way of avoiding the dreaded gym, but it's 80o outside. The gym has airconditioning.
'Nah, let me have a little look,' I say. I get up, clutching my own handbag (why, when faced with a terrorist threat is it important to have your handbag in your arms?) and peer into the plastic bag. There is a box. A cardboard box. It is terribly tatty. Not very pristine if it has just been purchased. It looks like the facade of the technical college in Worcester... (not good, definitely not good). I think about investigating further and then my fingers pull back.
'Um, it's a box.' I say eventually, half-sitting back in my seat.
The woman and I look at each other. She has a gap in her front teeth, a cheap lavender t-shirt and frizzy ringlets. I've spent so much time looking at her closely that I could probably paint her from memory.
'What shall we do?' she asks again. We are alone on the top deck of the bus. We are now at Paddington. I hook my handbag over my left arm and stand up again filled with intent (and terror). We Scotswomen go into battle with our bags hooked firmly on our arms. I approach the plastic bag and look into it and then stretch my hand out.
'Well if we're going to be blown up, we might as well go out with a bang and not waste time hanging about,' I say and look at the other woman for agreement. It was a real Thelma and Louise moment. She remained fixed to her seat, but she didn't disagree. She was ready to die for the great British Cause of not making a fuss.
I lift the bag.
Nothing.
I put my right hand tentatively inside it and then ...
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
F*** it starts to vibrate right up my arm. I jump and drop the bag with a loud screech. (a sensible thing to do if you think you are holding a bomb, you'll agree).
The woman screams really loudily.
I scream again. (Well she frightened me)
Meanwhile, the parcel lay on its side gaping like a dead fish.
The woman jumps up and runs to the back off the bus but by this time I have gathered my senses and composed myself: 'Eerm, no don't worry.' I wave at her. 'It's only me over-reacting. I had my mobile phone in my hand and it started to vibrate. Sorry. I got a text.' I confess apologetically.
I look at the message: it's The Man. To hell with the bomb threat. I click READ: Apparently his sandwich wasn't as nice as it would have been had he eaten it yesterday when he made it. Ah... The language of love.
Meanwhile, the woman is laughing with relief.
I laugh too.
We laugh together, hysterically. I laugh especially hysterically at the idea that I would rather be blown up than moderately inconvenienced by having to stand outside Primark for an hour waiting for the police to allow buses to pass. I mean, what would you rather be - dead, or delayed? Londoners: Dead, thanks. It's over quicker.
I text The Man back: Bomb scare. Hoping for at least a modest outpouring of concern.
Five hours later he responds saying he hoped that I had survived.
(For this, dear readers, I am holding home movie screenings in my head!)
Nevertheless. After I have ascertained that the parcel is not, indeed, buzzing, but just a harmless shoebox, with a pair of not-very-nice shoes inside it. I sit back in my seat, close my eyes, and press PLAY again.
And then, just as I'm mentally lying back in the grass at the top of the Malvern Hills looking at the clouds the bus shudders and jerks and then I remember...
- The Shoebomber.
...and the bag is now nestling against my hips like a very besotted lover.
