Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound Chapter 1

The bus finally pulled in and I made my way slowly to the front with what was left of the other passengers, for this was the end of the line, where the bus terminated. Like everyone else getting off I thanked the bus driver, a woman, who reminded me of someone I went to school with and that could be possible.

With my two large cases, a ruck sack and shoulder bag, I waited for the bus to depart for wherever buses went at the end of the route. I was very much alone since everyone else knew where they were going and had some kind of agenda to get to. All I had the worse thing a career girl could think of. I had returned home for the one thing that happens to us all. No I wasn't a fallen woman, a divorcee come home to sponge off my parents. I had unfortunately had to return to prepare for the passing of my dad and to well... deal with my ageing mum.

Most people had siblings, I did not so for a very long time it had been me and them, not clinging on to me like a pair of survivors of the Titanic, rather the reverse. They had sent me out in to the world to get something called a career. The career had been sorted and now I was back to help mum over what could be considered a really bad time.

Enough of that for now, the widow weeds would come out sooner or later. There was bound to be a little black hat and deep mourning weeds too. I had to sort myself out and get across the road, which by city standards wasn't that busy. I was more likely to be run over by a tractor here than a millions of commuters.

Looking left and then right, I worked out that I would have to wait a very long time for a tractor to come along too. the road was silent, deserted, not even a cat crossing it to get to the other side. Well what could I expect from a sleepy backwater town in the middle of now where? I mean, I would be lucky if they actually had something called communications down here. I bet the internet connection was crap and the television wouldn't be anywhere near as good as what I'd left behind.

I was about to step out and would you believe it someone came along on a bike, a bike! Swerving like I should be glad I'd not been run over.

'Oi, watch it!' the youth shouted at me, now halfway down the road.

'In considering wanker,' I muttered, fuming slightly over the way that youth had spoken to me. Where was the respect.

Better still, why the hell was he riding his bike on the pavement. This was dull depressing Somerset, where things were at least thirty years behind the times and like there wasn't anything to run you off the road anyway, or so I thought, as I began yet another gander across the road on my journey to my mum's, when... a scooter almost knocked me over with a little old dear at the wheel, or helm, or whatever you called it.

'Watch it, don't you know your green cross code, my dear,' she lectured me, just stopping in time not to run over my foot.

'Yes I do, but I didn't expect some granny to be pelting along at fifty miles an hour,' I retorted, not watching my manners of being polite to the elderly.

'Five if you don't mind,' she corrected me snottily, looking me up and down like I was so grockle as they called anyone who lived the other side of Taunton. 'You look a bit familiar.'

'Do I now,' I demanded, fuming a little that some yokel had in fact recognised me after all this time.

'Yes, you remind me of that late Mr Tucker's daughter, the one that packed up and never came back, mind you, I've heard some say there's always a look alike out there for every one of us.'

'God preserve us,' I muttered to myself.

'A?' she drawled out, causing me to tense and count to ten.

What was it about the locals say 'A' when pardon was much better?

'Nothing, anyway I shan't stop you, now I'm out of your way,' I replied to her, moving foot for her not to drive over, which had her looking down at my unsuitable heels for walking.

'Oh, they don't half look nice, Hotter's are they?' she asked me.

'No, not even close and they aren't Clarks either,' I assured, before she asked me that one.

One thing I couldn't forget was the love of talking rubbish down here unless you were about to do a hostile takeover. Then you'd end up being taken out or turfed out.

'Oh, it's one of them funny names out of a catalogue,' she persisted.

'Yes, one of those,' I lied, just to get rid of her.

'Right, well you watch it crossing the road, you never know what's out there around here these days. Mr Bartlett from the Co-op shop was mowed down, mowed down he was, by one of those double buggy things. Don't know what's wrong with a pram. So you take care out there,' she lectured me, as her mobile phone began to shrill off playing, Jim Reeves, much to my utter horror. I really thought I'd seen the back off him when mum turned the other cheek and went into bed with Boy-zone. 'Christ that will be Cousin Mildred wondering why I'm taking so long to get to the whist drive,' she exclaimed, not answering it, but putting her break off and shooting off at more than five miles an hour.

I watched her go and took her advice about the green cross code, not getting mowed down by a pram or buggy, making it to the other side of the road where I noted a new coffee shop called the brown cow. If I was here long enough I might take mum there for a light refreshment. Otherwise the town looked very much the same, stuck in a time warp.

This down, my birth town had the luck of having a butchers, grocers, the co-op that at one time had been known as International, a bank, just the one but was now closed, a newsagents that seemed to have branched out into the teas and coffee trade, probably to keep in with the new place, the brown cow. Oh and there was still the post office, where I had opened my first savings account.

I turned my back on all this pleasantry for now and made my way to the town's small car park, where the public toilet could be found. A quick look told me that you had to paid to relieve yourself here. That was the signs of the time, I suppose when it used to be free and smelt...well like a public lav.

With my cases, on wheel, thank the lord, I made progress through the empty car park that had once doubled up as the market, when there had been one, and took the small gate that opened onto a gravel pathway that still had potholes and weeds growing up. It hadn't changed at all, other than there was no lighting in place.

As I walked, or should I say trod with care, I didn't see a soul and why should I at this time of the day, or any time of the day. Like all little country towns, this one was dying. I went by the pond that was now all fenced off with a lovers seat, while in my day I used to paddle in there and it was where Rodger Medcalf was pushed in for a bet. I shuddered as I thought of him, his huge ears and mass of freckles. I didn't dwell on it as I carried on walking and came out by what had been my middle school. it was still a school, a combined school. there was also a newer building that stood out like a sore thumb, with cars parked near it. I worked out it was a doctors. That meant some change had happened but was it for the best.

I carried on by and finally came to the bungalow on the end, still wondering why my parents had seen fit to by a bungalow all those years ago when I had come along. I supposed in time it would make sense.

I was here now and I sighed, because the one thing they had never done was dealt with the dreadful steps going up to the front door. The thought of hauling my cases, my bag and myself up the rickety steps had me almost turning and going back the way I'd come. That all changed when the front door opened and I came face to face with the woman who brought me into the world.