Natascha Tallowin

The End of Summer

He watches out of the bus window, narrow eyes contact lens green with artificial envy, auburn hair caught up in a loose pony tail that curls and pokes through the holes in the collar of his old white T-shirt.

A small girl slouches next to him. She sits with her knees up, her brown feet pressed against the seat in front, small toes fidgeting and flexing against the rough material. She’s busy threading blue beads onto a piece of tan leather one by one, scooping them from her lap, where they lay sparkling and rolling in the bowl of her skirt.

At one point the little girl tugs on the man’s sleeve and whispers something to him. He responds by kissing her quickly on the forehead and rubbing her dark hair so that it falls into her eyes and she laughs.

I imagine them to be gypsies, travelling in painted wagons, pulled by dappled grey horses with fluttering manes and bright hooves.

Or circus folk in a Blyton fantasy, laughing outside the big top after the show, the half moon rolling behind clouds. The air would smell like sweet popcorn, candy floss and hot dogs, children would race each other in the dust, long hair whipping in the breeze, faces pink.

Or maybe they are foreign, on the run, forced to change their names, seeing our roads and lanes as new and exciting.

Whatever, they alight at the next stop, balancing with trapeze precision as the bus jolts and wobbles to a standstill, feet sounding dry against the floor of the bus.

I watch them as we pull away. Hands linked, the little girl skipping, the man flicking at a lighter, holding it to the end of a cigarette that droops from his lips. They make their way along the edge of a field, a streamer of pale white smoke behind them.