I buy a Metro Voyager Ticket and board the bus. We're off, and upstairs in the prow we rise and fall with the undulations of the road.
I'm reading a novel, Half a Life. Willy Chandran, Indian, has moved from London to Mozambique with a Portuguese lover. Signs along our course welcome us into Surrey and then into West Sussex again as we weave across the border.
"My parents are in India." Course mates are talking on the seat behind me.
"So you're Indian?"
"Well, part. My mum's part Polish. I'm half Indian."
"Why don't you just say 'part'?"
"I'm four-eighths Ukranian." Her voice goes quiet as she continues to divide in her head.
"Nice houses," says her friend, looking out at new builds made to look old. We sail past bus-stops at which people neither board nor disembark. No one seems to live here.
"Three-eighths Polish"
"Why don't you just say 'part'?"
"I like working it out."
Willy on the page is also trying to work it out.
Beyond the estates, the bus throws itself forward into forest. We are pounded by boughs like rocks on an unsafe coast-line. There is an almighty battering every time we pass these wild branches. We wince and duck. This is the voyage home to Crawley.
I'm reading a novel, Half a Life. Willy Chandran, Indian, has moved from London to Mozambique with a Portuguese lover. Signs along our course welcome us into Surrey and then into West Sussex again as we weave across the border.
"My parents are in India." Course mates are talking on the seat behind me.
"So you're Indian?"
"Well, part. My mum's part Polish. I'm half Indian."
"Why don't you just say 'part'?"
"I'm four-eighths Ukranian." Her voice goes quiet as she continues to divide in her head.
"Nice houses," says her friend, looking out at new builds made to look old. We sail past bus-stops at which people neither board nor disembark. No one seems to live here.
"Three-eighths Polish"
"Why don't you just say 'part'?"
"I like working it out."
Willy on the page is also trying to work it out.
Beyond the estates, the bus throws itself forward into forest. We are pounded by boughs like rocks on an unsafe coast-line. There is an almighty battering every time we pass these wild branches. We wince and duck. This is the voyage home to Crawley.
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