Angel: - The First Encounter

Just like every other story, this story too has a beginning, only it begins a very long time ago, in the unlikeliest of places, at a time when busses were the most common means of transport, and it was the means of transport that I used the most. I really didn’t have to use the bus, but I liked it especially the minibus with drivers speeding down the road, ignoring the speed limit, blaring their horns ever so often. I still have a fondness for them, and trains. I’ve always been a huge fan of trains, especially when travelling long distance, and the most memorable train rides, that come to mind, is the ride from London Victoria to Amsterdam, and an evening ride from Melbourne to Bendigo. This particular story however concerns the bus or rather the bus-stop.

I remember the day very well. I was walking past this particular bus-stop, it was between 11 am and 12 noon, when I suddenly spotted this tall slim girl, she was fair, more so than others, and I still remember what she wore, images of her are etched like still-frames in my mind, and even today, many, many, years later, those images are still there. She was wearing a white top, and a bluish-purple knee length skirt, and she had a couple of books in her hand, and as soon as I saw her my heart missed a beat.

I took a deep breath and composed myself, and I made up my mind to talk to her. So, the very next day I went to the same bus-stop which was a couple of bus-stops away from my normal stop, after a short walk under the morning sun, slightly earlier then 11 in the morning, I didn’t want to be late, the plan was to wait at the bus-stop from 11 am to 12 noon, to see if she’d turn up. I stood there waiting, the first bus came, and I gave it a miss, and the next bus came and I gave it a miss too, I’d decided to stick to the game plan, and close to half-past-eleven I saw her walking across the street and I instantly more or less knew where she lived. Now, a normal person would have smiled, but smiling for some reason or the other, was not something that came naturally to me, and instead, I just stood there, and watched her walk past me and stand, a couple of paces, to the left behind me. This is when I realized that I couldn’t see what she was doing, but she could see everything I was doing. I couldn’t turn around and smile, well I could but I was just too shy. Instead, I just stood there and looked at the houses across the street, and waited for the bus to turn up, and when it did, I got on. I did these three consecutive times, and the fourth time, she’d probably sussed me out by then, she stood beside me, and smiled, and I thank god that she did because I would never have summed up the courage to smile at her, and we started talking.

I’m not sure who started the conversation, but I remember asking her, why she looked so fair, I sometimes asked the dumbest of questions, I’ve always been blunt that way, and fortunately she didn’t take it the wrong way, and she replied, “that’s because I’m an Anglo”. “Ah”, that made sense, not really but that meant that I stood a chance, she was kinda like me but not like me — not that it really mattered anyway.

This bus-stop became our regular meeting place, we’d get there slightly before 11 in the morning and chat until about half past, and get on the bus, sit beside each other, if there were seats available or stand beside each other if the seats were taken up and just talk. She was a teacher, and she was a couple of years older than me, but that has never stopped anyone before and it didn’t stop me either, and as the days went by, I started to look forward to meeting her, and we continued in this manner for weeks, dating at the time, was a bit difficult. However, I did manage to bunk a few classes, and because she was already working, we had some money between us, and we managed to occasionally get away, and find ourselves a quiet, secluded spot, and just while away our time.

We both loved books, and that was something that we would always talk about, at that stage neither of us had had anything published, but we always intended to head in that direction. She was the first girl that I’d ever really spoken to, at that stage of my life anyway, I was from an all-boys school, but I somehow managed to keep it together, and things progressed smoothly, and because we spent most of our free time together I never really got into any scrapes, and from that perspective she was really good for me.

She was my first love, and many years on, I ask myself if I’ve ever fallen in love again, and I can’t say for certain that I have. People tend to underestimate “the first love” factor, and I would learn a bitter lesson years later, when I tried to break up my daughter’s first love, for no other reason other than the fact that I wanted to test the waters and boy did she go ballistic. I realize now more than ever that your first love is something that you would never forget and it is something that you will most likely carry with you to your grave.