Another trip to Brighton, another ride on National Express, an inability to resist a Funfare bargain, ok so I’m cheap! I’d earlier left London Victoria station and entered Buckingham Palace Road when it was pelting it down. Japanese tourists were being blasted against walls in their cagoules such was the ferocity of the gale force winds. Soaked and steaming I just about made it safely to the coach station to slid into a window seat midway along the coach. Estimated time of arrival in Brighton was just over 2 hours and 10 minutes, in this weather, realistically it was going to be nearer to 3 hours. I Prepared myself for a stiff arse and an uneasy sleep.
With 5 minutes left to departure the coach was hijacked by a works outing. I discovered later, by carers and admin support staff from a residential care home in South London. I was honoured to have, wedged in behind me, Hettie who had a compulsive eating disorder, along with a talking disorder, and who hyperventilated for the entire journey to Brighton. Hettie’s best friend was called Marjorie who was equally as obese and was pressed in beside Hettie, she was also sitting immediately behind my rucksack. They had known each other since primary school, and last year Marjorie had a corn removed from her foot, which was painful, perhaps not painful enough. They proceeded to prattle on for the next 3 hours in a dialect reminiscent of West Indian cricket commentators from the 1970s.
The first startling revelation was that Marjorie’s husband was losing his sex drive, something to do with his “lavido” going down hill. Hettie suggested that he would benefit from eating spicy food, apparently that’s what her mum would have recommended. How would that conversation ever have come about? Would Hettie’s mum have confided in her about her own father or perhaps she had already spoken to her mother about her own husband?
Hettie then gave a monologue on the history of her menstrual cycles for the past 5 years. It was gruesome especially in the knowledge that Hettie was currently experiencing the back end of a typical period from hell and wondered whether she had brought enough pads for the journey and wouldn’t have been half surprised if she leaked onto the seat. I thought perhaps she could ask the coach driver for a fire blanket to double up for a pad, this would have seen her safely through to Brighton, she could then have freshened up in the sea.
I had little choice but to listen to these exchanges, which were indispersed with belly laughs, which in turn shook the rivets of my seat. My Iphone was down to its last 10% of battery life, so listening to AC/DC was not an option to drown out their interference. Collectively they soon tore apart Kelly, a work colleague, who was not only eating excessively at work, ha, that’s rich, she was also spending too much time on her mobile and, wore no “undies” to work! I cannot even begin to imagine how they worked this one out.
After what seemed like 3 days we eventually approached Gatwick Airport in a deluge. I anticipated an announcement condemning me to several more hours of misery in the coach due to the weather, however the coach driver took pity on me and decided to continue with his journey and even made an amusing reference to Noah and racing him to Brighton’s seafront. Soon Hettie and Marjorie couldn’t resist breaking into their lunch boxes, it was barely 11 in the morning. I could hear Hettie ripping into smoked chicken thighs whilst Marjorie slurped down a rice dish overdosed with garlic. They also shared an enormous loaf and a large bottle of Diet Coke. Although I couldn’t be certain, I suspected it was Marjorie who was belching the loudest. In my desperation I was the first to scramble out of the coach, I wanted to get as far away as possible from the fearsome Hettie and Marjorie.
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