Dear Lucy,
Just before I left London, to finally return home, the funniest thing happened.
It all began on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon …
A man reached the top, dressed in weathered outdoor gear and a backpack, his bearded face flushed and sweaty. Triumphant he stood, taking it all in. That’s when I caught his eye. I was sitting further back on the top deck of the 87 Bus.
I wondered what he'd seen and felt compelled to know more about his conquest, but after his moment of glory, he simply took a photo, turned around and went back down the stairs.
This wasn't the first time I’d noticed people arriving on buses, taking photos and then leaving. Of course, I had brushed it off, this was London after all; people take photos of everything, all the time.
But later that day I was to finally discover that I was in fact, the subject of an online interactive tourist scheme.
An over-excited American gave it away as she shouted, “There she is! There she is!” whilst fumbling with her oversized Ipad to take a photo. I was busy chuntering under my breath, “Why don’t you just shout, ‘come and steal my Ipad’ you silly tourist,” not realising she was pointing at me.
But the next moment, two men in dark glasses and curly telephone wires strapped to their faces physically removed her.
I asked the small crowd that had gathered what was going on and, security averted, two of them quickly told me - and these were their words - that I was the star of a show called ‘Catch her if you can!’
As I say, it was actually a scheme, not a show, created by a particularly creative intern at City Hall who had been tasked with thinking of a way to get more tourists taking the bus.
It featured a livestream of all the buses that I took, plus photos of me, stamped with the bus number. The tourists could submit their photo and, as long as I wasn’t looking (the scheme relied on my not being aware of it), it would be posted and they’d win free tickets to various shows and attractions along of course with free bus travel for the remainder of their stay.
I think it should have been called ‘The CP Show,’ because it was about me after all but they didn’t know anything about me. They’d simply selected me after my face kept popping up on endless security cameras; from Kentish Town to Peckham to Balham and everywhere in between, my bus-footprint was unmatched.
In addition, I’d demonstrated a finely-tuned ability for pretending not to notice strange people on the bus. The lawyers assured those in charge that this, along with my low economic status (wealthy people rarely take the bus) meant the risk of repercussions was minimal.
The scheme had been mildly successful but it became a hit when a video clip of me sticking out my tongue at someone on another bus and getting my jaw stuck went viral, hence the hysterical American lady. I had become famous-ish in that instant. In my defence, it was a child and I was being playful.
The cat, now out of the bag, led to the scheme being cancelled and all content deleted, though I believe you can still find some of it on the dark web. I didn’t get any compensation because the lawyers were right, I didn’t make a fuss.
But I was miffed nonetheless. My bus-taking life had been disrupted, unlike the buses themselves which generally operated excellently. No more could I take the 507 in peace. A gentle route that circulates between Waterloo and Victoria, just right for calming down after you’ve discovered you’re famous.
But, as with most challenging situations it led to an opportunity. Like Truman, I also wanted to escape; but I wanted to go back to the confines of my hometown.
The world, as it had turned out, or at least London, was too big for me. Too many options, too many places to fail to find myself, nothing to ground me other than familiar bus routes. I needed the anchor of home, the familiarity of the place I grew up in with its trees and beautiful pond. I needed to reclaim the parts of myself I’d left behind when I fled to the big city. I needed to get off the bus.
And so, I did. I got off the bus, boarded a train and came home.
Lovely.