They’re the people I see every day. The people I have the most physical contact with, the people I have at least one life-destination in common with. I just don’t actually know who they are. It’s London, you see, so we don’t really *do* eye contact.

Granted, the life destination in question may be the Angel Islington, but with a life that mainly revolves around work, collapse and sleep at the moment, I feel like I don’t see anyone at the moment as much as I see the people on my bus each morning.

My bussies. I’d call them my homies, but I don’t want them to know where I live.

I’m starting to feel quite fond of my bussies.
I see them more than I see my friends, my family, my beloved, so, I reckon, I might as well get to know them as best I can (without speaking to them of course). After all, we see each other every day.

When I say see each other, of course, I’ll never know them, their names, or their destinations, their likes or dislikes. But I know their coats. And their handbags. I know their ringtones, I know the voice they answer their mobile phone with in public, and the difference when it’s work or someone else. Some of them, I know their favourite deoderant, but that’s London for you.

Mostly, though, I know them by their books. See, I’m not too tall, and sometimes (only sometimes, mind) manage to fight my way to a seat, which either way, puts me about the same level as most people’s tightly-clutched chesticular reading matter. We bump along the London streets, and, listening to endless tunes on shuffle (it’s mainly classic Bollywood hits at the moment, I confess) I stare at the crumpled covers and pages, and get to know my bussie book club.

Mr SmallIsland. He’s a slow reader, but thorough. Throughout the 25 minute journey, he won’t raise his head from the page once, but the corners are folded over every four, or perhaps five sheets - sometimes even less. His brow is furrowed, and his eyes fixed. I wonder what he’s doing when he’s not actually reading though - whether a word or a sentence has set off a train of thought, or whether the words and lines and paragraphs are simply drowning out the noise of the bus and all thoughts of the day and of London.

He reads in the bath. In fact, he gets through a lot more in the bath than he does on the bus. Is it bad that I think about that? It’s not that I’m thinking about him naked - believe me, I’m not, believe me, you’ve not seen him, I’m really, really not - just about the crisped, curling, curvy edges of whole chapters - then there’ll be another section of five-page lunges on juddering bus journeys, then another long, more pleasant escapist mental journey, with bubbles slowly popping between the drips falling from the tip of his hairline and the cold enamel of the bath. Fingers wrinkle, and bus stops flash past as he moves through his story, slowly, slowly.

I tried to read it once, I want to tell him. I tried. I failed. I got three chapters in. I want to ask him if I should have bothered reading further. I want to. But we’re the kind of book club that will never talk.

Mrs MyNameIsRed. She started the book on holiday. She still has her tan, though February has done a good job of fading the fuck out of it.

Her place in the much lauded historical mystery is marked by a ticket stub from an exotic airline.

She turns the pages too fast. I did too, when I read it (mostly on an exotic holiday too, coincidentally enough), skipping over the interminable art history lessons in desperate search of plot.

Sometimes she’ll look up, taking a moment in the busy business of tearing through art history 19 pages at a time. And she’ll find a space between the shoulders and the stony faces of her bussies, and wistful herself out of the stress-soaked mass of commuters, through the dirty rain-streaked window and back to some distant sun-sodden beach.

The other day, unusually, I took my book on the bus. It was one those books that are always getting torn apart and fawned over in Book Groups. I was reading it, partly, I admit, in case I start a book group of the kind where you actually have to talk to people.

I noticed a couple of eyes flicking over my dog-eared progress. A couple of faces being pulled, while my bussies gave voice (in their head) to their opinon of my choice. I was silently - and unnoticably, of course - grateful for their input. And thought in turn about my measured response to whatever it was they might have thought.

We’re bussies, you see, we don’t need to talk.
And we’ll be bussies until - well until we change coat. Or handbag. Or book.
Because that, my invisible friends, is a change as bad as a facelift.
Change those, change all of those, and I’d never recognise my bosom bussie again. It’s London, you see.
We don’t really *do* eye contact.