Low life | 29 November 2018

Three of us on a cold metal bench waiting for the bus. It’s almost dark. Winter arrived yesterday and we are frozen. Next to me sits a small, moon-faced woman wearing a brown beret. Her spectacles are missing an arm. She is wearing unlaced plimsolls with no socks, a thin black skirt and an anorak with no padding. Her shopping bag appears to contain rubbish. She has been waiting since ten o’clock this morning. Next to her is an old man wearing pathetically flimsy, broken-down trainers. His bony knees are outlined by the worn-out cotton of his trousers. His face is ashen with cold. He’s been waiting since noon. I’ve been waiting two hours. We are waiting for the coach to Nice. I’m hoping to get to Nice airport to catch a flight to Bristol.

Of the possible causes of the absence of coaches to Nice, the ineluctable one is a nationwide protest by yellow-jacketed anti-Macron protesters. Everyone assumed that their impromptu roadblocks would be a one-day affair. But this is the fourth day and the slip road from the motorway to the town is again barricaded. Maybe the protestors will make their point, then go home and a nice warm coach will come through and take us to Nice. That is what we are hoping.

Staring straight ahead, we make desultory comments about how cold we are. Or we speculate, sometimes hopefully, sometimes not. Once, however, the old man speaks confidentially and at great length into the woman’s ear. I can’t hear what he is saying. The moon-faced woman keeps her face averted from him. Perhaps he is proposing congress. Perhaps he is reciting an epic poem. I don’t know.

Normally three coaches a day go to Nice, 100 miles away.