Gem.

Immediately Gem is engaging, breathlessly sparkly and making good eye contact which is strange for me as most if not all people talk via the windscreen. You’re happy! I say with a big smile, ‘No’ she replies and sighs. ‘I’m trying to get my daughter back, she is four next month and they won’t let me see her’ My first surprise is that she was old enough to even have children, she being so small, I would have guessed her age at 14ish maybe a bit older. She is 23. ‘It’s my ex-boyfriend he hurt her while I was at work’ I took her to the doctors, not knowing… Her face is wet. ’I will get her back. He hurt her. He hurt her… I have stopped the cab for a while now, just listening.

Do I have a judgement? Do I dare? I believed her, a combination of harsh association with a vicious child man/boyfriend that stubbed cigarettes out on a child. He disappeared, left her with the burden of loss. Her family has left her with that burden too. She does not have boyfriends anymore and is at college. Her incredible fortitude and positive outlook looked unshakable, not a victim, not a ‘poor me.’

That was eight years ago.

Very recently, I saw her. A small young woman with another small young woman both exactly the same size coming out of Boots in St Leonards, was it her daughter that was with her? It was. How sure am I?  I know how mums are with their children. She was simply being a mum and my face was wet that’s how I know.

Lulu.

She puts on her own seatbelt and waves goodbye to the staff at the centre who have put her in my cab. I have taken Lulu to and from the centre for many years now. She shoves polo mints into my mouth and waves ten pound notes in front of my face to pay me when I’m driving. She cries when I hit potholes and is beside herself when there is a delay or traffic. ‘What’s your name? Is something she has asked me once a week for the last 14 years.

Today though is a special day. Today she has had a celebration. Lulu has had a party.

She has a phone, she likes the beeps and whistles it makes. She makes a call; ‘Hello? Hello? Its forty years today! Yes! I had a party! Forty years in the home! Hello? Hello? The line is dead. Ten seconds the call lasted, to her sister. Busy I suspect, our lives are busy after all. ‘What’s your name?’ She asks, I am already new to her yet again and after searching her cardigan pocket she shoves a hairy polo mint into my mouth.

See you next week Lulu.

Miguel.

Tall, tanned with a duffel bag he sits in front with me.   “I am Miguel” instantly my language centre of my brain deduces quickly that Miguel is a student, in fact, a foreign student. I say hello back, in English. Slowly.  I notice his knees are very tanned, already I’m annoyed he can get away with wearing shorts as I look stupid even standing next to a rack of shorts in a shop.  Me with my white british knees. “I love England, it is pretty” I sense he is reciting a Spanish Janet and John ‘how to speak the English’ book for the under-fives. Probably not though, last time I spoke Spanish I said “graphiarse” instead of gracias, somehow my lips got involved and both colluded to embarrass me. We are making good progress and about halfway to his destination he starts to move about in his seat to face me, he starts to stroke the side of the seat and that instantly puts me into my I-appreciate-your-gay-but-I’m-not-mode, as I am quite a catch for the younger gay men of this world. I am thinking he wants to stay in the UK with the perfect sugar daddy, which is me obviously.  It is funny what conclusions you can come to in a few seconds. “Have you want to seen my banana?” Miguel insists whilst tapping my arm and has a pout on, like they do in them ‘selfies’ you see on twitter and that Facebook. I have to stop, he’s crossed a boundary touching me and offering me his ‘banana.’ I pull over, get out and stomp around to the passenger door, open it and drag him and his tanned knees out. He is crying and wailing, not sure what he is saying but I get in and drive away. Feeling bloody miffed I can tell you, I’m always being picked on by the gays, just because I have perfect nails, lovely teeth, wear lovely clothes, wash almost every day and listen to Melody Gardot. I’m miffed me, miffed.   Much later while searching for a penny that fell out of my quite perfectly manicured hand down the side of the passenger seat, I find a bandana.  The penny dropping was perhaps a metaphor for the penny dropping in my perfectly moisturised and quaffered head. ‘Have I seen his bandana?’ is what Miguel was trying to say to me. I feel a bit daft and embarrassed; he was not trying to pull me to be his sugar daddy, he was looking for his bandana! I still have it. I wore it when I dressed as a pirate for pirate day, tied it to my sword. Very fetching.

Hank.

“Where can I get a REALLY good shag man?” He seemed very keen to get the best and I knew just the place. “How much cash do you think I’ll need?” I don’t know how much a really good shag is these days and told good 'ol American boy Hank you generally get what you pay for, he elbowed me in that manly way that’s quite annoying. We stopped at a cash point and emptied it, this guy is obviously out to pay for the best shag he could get while he’s here in England and I’m worried now that the little place I know won’t have what he’s looking for, fortunately I’ve seen what they have to offer and it looks good enough to me. “I’m a bit nervous! He is wringing his hands er… nervously; bit odd I thought, after all, it’s quite normal, maybe the town he lives in hasn’t got a place quite like the one I’m taking him to.  I tell him I think he will be pleased as you can get ready rubbed as well and they do quite a good rough one. His eyes light up. OH. MY. GOD!  He is starting to animate and jiggle about which is not really doing my suspension any good as Hank is quite a large man. We arrive at the bottom of the street in the old town and I cannot go any further. His large spongy wet hand shakes mine, he pays me and gives me a whole pound tip. I gesture where it is and tell him it is the fifth or sixth door up on the left. “How will I know it’s the right door?” I winked at him and told him he will know and watched him walk up the street, he stopped roughly where I said the place would be and I gave him the thumbs up. He did not look that happy, don’t know why, it’s the only proper tobacconist shop I know in this town. Some people are never happy are they?

Hammy.

A small diminutive man. Drunk, happy and full of things to say, I cannot understand a single word so I nod an awful lot. He wears a tartan cap with a bright red bobble on top.  He is Scottish and sees the cultural irony in his choice of headwear. Worried that my constant nodding to his indecipherable drivel will turn into a twitch, I then decide to ‘hmm’ agreeingly. We arrive, he pays me in 2p and 20p pieces and I am now wondering should I reinforce the floor beneath my bed where my change bucket lives. He finally decides to leave the cab, his face bright red with joy matching his bobble on his cap. He stops, bellows something to me in drunk Glaswegian, opens his yellow polystyrene box of steaming hot fatty kebab meat, grabs a large handful of what scientists are still deciding whether it is meat at all and deposits it onto my instrument cowling right in front of me. The grease is hot and is already running down my leg and to my brogues that I dutifully polish every day. He is tearful at his bountiful generosity as he slaps the same greasy hand onto my shoulder and gives it a squeeze as he gets out, wobbles and falls into a bush. This was my tip. I drove home open mouthed, incredulous and in shock to wash and change. Took an hour to get the grease out of the carpet in the cab. AN HOUR.

Karen.

I almost gave up waiting when a well-dressed, well-groomed young woman appeared with a small luggage case on wheels. She has been in the secure unit for six months. “We have to go and get my dog” so off we go to get her dog. She tells me she has been sectioned before and because of that, when the argument occurred with her boyfriend they locked her up again. She is worried, “What if my dog doesn’t recognise me? “What if he has been given a new home”? We arrived at the kennels that is some distance from the town. Karen has been in the office for some time and decides to stand outside. She needs to be outside. Way across the huge yard a dog is being walked and he is barking, Karen notices and is now moving from the door. The dog, a good 150 yards away is going nuts and is let go by its walker and runs across the vast yard. “Jimmy! Karen shouts, the dog is barking/crying as it missiles towards her. They meet in a dust cloud in the yard, both in the dirt, both shrieking with joy. Karen is on her back being washed by Jimmy, immaculate clothing not so anymore. A scene of happiness of such I rarely see in real life. It took an age to calm them both down enough to get them in the cab. Jimmies tail never missed a beat the whole journey. Karen only had the £4.20 she was sectioned with and my meter said £19.80 but that was ok. I took it and was happy with it. Karen saw me crying in the yard but that was ok as well.