Escape

The 199 tracks the river west until Greenwich, whereupon it peels off south to Catford. George likes the look of Greenwich. He imagines it the sort of place Adam might be living had he succumbed to family life. George and Margaret might have come to visit at weekends, they might have mooched around the market, looking for art to take home.

But Adam won’t be here. It’s too comfortable, too village. He despised the safety and mindless banality of the middle-class, spent his entire childhood desperate to escape the restrictive confines of home.

He never really grew up, mutters George to himself, quite alone on the top deck. George plans to treat himself with a trip to the Observatory, but for now he remains on the bus as Lewisham becomes Catford. It’s one of the things about London he can’t work out; where one town ends and another begins.

Catford’s cricket ground is picturesque, although he wouldn’t fancy batting on it. There is a big ridge running through the square. George didn’t play at all last year and he suspects he may have been dropped from the third XI, but he doesn’t want to ask in case it’s confirmed.

***

March is an ongoing story based on a man’s search for his lost son on London’s buses.

1 – Welcome to London
2 – Thames
3 – Ghosts