# 2584 in an occasional series
On the bus home this evening I was vaguely aware of a mother and child of probably Infant School age. The mother was engrossed in a book, the child was singing to himself. Sitting on the floor of the bus, but singing to himself, some song about ski-ing. There was a bag of abandoned Kentucky Fried Rat on the floor, and the child started playing with it. She slapped him across the arm "Leave it! You'll make it smell."
He started doing a sophisticated commentery on the traffic. I glanced across, thinking it may be someone I knew, but that was a stupid thought, because his parents engage him in conversation in a very engaged and engaging way. She completely ignored him.
The bus stop before my mine, she leaned across and rung the bell. "Get off here!" she said. The child leaned across, saying "I'm going to ring the bell again." "Stop it!" yelled the mother, and slapped him across the head.
As the bus was about to move off, I glanced sideways and the child was about to run down the pavement. The mother turned and yelled at him. The split second before she turned I saw her face. She looked as if she would rather be anywhere else than with the child, and as she turned, it seemed that she would do anything to avoid meeting hs eye.
It was strange. This is not the usual tale of a child running wild. Seemed perfectly normal behaviour to me, and I didn't find the child annoying or disruptive. He seemed bright enough, clearly enunciating the words of a fairly complex song and his commentary made sense to me. I don't approve of the lashing out, but that's not what this is about. It scared me to see the absolute lack of rapport or communication between the two. I have reported absolutely everything she said to him, there was no conversation.
I'm assuming it was the mother; for a bit I thought it may be the hired help, but from the glance I gave them, they looked alike.
I suppose it's none of my business, I don't know what's going on in their lives, I don't know her state of mental health. There's a lot I don't know. But it just seemed an extraordinarily bizarre way to pass a bus journey.
And what is haunting me is that lack of eye contact. It just wasn't normal.
