I had to move my bag to make room for him. It\nwasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a\nsardonic, “Happy New Year!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You a Swansea boy?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Pontypool,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Pontypool Front Row! Remember\nthem?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham\nPrice,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“More of a Neath boy, me. From Resolven I\nam … you’d think I’d be one for making New Year’s resolutions, wouldn’t you?\nIt’s in the name.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I let the chug of the bus answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The number of times I have given up fags\nand booze … Eventually, the penny drops, don’t it. No point making yourself\nmiserable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, just\npast mid-day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
“The Missus, now – a different kettle of\nfish altogether. If she fell off an horse, she was the kind to jump straight\nback on. Weight it was, with her. Every January, the same. I told her, don’t be\nso soft – you’re not fat. Chubby you are. A good cuddler! But she wouldn’t have\nit. The nurse had told her she was borderline obese. That was it. She was going\nto lose a stone in a month.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at him. He wore a flat cap that looked\nas if he’d been born in it. There were leathery creases around his eyes and his\nmouth had come to rest, lips slightly apart, in a silent chuckle. His small\ndark eyes flashed, as he turned to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I lost her 17 months ago,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m sorry,” I said. It came out\nmuffled, as if I didn’t really mean it, but he didn’t seem to notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“She did me a big<\/em> favour.”\nThere was a pause. “She was a Tonna girl, see, and after I lost my job\nbehind the bar, when the Working Men’s Institute closed down in Resolven, she\nset her heart on going back to Tonna. Four years we had there before she passed\naway. Best thing we ever did. The people there are so friendly. I got more\nfriends in Tonna than I ever had in Resolven. I got people coming round to see\nme; calling out my name in the street. It’s amazing. I got a strange name,\nsee.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at me as if he might have said enough\nfor me to make a guess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then he gave me a clue: “Where did Cardiff\nCity used to play”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ninian Park,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That’s it. That’s my name! Ninian!”\nIt was as if I was the first person he had ever told. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bus was already pulling in at his stop. He\ngot up, explaining that he was off to spend the night at his daughter’s, the\nsame every Monday since his wife had died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Good to meet you, Ninian,” I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the bus pulled away, he waved at me through\nthe window. I waved back. It was January 5th. I resolved to speak to people on\nbuses more often. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had to move my bag to make room for him. It wasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a sardonic, “Happy New Year!” “You a Swansea boy?” “Pontypool,” I said. “The Pontypool Front Row! Remember them?” “Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham Price,” I said. “More of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[121,120],"tags":[95,8,7,20,13,140,9,14,11],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-121","category-newyearresolutions","tag-had","tag-he","tag-her","tag-his","tag-me","tag-resolven","tag-said","tag-she","tag-was"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-45","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}