I had got to know the Lisbon – Madrid bus service rather too well over the year of 2001 to 2002 that I had spent living in Madrid. That year was a train-wreck for me in all terms imaginable and those nine-hour long over-night bus journeys over those barren flatlands of western Iberia, back and forth every couple of months, mile after slow mile in all their sleepless discomfort, were a grinding echo of how shattered and empty I felt.

It was an awful service. As it was relatively cheap, those who used it were mostly students, the young and the poor, many foreign migrants – mostly from Latin America, the Magreb and sub-Saharan Africa – and others without means. They were all mostly rough and unpolished and sometimes unwashed but generally they were quiet and respectful of others, at times demonstrating extreme acts of kindness and generosity to their fellow travelers. Over the months I had got to know many of the drivers – all of whom were Spanish as it happens – and with whom I’d exchange hellos and a few pleasantries over the course of the journey. Most of them quite clearly were decent and humane but others were embittered racists who grumbled quite audibly about “los putos moros” as they drove, without any shame whatsoever, coughing up their bile through half a mouthful of rotten, yellow teeth. I saw this sort of thing more than once, but I clearly remember standing in line at Gare do Oriente in Lisbon, waiting to get on the bus, with one of these Neanderthals checking people’s tickets. As the line advanced, all whites and Europeans were huffed onto the bus with a nod. When it came to an Arab or an African, the man would gesticulate theatrically in accompaniment to his slow gruff instructions in Spanish, making it clear they were not to drink, not to eat, not to smoke and not to take their shoes off… and at the first sign of trouble he’d be throwing them off the bus. A young African lad contested one of his instructions and the driver replied agressively “ …es que no te entiendo. Háblame en cristiano.” En cristiano!? I couldn’t believe my ears! Other than understanding what it meant and what it implied and having read the expression in books I had never heard anyone use it in conversation before.

That was the first time. The second time I heard it used was when I was working as a waiter at a restaurant in Madrid a few months later. The place was a very fashionable restaurant on Calle Almirante run by three French partners; Frederick, Antoine and Karim. Frederick was the chef; a real bruiser, built like a brick shit-house with a shaven head and piercing blue eyes who ran a tight crew in the kitchen and with whom I got on very well. He was coarse in manner and demanding of his staff but always fair and a decent human being. I liked him very much. Antoine was a tall and lanky patrician from Lyon. He ran the numbers and sort-of ran us waiters in conjunction with Karim. He was nice enough but I found him frivolous, aloof and self absorbed; detached from his staff and rather unconcerned at our well-being. At that time I seem to remember I was reading Siegfried Sassoon’s “Memoirs of an infantry officer” and the image of Antoine that always came to mind was one of the proverbially inept junior officer of the French Army in the trenches, sending his men over the top for forays into no man’s land whilst he sipped claret in his dugout. Unfair of me, perhaps. Then there was Karim. I disliked him from the start and the feeling was mutual. Racially he was Magrebi and word had it that a moneyed family from Lyon had adopted him as a boy. He was slight and had a limp, which might have been due to polio as a child although I’m no longer sure. In any case, he was rude and aggressive with us, treating us like dirt, and seemed to enjoy pushing us around and taking people to task for the most trivial of matters. Basically Karim was a bully and a prick with a chip on his shoulder. There was another Oliver who worked there. This other Oliver was a lovely guy from Ghana who washed the dishes in the kitchen. No fool, he was clever and witty and had a business degree but was washing dishes for the time being as his degree was yet to be recognized in Spain. Strictly speaking Oliver was part of the kitchen crew and therefore answered to Frederick, but one afternoon Karim took him to task about something or other and Oliver replied politely in perfect Spanish albeit with his usual West African lilt. I was not two meters away when Karim replied “ …no te entiendo. Háblame en cristiano.” Quite apart from finding the comment deeply offensive – to anyone for that matter – I was struck by the irony of the situation. An ethnic Magrebi-wanna-be-white-French-toff telling an African to speak to him in Christian!! In some parallel universe I reached for a bottle of Ruinart to stove his head in; the arsehole. I was so angry!

It was the summer of 2004 and Claudia and I were together again having apparently resolved our differences over the previous winter. Humberto, her younger brother of seventeen at the time, had come over to Europe for the summer and the three of us had spent a week or so together in Portugal before heading off to Barcelona for another week or ten days. As we were doing it all on the cheap, we opted to take the infamous bus service to Barcelona. This would involve the nine-hour overnight trip to Madrid where we would change bus to then carry on to Barcelona over the following day for another eight hours. Some trip, yes… but this time I was smiling, all mushy inside, and happy to get on the bus. It wasn’t too full and everyone soon settled down to watch the shit Hollywood blockbuster video being screened which was further massacred for our pleasure by the expected dubbing into wooden Spanish. The three of us occupied a row towards the front of the bus; Claudia and I to the right with Humberto taking up the two seats to our left. A few rows ahead of us, occupying the seats right behind the driver, were a very large and corpulent African couple in their late forties, chatting loudly and happily in some, I hazard, West African language. She was big and busty and wrapped in acres of printed fabric, as I recall. The man next to her was huge and built like a Sasquatch. The gristle on his nape folded a couple of times on its way up his neck which was about as wide as my waist and which tapered up towards a bald head the size of a bowling ball. He looked like a bull and half of him spilt over into the aisle. They chatted loudly throughout the film and once it had finished and the lights were dimmed they carried on chatting as loudly as ever as if they were the only ones around. I had been reading my book all along and had zoned out of their chattering hours ago. Also I had caught these busses before, this sort of lack of consideration was par for the course plus common sense told me I wasn’t about to tell Sitting Bull and his missus to pipe it down. And they chattered on quite happily into the night.

It must have been about three hours into the trip and I was nodding off when I noticed Humberto reach over to tap the man on the shoulder quite vigorously. My eyes sprung open as the man swung round. Now Humberto –  much as I love my ex brother in law – is quite direct and pugnacious but what he lacks for in diplomatic skills he makes up for in balls. What he meant to say in Spanish was one thing, what came out of his mouth in broken English was another and the way it sounded to me was quite something else. “Cállese por favor” came out of his mouth as a confrontational “Shut Up!.. PLEASE!” The way it sounded to me was something like “ SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!… ” Yeti-cam would have recorded a frowning skinny Humberto of seventeen with his finger in the air and panning left he would have seen me with my eyes the size of saucers. Several things went through my mind at that moment. I saw Humberto getting a couple of swift smacks in the mouth and – noblesse oblige – I’d have to step in to get a gratuitous pasting, to boot. The man’s eyes were popping out of his head as he looked at Humberto and asked “WHAT?!” in a deep baritone voice.

“Shut up!!…Please!” repeated Humberto quite firmly. I held my breath…

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to sleep!”

He looked at Humberto hard, then looked at me, then looked at Humberto again before cracking a smile and bellowing “Ok…you can sleep.Hehehe…”

He promptly turned around and they nattered loudly all the way to Madrid.