Everyday I catch a tube and bus with the same three Sikhs in their differently coloured turbans. Usually they wear varieties of pink and red, sometimes black and very occasionally, one will sport a bright orange one. We are a sort of team; they get off the tube carriage before me and we start a sort of race/run to the escalators (I like to think I win more than they do), go through the ticket barriers and then I lose them. They take a different exit at the tube stop to get to the bus stop. At first it took me a while to work this out, as I would feel them behind me as i raced through the ticket barriers (winning my imaginary race) and then they would disappear, our journey over.
Once at the bus stop, we wait quietly for the bus, which usually arrived at 7.30am. They even get off at the same stop as me. Initially I thought this was because they were stalking me (although their brightly coloured headwear made them just a little conspicuous). But when I saw them walk into the front yard of a partly demolished house near my school, I realised, of course, that they catch my tube and my bus, and get off at my stop, as they work as labourers.
We have never spoken, just the odd occasional stare (them) or averted glance (me). They are always very quiet and hardly talk to each other at the bus stop.They wear neutral clothes, offsetting their colourfully wrapped heads. They have laughed softly occasionally together. I often wonder how they ended up on a bus to Ilford in North East London, working on another person's house.
However, it always makes me feel better about getting up too early to catch a sequence of buses and trains to work when I know I have the three Sikhs following me. We are in it together, battling the surburban wilderness of North East London as a multi-coloured motley crew.
