Bus Story 9: It's all my fault
- lisaluger
- Jul 15, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 16, 2023
Stansted, September 2017
(UK) We were returning from visiting friends in Munich and had landed at Stansted Airport. It was 11 pm, and, as always, at this time, it was busy. Planes from all over Europe were landing just before the night flight ban came into effect.
Like us, most of the holidaymakers or weekend travellers returning to London at this time were tired and just wanted to get home and rest. There was a lot of pushing and shoving in the queue for the bus, but it was light-hearted rather than aggressive.
In front of us in the queue, two Irish men in their early 40s made everyone laugh with their jokes. They must have been drinking on board or before boarding at the airport and were now in a good mood and a bit tipsy. They joked and laughed and turned their attention to two young English women gallantly courting them.
They helped them with their luggage as they boarded the bus, settled down next to them and tried to get a little kiss as a reward for their help. The two women were quite taken with it and giggled. They seemed to enjoy the harmless flirtation and were having fun. The four of them sat down on the seats in front of us and continued chatting and laughing as the bus pulled away from Stansted Airport.
The journey to our stop at Golders Green in north London would only take about an hour at this time of day, so we were relaxed about the charm offensive of the two men and the giggling reactions of the two young women. We braced ourselves for an entertaining and diverting ride. But things turned out differently.
A few minutes after the bus had pulled onto the M11 motorway, the older of the two Irishmen (I seem to remember that his friend called him Paddy, from Patrick) received a phone call. Paddy laughed, grinned at the girls and blew them a kiss as he took the call.
But then his expression changed abruptly. His face turned ashen, and he shouted into the receiver, "What, can you say that again?"
And after a few seconds, "Oh no! Is he dead? He's dead, isn't he? Oh my God, oh my God!"
On the bus, all attention was now on him. All conversations fell silent. Everyone wanted to know what had happened.
But for the time being, all one could hear from the shocked man was unintelligible mumbling on the phone. Finally, Paddy hung up and desperately called many people one after the other, hoping to find out more.
One of the two women on the other side of the aisle, who only a few minutes before had had all his amorous attention, tried to calm him down by touching his arm and shoulder. He angrily pushed her arm away with a brusque " f**k off!" and went back to trying to figure out what had happened.
The rest of us were now also really interested in finding out what terrible blow of fate had turned the cheerfully cheeky man into a stunned, frightened and shocked person. "Oh, my God! Oh my God!" was all we could hear from him.
Over the next hour of our journey and quite a few phone calls later, we were able to get a rough picture of the event that had so shaken our fellow traveller.
As it appeared, Paddy's younger brother had had an accident with a friend on the way home after a Sunday meeting with friends. The friend had been driving. The brother had been seriously injured and taken to a nearby hospital, where some friends and family members were waiting for further news from the doctors who operated on him.
So any phone call could reveal whether his little brother was still alive.
The passengers held their breath, felt for him and hoped the young man would survive. We could all understand the fear, panic and helplessness that this man was going through at that moment.
He kept stammering between calls, "Oh my God!" or pleading with St Mary for help in intermittent prayers. He sobbed loudly and cried again and again, "It's all my fault! Oh my God, it's all my fault!"
Witnessing this nightmare without being able to help was hard to bear. The two women next to him were silent and did not even dare to look at him to not upset him again.
Everyone on the bus was very sympathetic. No one spoke or laughed. There was a sombre atmosphere on this National Express Airport bus to London.
I'm sure some of us wondered, as we did, what the guilt was that Paddy kept talking about.
We were glad when we finally arrived at our stop in Golders Green. But the first to rise from his seat was Paddy.
He rushed forward but not to get off. Instead, he had spotted among the passengers in the front row a Catholic priest in a soutane, frock and collar, who had fallen asleep peacefully in his seat during the journey. Paddy shook the poor man awake, knelt in front of him and asked for his blessing and forgiveness of his sins. The frightened priest agreed but inquired why.
The anguished man only wept inconsolably and murmured between sobs, "It is all my fault, for I have sinned. God has punished me for my sins by taking my little brother away from me. That's why he had this accident and will die - because of me." How terrible! What kind of attitude to life was that, and what guilt did you have to live with when you were convinced that you could be guilty of the death of a loved one through a sinful lifestyle?!
At the moment of this absolute emotional low, the desperate Irish man's friend suddenly held up his phone and shouted: "He will live! They just said he's going to pull through!" And through the tears, hope, relief, and the smile returned to the man's face. Finally, as more and more passengers pushed for the exit, Paddy gave way, and we too could leave the bus.
On the way home and for a long time afterwards, this scene ran through my mind. I could still hear his desperate loud lament: "It is all my fault, for I have sinned!" (LL)
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