There She Is

We stand at a bus shelter in Lawrence Weston, on the northern edge of Bristol. The rain is falling. It is unusually heavy, not the misting Bristol rain I have seen so far in my first two weeks in England, the kind that makes you get out your umbrella, but doesn't encourage you to open it, the kind of rain that refreshes but does not dampen, like a grocery store vegetable mister, just there to make everything look fresh.

"I should have worn my glasses," a woman says, joining me on the roadside.

"You can't read that," I say, pointing to the electronic sign telling us that our bus will arrive in seven minutes.

"I can see that all right. It's just that I thought that was my friend. It certainly looks like her." She points to another woman a distance up the walk.

A young couple join us. The man sits on the Bristol-blue plastic bench and moves left and right, up and down, drying the surface with the seat of his jogging trousers. He stands to let his wife sit on the freshly dried and polished surface.

"A true gentleman," I announce.

"Chivalry isn't dead," the woman says with admiration and a smile.

"It only comes in a new form in these modern times," I add.

"Well, I couldn't get any wetter," the man explains.

The woman looks at me now. "Where are you from?" she asks. "Canada," I reply. "I could tell from the accent," she says.

At least she doesn't think I'm American, I think. "We just moved here," I say, "just last week. We lived in London a long time ago."

"People in Bristol are friendlier than London," she goes on. "On the tube they look right through you like you're not there." "When I leave London," I say, "I feel like I'm going to England." "Exactly. Well, I wish you well in Bristol." There is a silence. The conversation is over. And then: "There she is." She is alerting us to our bus, rounding the corner, coming down the hill. The shelter board says "due," but it is her words that bring us all to our feet. "There she is now." "And it's always a she," I add, half question, half statement. I have heard this phrase before. The woman laughs. "If it's late," she says, "it's definitely a he."