I went to Seren on the Saturday. Not to the council, not to anybody official, to her, in her kitchen, and I told her everything, including the fourteen months and including that I had known something was wrong for eleven of them and had bought sandwiches instead of saying so.
She did not shout at me. She sat down on the floor, actually on the floor, with her back against the cupboard.
The debt on that meter was four hundred and ten dollars of standing charge arrears, which is the part people do not know about prepayment meters: they take the arrears out of every top-up before you get any electricity at all.
The depot heard about it because I told nine people in one week, including my own union rep, who turned out to be the most useful person in this entire story.
Between the drivers’ social fund and a collection in the canteen we put together six hundred and twenty dollars in eleven days.
The arrears are gone. The meter went to a credit account in the February.
Bronwen is eleven now. She does not ride the 42 on Thursdays.
She rides it on Sundays, once a month, with her mother, who gets on at Kelso Row and pays two adult singles because she will not let me not charge her.
They sit in the third row behind me on the left.
And I still bring the flask with two cups in it, and nobody on that bus pretends any more that it was ever an accident.
