“Why you lying to me? I seen you with your hand out for a black cab.” This is how I come to travel through London in an unlicensed minicab at 2am on a Sunday morning –- a beaming, grandfatherly African man with a voice like a guardian angel chuckles and offers me a ride at a rate £10 cheaper than a black cab would charge, if there was a chance in hell of getting one.
In the cab, we talk about the whether anybody can trust a minicab driver. “If anybody leaves anything in this car, you can believe they get it back. You don’t get that in a black cab, no you don’t. If somebody leaves something in this car it’s a burden unto me until I get it back into the hands of its owner.”
We exchange a few easy platitudes.
“There was one lady with her friends. She was very nasty to me, shouting and carrying on. But later on I saw she’d left her blouse behind. It was a real nice blouse; you could see it was expensive. Well, I took it and had it try cleaned and hung real nice and neat on a hanger. One of these days I’m going to see that girl again – I know I will eventually – and I’m going to give her blouse back to her. She’ll be surprised at how nice I’ve been to her after she was so nasty to me.”
After this, a long silence –- Bermondsey, Surrey Quays –- during which I realize that the peppy music we’re hearing is all modern gospel.
“You ever been to the Deptford market?” No, I say. “They say it’s got everything you could want right there. They say you don’t need to go all the way to Oxford Street, just go to Deptford.” Everything's probably half the price too, I say, and he agrees, halfheartedly, as if I've missed the point.
I ask to be dropped at the bottom of my street (“don’t want to wake the whole neighborhood” I mutter, not being completely honest). “Good night,” I say. “God bless you,” he says. And I look back once more to make sure I haven’t left anything on the seat.
