The ferry at the bottom of the steps

An original literary non-fiction-style account of making a short crossing on a small river ferry.

The ferry could be seen from the top of the steps, which made missing it feel unnecessarily personal. I watched it move away while I was still halfway down. On the far bank, a woman held two shopping bags and waited without waving. Beside her, a cyclist leaned on his handlebars and looked towards our side.

When the boat returned, the ferryman held it while people stepped on. The woman put one bag down and shook her fingers before lifting it again. The cyclist waited for her to pass. Nobody looked as though they were beginning an adventure. They were carrying the unfinished parts of an ordinary morning across a narrow interruption in the town.

I had paid for a crossing, and at first measured it by how little distance the ticket seemed to buy. Then the boat turned, giving us a view along the river instead of directly towards the other bank. The backs of buildings appeared, with drainpipes, small balconies and windows absent from the high street. A man pointed out a chair which stood permanently beneath an awning. His companion said that she had never seen anyone sitting in it, though she crossed most days.

The ferryman answered a question about the next service while watching the landing. At the far side, the cyclist guided his bicycle up the steps slowly enough for the woman behind him to keep pace. Further along the bank, traffic moved over a bridge which I could have reached after a much longer walk.

On my return that afternoon, I recognised the empty chair beneath the awning. The woman with the bags was not on the boat, but someone else carried a parcel of almost the same awkward size. The crossing remained short. This time, when I put the ticket in my pocket, I was less certain that distance was the most useful way to describe what it had saved.

What do you learn from the whole passage about the ferry’s place in everyday life?