I light a cigarette and sit down. I can feel the metal chill of the bench through my jeans; the early spring sun had arrived and was bright but wasn't yet ready to warm the Earth. Winter was a recent memory but the recent mild weather had focused optimistic minds ahead to summer. But that would be another two months or more - there would be the inevitable April showers to negotiate first. I should buy a new umbrella.

Saturday lunchtime at the bus station. Groups of young skaters meet to take over the grey concrete: a day-long invasion, then back home in time for dinner. A pretty teenage girl sits on the steps and intermittently watches her friends jump off kerbs and slide down the station's banisters. She seems more interested in her book - Kerouac? Hard to tell from here. She folds the book back on itself and brushes her hair out of her eyes. I should read more Kerouac.

A man in a dark jacket walks past, breaking my view. He sits down on the bench opposite me and is flanked by an older man and a young boy. The three of them share the same long nose and pale complexion. They look like Russian dolls: the older man sat on the left, taller and fatter; the man in the dark jacket in the middle; the boy on the right. The boy is reading a comic and swinging his legs under then bench. He carefully rests the comic on his knees and sips from a can of Coke. For 1pm, the man looks exhausted. He rubs his face with his hands, perhaps attempting to jump-start his mood. He searches through his shopping bags for a few moments before resurfacing with a packet of cigarettes. He tears off the plastic wrapping, screws it up and tosses it back into the carrier bag. The old man sits motionless, absorbed in his newspaper. A cyclist goes by, riding one-handed and shouting into his phone.

The old man makes a loud spluttering noise and looks from his paper to the man in the jacket. "Bloody hell. It says here half the immigrants that came here last year haven't even got jobs. How can they live here and not pay tax?" He shakes his head.

The man lights a cigarette. He takes a long drag, looks around for a moment and exhales deeply. "That's just one way of looking at it. Does that number include partners and family members? Not everyone who was born over here works. But everyone pays tax in one way or another."

The old man doesn't seem to be listening. He carries on looking at the newspaper. "This country's gone to the dogs. Bloody foreigners." He spat the last two words out and screwed his face up, making the wrinkles under his eyes even deeper.

The young boy looks across. "This comic's got dogs in it, Grandad. Do you want to read it?"

The old man puts the paper down and looks across at the boy, smiling. "No thanks. Do you want some sweets? I've got some wine gums in here somewhere."

"You ought to read it, Dad. It's probably more realistic than that paper you're reading."

"Yes please. I like the red ones and the yellow ones. I quite like the green ones but they hurt my tongue. Don't give me the black ones, they're horrible."

The old man passes the bag of sweets across to the boy. "Here you go. You'll have to avoid the black ones."

The man in the jacket laughs to himself. "I'll write that on your gravestone, Dad."

My bus arrives noisily, coughing and spluttering just like the old man. I get on and sit by the window facing the family. The old man is standing up now, pointing at the man in the jacket with one hand and waving the newspaper with the other. The man just sits there, smoking and looking into the distance.

The boy is still swinging his legs and reading his comic. He looks happy. I should read more comics.