Francis was much taken by that little hat, the roll of shining curls and especially the tender whiteness of her neck. He could see nothing more of her except the shoulders of her coat, because she was sitting on the same side as he was. He could just see the flowers and the parcel because she was holding them on her knees, so that they stuck out a little into the centre aisle of the bus.

How he wished that she would turn round!

And suddenly she did; she jumped up energetically as though her patience were at an end, and came quickly towards the door. The conductor turned to stare at her. Everybody stared at her, with lustreless, vaguely disapproving eyes. Francis stared at her, too, because her own large eyes, which should have been blue and vague, were dark brown and looked so angry, and in her small, fair face they were so surprising that they took his breath away.

That’s my girl, said a tiny, clear voice in Francis’s mind. There she is. I shall call her Toby. There she is. She’s got perfect teeth (for she had parted her lips to speak to the conductor) and she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, prettier than Sylvia Sydney or Ginger Rogers.

‘Here,’ said Toby in a clear voice, just coloured by Cockney, ‘how much longer are we goin’ to be here? I got to get down to my grandma, and I’m late now.’

‘Well, it ain’t my fault,’ said the conductor. ‘I didn’t arst to be put on this route, I can tell you. It’s the same fer all of you. Yer grandma’ll ’ave to wait.’

‘Can’t I get out and walk round somehow?’

‘No, you carn’t get out and walk round some’ow, or that’s what we’d all be doin’, isn’t it? ’Ere we are, and ’ere we stay.’

‘Well, how long’s it likely to be? She’ll be worryin’. She’s ninety, my grandma is, and it’s her birthday. She’s havin’ a party.’

‘Well, if she’s lived to be all that old she carn’t be the worrying sort,’ soothed the conductor. ‘She’d a bin killed orf years ago with the air-raids and everything. You just sit down and wait. I carn’t say how long it’s likely to be. Might be five minutes, might be twenty-five, might be a hour. Might be two hours, come to that.’

‘That’s right. So it might. It gets stuck sometimes,’ said a large woman in a little round hat the colour of mud, nodding gloomily, ‘and they ’as a regular job with it.’

‘All right, be cheerful!’ said Toby, sitting down suddenly opposite Francis with a flounce, but also with a brilliant smile which took in the whole bus.

The large woman in the little hat glanced at her as though her youth, and the interesting situation of her being on the way to her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party, called for some matronly comment. But there was an air of confidence, of gay bounce, about Toby which did not encourage matrons to be patronizing and inquisitive. If Toby had not looked so neat and been so obviously a good gel, her natural manner and those eyes would have led most matrons to call her a Piece, or even a Faggot.