‘Of course,’ the man in the brown hat said, ‘there are good policemen and there
are bad policemen, you know.’ ‘You’re right,’ the young man said.
‘Yes. That’s very true. Isn’t it, Julie?’ He looked at the young woman
next to him. Julie didn’t answer and looked bored. She closed her eyes.
‘Julie’s my wife,’ the young man told the man in the brown hat. ‘She
doesn’t like trains. She always feels ill on trains.’ ‘Oh yes?’ the man
in the brown hat said. ‘Now my wife – she doesn’t like buses. She nearly
had an accident on a bus once. It was last year … No, no, it wasn’t. It was
two years ago. I remember now. It was in Manchester.’ He told a long, boring
story about his wife and a bus in Manchester.
It was a hot day and the train was slow. There were seven people in the carriage. There was
the man in the brown hat; the young man and his wife, Julie; a mother and two
children and a tall dark man in an expensive suit. The young man’s name was
Bill. He had short brown hair and a happy smile. His wife, Julie, had long red
hair and very green eyes – the colour of sea water. They were very beautiful
eyes. The man with the brown hat talked and talked He had a big red face and a
loud voice. He talked to Bill because Bill liked to talk too. The man in the
brown hat laughed a lot, and when he laughed, Bill laughed too. Bill liked
talking and laughing with people. The two children were hot and bored. They
didn’t want to sit down. They wanted to be noisy and run up and down the
train.
