12
The Cobbler’s ShopCouncillor Cornish paused at a bus stop and glanced down at his companion dubiously.
He was hatless and the charcoal-coloured raincoat flapping about his bones echoed the tint and texture of his fierce hair and eyebrows, so that he looked like a grey Irish elkhound slinking along silently beside an elegant child of whom he was privately terrified.
He cleared his throat: “I get my bus here for Ebbfield,” he said.
“I do too.” Julia did not look at him. There was a reckless obstinacy about her which he was trying not to recognise, it frightened him so.
“What are you going to do in Ebbfield?” He fumbled over the words and she moved as the red monster came bearing down on them and made a gesture to shoo him on to it ahead of her.
“I’ve got business on the way there,”
