J. Bassett
“The Girl with Green Eyes”
(From the book “One way ticket”).

'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 …ver más…

We always go to Brighton, me and the wife. But the weather! We went one year, and it rained every day. Morning, afternoon, and night. It's true. It never stopped raining.' He laughed loudly. 'We nearly went home after the first week.' Bill laughed too.'What did you do all day, then?' he asked. Julie read about the weather in Budapest for the third time. Then she looked at the tall man's hands. They were long, brown hands, very clean. 'Nice hands,' she thought. He wore a very expensive Japanese watch. 'Japan,' she thought. 'I'd like to go to Japan.' She looked up and saw the man's eyes again over the top of his newspaper. This time she did not look away. Green eyes looked into dark brown eyes for a long, slow minute. After Newton Abbot station the guard came into the carriage to look at their tickets. 'Now then,' he said, 'where are we all going?' 'This train's late,' the man in the brown hat said. 'Twenty minutes late, by my watch.' 'Ten minutes,' the guard said. 'That's all.' He smiled at Julie. The tall dark man put his newspaper down, found his ticket, and gave it to the guard. The guard looked at it. 'You're all right, sir,' he said. 'The boat doesn't leave Plymouth before six o'clock. You've got lots of time.' The tall man smiled, put his ticket back in his pocket and opened his newspaper again. Julie didn't look at him. 'A boat,' she thought. 'He's taking a boat from Plymouth. Where's he going?' She looked at him