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undoubted challenge, “and I do think you could wear it a bit smoother—like this,” she said, putting a photograph of Honor Blackman in the current HELLO! in front of Mary.
    Mary heard herself agreeing to this; after all, Honor Blackman was almost as old as she was. “You going to meet someone special, then, when you go away?” Karen said, as she started leafing through the magazine for more inspiration.
    “Oh, no, of course not,” said Mary, “just an old friend, but she’s rather … rather smart, you know?”
    “Mary, you’ll look smart as anything when I’ve finished with you,” said Karen. “Now let me gown you up and we’ll start with the colour. Very gently, then if you like it, we can push it a bit. When’s the trip?”
    “Oh—not for another two weeks,” Mary said.
    “Well, that’s perfect. We can sort something out, see how you like it, and then keep improving it.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    “You can go back to your own style, no problem.”
    “Bless her,” Karen said, smiling after Mary as she walked out after the first session. “That took real courage, but you know, she looks five years younger already.”
    • • •
    They had met on a bus, Mary and Russell; he was on a forty-eight-hour pass and wanted to take a look at Westminster Abbey: “Where England’s kings and greatest men are buried,” it said in his booklet.
    “Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942 ” it was called, and all servicemen had been given a copy on departing for Europe. It had produced a lot of cynical comments on the troopship, with its warning that Hitler’s propaganda chiefs saw as their major duty “to separate Britain and America and spread distrust between them. If he can do that,” the booklet went sternly on, “his chance of winning might return.”
    To this end, there were many and disparate warnings: not to use American slang, lest offence might be given— “bloody is one of their worst swear words;” not to show off or brag—“American wages and American soldiers’ pay are the highest in the world, and the British ‘tommy’ is apt to be specially touchy about the difference between his wages and ours.” And that the British had “age not size—they don’t have the ‘biggest of’ many things as we do.”
    It had warned too of warm beer, and of making fun of British accents, but most relevantly, to Russell, of the British reserve. Soldiers should not invade the Brits’ privacy, which they valued very highly; and they should certainly not expect any English person on a bus or train to strike up a conversation with them …
    • • •
    The bus he was on made its way down Regent Street, stopping halfway. Several people got on, and Russell realised a girl was standing up next to him; he scrambled to his feet, doffed his cap, and said, “Do sit down, ma’am.” She had smiled at him—she was very pretty, small and neat, with brown curly hair and big blue eyes—and she thanked him, and promptly immersed herself in a letter she pulled out of her pocket.
    The bus had stopped again at Piccadilly Circus. “See that?” saidone old man to another, pointing out of the window. “They took Eros away. Case Jerry ’it ’im.”
    “Good riddance to ’im, I’d say,” said a woman sitting behind, and they all cackled with laughter.
    The bus continued round Trafalgar Square, and Russell craned his neck to see Nelson’s Column: he wondered if Jerry might not hit that as well. They turned up Whitehall; about halfway along, a great wall of sandbags stood at what one of the old men obligingly informed the entire bus was the entrance to Downing Street. “Keeping Mr. Churchill safe, please God.” There was a general murmur of agreement.
    Everyone seemed very cheerful; looking not just at his fellow passengers, but the people in the street, briskly striding men, pretty girls with peroxided hair, Russell thought how amazing it was, given that thousands of British civilians had