‘Yes. I found that. I used to be here.’
‘Oh yes, Miss.’
Her eyes looked bored behind her glasses. She was thinking there were any amount of girls always coming and going. You couldn’t be expected to take an interest....
Judith looked around her and was seized with panic. The whole place was unfamiliar. Nothing recognized or greeted her.
A menace of footsteps drew near, resounding harshly on the tiles. A group of girls in gym tunics passed and stared. They must be first-year students. She could not remember one of them. She shrank from their curious glances and went swiftly down the corridor to the foot of the stairs.
A girl came running down, two steps at a time, saw her and paused, smiling shyly.
‘Hullo, Judith!’
‘Hullo!’
What was her name? Joan something? You could never have exchanged more than a few words with her. She was fair-haired, ordinary, rather shapeless and untidy, like so many others; but her smile was reassuring.
‘Have you come up to stay?’ she said.