A passenger
It is not the best weather for an open-top bus tour, but everyone back in Seoul had told her to expect rain.
So, she wears a poncho, and she spreads her arms wide to welcome it, feels privileged to experience all of this under an authentic London downpour.
And yet, for everything she sees – from the Marble Arch to Sherlock Holmes’s house on Baker Street and on towards Piccadilly Circus and Big Ben beyond – nothing will touch her quite as much as this: the sight of a father and daughter, sitting in their raincoats at the back of the bus.
The girl’s red hair pokes out from beneath her hood, and she is held rapt by everything her father says. The father points to old buildings with his tattooed hands and tells her stories.
‘That got blown up in the Blitz,’ he says. ‘That, too. And that.’
‘What’s the Blitz?’ the girl says.
‘A time when a lot of things got blown up,’ the man replies. ‘I was in a film about it. A lifetime ago.’
The girl nods thoughtfully. Then she puts her small hand in his, and a smile cracks through his beard.