Gerrout me wa-a-a-ay!’ Linnet, who had been walking carefully down the snowy pavement on Havelock Street, clutching her messages and thinking wistfully of the hot cup of tea which would await her on her return home, was unwise enough to turn round to see who was shouting, which was how she came to find herself travelling, very fast, along the pavement with a pair of arms clutching her and her bum slithering at incredible speed along the steeply sloping snow-covered flagstones. The unexpected trip finished with equal suddenness. One moment she and her assailant and a small tin tea-tray were hurtling down Havelock Street, the next they had burst into Netherfield Road and were trying to untangle themselves from a lamp-post whilst a small boy sat on the pavement howling and clutching his knees and a very fat woman belaboured them indiscriminately with a large umbrella. ‘Bleedin’ gipsies!’ the woman shouted, swishing the umbrella in a half-circle and catching Linnet and the would-be tobogganer around their unprotected shoulders.
