Although it wasn’t just helping Frank that made her feel like this, Libby was well aware. She glanced at Dylan, who wasusing two rolled-up posters as pretend drumsticks as he beat out a fast-paced rhythm on his knees. When she was with Dylan, Libby felt like a different version of herself. Funnier. Calmer. More spontaneous. She couldn’t remember ever having laughed as much as she had done with him these past three weeks, or felt so at ease. And yet they were rapidly approaching the southern end of the 88 bus route. They had only the final section from Stockwell down to Clapham High Street and then they would have put up posters along the whole route, and their project would be complete. What would happen to this new version of Libby then? Would she still exist without this purpose? Without Dylan?
“Excuse me.”
Libby heard a quiet voice behind her, and she and Dylan both turned round to see a young man sitting in the row behind them, dressed in a suit and tie, his dark hair neatly combed to one side.
“I’m... I’m so sorry to disturb you,” he said with a slight stutter. “I did not mean to be rude. I just couldn’t help noticing what you are holding.”
“What, these?” Dylan said, holding up his poster drumsticks.
The man nodded. “Yes. I have seen them around London, and I have been wondering about them.”
“We’re trying to help a friend of ours find a woman he met on this bus a long time ago,” Libby explained.
The man nodded again, more vigorously this time. “Yes, and that is what I was wondering about. Is this man called Frank, please?”
Libby looked at Dylan in astonishment, then back to the man. “Yes. How did you know that?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “It is him! I thought it must be. It is a most unusual story, after all.”
“How do you know Frank?” Dylan said. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“Not a friend, as such. But he did show me great kindness once, and I am forever in his debt.”
The young man hesitated, and Libby waited, intrigued.
“I’m Libby and this is Dylan,” she said, hoping that might encourage him.
“I am Sunil, but everyone calls me Sunny.”
“And how did you meet Frank?”
“I met him here, on the 88 bus.”
Libby laughed. “Frank does like to chat to strangers on the bus. That’s how I met him too.”
“He is a very good man.” Sunny looked up at them both. “May I tell you about my encounter with Frank? I would like you to know what he did for me.”
“We’d love that,” Libby said, and she turned round fully in her seat to face him.
Sunny brushed an invisible speck of dust off his suit sleeve before he started. “This must have been 2014, so the year after I first came to England. I am from India, but I came here to study a master’s in computer science at King’s College London. Very prestigious course; my parents were very proud.
“For my first year, I was happy. I worked hard and I lived in a shared house with other international students. But then, at the start of my second year, my father died. It was such a shock; he was still young.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Libby said.
Sunny blinked at her. “Thank you—that is very kind. I wanted to go home to support my mother and youngersiblings, but my family wanted me to stay here and finish my studies. They said it is what my father would have wanted.”
He looked out of the window before he spoke again.
“I vowed I would work even harder to graduate and get a good job, but it was difficult. I had a cleaning job but the rules are very strict on student visas. You can only work twenty hours a week, and I sent most of that money back home to my family. I cut down on all my expenses, even food, but it was still too much. By that Christmas, I could not pay my rent and my housemates asked me to move out.”
For a moment, Sunny watched the city spooling past the bus window, and Libby waited for him to continue.
“That was a very difficult time,” he said, his voice so quiet she could barely hear him. “London is a wonderful city, but not for a young Indian man with no money or place to stay. And I was too ashamed to tell my friends or worry my mother.”
He stopped again, smoothing his hair with one hand.
“Is that when you met Frank?” Dylan asked gently.
