As the plane drones on, Vinnie’s question is answered. At intervals her seatmate gets up and walks toward the rear, returning each time smelling unpleasantly of burnt tobacco. Vinnie, who detests cigarettes, wonders irritably why he didn’t request a seat in the smoking section. He rents headphones from the stewardess, fits the plastic pieces into his large red ears, and listens to the low-grade recorded noise-evidently without satisfaction, since he keeps switching channels. Finally he rises again and, standing in the aisle, converses with a member of his tour group in the seat ahead, and then for even longer with two others in the seats behind. Vinnie realizes that she is surrounded by Sun Tourists, the representatives of all she deplores and despises in her native land and is going to London to get away from.
Though she has no wish to eavesdrop, she cannot avoid hearing them complain in loud drawling guffawing Western voices about their delayed departure, the lack of movies on this flight, and the real bum steer given to them in this matter by their travel agent. As this phrase is repeated, Vinnie visualizes the Real Bum Steer as a passenger on the plane. Scrawny, swaybacked, probably lamed, it stands on three legs in the aisle with a SUN TOURS label glued on its scruffy brown haunch.
Unable to concentrate on her novel while the conversation continues, Vinnie gets up and walks toward the rear. She finds a washroom that looks reasonably clean and wipes the seat, first with a wet, then with a dry paper towel. Before leaving, she removes the plastic containers of Blue Grass cologne, skin freshener, and moisturizer from their rack and places them in her handbag, as is her custom. As is her custom, she tells herself that British Airways and Elizabeth Arden expect, perhaps even hope, that some passenger will appropriate these products; that they are offered to the public as a form of advertising.