The wrong platform

At four minutes to six, Eva realised she was on the wrong platform. The train beyond the glass footbridge carried the name of the town she needed. Hers was going in the opposite direction. She checked the ticket again, although the printed letters had not changed. In the bag against her knees was a small cake in a cardboard box. Her brother had said there was no need to come, that birthdays were ordinary things once you were grown up. Then he had asked which train she would take.

The staircase was crowded. Eva moved behind a man carrying a suitcase with a wheel that struck every step. At the top, a family had stopped to read the departure board. She turned sideways, holding the cake above a child's shoulder, and passed them. Through the bridge windows she could see the train doors standing open. A guard was checking the length of the platform. Eva began to run, then slowed as the box tilted against her wrist. The icing had taken her two attempts. She could not hear an announcement clearly enough to know whether it concerned her train.

At the far staircase, an elderly woman stood gripping the rail. A shopping bag had split beside her. Oranges occupied three steps, and a tin was rolling towards the bottom. People narrowed themselves around her and continued down. Eva took one step past, then put the cake on the landing. She caught the tin with her shoe. The woman apologised repeatedly, which made the task take longer. Eva opened her own bag, moved her scarf and began placing the shopping inside it. Below them, a whistle sounded.

She handed over the bag and ran. The cake box knocked against her hip. At the foot of the stairs, she saw the guard raise his arm. A door slid shut. She reached the yellow line just as the train began to move, slowly enough that the passengers' faces remained distinct. One boy looked directly at her. Eva stopped running. The train gathered speed, carrying the lit windows away until the platform seemed suddenly too large. She lowered the box onto a bench and sat beside it.

Her phone rang before she could decide what to say. She told her brother about the platform and the shopping bag. He asked when the next train left. Forty minutes. ‘Then I'll wait forty minutes,’ he said. After the call, Eva lifted the lid of the box. A corner of the icing had slipped, and the letters of his name leaned towards one another. She pushed the lid back gently. Across the tracks, another train arrived. This time she stayed where she was, with the cake on her lap and the correct platform number above her head.

Consider the whole passage. How does the writer structure the text to create and then reduce tension about Eva’s journey? You could consider the focus at the beginning, changes in pace, shifts in focus, and the ending. Support your analysis with references to the passage.