The other man who was reading put down his Time Life and stood up, unsteadily for a moment as the train swayed, then he made his way to the aisle, standing on my foot in the process.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘That’s what it’s there for,’ I replied.

He didn’t appear to know how to take it, so he left it. He stood indecisively in the doorway for a few moments, then slid the door shut behind him and disappeared into the next carriage. I caught the eye of the one picking his nose; he looked down, then shot me two furtive glances in rapid succession. On both glances he found I was still watching him; he looked down again and frowned, then tugged his finger out sharply, and began to study it with great intent, as if perhaps there was some problem with it that inserting it up his nose might have cured.

The one who was watching the scenery raised his fingers to his chin, and started to check the growth of stubble; after a few moments, apparently satisfied that his jaw and cheeks had not disappeared into an undergrowth of hair, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes tightly for a few moments, then opened them wide and began to stare at the ceiling.

The one who slept was moving most of his head up and down in a slow rhythmic motion. The part that remained static was his lower jaw; as the upper part of his head lifted, his mouth opened, and as it lowered, it shut again. The effect reminded me of a rather gormless fish – the tall, thin type that hang around in the weeds in tropical fish tanks, waiting either to eat or be eaten, and not particularly caring which.

At the last station was a poster. It depicted a group of people in their seventies, in track suits, running through a field. The caption beneath said: ‘You’re not getting older, you’re getting better.’

Getting better. I wondered, at what? I was getting older, for sure, a damn sight too fast for my liking, but I certainly wasn’t getting any better – at anything – and that was a pity. Because right now I needed to be one whole lot better at a great many things if I was going to stay in this strange, tough, twisted temptress of a game that fatalists call ‘the luck of the draw’, clergymen call ‘the ways of the Lord’, and biologists call ‘life’.

Right now the key to life was contained in the briefcase that one of my four travelling companions had on the rack above his head. There were five briefcases on the racks. Two black Samsonites, two cheap leather ones of the type made in Hong Kong and sold through mail-order firms from glossy adverts in Sunday colour supplements, and one Gucci, the real thing, not a copy.