With a few practised moves, she had the bright orange suit up to her waist. Left arm, right arm, and she was covered up, the zip-up front open to her navel but nothing showing.

She had a pair of heavy work boots in the bag too, steel capped, solid, thick rubber soles. She stepped into them and crouched as she laced them up. Now she looked down the platform, at the men where the whistle had come from, and studied their gelled hair and sharply ironed shirts. They could have been anything during the day – brickie, office drone, city trader – but here, at night, together and full of drink, they were all the same.

Now she had the uniform on, the oversized sexless boiler suit and the big brown boots, perhaps she was a less of a catch, though she knew it wasn’t the catching that mattered. For men like that, it was about the chase, a quick fumbling conquest, and move on.

She tied her unruly curls up in a red bandanna and piled her discarded clothes into her bag.

Five minutes until the last train.

The platform should have been filling up, but it was still sparse. She perched herself on one of the inadequate seats to wait, feeling the distant passing of other trains reverberate in her bones.

There should have been others of her shift down on the platform by now. She couldn’t explain their absence. She chewed at her already gnawed fingers, hunched over.

The overhead sign ticked down the seconds and the minutes.

And suddenly they were all there, walking in a loud phalanx out of one of the connecting corridors and into her sight.

The meeting. She’d forgotten the meeting.

Her sudden relief was replaced by burning panic. She jumped up as if hearing a shot and took a step forward to explain to the clip-board wielding Nicholls. But what should she say? Some flannel about being late because of … what? She hadn’t been late. She’d just forgotten. Tell him that she’d blown the meeting off as a waste of her time? She was supposed to be avoiding the snark and triggers for confrontation.

She’d have to apologise. God, she hated doing that, especially to little weasel-faced Nicholls and his stupid ratty moustache. Mama was with him, matching him stride for stride, rolling her body like a ship at sea. If Mama was there, it’d be fine.

It was Mama who called to her first.

‘Mary! Where’ve you been, child? Mr Nicholls,’ and the way she said ‘Mr Nicholls’ always managed to convey just how much she’d like to scrape him off the underside of her shoe, ‘Mr Nicholls was worried about you.’