In the winter gloom, a young woman of around his age crosses the street, heading towards him on a diagonal. I see her properly as she passes beneath the parallelogram of light made by a high lamppost in the middle of the scrubby grass verge. She is average height but very thin, all angles, cheekbones high, sharp knees and elbows. Even though she is wearing trousers and a coat, I can tell she has the kind of body that my mother used to call a bag of spanners. Her skin is very pale, translucent almost, flawless, but stretched over the bones of her face: perhaps she has a serious illness of some sort, anorexia or maybe even cancer, or perhaps she’s always been like that, a young woman whose inner tensions have manifested themselves in the tautness of her skin. She has a high forehead and very fine brown hair pulled back in a long ponytail that swings as she walks. Her face looks so exposed and her expression so raw, it makes me wince.

Andrew has turned, as if finally realising there is no escape, and as she approaches, he raises both hands and pats the air with his palms as though attempting to repel the force of her anger. She has a large soft bag over one shoulder, drooping from a long strap. I wonder if she is about to swing it at him.

Instead, she stops, breathing with exertion, the huge eyes blaring a stare his way. ‘Were you just going to keep on walking?’ she says, her voice squeaking with disbelief. ‘Seriously? Just ignoring me? Where the hell have you been, why haven’t you answered my calls?’ she says, her voice whiny and childlike. ‘I left messages. Where have you been?’

I know where he has been: Peterborough Railway Station. I just don’t know why.

They are facing each other now, around three metres apart. Andrew is further away from the light and his expression is lost in the gloom. He looks at the ground, then back at her.

Her breath is still fast and shallow, her thin shoulders heaving. ‘Why? I left messages as well, even if you didn’t want, want to …’ she gasps in the way people do as if they are about to cry, ‘speak to me, even if you couldn’t face it … you could have messaged, acknowledged me at least. I can’t believe you’re behaving this way …’

He raises his head then and a little light falls on it but I still can’t read his expression. Nonetheless I feel, instinctively, that he wants to be kindly.