I watch him through the door’s window as the train waits to pull out. He looks like someone who allows the daily irritations of life to simply land and roll off him, like raindrops unabsorbed by a wax-coated jacket. You would imagine that his biggest worry was which craft ale to choose in the pub or whether he’ll be able to get that squash court at the most convenient time on Saturday. Only I know that an unhappy love affair has brought him to the brink of throwing himself in front of a train.

The end of Andrew’s train shrinks to a small black square, then a dot, then is gone … The more I think about bony, screechy Ruth, the more I dislike her, her clinginess and emotional incontinence. She is offloading her own suffering without a thought, it would seem – she is killing him.

*

All that week, I observe Andrew’s ritual. His home time at the end of the day seems to be variable but he passes through the barriers swiftly every evening, looking exactly the same as he does in the morning. He shows no outward sign of tiredness – if anything, there is a new determination in his demeanour, as though he is allowing himself a small sense of triumph at the fact that he has made it through another day. The station seems to hold no terrors for him now, as far as I can tell. He has either squashed his demons or decided to let matters lie.

I see it in his face, though, what his bravery costs him. I still believe that I can help, if only I can think of a way to communicate with him.

It comes to me that he must have been making this commute for some time – and yet I only noticed him when he was sitting in the cafe just after what that man did, as if witnessing that unlocked some special sort of perception for me and then Andrew’s unhappiness made him stand out from the crowd.

There he goes each day, through the barriers, mounting the stairs, trotting back down again to Platform Six. All week I watch, and not once while he waits for the 07.49 to Stowmarket does he look behind him, at Platform Seven.

*

While he is at work each day, I decide to explore. There are no barriers to my existence, now, after all. Peterborough is my oyster.

After being trapped on the station for so long, I decide to start locally, then gradually widen the circumference of my world. I begin with Waitrose.