There was a problem. Platform One, Northbound to Edgware, was inaccessible. I found myself in a wedged funnel of people all wanting to turn left on to the platform but unable to budge. We were not happy. We swore a bit under our breaths; we scratched at the back of our necks; we sighed theatrically and competitively. As we desperately tried not to touch each other’s body parts, we were distracted by a bright red balloon with ‘Happy 30th’ printed on it, its string tied into a small bow at the end, which bounced and bobbed above our heads. I decided it belonged to some pretty young thing; that right after someone told her just how pretty she was, she giggled and lost her grip on it before rushing off to an early rush-hour drink in some swanky bar, where she would be admired and fussed over.

‘Sorry.’ A man jostled against me. His hand accidentally landed on my right shoulder, just above my breast. Me too, I wanted to say, as a joke, but I could see he was terrified, and that joke has already been played on me too many times. (Yeah, Me Too …) Instead, I said, ‘It’s OK,’ and he smiled sheepishly at me and moved away through the stiffened crowd. He didn’t get very far. The balloon bobbed and mocked overhead.

It was my birthday last week. My forty-eighth; one toe in the grave … It was a small affair: a few close friends, some finger sandwiches and a three-tiered hand-piped chocolate cake sliced to much delight, as Stevie Wonder sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me from a pub’s stereo … No, not really, it was just Dad and me, eating some shop-bought Battenberg in front of Countdown, although I’d splashed out on a bottle of Shloer. We know how to live it up, Dad and I. They could probably hear the whooping all the way down at Dingwalls.

I decided to head the other way, for the exit. I’d walk to Euston and pick up the Northern Line there. I walked quickly; I was feeling a bit claustrophobic. Sweat was beginning to drip off me; I knew my mask was melting and I would be exposed. I also wanted to get home for A Place in the Sun. People were queuing to get on the escalator. The busker at the bottom was earnestly singing ‘Streets of London’, his fretting at the guitar vibrating through the heavy air. There was no air. My lips still felt weird. I stopped and leant against a tiled wall. Tried to take a deep breath of airless atmosphere. Then the transport worker came up to me.

‘People react in different ways, you know?’ she says. She sounds Welsh. She’s soft-spoken and has really nice blue eyes, behind her lenses. ‘It’s hard to predict, you know?’