Buy ticket. Get on train. Run.

“Cornwall,” said Davey.

“Which station?”

“W-w-w… ” His stammer loving the vodka. Was this why he’d never really liked to drink? “Which ones are there?”

“Information centre’s over there,” she said wearily. “Come back when you’ve chosen.”

Davey found a touch-screen kiosk, but you could only operate it if you already knew where you wanted to go. Behind him, a woman sighed and said loudly, “You can’t work it because you’re drunk… ” and Davey, ashamed, slunk away to a row of chairs. The carpet’s pattern looked like germs swarming. He wondered if he was going to be sick again.

After a few minutes, the man next to him left. On his chair was a tourist leaflet.

A spreading ripple of movement and rearrangement, everyone sitting up, paying attention. Davey opened his eyes. Strangers opposite him; a stranger beside him. Wide glass windows. The sensation of speed. He was on a train. Which train? A huge ogre squeezing his way towards him.

“Tickets, please.” The guard was enormously tall and fat, barely able to fit between the seats. Why had he chosen a job he was so obviously not designed for? Or had he been thin when he got it, then gradually grown into his present size?

“Ticket,” repeated the ogre, holding out his hand. Davey groped desperately back through the blankness of sleep. Did he have a ticket? Could he have got on the train without one? He remembered the ticket office, he remembered queueing, he remembered not knowing where he wanted to go. He found his wallet; there was a lot less money in it than he remembered. The other passengers watched with interest.

Panicking now, Davey began to rummage through his rucksack. On the very top was a bottle of Glennfiddich whiskey, half-empty. Had he drunk that? He remembered vodka, not whiskey. Then something flickered in his brain, just a couple of neurons mindlessly firing up, and he reached into his jacket pocket and found a rectangle of cardboard.

Together, they inspected it dubiously.

“Railcard,” said the guard at last.

Davey rummaged some more, found a holder with a laminated card. He held it out and waited miserably for the guard to pronounce his fate. The guard looked at it for a long time.

“So you’re old enough to be drinking,” he said. “I was going to confiscate that bottle, son. If you give me any trouble, I’ll have you put off the train.”

“Okay,” Davey agreed meekly.

The guard was looking at the bruises.

“Change at Truro.”

The carriage contained nothing but staring eyes. Davey slumped down into his jacket. Outside, the world unspooled like a roll of film.

“Where are you headed?”

The woman next to him was speaking. Davey, head reeling from the inch of Glennfiddich he’d gulped down in the toilet, tried to focus on his ticket. Where was he going? Was this still the train with the fat guard? Alcohol had turned his memory into a swamp; no clues on the surface, hideous monsters lurking below.