JAMES QUENTIN WAS holding the yellow post that ran the length of the glass panel beside his seat. He was on the Circle Line. He always liked to be on the seat nearest the exit. He wondered what that said about him. He’d been holding the post, which was smooth plastic and clean, for quite a while now – it had become warm under his palm, absorbing the heat of his skin in a comforting way. He didn’t want to let go. Having left both his job and his home there was no building he could think of spending time in, and no person alive he could think of spending time with. So he had opted for transport.

The Circle Line travelled through the stop he would have taken for the birthing centre, and passed the stop he would have used on his journey home. As each stop went by he found himself less and less able to leave the train. And that was OK by him. He didn’t want to leave the Tube. He would sit here for a while longer.

He was thinking about the last time that he saw Avigail. There was snow, in London. One of the few times in his life he had seen heavy snow in London. It glistened on the rooftops and fell in mini snowstorms from tree branches. The twins had started at primary school and he’d dropped them off before walking to work, the crunch under his feet begging him to stay outside. The snow in the middle of the pavement was trampled to brownish sludge already but at the edges – if he kept close to the wall, under the shelter of the buildings’ overhang – he could crunch through untrodden snow one foot-width at a time. He wanted to jump in it. If it had been deeper he would have. Being outside, the freshness of it all, was making him want to laugh – it was only the knowledge that people would turn and stare that stopped him. You didn’t laugh for no reason on the street. But then, with a bright flash of colour against the white, there she was. It hit him so fast, so thoroughly, that he had not the slightest chance of walking away.

She hadn’t seen him. She was in her long red coat with her multicoloured scarf billowing out behind her, and he knew from her body language that she was about to turn the corner, and then she would be gone. He ran towards her. Her name repeating in his mind. All he knew was this feeling – it could not be ignored. His foot landed in a puddle, splashing his trousers, soaking through his shoe, but none of it mattered. He reached out and touched her arm.

‘Avigail,’ he managed, though it came out as a whisper through his racing breaths.