Michael found his spectacles-case in his pocket, and set it on his knees. He would check his own itinerary again, and for that he needed his reading glasses – meanwhile, he could just feel the card in his shoe where the edges were rigid through his sock. It’s there for identification, just like the capitalised name you wrote in the collar of your shirt. It’s as if you were starting at school again, and some other boy might pick it up by accident and you’d need to prove it was yours as you stood bare-chested in the changing room, not thinking about Mr Trace. He could be erased so easily when there was so much else to think about. What is it, then? The fear of being left, alone in a fridge for however long it is they have to keep your remains. How long is it before some poor, overworked coroner can order the swift incineration of an unclaimed, unknown man? He didn’t want to be some poor run-over dog, or fox.

They have to know your name, just to make the last phase as smooth as a last phase can be. Amazingly, he had a funeral plan and the paperwork for that was clearly marked in his filing cabinet. He hadn’t kept the payments up, but there was at least a thousand pounds. They would have to find his name, and he had been told by someone years ago that shoes always survived the impact, because they were knocked clean off the feet: the card would be found.

He put on his reading glasses, and checked again. It was the through-train he wanted, and platform seven was used by diesels. There was no fear of electrocution. His train set off from Preston at 14.02 and it would roar through Crewe at – what? – about fifty miles per hour. That was enough to knock your shoes from your feet, and the brains from your head.

3

Amy was a truly good person.

She had enabled him to escape from Monica, who was also truly good – though he’d never been physically intimate with her: they’d just known each other, and turned slowly into friends. When Amy arrived, she had allowed him to pity Monica for being so alone: Monica had thus become truly pitiful. Amy was so very different: different in size, shape and sound, and totally different again from the only other woman he’d nearly married, and that was Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, Monica and Amy: his three main relationships, intersecting here and there in the strange scribble of life.

‘So you met Monica where, exactly?’

‘The council.’

‘Same department?’

‘No. We met at the coffee machine – she was in Parks and Recreation.’