‘I don’t think I should.’

‘No?’

‘I’ve so much to do—’

‘It would be such a comfort, you see. We could stand in companionable silence, looking at the water – we’d be connected.’

He had to get up.

He put the juice carton away, and picked up his bag. He wanted another seat, preferably at the far end of the train – in the last carriage. It was his own fault, again. There was nobody to blame but himself, for he’d started it: ‘What do you do?’ Or ‘Where are you going?’ Some idiot question that had opened a valve for the gallons and gallons of drenching, self-regarding, shouting nonsense.

And yet it wasn’t nonsense, for the man was interesting.

Terry had lived – and was living – an interesting life. Michael saw him flat on his back in the mud, and it was as vivid as the image of Terry supervising the inspection of his boat’s hull – Terry in his sky-blue shirt and loosened tie, nodding his approval, watched by his lovely, decent, nautical friends. The man was rich, and liked if not loved. He had a son. The church would be full, and he would sail to heaven on a river of tears.

Michael felt bruised by the encounter. He had invited Terry to talk, and had ended up weak, silent and even more inadequate – not that he had ever in his life wanted a boat, and not that he cared about the box they’d put him in. The fact that he thought about it did not mean he cared, and it wasn’t self-pity – was it? It wasn’t, because he had no sympathy for himself: the need to finish, die and exit was a practical, calculated decision as straightforward as a decision not to marry. You saw the rightness, and you acted: it was a question, simply, of getting to Crewe and putting an end to so much needless, repetitive nothingness. The train was eager: it was rattling along as quickly as it could, and the long platforms of Crewe that he’d walked and checked would soon be solid beneath his feet.

He stood for a moment in the lobby, where the carriages joined, and felt the judder of the coupling device. It took the strain and eased again. He looked at the fields, and wondered when people had last been able to open windows, and lean out into the fresh air. Trains had become sealed units, for the rail companies were in a constant state of anxiety.