‘There’s someone coming, pal – stay still. Don’t try to move.’

‘But I must.’

‘Has he got water? Give him a snack – call the refreshment trolley!’

Would they wrap him in a blanket, and hold his hand? Was that the best shortcut to love, in fact? You smashed yourself up so badly someone had to be tender. Was that the way to a relationship? Michael smiled, knowing he should be dead by now, and knowing that it wasn’t a question of why any more, but why not? He could not stand another pub, or another café, nor another trip to the supermarket with a small wire basket waiting for the yellow-sticker girl to price down the end-of-the-day stock. No, please no: not another evening in an armchair, or an excursion to somewhere he didn’t want to be. The choral society, again – he could never again face that. The ceramics group – he couldn’t face that nonsense either. Evensong, or the cake-and-coffee group. The Japanese season at the club cinema, which was a bus ride away, all for a quick chat with the person who tore his ticket: a quick, jaunty chat. No, this wasn’t self-pity. This was… a decision just to stop.

It wasn’t even a decision to stop, it was a need to stop – even if the 15.41 was almost out of sight. After he and Elizabeth had split up – which was after how many years? Did it matter? After they went their separate ways, he had found himself in an airport chapel. They had split up for good in Newcastle, because it had become clear that there was no point meeting again, and he had to stop chasing her. He was no longer simply visiting her: he had accidentally started chasing, like one of those persistent dogs who wants to carry on running for a ball you’ve got tired of throwing. She was on a course, and he had insisted on visiting her at her hotel – she’d invited him, for sure – but he was unaware that he’d become an obstacle. Had he turned thirty? Whatever he was, she was two years younger and she needed to get round him and move on. She was too polite, though, and so scared of causing him pain. It had come to a head, somehow, and he had left the same evening and found himself in the city centre, walking, as the solitude soaked in and changed the very temperature. He walked across some massive, mighty bridge looking down at oily water, and he’d found a cheap room somewhere. She didn’t text him, and he didn’t text her, for she had found a way of saying, ‘Michael? Stop.’