Chapter 1.3

 Outside the carriage, the last traces of Laverstone vanished in the  darkness. Lower Oxley and Oxley flashed past with barely a streetlight to mark their existence, and the window grew cloudy with the difference between the cold outside and the relative warmth of the carriage. By the time they pulled into Exeter, the application of the brakes caused her to slip forward in the seat, and she awoke from a dream about the house she and Cassie had shared when they first got married, and how happy they'd been in the tiny two-bed semi in Oxton Court. Before they'd moved into the larger house on Stapleton Road near St. Mary's church and it had all gone so completely pear shaped.

The station was lit by overhead LEDs and she could see, through the sweep of her hand through the fogged-up window, the almost deserted waiting area and a pair of brown, dusty rats scurrying along the edge of the opposite platform, carrying something in a co-operative engagement she wasn't aware rats were capable of. She couldn't see what it was. Probably a discarded sandwich left over from a despondent commuter who, returning for a day's graft, was suddenly facet with the grim reality of living in Exeter. There were worse places, she thought. At least Exeter was a city with a decent semblance of nightlife and a younger population that the town she'd just left, which felt more like a retirement village than somewhere with anything interesting to see. Even the local art gallery had closed while she was away at college. At least that had tried to be Avant Garde in defiance of every other shop becoming a nail salon, a barber's or a vape-cum-head shop. Now the only art in Laverstone had been a bunch of studios on Mill Lane that were priced out of any reasonable artist's budget and seemed to be exclusively rented by people selling 'Genuine Oil Paintings' made by children on assembly lines in China and imported by shipping container.

She hadn't seen anyone on the Glasgow platform but a sudden chill announced the opening of the carriage door, and a tall man appeared on the other side of the sliding interior door, next to the toilet she'd bumped into earlier. He was leaning forward, looking intently at the door she'd hit her hand on and as she watched, he took a white handkerchief from his top pocket and used it to wipe at the handle. He was either a health nut or a complete freak, for she was pretty sure he was wiping off the smear of blood she'd left when she boarded. What the hell was up with that? Who kept a white handkerchief in their top pocket these days. Add to that, she'd swear on the Bible (not the actual Bible, because after a Catholic schooling she was at least agnostic now, if not actually atheist, but perhaps her first-edition copy of Sylvia Plath's 'Mrs Dalloway.') that he'd then sniffed the handkerchief.

Her brief prayer of "go to the next carriage forward, go to the next carriage forward" went unanswered by the Heavenly Father she didn't believe in, for the sliding door opened and the man entered her carriage with that peculiar gait of all train passengers of holding a bag awkwardly in front of themselves while navigating the narrow aisle between the seats. She pretended to be absorbed in her phone, silently begging whatever Fate might intervene that he wouldn't sit in one of the seats sharing her rail-issued folding table. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his approach. First his shoes, polished to a mirror shine like an upskirting pervert, then the crisp seams of his trouser legs and finally the hem of his suit jacket.

"Excuse me?" His accent was broad, Somerset born and bread, and somewhat at odds with his polished shoes and tailor-creased suit. She looked up into the face of a man tall enough to be in the records book, with skin the shade of pitch and eyes -- well, she couldn't tell, because they were obscured by sunglasses in National Health, John Lennon frames. Who the fuck wore sunglasses on a train, at night?

"Yes?" She chocked off the automatic "Can I help you?" she'd said by rote during her Saturdays and holidays job behind the counter at Markham's Supermarket. Another silent plea to any deity at all: "Please don't ask to sit here."

"Is this yours?" He handed her the sketch she'd done of her mum, which she was certain she'd put away in her bag.

"Oh. Yes. Thank you." She reached out a hand but he pulled it up to his face and out of her reach.

"It's very good. Are you an artist?"

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