Martin John has routines. He calls the railway announcer’s recorded voice Molly or Annie depending on that station. Mainly he’s at Euston, where she is Annie. Annie speaks every few seconds. She speaks to him. She’s attentive, is Annie.

“The train standing at Platform 2 is the …”

“Please keep your belongings with you at all times. Unattended luggage could be removed and destroyed or damaged.”

Martin John has a relationship with Annie. He brings his notebook. Usually starts doing a line with Annie once he’s finished the crossword and the letters page. He does not like his news people, his word people and his train people to hover too close to each other.

Sometimes it distresses him to choose between Annie and the crossword, but Martin John has rules.

Don’t look at them direct.

Move in swift and out even swifter.

Don’t be greedy.

Bare flesh is dangerous.

A brush is but a brush.

Press up against her in queues. Quick. Hard. Into the hips. And out. 3 seconds.

When they give you the look—that look—by return, offer no look.

Even if they shout, stay calm and continue to write down Annie’s words sailing over their mutually distressed heads.

Mutually distressed?

Well yes, for if he’s interrupted then it’s not a ritual. If he’s interrupted, if he does not complete the brush or flash or rub, a circuit has been interrupted. If a circuit is lost he must calculate the probable impact of this.

BAD THINGS MAY HAPPEN.

Bad things may happen to the person passing. To the woman he failed to make contact with or to the person walking in the other direction.

In order to repair a bad circuit, he has to make a number of further circuits. When he makes continuous circuits the passengers, their luggage, their flow, interrupts him. Also, when he makes continuous circuits staff notice him, walkie-talkies are raised and the circuits have to speed up. He has been lifted from his circuits. That’s a fact.