The train comes in through wisps of autumn fog. The doors open and puff out warm air that smells of stale takeaway food. Passengers alight. The train will be leaving again in ten minutes.
Zelda is leaning against an iron pillar in no hurry to board the train. She cannot see the man leaning against the other side of the pillar, nor does she know he has had a dull headache all day, that he doesn’t feel all that great and is hoping he won’t have a fit on the train.
She can see a young man and an older man sitting on the iron bench. She knows they’d sit further apart and rearrange their bags for her if she walked towards the seat purposefully. But Zelda sometimes prefers to look at people rather than talk to them because people give her much to think about.
She follows the two men onto the train and turns with them into the left part of the carriage. They sit apart on the seats backing onto the window and she takes one of a pair of seats to their left and at right angles to the window. From this position she can watch them without turning her head.
She can see that the young man is turning the pages of a book and sneaks a look at the cover—the Lonely Planet Guide to India. From where she is sitting she can make out the page headings and the names of the cities. The man is in his twenties, very thin and dressed in a tartan shirt and faded jeans. He doesn’t look like a book reader to her, more the sort of person who’d grab a free MX from the PICK ME UP bin and open it at the sport section. Probably on his way home to eat as he watches the footy replay. Not much of an eater, either, she thinks, looking at his thin arms and wrists. She doesn’t know his name is Mick.
The middle-aged man is called Bob, although Zelda does not know this. He is wearing cords and a hand-knitted navy pullover and looks to her like the sort of accountant who has piles of manila folders on his desk in a little shop-front office in a suburban street. He looks dejected, his arms clutching an over-full plastic carry bag as if to stop its contents spilling out. Zelda thinks there are clothes