In the silence that follows

‘You can’t do that!’

I peer round my newspaper.

She is about sixteen, stick thin, eyelids weighed down by make-up.

The man places a plump hairy hand on her knee and presses it lightly down to stop it shaking. He stares at her profile while she turns her head to look at the fields rushing past the train.

In my paper I read of calamities in far-off places. I feel flies crawling over my face, the rotting stench of death curling in the back of my throat and the dryness of dust clogging my hair, just as the people there are experiencing it.

‘You use me,’ she moans. ‘You use me mercilessly.’

I smile, hearing the antiquated adverb, and look towards her

She pushes his podgy hand away and his dark jowls quiver into a smile. ‘You like,’ he insists against her ear, his voice a rolling purr. ‘You like me use you...mercily.’ He leans his shoulder onto her. ‘Yes, you like.’

Blue as a magpie’s wing are the lights in her eyelashes as she tries not to meet my eyes over his shoulder.

I read of an enormous death toll in a land whose name I have never heard spoken. Whole towns have been ravaged, valleys quiver under the heat of a rapacious sun. Her voice is husky. ‘No, I don’t...I can’t...’

The train slows and, looking up I recognise my station. There is hardly time to pull on my coat before I alight.

I glance back at the compartment window. The man looks up and I see a tear jerk down his pockmarked cheek before the train whooshes smoothly out of sight.

In the silence that follows I feel her standing beside me, clutching a crumpled coat.