ME, Myself, I
Falling asleep should have been easy. The train carriage was comfortably warm and not overly crowded, which was just how she liked it. The chatter of her fellow travellers blended unobtrusively with the rhythmic clatter of motion, and the late afternoon reassuringly enveloped the windows in a cocoon of November darkness.
Ordinarily, Ingrid thought, she would have dozed off an hour or more ago. But not today. Today was different. Today it was impossible to quell her racing mind. Today she felt ready to cry at the drop of a hat. Lately, in the past six months or so, this had become her norm, and Ingrid hated it.
The door beside her slid open and the front of the refreshment trolley appeared, its wheels catching momentarily on the ridge of the floor before being hefted forwards by its operator. The woman pushing the trolley stumbled into the carriage and beamed at Ingrid.
‘Never have quite got the knack of the doors,’ she laughed. ‘Any refreshments, madam?’
Ingrid shook her head. She should have opened her mouth and replied properly. That would have been the polite thing to do, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t have hurt her. But there was something about the happiness emanating from the woman’s round, smiling face that had the potential to reduce her to tears, and Ingrid couldn’t allow that. Not here, on the 15.42 train home, on a Monday afternoon.
The woman walked
