We don’t talk. Down the long silent corridor, the padding of our feet on the carpet like muffled heartbeats. Down the stairs, through the cold draft that fidgets in the stairwell, to the locker room: coats on, satchels on shoulders, locker doors closing. Back upstairs, the smiles and the nods and the few words with Bernadette at reception stuffing tissue packets and throat lozenges into her bag, ready to go home. And outside, to the wide sharp blast of city-smell and cold. The great courtyard, the floodlights, the civil servants scurrying home. It all looks strange: small stark paper things,
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