You know I’m sure it was a Monday when I first noticed her, so it was probably the start of something new. She arrived at 7.38, when the barriers clatter open and the city cascades onto the concourse, rising to fill the station. From up on the balcony I watched her rummage in an outsized leather bag that hung off her shoulder, the black and grey eddies swirling about her, the occasional wave obscuring my view. I always spotted the bag first, being pulled along in the torrent, pushing into the barriers between the shaking heads and angry stares, her tumbling blonde hair following in behind. It had a wide zip that she struggled to close all the way, sometimes she washed onto the concourse while desperately pushing a fistful of make-up into it. Sometimes, as she moved out of the station, I got a look at her shoes, usually heels, rarely sandals. If I were to guess I’d say size 5, 5.5, I bet she has marvellous arches.

I don’t remember when I first noticed him, it must have been weeks later. He was leaning against the wall of a side passage off the concourse. Looking down from my spot I could see him staring at her as she tapped through the station, gathering her hair, a band stretched around the fingers of one hand, trying to bring order to the chaos.

He always arrived early, with a cardboard cup from AMT. I watched him hanging there at the perimeter, like a pall at the edge of a dream. In time he became part of mine, just as much as she had been.

Sometimes he circled in dangerously, joining the march and pushing right up behind her to where the crowd breaks against the dazzling light at the exit, before circling back around to his passage and I would feel my blood fast-flowing. Once, he dashed out across her path, knocking her bag and apologising profusely when she gasped, cupping her elbow and resting his other hand on her shoulder, as if to steady her, brow furrowed in concern, watching as she stiffened and hurried from him. After a while his circles became braver, until he, too, vanished through the exit.

Time swam by and both became absent from my disconsolate mornings, until on one late afternoon he re-appeared, hurrying across the far side of the concourse, against the tide. He marched briskly into the area where the municipal bins are, gripping an outsized leather bag, and emerged seconds later without it, vanishing towards the exit as if he’d hadn’t broken stride.

I have never told anyone about him, nor her, and sometimes I feel ashamed. But then, I never tell anyone about the things I see, I like to keep them for myself.