He came aboard at Newton Abbot and sat down opposite without acknowledging me. Mid-fifties. Kempt, but only just. Navy blue, well-worn suit. Plain tie. Once he’d settled himself he looked out of the window and studied the passing sky. I tried to catch his eye.
We had a three-hour journey ahead of us and it seemed absurd to share a table for that length of time without as much as an exchange of friendly glances or resigned smiles. But he wasn’t having it. He was looking away deliberately, as if eye-to-eye contact was somehow harmful to him.
He studied the sky all the way to Taunton. I watched him and wondered what kind of a man he was. In repose, his face bore signs of spirituality, I thought: an exclusive kind of spirituality, maybe, which nourished and preserved itself mainly by remaining aloof from the likes of me.
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