When Mr Vale was called, he levered himself out of the loose vinyl chair beside me and left it sighing in the middle of the bolted row. Two people reached for its back.
“Please,” said the cyclist, taking his hand away.
“No, please,” said the woman in the red scarf, taking hers away too.
They smiled. We had been waiting long enough for courtesy to count as an event.
The cyclist’s right trouser leg was dark with rain. A delivery map glowed on the phone strapped to his wrist; twice he silenced its little warning buzz. “I’m gone in ten minutes anyway.”
“I sit at a reception desk all day,” the scarf woman said. She stood carefully, pressing one palm into the seat she had left. “Standing will do me good.”
Neither sat. The cyclist tucked his scuffed helmet under his arm. The scarf woman straightened the loose sleeve of her coat. The chair waited between them, conferred upon.
By the ticket machine, a woman in a grey work fleece had lowered a carrier bag to the floor. Flour dust marked one shoulder. She held the machine’s metal shelf with two fingers, shifting her weight each time the red numbers above Reception blinked.
“There’s a lady over there,” I said.
Both turned. I placed my folder on the empty chair while they looked. Someone needed to keep it available.
“Would you like to sit down?” the scarf woman called.
The woman by the machine glanced behind her, then nodded.
The cyclist lifted the chair by its back. My folder skated off the vinyl and struck my shin. I trapped it with my shoe.
“I’ll take it over.”
“No, better here, against the wall.” The scarf woman caught the chair beneath its seat. “People come out of that door quickly. My sister was knocked after her scan.”
“She’s already walking this way.”
“Then give her space.”
He stepped backwards into the aisle. She pulled sideways. One front leg scraped across the floor and hooked under the bolted row. The chair slewed diagonally between them.
“Lift your end,” he said.
“I am lifting it.”
The woman in the fleece picked up her bag.
A young man opposite folded his knees under his seat. I tucked in my shoes. Farther down, somebody moved an umbrella that was nowhere near the route. A thin corridor appeared between us, ending at the chair and its two custodians.
“Come through,” said the cyclist. He glanced at the warning pulsing on his wrist. “You’re all right.”
“Slowly,” said the scarf woman. “There’s no hurry.”
The woman took three short steps and stopped to change hands on the bag.
“Leave that,” I said. “We’ll watch it.”
She looked at me, then at the bag. “My ticket’s in there.”
I reached towards the handles without standing. She drew the bag closer, opened its outer pocket and searched with one hand. The cyclist lowered his end of the chair so he could help. The scarf woman tightened her grip as the seat tipped towards her.
“Level,” she said.
“I’ve got it.”
“You haven’t.”
The ticket came out between two receipts. The woman held it in her teeth while she zipped the pocket.
“They ought to have more seats,” I said.
Several people agreed. It was the first thing we had managed together.
The woman reached the chair and set her palm on its back. “Put it down.”
The cyclist lowered his side. The scarf woman, surprised by the movement, raised hers.
“Both of you,” the woman said. The ticket softened between her lips. “Let go.”
They did. She turned the chair until all four feet found the floor, walked around it and sat. A tremor travelled down one trouser leg after the rest of her had gone still.
The cyclist retrieved her bag from beside the machine. “Heavy,” he said, as if pleased to have discovered a fact he could carry.
The scarf woman cleared a place against the wall with the side of her shoe. “Here is safer.”
“Here is mine,” the seated woman said.
The cyclist passed the bag to the scarf woman, who passed it to her. For a second all three hands held one handle.
“I start at four,” the woman said. “That’s my lunch.”
The others let go. She unwrapped half a sandwich from foil and rested the bag between her boots.
The cyclist checked his route and swore softly. The scarf woman sat again, lowering herself with the same care she had prescribed. I returned my folder to my knees. Its bottom corner had opened, and my papers had spread into the space between my shoes.
“Forty-three,” called the receptionist.
The woman with the sandwich put it down. The cyclist looked towards the red numbers. The scarf woman began to stand.
I found my ticket beneath the papers. The receptionist called again.
I slid the ticket under the folder, leaving one blue corner showing.