Beyond the comfort zone

Last week I was on a train. In the same carriage was a collection of object studies for parental hope and anxiety. There were the private-school girls in their blazers, box pleats and boaters, their silky ponytails unravelling. There were the labourers falling asleep, heads against the windows. There were the clerks and office workers, and a man in a suit speaking into his earpiece. 'That's the meeting that worries me,' he said, crossing his pinstriped legs. 'Clear my diary for that one. It won't settle. We'll be going to court.' He must have had good marks at school, I thought. He got into law. And there were the junkies - three of them, clothes draped and belted over their bones. They were teenagers. They stank. One sat next to me. These are the hazards of public transport. Or public anything. You cannot choose your fellow travellers.