The bus crawled through the evening traffic. It was dark but the city was bright: shop windows, streetlights, traffic lights, the glare everywhere reflecting off the wet rainy streets. Inside the bus was warm and damp, the windows steamy, the smell of hundreds of people and grubby upholstery.

I don’t like using the phone on the bus, but I was desperate to talk to him. I kept my voice low.

‘Hi, it’s me.’

His voice sounded a long, long way away. ‘How did it go?’

‘It was fine. Well, it was difficult too. But I did it. He’s going to refer me to Alistair. And he gave me some tablets.’

‘What are they?’

‘I don’t know, the prescription’s in my bag. He said they were an SS-something.’

‘SSRI. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor.’

‘Whatever. He said he thought I had post-traumatic stress disorder as well as OCD.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Is it?’

‘I meant it’s good that he thought that. I thought it too. But it’s not my place to assess you.’

‘No. How’s work?’

‘It was okay, I guess. It’s over with, anyway.’

The man across the aisle was staring at me. He didn’t look remotely like Lee, but he unsettled me nonetheless. He was young, with lank hair chopped roughly around his ears, scabs on his mouth and nose. Hollow eyes with dark circles under them, staring at me.

At the next stop a few more people got off, and I contemplated leaving the bus and walking the rest of the way. The man across the aisle stood up too and I thought he was getting off, so I stayed where I was. Instead he stood in the aisle for a moment until the bus started moving again, and then sat in the seat in front of mine.

He was giving off a smell, mildewed, like clothes that had been left damp in the washing machine for a couple of days. There were spots on the back of his neck and every few seconds he sniffed – not clearing his nose, but as though he was scenting the air.

At the next stop I got off the bus. I thought he was going to follow me, but instead he stayed on. I stood at the bus stop in the rain and watched the bus move on, saw him through the window, those eyes, still staring.