She picked up the dripping paper towel and stuffed it inside the empty cup. There was a big sticky patch now.

The boy had highlights in his hair. It was a medium brown colour, but with golden streaks. He had gelled and stylishly tousled it. She didn’t think he was vain; he had hair growing along the bottom of his chin and across his top lip that looked like he’d just missed it while shaving instead of consciously decided to leave it like that.

He looked at her. Helene glanced away.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said, leaning forward.

“Sure,” she said with a smile.

“I noticed you’re French.” He was wagging a hand. His wristbands jostled. “I might be about to make a prat of myself, but your accent, are you from the Cevennes region?”

Helene didn’t say anything.

“I take that as a no.” He blushed endearingly.

“No!” she said quickly. “No, you’re entirely right. I’m just astounded. How did you know?”

“It’s your accent, the way you pronounce your Rs.”

“Most people couldn’t tell just from that,” she said, quickly adding, “I mean most French people couldn’t either, I don’t think. Is it really that distinct?”

He gave a boyish shrug. “I don’t know. I might have been imagining it. I was only guessing.”

“You don’t have to be modest. I’m surprised, but it’s a pleasant surprise. Have you been to the Cevennes?”

“Yeah. Few years back.” His eyes were staring through her for a moment, his mind elsewhere. “On an exchange.”

“Ah, you studied French.”

He chuckled sheepishly. “Only to GCSE. They’re the exams we do at sixteen. The offer came up and I thought, ‘Three weeks in the south of France, sign me up!’”

They both laughed.

“Where did you go exactly?” she asked.

“Well, the first two weeks we spent at a school just outside Nimes, then we spent the last week at a water sports center on the Ardeche river.”

Helene raised her eyebrows. “I come from Montpellier. That’s just down the road from Nimes.”

He opened a bottle of drink, nodding. “Yeah, we spent a day there with the school. Nice place.”

“You only spent a day there.”

He drank slowly, as if he didn’t know how to respond to that.

“So how’s your French?” she asked.

He laughed awkwardly. “I think I’ve forgotten most of what I learnt, sorry. Je m’appelle David.”

He said it with even more of an English accent than he had when he spoke English.

“Bon,” said Helene. “Je m’appelle Helene.”

She held out her hand vertically, but angled down at the wrist. He laughed and put down his drink to shake it. He had a warm hand, warm but dry.

“Ca va, Helene?”

“Ca va bien, merci. Et toi? Ca va?”

“Oui, ca va. Merci beaucoup.”

“Bon.” She smiled.

David smiled back.

Helene gestured to the luggage rack with her eyes. “Are you in a band, David?”

He chuckled again. “No. No, not really.”

“You just play for fun.”

“The guitar? Yes. I mean, I’m doing music at university, but they don’t let you play guitar, more’s the pity.”

She nodded. “Are you good?”

“So they tell me.”

“Ah, there’s that modesty again.”

He offered only open palms in response.

“Where are you studying now?” she asked.

He stroked his hairy chin. “In Brighton. I’ve been home for a few days.”

“In London.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s Brighton like?”

He laughed. “Well, it hasn’t got the bad points about London, but it doesn’t have many of the good points either.”

She nodded. “I see.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Brighton.”

His smile grew when she said it. “Sorry. I’ve just made it sound terrible.”

“It’s okay.”

“Is that your stuff back there?” He cocked a thumb down the aisle, toward the luggage compartment.

“Yes, that’s all mine.”

“Holiday?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Studying?”

“Working.”

Maybe his face fell a bit when she said she wasn’t going to be studying. Maybe she was imagining it.

“No, I’ve had enough of school,” she went on. “I’m going to be an au pair for a year.”

He looked impressed. “Posh.”

She laughed. “Yes, the family are quite wealthy from what I’ve heard. They have a view of the sea from their house.”

“Then I expect you’re going to see the side of Brighton those of us living in student digs never do.”

“What? You mean like the, how do you say, diapers?”

He grinned. “The nappies? How old’s the kid you’re going to be looking after?”

“There’s two of them. One’s seven, the other’s three. At least I think that’s what they said.”

“So you haven’t even met them yet?” He looked quite surprised. He was peeling the label off his bottle.

“No. This is my first time in Britain.”

“Oh, wow.” He sat up straight. “Welcome to England.”

She laughed. He held out his hand. She shook it again. His palm was a little moist this time.

“That’s quite a thing to commit you when you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” he said.

She shrugged. “One of the kids is in a nursery most of the day and the other’s at school, so I only really have to be there in the mornings and after school. The rest of the day is my own, and I get paid for it.”

“And you get to see the world.” He winked.

She chuckled. “Yes, I’m hoping they’ll be going to the Caribbean for a holiday soon.”

They both laughed.

“We could meet up if you want,” he began. “For lunch. I could give you a guided tour.”

The door between carriages opened.

“Refreshments. Snacks,” called the woman pushing the trolley.

“There you go,” said David.

Helene smiled.

Nobody bought anything off the trolley. The woman quickly reached their table and Helene held up a hand.

“Coffee, please,” she said.

The woman began to fill the cup.

“Make that two,” said David. Then he started reaching for his wallet again. “My treat.”

“You’ve already paid me back,” Helene said.

He smiled. “I know.”

The woman placed the two cups of coffee on the table and David paid her.

“Anything else?” the woman asked.

“Well, in that case, fancy a pastry?” said Helene. “My treat?”

“You don’t have to,” David said.

She bit her lip. “I’m going to have to insist.”

David laughed. “Okay, the Danish.”

“Make that two.”

The woman added up. “£4.20.”

Helene gave her four pound coins and a twenty pence piece.

NOTES:
I foresee this being the start of a beautiful relationship, with marriage and children, which lasts until they're both old and so intertwined with each other that they die, in their late eighties, within weeks of each other. With some of these stories I did wonder where some of the characters ended up, and not just in the distant future, but perhaps only half an hour later. Which explains an approach I take more than once in later tales, including the longest.