Jess.
The girl on his other side was twenty-six.
She had the aisle. She had been there since the stand, four hours, with the same man’s shoulder and the same jacket and the same elbow.
I had watched her do it. She did exactly what I did, which is get smaller.
And when he had to get out to go to the toilet, he squeezed past her and she had to stand up in the aisle to let him, and he did not say anything to her either.
And when Kemi offered me 4C, that girl was eighteen inches away on the other side of an empty seat.
And I said yes please.
And I got up and went, and he sat back down, and she stayed exactly where she was for another four and a half hours.
The fifty seconds, which I have done as a triumph forty times and which I have had to slow down.
