A dark-haired woman sits alone in the window of a café close to Paddington station. She stares out into the falling rain and wonders what he will look like after all these years, how it will feel to see him again. She flutters inattentively through a discarded newspaper, glancing up when the door jangles, but it is just a young woman entering and she looks back down. After a while, she begins to wonder whether he is even coming. The half-drunk cup of coffee that was warming her fingers has gone cold. Eventually she sighs, then stands and picks up her umbrella and walks out of the café and into the street beyond.

A man sits alone at a table in the gloomy rear of a café close to Paddington station. He watches as the woman at the table by the window stands and then walks towards the door. Even though he has been watching her for almost an hour, he wishes that she would stay a little longer. As she turns to close the door behind her, he catches a last glimpse of her face. For a moment she seems to look directly at him and he thinks she might have seen him, but her expression betrays no flicker of recognition. And why would it, he thinks to himself. The passage of twenty years has exacted a much harsher toll on him than it has on her, and he knows that he looks like an old man now. The door swings shut behind her. He slips his hand into his pocket and slides his wedding ring back onto his finger.