Joe yanked his gaze from Rufus with some difficulty. He had been finding it increasingly impossible to keep a decorous lid on his emotions recently, whether that was visually, verbally or any other way you might consider. It was landing him in trouble more and more often, but it looked like he got away with it this time. He didn’t know which way to look next. Two other specimens were simultaneously demanding his attention, but which was the more grotesque? Closest to him, the smiling hippo, freshly arisen from its morning mud, or the enigma all the way along at the end, with the green socks and the black eyes?

Two more contrasting sights you couldn’t have hoped to encounter. It’ll probably turn out that they’re brothers, Joe chuckled to himself. Considering the cleaner one for a while, the matching of the vivid green socks with his jacket lining showed a level of commitment that Joe couldn’t help but find impressive. All the more so when set against the creature, who struggled even to match stains together, in terms of age, colour or bioculture. Yet there was something so self-consciously smug that made Joe uneasy. Was it that, though? It wasn’t just the matching colours. No, there was something else more disconcerting about that weasel of a man.

Whatever it was about him that Joe couldn’t put his finger on, it was amplified by the uncommon lack of personal distraction – green-lining had nothing with which to keep himself occupied; a book, a paper – not even a free one, music, briefcase with papers to shuffle, phone, nothing; and that allowed his eyes and ears free rein around the carriage, scanning rather than darting but busy nonetheless. If he caught your eye for any longer than a split-second, Joe guessed, you’d get a cheeky little wink, and you’d be half under the spell. If he realised you’d clocked his colour co-ordination too, then it’s game over: dragged down for the death roll. Look away now!

The major problem with looking away was the alternate subject matter. Granted, Eddie was a human being, technically, but did he have to be quite that kind of human being? His eyes were his strongest feature: dark and solidly opaque and honest. The category would be ‘kindly’, had they not been roofed by such a sorry set of dank brows. From a listlessy shaved face, its complexion blended from the same tawdry palette as the internal walls of the train and equally susceptible to condensation on a cold day, to the mish-mash of this morning’s convenient clothing, to the physical overspills beyond his allotted boundaries, he cut a less than appetising figure.

There something that made Eddie like he was, something deep and untouchable, and another more specific something had also put him on the Northern Line, going somewhere at this time of the day. He didn’t work in the City, that was for sure; the microscopic chance that someone of such an open and ingenuous countenance could make any kind of impact in the world’s most notorious browbeating and cannibalistic hell-hole was only heightened in its absurdity by his lack of self-image. No, Eddie did not rely on that square mile of fang-toothed molten lava for his livelihood. He was most likely completely unaware of the place, and infinitely the better for that ignorance. No doubt his near neighbour, Mr Emerald, would eat him alive in a matter of minutes, although he might like to stretch it out to increase the spectacle.

So the question remained: if Eddie didn’t work in the City, what was he doing on this train? Of course, he was quite entitled to board the train if he liked, without any reason, so long as he’s paid his fare and conforms with all the by-laws, but what would make someone take that journey if it wasn’t absolutely necessary? Joe felt concerned and partly responsible and would do whatever it took to establish the exact circumstances behind the man who was forced to travel north with these other, much more deserving cases.

He looked displaced, although he patently bore no ill will to those who had displaced him. Think. His story would have started around the Morden area: somebody that size doesn’t move around much. It would make sense that he worked in some form of customer environment – if ever someone’s face was designed to make others feel comfortable, a part of a transaction that was scrupulously above board, it was Eddie’s. Indoors, too, and probably without much natural light. And a flat surface for eating off if those stains and those folds are anything to go by.

Retail, manager. In the sunless office for the majority of the day, snacking, half-heartedly dealing with paperwork and too often popping out front for some personal interaction. Customers, staff, it didn’t matter; he just wanted to talk – silence was not hard to find. Whilst the paperwork held no interest for someone who preferred to look straight ahead into another pair of eyes rather than downwards at a ledger, he understood its importance and diligently discharged it.

Profits were good: people bought from Eddie. They bought more than they intended to. You couldn’t help it – he made you want to do it by showing there was nothing to hide and nothing behind which to hide it, in any case. You were simply buying goods that were determinedly manufactured for the sole purpose of you buying them, so you might as well buy them.

Everyone was happy that way. Sometimes Eddie would catch a sentimental tear as a customer left, beaming, weighted down and thoroughly contented with everything. People were good and comradely at heart, he’d tell himself, and he was lucky to be blessed with a role in life where he was allowed constant first-hand reminders of that truth. What he didn’t realise, of course, was that those same people were as emotionally jejune, grasping and craven as anyone else you might like to pick out of a crowd at random. However, even brief exposure to Eddie’s innocent and genuine joy of being alive was enough to strip back defences and allow in so much warmth that some had to be reflected back whence it came. Eddie profited from his own goodness in a way that only an unadulterated source of it could. Of course, it’s an off licence!

So, what had forced this daily pilgrimage? This was a man at home in the heart of his community. To remove him is a bad idea. Joe was concerned now, and all sorts of excessive scenarios fought for his attention.

But consider, he mused, that not everyone is as comfortable with undiluted bonhomie as I might be. Especially someone who is so utterly unfamiliar with an agendaless male with something I-dunno about his eyes. Who might work in such an establishment? Eddie had paperwork to do, of course, and couldn’t be there every hour of the day or night (not that he had much of anything else to do, except the local, and he wasn’t a big drinker, even given his size and his line of business) so there had to be staff. Often young, often with an axe to grind, sometimes unwitting victims of the age, lacking mentors and guidance at home, invariably immature of heart and tragically unfamiliar with real human warmth and affection, too ready to judge on outward appearances and, vitally, easily led down the garden path by those more actively calculating. It’s not beyond the bounds of one’s imagination that such a person, or such people, might find work in a neighbourhood off licence. Imagine week after week of bouncing joie de vivre and unwanted, although innocent, attention. All packaged up in an Eddie that, to the socially squeamish, would probably appear distasteful to the point of vaguely threatening.

High turnover of staff was one thing, and raised eyebrows centrally. Repeated allegations of sexual harassment, although unproven, are another matter entirely. They tend to stick and there’s no smoke, certainly not that much of it, without fire. It was becoming difficult to recruit staff, especially from the local area, and Eddie had been transferred to the Finchley branch for ‘a fresh challenge’ with clear guidelines about his future conduct and the sort of effect it could have on his position. Talk about his conduct confused him, but these were corporate types and had their own brainy ways of saying things. He relished his fresh challenge, even if it was in Finchley and wouldn’t be anything like as convenient. Still, there’s always a chance to meet someone special on the journey – it’s probably given his social life the boost he was struggling to fathom.