Outside the station people settled down again to being emotionally commonplace.

Patrick White The Living and the Dead (1941)

… But the vehemence and the volume of the whole episode had jangled everything. The air still quivered a little – full of the ripples from the raging core of raw feeling. It was almost an instinctive reaction. A collective shrug of ‘Oh well, let’s get back to normal life as quickly as possible … after all … it’s nothing to do with us. They were … they are … strangers, were unknown until moments before.’

But somehow it wasn’t that easy to dislodge the still piercing scream of her cry – the stab of hurt that infected her whole body. And time had seemed to slow as the train edged further up the platform.

He kept resolutely still, shoulders rigid. His small leather grip firmly grasped at his side. Her plaintive ‘No-o-o-o-o!’ flew like a dagger to the centre of his back. No one would have been surprised if he had, in fact, fallen down at that point.

There was a shared and collective hush. Passengers had been transformed into watchers, into witnesses.

Would he get on the train?

Could he withstand the combined weight of expectation bearing down on him?

Her distress amplified and gathering force as all paused and wondered and watched.

Funny how everyone seemed to be on her side at that point.

But suddenly, when the heavy door slammed behind him, there was an awkward and immediate certainty of it being over. She sank to her knees. People pushed past as they left, busy with their own lives.