“I wanted it to be different too, you know,” she said.  “I wanted to talk to you about so many things and never found the moment.” 

“You did?” I answered.  At that moment the train thundered into the station from out of the dark, obliterating all talk.  We got up and she got her bags.  We headed over to the nearest door and opened it.  She heaved her bags into the train and got up onto the lowest step.  She turned to me, doubt written all over her face.  She was chewing her lower lip when she leaned down and almost shouted, “If I had had the chance to talk to you I would have told you just how much you excite me.” 

“How much you excite me!” she said again.  “How much I desire you.”  The train lurched and started moving.  I could hardly believe what she had just told me.  I started pacing alongside the train, keeping pace with it.  Her eyes were riveted on me. “Please don’t be angry or offended,” she said. 

“What?  Angry?  Are you kidding? That is just what I have wanted to tell you all weekend.” 

Her anxious expression dissolved, a big grin spreading across her face.  “You too?  God what fools we are.”  The train was gathering pace and I was almost running; a guard started waving at me.  Sylvia was smiling at me idiotically, then suddenly she reached down and pulled me up into the train with her.  She fell backwards with me on top of her.  “I am not going to waste any more time,” she said emphatically.

Behind us the guard slammed the door shut as the train passed him, we had to lift our legs out of the way to avoid it.  We picked ourselves up off the floor just as the train emerged from the darkness of the station into the dull light of a rainy Barcelona afternoon.  Rain started lashing the windows of the carriage.  On our feet now, I asked her quickly, “So I excite you, is that true?” 

“Yes,” she answered.  “Right from when we first met.  Come on, let’s sit down and I will tell you about it.”  We pushed the button to open the door and headed into the compartment.  A few rows down there were a couple of empty seats.  Someone had pushed the other seats forward to make a group of four so these two had no one in front of them, just the back of the chairs in front.  I took off my coat and so did she, then I sat down first, next to the window, and she sat down next to me.  We were both bubbling with a sort of schoolgirl excitement.  We piled our coats on top of us to keep us warm and she took my hands in hers.  “I think you’re gorgeous,” she said.  “When you were with me in Saragossa I was dying to tell you what I felt then, but you kept talking about your ex boyfriend and I couldn’t