Juliana hurried through the entrance to the station, weaving through the crowds with practiced ease. She kept her pace to a purposeful walk. It took effort, a lot of effort, but anything faster would have made her stand out, made people take notice and would make weaving more difficult. Her advantage right now was in her ability to blend. Jason was chasing after her, she could hear him calling her name, but he wasn’t getting any closer, yet.

Finally, after an eternity of sidesteps and empty smiles, she made it through the gates to the Underground. That was when he spotted her of course, the crowd had thinned down here and he was on the stairs.

“Juliana, wait, please.”

She hurried to the nearest escalator and trotted down it, you were allowed to be in a bit more of a hurry in here.

She wove through the corridors, picking a platform and jumping onto the train just pulling in. She didn’t notice which line, just that it was going somewhere other than here.

She managed to find a seat and leaned back to look around the person standing on the other side of the glass barrier at the end of the row. The gap gave her a keyhole view of the platform entrance and she sighed in relief as the doors closed just as Jason appeared. The train pulled away and he turned back down the corridor, no doubt checking the other platforms.

The advantage with being on the tube was, in this case, the utterly appalling mobile coverage. There was none unless you happened to pull into a near-ground-level station, or caught the District line, which didn’t really spend that much of its time underground. Jason had no way of calling her.

She pinged a quick note to her best friend, Emma, and left it to send as and when the phone finally managed to find a skerrick of network.

She’d caught a train heading through the City, and decided to tangle her trail a little. Nothing better to do with her time after all. She was supposed to be getting ready for her engagement celebration this evening, but Jason had clearly forgotten she’d taken the afternoon off work.

She’d heard the TV even through the front door, then realised it wasn’t the TV. She walked into their bedroom to find her fiancé boffing his team assistant in their bed. God, it was so cliché. This was how romcoms started, it wasn’t supposed to hurt so much.

She looked up as the train pulled in to another station, one with a few other lines connecting, and got off.

Now was as good a time as any to get that message to Emma, so Juliana headed for the exit and a hope of mobile coverage. She stopped in a helpful nook before the gates and checked her phone. The message had gone, she added a couple more, including a promise to fill in more later.

Then the messages to her started, all from Jason, she didn’t bother reading them. Her hand hovered over the power switch, then Emma replied, The unbelievable arse. If you can make it to the Fox & Grapes by Wimbledon Green for 7pm, reply yes, then switch your phone off.

She swallowed and smiled against the tears, typed ‘yes’, made sure it was sent, received and read, then did as instructed.

Now what to do for the rest of the afternoon? It was only 2pm. It felt like years since she’d left the office. Thank God it was Friday and she wouldn’t have to deal with work tomorrow.

She turned and went back underground. Another line, another changeover, and into one of the big mainline stations. This time she took the train, out of London. Not too far, she needed to be back in time for her evening with Emma, but it was far enough to get away from the grey stone and drab masses, it was far enough away to be quiet and green.

She walked out of the station and turned in the direction the train had come from. There had been some sort of green or common tucked behind a couple of rows of houses, she’d caught a couple of glimpses and it was enough that reaching it gave her a vague sort of goal.

It proved easy enough to find, and rather more extensive than she’d assumed from her brief views. It was bordered on three sides by comfortable commuter belt houses. No doubt they were eagerly snapped up by people who wanted their children to have a bit more room to run and somewhere for lazy summer Sunday games of community cricket.

The fourth side was trees, and she wondered how far they ran for. It was mid-afternoon, and while she had time to wander, she didn’t really have the shoes for it. Instead, she wandered across the close-cut grass to a single tree standing guard near one of the sets of houses and looked up at its inviting branches.

A throat being cleared nearby startled her and she jumped.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The man was standing off to one side, and was dressed for walking. He was around her age, maybe, tall, with dark hair and he was probably about to try and be charming.

She hurried into speech, “I was just wondering how long this tree might have been here and what it’s seen over the years.”

He smiled, more at the tree than at her which was odd, but also sort of nice. She was not in the mood to be smiled at and trees didn’t get enough appreciation.

“I can give you a little bit of its history. It’s been known in this area as The Kissing Tree for at least three generations.”

“What?”

He was still looking at the tree, although she got the feeling he might have been seeing something else entirely.

“My family have been in this area for a long time, and my grandma used to tell me that this was the place you met up with whoever it was you were walking out with. She and Grandpa used to meet here every week – Friday evenings, six o’clock. She said the only time he missed it was when he’d been in a bad accident at work and was in the hospital. Apparently he put up such a fuss though, the nurses sent one of the orderlies here with a message so Grandma would know what happened.”

Juliana flinched, she couldn’t help it, it was rubbing salt into a wound already gaping and raw.

“I’ve said something wrong.”

She looked at him, surprised again, he was disconcertingly observant. She gave a shaky laugh that ended on a half sob.

“I came out here to clear my head and get away from a rather nasty relationship surprise. To run straight into a place where people came to fall in love feels a little like the universe is twisting the knife.”