Interval

A door bangs open on the half-landing. NELL, forties, in a black dress and house lanyard, steps out into the concrete cold. She lets the door go. It does not close.

She notices the man already there. AUGUST, sixty, dinner jacket, holding an unlit cigarette like a pen.

She checks her watch. Twelve minutes of interval left. She leans against the rail beside him, close enough to share the draught.

August turns the cigarette over once. He puts it back in his pocket, unlit.

Nell looks at him properly for the first time. Somewhere below, the five-minute bell.

She holds the door. He looks at the stairs going up, then goes in.