A train compartment. A man and a woman. In a series of dazzling internal monologues, the man, a novelist, muses on his latest work, contemplates the futility of writing and considers his life in terms of his daughter, her lover and the workings of Ex-Lax on his digestive system. The woman thinks of her life, her loves and friendships in the full knowledge that the man she is facing is the novelist she admires and would love to speak to, and whose latest work she has tucked in her handbag.