We met on the train. We sat opposite each other. She was reading from a device. I was reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. She spoke first in one of the long unexplained halts. She put down her device as I laid down my book. She smiled at me. A good table separated us.

"It's great to see people reading Austen, however suspect her morality."

 "Yes, very suspect. I came to her suddenly a few months ago. I had never read her before."

 "Really?"

 She looked surprised.

 "I never had the desire to. She never meant anything to me, until earlier this year when I got a cheap collection. I then read Sense and Sensibility and was gripped. Totally."

 She looked carefully at me.

 I asked what she was reading.

 “Oh a different kettle of fish altogether. Fifty Shades of Grey.”

A polite silence followed, as if one or other of as had let out a sneaky fart. One surely did not discuss the notorious spanking book with a total stranger.

The train started to move again. She picked up her device and before I knew it we were at Paddington and leaving the train. As we stepped off onto the platform she stood before me and turned and said, "I couldn't get into Austen’s false moralisms – that sense that she denied the moral contradictions of the time."