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Stan: 47, 5’7”

Bus driver, GSOH

Seeks companion for long walks, cosy nights and maybe more…?

Stan was pleased with that. Resting his arms on the steering wheel he hit ‘Update’ and put his phone in his pocket.

“Morning Stan”

“Morning Mary - single to town?”

“Please”

Mary struggled up the bus steps heavily, leaning on Stan’s booth to catch her breath between the gaps in her teeth.

“How’s them Tinders going, Stan? Any girlies yet?”

“Not yet Mary - none of them reach my exacting standards, see.”

“Aye” said Mary, eyeing Stan’s paunch, baggy eyes and skin like the outside of an avocado round his neck and chin. “That’ll be it. Well, never say die.”

Mary was almost part of the bus itself, she rode it so often. She was full of dating advice for Stan, which he rarely asked for. She lurched towards her place near the front and they set off.

As Stan pulled into the bus station he felt a buzz in his pocket. The Tinders! He forced himself to wait until all the passengers had left before checking:

Angel666: Hi Stan. I like long walks too. Intrigued by ‘maybe more…’ What did you have in mind? ;)

Stan’s heart felt lighter than air. He tapped a thick-fingered response:

Stan: Oh, this and that - bet you have some ideas, Angel?

Almost instantaneously his phone buzzed a reply

Angel666: I could show you a thing or two...Angel by name, NOT by nature!

Stan couldn’t believe his luck. Months of silence and now this! He swiped clumsily at his phone to find out what she looked like, but her avatar was just a photo of a plastic angel with tiny devil horns. A woman of mystery; he liked that.

That day Stan’s mind raced as fast as his bus. He and Angel typed frantically to each other, each response racier than the last. Stan’s collar grew damp; his trousers uncomfortable.

Around midday a slender blonde climbed aboard. Stan hadn’t seen her before and she looked at him seductively through long lashes, lingering over her change. She brandished a pink phone, which, to Stan’s astonishment, had a sexy cartoon angel on it. She practically showed it to him! He swallowed and watched her swaying backside walking up the aisle.

“Hiya Stan”

“Hello Mary. I’ve had a bite on them Tinders - a tasty bite as it happens” then mouthing ‘she’s here!’ and gesturing oafishly over his shoulder.

Mary stared at the blonde then grabbed Stan’s phone, scrolling greedily.

“Filthy bugger aren’t you? I hope she knows what she’s getting into!”

“What’s getting into her more like” leered Stan. Mary cackled obligingly.

As Mary hobbled to her seat Stan watched the blonde tapping at her phone. Seconds later Stan’s buzzed:

Angel666: I can see you, Stan. Can’t wait till you’re driving this big bus - bet you love being in control…

Blushing Stan fired up the engine, not noticing the little plastic charm dangling innocently from Mary’s phone, tiny horns glinting in the sunlight...

The pork was four hours in the oven and she was onto the avocados when he called. He told her about the manic traffic outside of Calais, but nothing of Dover, no grin in his voice how’d cut across back roads to Folkstone, how even now he was a mere two hours from home.

She said, ‘Babe, where are you?’

Dunc said, ‘Listen, Kenny called.’

She set down the phone. She fetched out white from the fridge, poured a glass. She looked at the split avocado, already brown starting to creep across the flesh. Homemade guac to go with pulled pork fajitas and nachos topped with cheese.

Back to the fridge with its bright letter magnets on the door spelling out “seven years, eight months”. Dunc was now saying, ‘-no brainer, right? Across to Dusseldorf, then Rotterdam to Hull. What is that, four days paid for eight? And double rate, and it’s-‘

She said, ‘Just tell me.’

Now the grin was in his voice. ‘You at the fridge, babe? Change it. Seven years, seven months till the mortgage is paid.’

Two glasses and half the nachos later she was at the computer in the dining room to look up episodes of The Wire so they could talk about them the next day. It wasn’t a conscious thing, signing in to Skype as a Xxxx_Foxy, but she did it and there it was. AngelXlover was online.

He said nothing as she read through the plot summaries, silence from him as she got into the production notes until at last Skype chimed up.

One word only. Horny?

Still a thrill to read that.

She said: Always.

He said: What’s the story?

She was Tatjana, wife to a husband who killed for the Russian president. He was Lars, the nineteen year old pool boy from Finland. But there was a problem. Did he know anything about the rare Faberge lighter gone missing from her bureau?

She typed one handed, left hand switching between wine glass and the top button of her jeans that was digging in the nacho tight flesh around her middle. When Lars took his shirt off she finally popped the button, the zip down the front running open all the way by itself.

Lars was down to his underwear when her phone began to ring.

Dunc said, ‘Surprise! Go to the kitchen.’

No way, could he? She shuffled through into the kitchen, phone in her right hand, her left doing a terrible job of corralling her sagging jeans. No romance in Dunc’s soul but still she sighed relief at the empty kitchen.

Dunc said, ‘That horse I’ve been watching, eighteen to one shot, but it came in and I put on a hundred. You know what that means?’

It meant free money. It meant a holiday. It meant a new carpet in the dining room. Her feet began to beat a tattoo on the tiled floor.

Dunc said, ‘That’s right, babe. Go on, do it. Seven years and four months.’

Mike had wanted to go off-grid for a while, and that twat saying millenials would be able to get on the property ladder if they only ate fewer smashed avocados on toast was the final straw. Packing in his bullshit job at Admiral, he had closed his bank accounts, sold his Skoda, and donated most of his cash to the local homeless foundation. Just like that guy off Into The Wild, he thought to himself, as he rummaged through his pile of things, thinning out in an attempt to make his rucksack lighter. Except he would keep his loved ones informed. What an asswipe McCandless was. Anyway, Mike didn't WANT to be a home owner and would rather enjoy avocados on toast than save for a house, but more than either of these things, he wanted to be free. He wanted to roam, to live, to love, to learn.

That night, as he lay down to sleep for what might be the last ever time in a proper bed, he reflected on the last 25 years. What had he really achieved? So he had his degree in Human Geography; 300 odd followers on Twitter; nearly half as many again on Instagram; 674 friends on Facebook last time he’d checked; a pretty decent sized catalogue of rare stamps he’d accumulated to add to his Grandfather’s collection. But what did it all mean, he ruminated as his eyelids began to droop, not a lot.

Mike woke early the next morning. He made his bed, and left the card he’d written to Yvonne, who’d be taking on his lease, propped up on the pillow. She’d let him off for not changing the sheets, they’d ended up in bed together enough times over the last two decades, what was a bit of sweat and a few errant pubes between friends? Pouring himself a cup of coffee he realised this might be the last time he held a kettle in a while, but hey, he wasn’t going to get all sentimental over kettles, of all things. He ate some toast, liberally slathered with peanut butter and jam, and composed his last Tweet: ‘I’m heading off grid. Life’s too complicated. Wish me well. #FuckYouCapitalism’, together with a picture of Emile Hirsch sat on top of a campervan. His followers would know what it meant. Or they wouldn’t. Who cared. He placed his phone on the counter, rinsed his mug and plate, and walked out the flat, keys abandoned on the work surface.

---

3 weeks later. Manchester city centre. 2:58am.

Mike awoke, shivering. His eyes, crusted and red, struggled to focus on the apparition before him. ‘Are you an angel?’ he croaked, through sore and cracked lips.

‘Nah! It’s my hen-do!’, the figure above him cackled. ‘Suzie got me this from the charity shop. Fucked if I’m going to wear a veil though! Spend all that money on my eyebrows and make-up, no way I’m covering it up’.

Laying his head back upon the damp cardboard beneath, Mike closed his eyes, and dreamt of kettles.

Don't ever stop for hitchhikers. It had been drilled into me since I first got my licence. You hear such horror stories. Every time I passed someone on a grass verge or in a service station layby, thumb turned out hopefully, I looked away, eyes fixed on the road ahead, a manner perfected over years of side stepping Big Issue sellers and charity muggers brandishing clipboards and fake smiles.

But this was different. She didn't look more than 16, and it was pouring with rain. I mean you can’t just leave a kid alone like that, anything could happen, any passing weirdo taking their fancy. So I stopped, overshooting the layby slightly, tyres clipping the edge of the curb. And in the rain and the glow of the streetlight, she looked just like Amy.

I opened the passenger window and she leant inside, rain dripping from her hair down the door.

‘I’m going as far as City Hospital, if that’s any use?’

She eyed me up, making a judgment on whether I was a safe bet, safer at least than taking her chances alone on the side of the A44. The hospital pass hanging around my neck must have marked me as safe because she replied ‘Perfect. Thanks’ She got into the passenger seat and tucked her schoolbag down by her feet. ‘This is so good of you. My dad was meant to pick me up, but he didn't show, and my phone died -’

‘- No problem. It's a horrible night to be out.’

I turned the heater dial to blast some air on the windscreen which was fogging up. The windscreen wipers squeaked rhythmically. She eyed my cigarettes in the centre console and asked if I minded if she smoked. ‘Light one for me too’ I said, passing her the cigarette packet, feeling generous. She fumbled in her pocket for a lighter, and I watched her sidelong as she lit two cigarettes at once before passing one to me. I opened my window a fraction, the rain slicing through the small gap and hitting my face.

Maybe it was cigarette, or maybe just that I'm the kind of person that people can't help but talk to, but she wouldn't shut up. About school, how she was going to fail her exams for sure, how her mum had just had another baby that cried all the time, how her stepdad had painted the kitchen avocado green and her mum hadn't spoken to him for a week. She just went on and on, all the time fingering a tiny gold angel on a chain around her neck. She was so like Amy that I struggled to stay focused on the road. Picking her up had been a bad idea. What was I thinking?

She was so busy chattering that she paid no attention when I pulled off the busy main road, taking smaller and quieter roads with each turn. I pulled the car into a picnic area, long since closed for the winter, and killed the engine. She looked at me, confusion instantly replaced by fear. Like Amy before her, and the others since, she tried the door, and like all that came before her, discovered it locked. She flinched as I reached to touch the gold angel around her neck. ‘When will you kids ever learn’ I whispered, unable to resist ‘not to accept lifts from strangers?’