There was a crystalline ice in the air that curled the edge of the dead leaves on the floor. I held a large bouquet of flowers and my sign said Home for Xmas.
The traffic ran thick out of the service station, thickened by the roundabout works. Two lanes crawled past and merged awkwardly. People mostly avoided eye contact though a few engaged in a smile. After a while with no bite, I turned my board over and wrote M11 North instead. It was clear people weren’t feeling festive enough to take a stranger home. Home could be anywhere after all.
Marcin drove a blue Jeep. It took us a while to ascertain where he was going but he wasn’t going on the M11. There was lots of pinching of Google Maps and following the blue ribbon, until in the end he produced the name of a village.
“Oh no way,” I replied, “My grandparents live there. I’ll pop in and say hello.”
We crawled through the orange cones until, free of them, the traffic thinned. Marcin knew about hitchhiking. It was popular in Poland and his brother had thumbed the entire width of Europe. I told him that I’d once met a Polish man in a car park in Kazakhstan. He’d hitchhiked all the way there. Once the ferry arrived to take us across the Caspian, he would hitchhike all the way home. He was wearing bug-like sunglasses that reflected the milky blue of the sky and he had a seething laugh. The ferry didn’t arrive that day so he said I could sleep in his tent. We pitched it on the top of a dirt mound overlooking the port. Marcin and I wondered if he ever got home.
Marcin had lived in Bedford before and sold Landrovers in Cambridge. Now he lived in Basildon and sold Jeeps. He liked the job and was good at it. “I read books on sales psychology,” he told me, “All that kind of shit.”
He’d spent a lot of time in his Jeep, selling Jeeps, driving across the country. He’d picked up a hitchhiker before too. “Whenever I see someone in need I always help them out,” he told me, “It’s a bit of a problem though when I’m drunk. I end up giving homeless people loads of money…!”
He didn’t mind too much though. He said he had plenty of money. Being a sales manager is well-paid, and as he said, his interest in sales meant he sold a lot of cars. He didn’t seem bothered about it. It was just how it was. Nevertheless, money did figure somewhere in his list of priorities. He’d studied film at Goldsmiths but given it up because there was so little in it. He missed being creative though and hoped to go back one day.
Marcin was going to my grandparents’ village for a Tinder date. “A 25-mile drive, not too bad,” he shrugged. He’d been on dates further away than that. They’d met on FaceTime before but he was nervous. This would be the first time they’d met in person and it was his first date since coming out of a seven-year relationship.
It had been a difficult few months. When he found out his ex was cheating on him, he booked himself into a Premier Inn. He swiped off the map on his phone and pulled up a string of email receipts to prove it. “One night, two…three,” he said scrolling down. He’d not been able to leave. He bought cocaine and just stayed there, doing three grams a day and playing Call of Duty. Eventually, he reached such a dark place that he was just lying on the floor, terrified that people in the building opposite were trying to shoot him. He could see the glint of light on their telescopic sights and their lasers flickering on his wall. Again he seemed sanguine about it. It was a lesson learnt, a place seen. He said he’d never touch the stuff again.
The girl from the date had a child. He wouldn’t normally go for that but he thought she was very attractive. Her looks weren’t normally his style either, but he didn’t mind. She’d had an abusive ex and had been moved to social housing out here. They thought they might walk the dog through Hatfield Forest.
The worry however, was Marcin hadn’t heard from her all day. Not a word. By the time we reached the village there was still no sign. He thought he was usually an over-thinker but he was quite confident he’d been stood up. “Ah fuck,” he sighed, “I’ll just have to drive back. It’s only 25 miles.”
I told him there was a nice village local. He decided he’d wait with a pint and I said I’d join. The beer would help settle the nerves. A few minutes later we were sitting under the low beamed ceiling on a light table by the window. We got a round and clinked the glasses. It was only midday but it was almost Christmas. Besides, Marcin needed it.
As hoped, a few sips of beer dampened the nerves. Marcin showed me his accumulators for the weekend. He pulled up a list of football matches. Once he’d won £750 from £2 on the UFC. He only ever placed small bets. “Small bets with big returns.” Some of his friends had gambling problems. One had lost thousands. Another won 80 grand once and spent it all in two months in Ibiza.
We drained our drinks, the beer’s white webbing clinging to the glasses. Marcin’s phone buzzed. He looked at it rapidly but his face fell when he saw that it wasn’t his date. It was his ex of all people. He began to despair again so we got another pint. Halfway through that one, a second text came through. This time it was from his date. A look of relief diffused across his face and turned to a smile. “The 25 miles wasn’t for nothing,” he grinned, and we tipped our pints back.
I felt lightheaded as we stepped out of the pub’s low arch, standing up straight in the winter sun. We’d drunk our beers quickly and I’d not even had breakfast.
Marcin was a new man as we drove through the village. There’d have been a spring in his step if we’d been on foot. I handed him the bouquet of flowers as he dropped me outside my grandparents. “Give them to your date,” I said, and he promised he would.
With that, I hopped out, and stepped, a little unsteadily but merrily all the same, up to my grandparents’ door.