Service

The leprechaun leers at me from across the room. Waistcoat bursting, top hat tilted, expression hardened into a seedy wink. Beside him, a bloated pot of gold. 

The machine starts up, jaunty fiddle music plays and symbols cascade down the screen. The man sat at the Lucky Leprechaun machine is the exact opposite of its rosy-cheeked mascot. Dark, lean, humourless. He pushes the button once, twice and then, then, there is the sudden metallic rush of pound coins tumbling. YOU’VE THE LUCK OF THE IRISH!

The air in the room changes. The winner fills his cupped hands – nice hands, tanned with slender fingers – and all the others shift in their seats, making little squeaking noises. Then, they all go back to prodding at their respective machines, their fingertips leaving greasy prints on the screens. I go back to watching them. 

I spend as much time as I can at the Perspex partition that sections off this small, dark room lined with fruit machines from the rest of the service station. Before work, after work, during my breaks. I hover there, watching as the men – they are almost always men – jab repetitively at the buttons, their mouths wet with want. In this place, desire is palpable; a sticky, oily thing that I wish I could reach out and touch. I even love the music. The tinny glissando of prize money rising and falling plays on repeat in my head long after my night shift is over and I’m trying to sleep through the dawn.

Really, it’s you that I’m watching. Custard yellow Lacoste polo, flat cap, empty expression. Sat at the Fruitinator with your stool edged forward, knees touching the machine. You ram pound coins into the slot, one by one, without pause. I count ten, twenty, fifty and then lose count. Each release of your forefinger and thumb is a satisfying clunk as the machine swallows up the metal. You’ve not got nice hands. That’s not me being cruel; it’s just a fact. Rough, with thick fingers and chewed nailbeds. A tarnished signet ring on your little finger, the silver yielding to pink at the edges. 

The coins come from a plastic takeaway container resting on your lap. Without looking, you dip your right hand into the container, clutch at them and feed them in, only stopping when you find the container empty. Your hungry fingers delve into all four corners of the plastic box without success until you give in and put the lid back on, keeping your nothingness contained. 

You press play. Lemon, cherry, orange, cherry, plum. Orange, cherry, cherry, orange, watermelon. Lemon, lemon, lemon, lemon, plum. The lights illuminate your face in flashes, the neon delves into every crack and crevice. With each push of the button there is a tense whir and then the lament of the consolation jingle. 

Above your head is a poster, which peals at the corners and threatens to reveal the chipped paintwork beneath. In black block capitals it reads, ‘WHEN THE FUN STOPS, STOP.’ I wonder whether the fun ever really starts in a windowless room just off the M62. 

You lose ten, then twenty, then forty pounds. You wriggle your stumpy little legs on your revolving stool. Five oranges line up precariously. Then, at the last moment, one slips away, leaving a lucky number seven in its place. Your forehead is slick with the sweat of disappointment.
 
The purr of my phone interrupts our time together. Fourteen notifications from various dating apps. Three new matches and a collection of messages, from the tentative to the obviously unhinged. Simple rules help me navigate the apps. My account is only visible during working hours. I set my mile radius to one so that I only match with men who are currently sat in the service station. I always set the age range as wide as it will stretch. On each app, I use the same set of five photographs. All solo portraits; all in flattering lighting but without obvious editing; all of my old university flatmate Natalie. I never meet anyone. 

I send a few of the men a link to an online folder containing a series of nude photographs. These are also not of me, but nor are they of Natalie. They are the easiest kind of image to source: that of an anonymous naked woman. She has the same figure as Natalie and, since nobody sends nudes with their face in anymore, none of the men have ever called the images into question. 

I see the time at the top of my screen. Midnight. Reluctantly, I leave you with just £2 left to play and cross the concourse to clock in. I work at a retail outlet which is ostensibly a stationer but mainly sells energy drinks and overpriced headphones. It is frequently voted the worst retail brand in the country. As a result, customer expectations are very low which makes it the perfect place for me to work. I find the mess, the chaos, the frustration at inflated prices and missing stock, all very soothing. I wear my royal blue polo shirt with an allegiance that borders on pride. 

At the till, I rearrange Yorkies in various discontinued flavours and stack packs of football trading cards. The stock here has a grubby nostalgia to it. Shelves and shelves of things nobody has bought for at least a decade, with lurid yellow stickers indicating the desperation of slashed prices. 

A few customers come in, but they all choose to use the self-service machine instead of standing face-to-face with me. Even in a place dedicated to service, nobody wants me to serve them. I imagine how Natalie would look in my uniform, the curve of her breasts accentuated by the fitted polo shirt, her thighs hugged by the stretch of polyester. She’d always have a queue for her till. 

**

I check my phone. Adam, 37, has sent back an entire paragraph. Eighteen lines. No punctuation. Clearly deranged. ‘HI HOW Are u what are u doing here lol someone like u looks too fit to be sittin around a motorway servicesno offence or naything so what are u up to im sat in burgerking lol want to come say hi ll get you some chips or and we can chat nothing weird just hang out unless r into weird stuff lol...’

I leave him waiting for now, promising to return once he’s had a few more minutes to really work himself into frenzy.

My lunch break is at 4:30am, so I narrowly avoid the disappointment of watching the menu of pixelated Big Macs dissolve into McMuffins and hash browns. Damien stands behind the counter, grey baseball cap perched on his head, yellow piping mottled with grease. The bulbous contours of his whiteheads shine under the fluorescent lights.

I don’t need to order. I eat the same thing every day and Damien always has it ready, holding the bag up proudly like a cat revealing the mangled body of a mouse between its jaws. He takes his own lunch to coincide with mine. I don’t look back but allow him to  follow me across the concourse and up a flight of stairs, onto the bridge which crosses the motorway, leading from the northbound services to the southbound.

We stand in silence, sharing in the ritualistic uncasing of burgers as sparse traffic passes by beneath our feet. I pull apart the box, the tips of my fingers slick with burger sauce and crispy with salt. A single fry falls out and hits a car below. Damien snorts with laughter, thinking I did it on purpose. He hurls a fistful of his own fries down onto the tarmac and follows with a wad of spit. His thick phlegm glistens in the lights of passing cars as it descends.

‘Can I tell you something?’ He asks, lighting two cigarettes and passing one to me.

This is how he starts every conversation. Can I tell you something? The Eiffel tower is taller in the summer than in the winter. Can I tell you something? My mum is really sick. Can I tell you something? I had a dream about you last night. Endless conversations, none ever as interesting as the opener implies. I shrug.

‘A guy tried to set himself on fire at Exelby Services last night,’ he says, almost breathless with excitement.

'What happened?’ 

I try to keep my voice steady so as not to give him the satisfaction of my interest. 

‘Dunno.’ 

Damien takes another hacking spit. We watch the globule of saliva fall. Lit up from the motorway below, his face is the pasty pink of sliced ham. A festering bubble of mayonnaise sits at the corner of his mouth. 

‘Why?’

‘Huh?’

‘The guy. Why did he set himself on fire?’

‘Dunno. Something about his wife I think.’

I try to imagine the kind of woman who would compel a man to strike a match against his doughy flesh. I remember the way men used to look at Natalie, greedy eyes lingering on her perfect body. Beneath our feet, a lorry rushes by, bringing with it a dense roar. I stare hard at the tip of my cigarette and imagine it is the throaty sound of a body dissolving in a wall of flame. 

‘Would you set yourself on fire?’ I ask Damien, eventually.

‘What?’

‘For like – a cause?’

‘Nah. I’m not really into any causes.’

‘What about for a person?’

‘Who? My mum?’ 

I sigh and shove the remnants of my lunch off the bridge. It comes down in a confetti shower of ribboned lettuce. Damien opens his mouth to say something else and I turn, leaving him alone on the bridge where he disappears into the darkness.

**

I spend the last of my break sat on the toilet Googling. There is nothing online about the Exelby incident. I wonder, briefly, whether Damien made it up to impress me.
 
Hundreds of other self-immolation attempts have taken place at petrol stations across the world. Pages and pages of people choosing to take their lives to fiery conclusions locked inside their cars or stood on forecourts doused in petrol.

Man, 42, lights self on fire at Little Chef.
Self-immolation granddad had ‘so much to live for’.
“He seemed so happy” says petrol blaze widow.

It is not difficult to understand why someone would kill themselves at a service station. Of course, there is the convenience to consider. Wide, open areas without close supervision; proximity to a large quantity of fuel. But it’s not just that. Fury and desperation thrive in places like this. I see it every day.

‘Would you do anything for me?’ I reply to Adam, 37.

‘HAHa probably!!’ The response comes back immediately. 

‘Would you hurt someone?’

‘What?’

‘Would you hurt yourself?’

‘What the fuck?’

‘Would you set yourself on fire?’

I’m about to provide further detail but find that I am blocked. Clearly, I overestimated Adam. I am alerted to a new match, and that’s when I see you again. In your third  photograph you clutch a dead fish. I zoom in and look closely at your hands, spotting the silver signet ring on your little finger.

When I get back out to the concourse, I am surprised to find you sat there still. Custard yellow back to me, hunched over a new machine. Fishin’ Frenzy. I can just make out the shrill sea shanty. Bright colours pulse and blur before you. Then, something happens. The screen erupts into animated excitement. CATCH OF THE DAY! 

You don’t react. Just a shuffle in your seat, revealing the start of a pasty white arse. You lean into the machine, press a button and the whole thing starts up again. You have sat here all night long and look set to see in the dawn. 

Without bothering with an introductory message or even a hello – I imagine you are a man happy to dispense with formalities – I send the link and wait.