Words to include:

1. Flange
2. Maniacal
3. Psychopath
4. Stasis
5. Adventurous
6. Freedom
7. Perpendicular
8. Peripatetic

A very lost looking man exits Frogett Green Tube Station at 11:56 am on 14th February, Valentines Day. He pulls out his battered copy of the London A-Z because he doesn’t believe in smartphones. Aged 31, he is the last of his generation to be navigating life with the aid of paper and ink. A mere few years ago he was considered a minor hero for his stubbornness to conform to modern life. Now, however, people give him looks tinged with pity or suspicion, none more so than his close friends who know how lacking he is in the map reading skills department. The man squints at his old-fangled book in the hope that it might help him make sense of all the squiggles. But discombobulation has set in now. His mind is as squiggled and tangled as the book is. Lucky he got here an hour early. He had more than an inkling that this might happen.

A bus swoops into the stop right in front of him. It breaks wind and sighs with relief as it comes to a standstill. Three people file out. Two young professionals with laptop bags and places to be scurry down into the depths of the underground, then one little old lady topples off the bus after them. The man reaches out to steady her. The old woman points to his A-Z and says “are you lost, dear?”

“Hopelessly.” He replies. “I’m looking for a café near here, called Jolly Jo’s. It’s meant to be on Camberton Square, but I can’t even see that on my map.”

A dark look comes over the old woman’s face. “Yes. I know it. I had a dodgy omelette there a few months back. Spent two days on the shitter after. It’s Gamburton Square if you really must go there.”

“Oh…I’m sorry to hear that. Well, it’s just that I’m meeting someone and it’s a bit late to rearrange…” He trails off, not knowing how to justify his decision to go there now.

The old woman raises one eyebrow. “You want to go down this street, turn left at the traffic lights, then right when you get to the daft tit playing his accordion and Gamburton Square is just ahead of you. I hope for your sakes this isn’t a Valentine’s Day thing.” She ambles on with a maniacal cackle.

The man now thinks he understands why he has been instructed to meet here. And he has an hour to kill in this terrible sounding establishment; it’s far too cold to wait outside and he isn’t one for being spontaneous either so he trudges straight there. The old woman was right about the accordion player – he really is a tit. He’s wearing a shiny red suit and attempting a rendition of ‘Sexual Healing’ by Marvin Gaye. A pair of junkies are slow dancing to it, clearly his only fans. The café is within sight now. He can see it’s gaudy signage of a rotund laughing woman wearing a chef’s hat, holding her belly with one hand and a plate of cake in the other. This is an area of London that five years ago would have been considered ‘up-and-coming’ but is now well and truly unaffordable for the average person. It’s green and leafy (as the name Frogett Green would suggest) and – for the most part – has been regenerated with the help of boutique stores, quirky coffee shops, pop-up art galleries and rustic wine bars. Jolly Jo’s sticks out like a sore thumb, unabashedly cheap and cheerful amongst all of this serious, artisanal stuff.

The windows to the café are a little steamy so he enters into the unknown. Inside, there are a handful of customers, all very dreary looking and Jo herself stood at the counter wearing a grubby apron and a hairnet over her greasy locks, where that dazzling white chef’s hat was meant to be. Her lips curl down at the edges, giving her a trout-like appearance and a few coarse hairs are sprouting from her chin. She’s certainly on the morbid end of the obesity scale, but that’s where the likeness to her signage ends.

“What can I get ya love?” She asks without meeting the man’s gaze. “We’ve got a special Valentine’s dessert on today.” She suggests, pointing to a gruesome pink and wobbling jelly thing behind the glass of the counter.

“Strawberry flange?” He reads aloud from the little cardboard label, understandably skeptical.

Jo looks incensed. “Kayleigh!?” she shouts into the kitchen behind her. “What the hell are you playing at?”

Kayleigh emerges tentatively, wearing rubber gloves and dripping water all over the floor. “What have I done now?”

“Strawberry flange, Kayleigh? Seriously?”

“What? That’s what them cake thingies are, right?”

The man interjects “I think perhaps she’s mixed up flan with sponge? No harm done though, actually it’s kind of funny.”

Jo’s trout face does not see the funny side, so the man changes the topic and orders a flat white and a (pre-packaged) flapjack. He finds a seat by the window where he can drink his lukewarm coffee with a view of the café opposite and it’s huge coffee machines like steam engines, exposed brickwork and happy couples canoodling over flourless chocolate torte. It’s almost a parallel universe, one that a part of him wants to belong to, but a bigger part of him despises intensely. At least on this side of the street with his slightly sticky table and elderly gentleman coughing up bits of flange behind him, he knows where he stands. No one is pretending here.

At 12:07 (seven minutes late), the woman strides purposefully into Jolly Jo’s and sits down opposite the man, her back is perfectly perpendicular to the seat of her chair. “Thank you for coming Fabian.” She says, as if beginning (or perhaps ending) an interview.

“Come here often do you Olivia?” he mocks.

Olivia looks around the room with distaste. “Well clearly not, but I thought it best we find some neutral ground, especially on a day like today.” She calls over to the counter that she would like a peppermint tea in a holier than thou tone. Jo looks poised to say something snarky but she sees the pleading look in Fabian’s eyes and buttons it.

Olivia has cemented her new life here in Frogett Green by moving into a delightful apartment overlooking the river with her ‘other man’. This afternoon he will whisk her away for a delightful few days in Tuscany, followed no doubt by a delightful marriage proposal. Fabian thanks the Gods on a daily basis that he chickened out of proposing to Olivia at Christmas. He had planned to do it in front of her family, hiding an engagement ring in the toe of her Christmas stocking. Their relationship had reached dramatic stasis a long time ago. But then along came the other man, a successful and charming businessman (almost certainly a psychopath) and by Christmas Olivia was ready to jump ship. But there is still the matter of their business to contend with. Olivia never had much direction career-wise – she flitted from one idea to the next like a runny yolk in a tilted frying pan – so Fabian gave her the best thing he had to offer. He set up a company with her, fifty-fifty and then watched as she sat on her arse and did next to nothing while he carried the whole operation. After weeks of negotiation, he has convinced her to let him buy her out. He’s had to remortgage his flat to do it, but it’s worth every penny to get her out of his life once and for all.

“Will your mother be along soon? You must be eager to get to the airport.” Fabian enquires, checking his reliably, yet inexpensively branded wristwatch.

“No, she isn’t coming.” Replies Olivia, no explanation given.

“Oh for fuck’s sake Olivia, who’s going to witness us signing the documents then? I told you, I want this sorted before you piss off to Tuscany. We’ll have to find someone else, get your bloody boyfriend to do it for all I care.”

“I won’t be signing the document Fabian.” She declares, without a hint of remorse.

“We had. An. Agreement. The deal is more than fair.”

“It was fair when I agreed to it last week. But a little birdy has notified me of developments. Developments to the sum of half a million? Ringing any bells?”

Fabian’s head begins to spin. He has an offer on the table from a larger company willing to buy out the business for £600,000. It was meant to be his clean break. He was going to use it to pay off the crippling debt that Olivia had pushed him into. To him it means freedom and he deserves it after seven years of incarceration with her.

“Look, I’ve no idea how you found out about this, but come on! Be reasonable. The offer was made after you agreed to let me buy you out and long after you stopped working for the company. I was the one who built up the relationships that made this happen. I’ve done all of the groundwork. You said it yourself that the business was never going to make any money and you wanted out. You don’t even need the money Olivia! You’re living in a multi-million pound apartment for Christ’s sake.”

“I own fifty percent of the company and I’m not signing away my half for any less than it’s worth. Simple as that. I’ll give you a few days to collect your thoughts and then when I’m back we’ll discuss the sale that we’re both about to enter into.” With that, Olivia stands up, leaving her peppermint tea untouched and clip-clops out of the café like some self-entitled show pony.

Fabian throws some money onto the table for the tea and then storms out into the square, where he begins to kick a tree with the intent to gravely injure it or himself, whichever comes first. The girl from the kitchen, Kayleigh, watches on, apparently on a cigarette break. Fabian stops when he sees her staring at him intently.

“She seems like a right cow. Not that I was eavesdropping or anything. But it was kind of hard not to hear.”

“Yes, well I should’ve known she’d get her own way. She always does.”

“I could help, you know. I’m feeling generous today. I’m tired of seeing little people like us getting trodden on. The question is, are you feeling adventurous?”

Fabian doesn’t know whether to be offended at being referred to as a ‘little person’ or not. And is slightly worried about what this skinny little teenager might be trying to offer him.

“When you walked into this café, did you think it was strange that it is where it is, being what it is? I mean, it’s pretty scummy right? But it’s surrounded by really nice places. Laa di daa places where I’d have to get a payday loan to buy a coffee and a pastry.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But it’s not all that uncommon in London. I guess it’s down to rent control or something.”

“Nah. Our rent is sky high. And Jo has the whole building. Even though she’s crap with money. A year ago she was ready to declare herself bankrupt.”

She has Fabian’s attention now. “So what changed? Have flange sales rocketed?”

“Don’t take the piss. I’m not good at spelling ok? I’m about to tell you something I shouldn’t because I’ve taken pity on you and also because I’m sick of Jo so I don’t see why I should keep my mouth shut today.”

Fabian takes a couple of nervous steps closer to her and she looks around to check they won’t be overheard. She continues in hushed tones. “So Jo rents the whole building, right? But she sublets the basement.” She takes a drag on her pastel pink cigarette. “There’s this guy down there called Mr Whitlock who pays pretty much all of our rent because he doesn’t want his name on any paperwork and he trusts Jo to keep schtum. And she does too. Only reason I know about it’s cos I’m a right nosey parker.”

“So…how is this meant to help me?”

“I was just getting to that bit. Hold your horses.” Kayleigh drops her fag end and looks around again furtively. “This Mr Whitlock is running a very special kind of operation down there. He calls it ‘Karma’.” She spreads her fingers and traces a mystical arc in front of her as she announces the name of his business.

“Sounds like some spiritual rubbish to me. What are we talking? A one-stop shop for yoga and drugs?”

“No. we’re talking about revenge. See, it’s like karma that you can buy. If someone needs teaching a lesson and you have the money, Mr Whitlock will see to it that they get their comeuppance. Seems to me, this bird is causing you a lot of trouble and she could do with a bit of comeuppance. Am I right?”

Fabian takes a sudden step backwards and clasps his hand to his mouth. “Is Mr Whitlock a hitman? Shit! I may want to throttle her sometimes but I don’t actually want her dead! I’m not cut out for prison.”

“Nooo, you nitwit! It’s all legal…sort of. See, what he does is follows the person round for you for a while, like a private investigator let’s say. And he gets you to tell him every little thing you know about them, and then he figures out what matters most to them in all the world. And then he ruins it all for them. He ruins lives. Or if you’ve only got fifty quid spare he’ll get some kid to shove some dog shit through their letterbox and ruin their carpet.”

Fabian leans back against the tree and thinks about how wonderful revenge would feel. He’d never have the guts to go through with anything like that himself, for fear of getting caught, but if someone else could do it for him and make it look like an unfortunate accident. Well, quite frankly it’d be magnificent.

He grabs Kayleigh’s arm. “I want to meet Mr Whitlock. Take me to meet him.”

“I can’t do that. Jo can’t know I told you about him or I’ll get sacked. I’m skating on thin ice as it is. What I can do is I’ll give you his number. You’re to go home and wait a day and then call him. When you come in to see him, wear a hat and some glasses or something. Make sure Jo doesn’t recognise you as customer or she’ll put two and two together and she’ll know I’ve been telling people things I’m not meant to be telling people. When you call him tell him you got his number off an Internet chat room, off someone you don’t know, okay??”

She scribbles the number on a chewing gum wrapper and puts it in his front coat pocket. He smiles at her uncertainly and turns to leave, but she hisses at him “Wait! Aren’t you going to reward me for my trouble?”

“Oh!” Fabian fumbles around his wallet for something he can offer her. He’s out of cash. All he can find is a £20 Marks and Spencer voucher that his aunt Victoria gave him at two birthdays ago. “It’s all I have on me. Sorry.” he says as he sheepishly proffers the voucher towards her.

Kayleigh looks genuinely thrilled. “Sweet! I fucking love M&S. Good luck with everything then. Put that bitch in her place, yeah?” With that, she runs back to the café, where Jo ushers her in, looking even grumpier than before.

Fabian takes the bus home since he is in no particular rush, but cannot contain his peripatetic thoughts. He feels a curious sense of excitement at his little secret. He’s never crossed a line in his life but now he feels it’s time. He gets off the bus just around the corner from his 1 bed flat with a spring in his step, a surge of power fuels him up four flights of stairs and he reaches the top not even short of breath. He makes a beeline for the kettle, a ritual when he gets into the flat, but stops short of flicking the switch. Instead, he goes to the fridge and gets himself a beer. It’s only 1.30, but he doesn’t care. He’s a grown man. He can have a beer if he wants, no justification needed. He sits out on his tiny rusting balcony on a camping chair, watching the traffic below and drinking from the cool bottle. His ancient brick of a phone is on the little fold-up table beside him. Mr Whitlock’s number is burning a hole in his coat pocket. He’s supposed to wait 24 hours until he makes the call, but what harm would it do to make it right now?

It only takes the one beer before he’s made up his mind to call. He jabs at the buttons painfully slowly and listens to his phone ring. After thirty seconds or so a woman’s voice answers. It sounds a lot like Jo, although she’s putting on an odd interpretation of a seductive voice. “Good afternoon, this is Karma. How may I help you?”

“Hello, yes…I’d like to speak to Mr Whitlock please.”

“Mr Whitlock takes calls by appointment only. But perhaps if you explain your situation to me I can be of some assistance?”

Fabian suddenly feels this is a terrible idea and begins to trip over his own words in an attempt to get off the phone as quickly as possible. “I’m sorry, I think…it’s just… maybe this is a mistake. I shouldn’t have called.”

“Wait one moment” the woman’s voice interrupts. He hears the phone ring again. Clearly Mr Whitlock isn’t as busy or in-demand as she made out.