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it.’
    â€˜We’ll see.’ I do see. I see me pacing around the flat sipping malt whiskey, sniffing her old cushions and the one pair of knickers she leaves on the bed as a farewell present, looking from the phone to the clock to the phone to see if I can call her yet. I see this as a nightly routine until I finally break, get on a plane, a bus will be too slow, and go and grab her by every bit of her I can.
    â€˜I can’t just leave. You know I can’t. I can’t pack in the teaching already.’ I kid myself and am not really sure why I say it or why I’m doing it. Of course I’ll leave. ‘You’ve made it clear you don’t really want me there. Not really.’
    â€˜Yes, but you need me, numbnuts. You won’t cope. Don’t deny.’
    I read VICTORIA COACH STATION on the front of the bus as it pulls up beside us. It stops and lets out the airy fart noise buses make when they stop.
    â€˜I deny. I don’t need a woman, for god’s sake. You’re never any good at cooking, or cleaning. So be gone.’
    The door opens and suddenly everything is going at hyper-speed. How have we come to be here already? Why is she lifting her shoulder bag up and sliding it over her arm and looking at me like that? And her eyes are sparkling with wet. Her eyes never do that. And she becomes blurry because mine are doing the same and I’m a man and I don’t do that. Then as the driver is putting her suitcase in the luggage compartment under the bus we’re hugging and then kissing and then she strokes my face and says something and I nod and she climbs on the bus and my insides fall out and splash across the road and the bus pulls off, squashing them under its wheels.
    And she is waving from the back window and I stand there with my hand in the air unable to move it, shocked by the speed of everything. The bus flashes an orange light at me and it turns. And it’s gone.
    And I throw the photo of this moment back amongst the others; a lifetime of snapshots mixed up and in no order, demanding that I look at them, from here, in this place he’s shoved me, with his life, hoping I’ll be forgotten.

PEBBLES
    â€˜Y ou can’t just get on any sudako , man. You’ll end up in fuck knows where and you don’t wanna do that ‘cos you’ll end up fucked knows where.’
    â€˜ Sudako ?’
    â€˜Those little yellow buses. Sudakos . We want number 23 or 34. Then we get off and get number 65.’
    â€˜What about taking a cycle-rickshaw?’
    â€˜They’re called becaks here. Nah, not today. The buses are more fun and dirt cheap.’
    I look at the traffic coming down the road. Yellow minivans and becaks overtake, undertake, swerve, pull over and slow down just enough for people who flag them down to jump in the back. Horns beep, buses and becaks spew black smoke out of broken exhausts. People stand along the street looking for their buses. We stand with them but I can’t see any numbers on them.
    â€˜Here comes one. Watch and learn.’ With this Kim steps onto the edge of the potholed road and waves his hand at a minibus coming down between two other buses. The one nearest swerves towards us and Kim shakes his head at it. The middle bus speeds up, cuts across in front of the inside one and then pulls up beside us. I see a small number 23 taped to the bottom of the window on a scrappy piece of paper.
    â€˜Get the fuck on, man. I prefer sitting up front with the driver, but for you, new boy, we’ll do the back today.’
    I follow Kim through a doorless opening at the rear and into the back of the minivan. Nine people turn sideways to look at us. They are seated on two benches attached to the inside of the van facing each other. A row of windows runs along each side. There is room left for about a bum and a half on the seats. Kim aims for a space furthest from the door. We are both hunched over and now being thrown against