BOOK 1 : Chapter 1
Present day
Parrish’s Pharmacy, the chemist shop on the Fitzy Arcade. It’s the back office away from the sight of the public, A 22 year old man is standing clearing away his personal items. It’s his last day at work.
He’s taking pictures off a notice board, the pictures are what appears to be passport style photos from an automated photo machine.
Besides him is the office PC, that’s also running a personal messaging program similar to WhatsApp , the PC pings repeatedly with unanswered messages.
He remembers back to his first day 6 long years ago.
6 years ago.
Albert had worked at Parrish’s from when he was 16. It was just a Saturday job, whilst he was at college.
He was friendly and polite with the customers and he helped on the till, stocked the shelves and also serviced the photo booth that sat in the back of the shop.
He was a shy young man and his social life was non existent. His short list of interests consisted mainly of an obsession with Dungeons & Dragons, Dr Who and crime podcasts.
He had no interests outside of those obsessions, he didn’t like football, exercise and no clue about fashion and no luck with girls.
He was your classic geek, and that was reflected in his underdeveloped body, and rather too large Afro hair cut. He’d been brought up by his mum a 32-year-old single parent. She was white and his father who he’d never met was black. She didn’t really recognise the value of his black ethnicity to him and that was reflected in him being raised in a culturally white home.
He was also embarrassed to admit that his only female friend was someone he’d met online. Her name was Clair and she was both exotically and frustratingly from Canada. They had met a year ago in an online Dungeons and Dragons game and between sessions discovered a mutual love of unsolved crimes as well as obscure geek themed T Shirts that they would always try and outdo each other with each new online meet ups.
Like him Clair was shy, very awkward but pretty with a black bobbed hair cut and glasses. Albert was never aware of just how much time she would spend each day having to blow dry her hair to stop it frizzing up into the tight curls that she really wished she’d never been cursed with. She was fiercely intelligent, razor quick and probably a bit intense. What wasn’t in doubt was that she absolutely adored Albert. She was also very self conscious about her weight, everything she ate seemed to settle onto her hips and bum or her rather large boobs. She hated her body and dressed to conceal her weight under baggy hoodies and sweatpants. She had beautiful olive skin, but because she didn’t go out much, she was always very pale.
As Clair was so far away and so remote his only other female contact was with customers that came into the shop. Most were elderly, picking up prescriptions but there were younger ones and he was grateful that the job at least let him talk to women his age that he’d never have had the courage to talk to normally, simply because they came into the Pharmacy. Those snatched brief and illicit conversations were what amounted to his social life, not that the recipients of his socialising would ever have realised it.
He always took time to chat to those that came in to use the Photo Booth. It was the only one on the estate, the only one that could be accessed without needing to pay for a bus ride into Normanbrook or into London.
Like a lot of things on the Fitzy estate the machine was run down and often faulty. His boss Sy the pharmacist who spent almost no time in the shop, preferring to spend his time at his larger Normanbrook branch, only popped in each day to pick up and drop off the prescriptions. He left the running of the Photo Booth and access to its management system via the back office PC entirely to Albert.
For his part Albert would often end up helping the customers to set up the machine and make sure it took a good picture, usually for bus passes or benefit cards or 18+ ID cards for the lads and girls to get into Malkis.
He’d been working in the shop for nearly two years when a girl came in that changed his life.
2 years later.
That girl was Jacqueline Martin. He met her on the very first day that she moved to the estate. She was 19, a year older than Albert when they met and seemed so grown up and sophisticated, despite it being the first time she’d lived away from home, but as Albert still lived with his Mum, even renting a tiny flat like Jacqueline was doing seemed incredibly adventurous and exotic.
He would never forget the image of her when she first came into the shop that Saturday in early July, 2 weeks after his 18th birthday. She had shoulder length brown hair with a slightly offset centre parting. It gave the impression by its uneven colour that perhaps it had had a reddish wash in dye put in it recently that was now almost faded out. She was tall, he guessed about 5’7” and quite slender, but not skinny, probably a size 10 if he had been up on women’s clothes sizes, which he wasn’t. She had a pale cream loose fitting blouse and a soft denim canvass bag over her shoulder. He immediately spotted a D&D and Star Wars badge amongst others on the closing flap of the bag, Albert’s heart skipped a beat when he realised this was someone with whom the elusive feeling of compatibility might be present.
She had a rather worn blue cardigan on over her blouse and the cardigan sleeves were rather over long and she pulled at them nervously stretching them further in a way that Albert thought rather endearing and rather unconsciously sexy. She’d repeatedly pull up her sleeves to her elbows then they’d keep falling back down. He couldn’t help but notice her soft pale freckled skin on her arms and her single silver bracelet on her left wrist. Her nails were painted a soft sparkly pink and as if to push him over the edge she wore a single thick thumb ring on her right thumb. Like he’d decided, she really was just quietly and effortlessly stylish.
She had jeans on, blue, loose boot cut fitting, and no rips in them. He could never see why girls would spend money on expensive jeans and then wear them with the knees ripped He guessed she didn’t wear skinny jeans as she was covering up her bum with the long cardy, and he felt she might have been self conscious about its curves that despite the cardy and the loose fit pants was noticeable to him. On her feet he could just make out a pair of red high top converses that he inwardly cheered, matched his. They weren’t that easy to spot, as like his blue version her jeans were a longish boot cut and went over the top of the high tops to her ankles.
He could see her fumbling with the controls of the photo machine whilst he was trapped on the till with a queue of pensioners wanting corn plasters, prescriptions and what else. He returned his focus to serve the customers, giving up hope of getting to the machine before the girl gave up, probably headed into Normanbrook or even the big Boots in town via the number 17 bus.
He’d given up hope of ‘making contact’ and he dropped the change and packet of bunion plasters into old Mrs Gubbins’ hand , when he realised the next and only person left in the queue, in the entire shop even, was her. She was even prettier close up, she had the sort of make up on that was both subtle, but also trendy in an arty sort of way. She’d obviously plucked and shaped her brows. They weren’t thick, more on the skinny side and definitely darker than her natural colouring . She had liquid eyeliner on her top lids that accentuated them and flicked out into little points. That was the only eye make up that she had, she just looked so effortlessly uncontrived and sexy without making any real attempt to do so. He could feel from the stirring in his pants that he was attracted to her and knew from the hot flush around his neck that he was probably colouring up. He averted his gaze and squeezed his thumb under the bottom of the till, giving himself a momentary rush of pain that he hoped would distract his body from embarrassing him.
“I can’t get it to work, the photo machine.” Can you help”, she looked at him with her friendly grey eyes. For a moment he thought that she too blushed and averted her gaze, perhaps she was shy too and that sudden realisation gave Albert a boost of mock confidence.
“C’mon let’s get you sorted”, he said to her, riding this new wave of promise as he headed from behind the till across to the booth.
She plonked herself on the seat and he kneeled down beside her, helping her adjust the seat to the right height. He was close enough to smell her subtle but expensive scent.
“What pictures do you want?”
“It’s for my TravelCard.”
“That’s option 2 on the screen”
She smiled at him and drew the tatty yellow curtain as the booth hummed into life.
“It takes a bit to warm up”, he advised her.
“I hope it’s not going to take too long , I need to get the 17 bus and I think it’s about due”. He nervously glanced at the bus stop through the window, willing it not to turn up.
When he couldn’t see her, or rather when all he could see were her long legs and converses. He felt much more confident and so he pushed on with his conversation.
“So are you new round here?”
“Yeh moved up from Kent, I’m working at JW water services on the London Road”.
“I’ve got a place in Gerald Court” she added. “It’s a flat share with one other girl”
“The tower block at the back the old warehouse? “
“Yeh, it’s not the best place, but it’s cheap around here so it will do me for now. I’ve just picked up the keys from my new flat mate in town. I hope we are going to get along, it’s pot luck isn’t it . I was a bit shocked when I met her outside the pub over there. She was smoking a joint, quite brazenly in town. I mean I’m not being judgy I’ve had the odd joint but I lost my mum to lung cancer so smoking is really not my thing, and brazenly smoking a joint in the street, well I mean”
“Perhaps your landlord can find you somewhere different? “
“The landlord is a guy who bizarrely goes by the name of ‘Fat Tony’, have you heard of him? “
“No, but I’m not from the estate. Well that’s not completely true, my Dad lives round here, I know who he is, but I don’t have any real contact with him. I come in by bus when I’m working Saturdays from Normanbrook where I live with my Mum. Normanbrook is lovely, it’s not like here. It’s got a bit of a reputation has the Fitzy. So the pot smoking flatmate doesn’t surprise me.
“A reputation, how so?”
“Just rough, I guess and the residents aren’t people you wanna mess with , a lot of family rivalries, drugs and gangs. Most of the Girls on the estate are Chavs with about 7 kids by the time they are 20”, he only half joked, adding “…. And those that aren’t Chavs are skinheads or bikers or goths or gangstas, no one round here is normal.”
“I hope I’m normal”, came the timid response from behind the curtain.
Shit this conversation is getting negative he thought, ‘change the subject’ rattled around his brain, but he couldn’t think of anything uplifting to say.
“I think my flat mate is definitely in the Chav category”.
“Just because of the weed?” He interjected.
“Well no, as dodgy as that is, but no it was more that she had one of those very low and tight tops on with her boobs on display, gold chains, rings, bling don’t they call it and those tight jeggings jeans, I’d never have the confidence to wear those , every lump and bump on display, no thank you. Oh and she had a tongue piercing I could see it clacking away when she spoke. ……. Oh and I’m going to sound a frightful snob, but she had some tattoos that quite frankly looked like they’d been drawn by a 5 yr old, and on her hands too. Gross.
With the bombshell about her choice of residential area dropped in like a grenade, he was relived that the conversation then stuttered to a halt as the flash went off for the photos.
Within a moment the, for him, heavenly conversation was over and the curtain was drawn and she smiled at him got up and left the booth, to wait and collect the pictures from the dispensing slot. They both stood rather nervously looking at each other, he was going to say if her flat didn’t work out then to let him know, but then he thought that sounded a bit creepy.
The silence was broken when she fished her completed travel card application from her soft denim shoulder bag and he noticed her name clearly printed on it; Jacqueline Martin.
“Do you have some scissors ? “ she asked him.
The request meant his surreptitious staring at the personal details on her application was interrupted.
“Yes behind the till”, and he bounded off to fetch them like an enthusiastic puppy, before presenting them to her. She proceeded to cut the 4 pictures up and clip one of them to the application before attempting to pop the remaining ones into her bag, without creasing them but as she did and also simultaneously juggled the scissors, all 3 of the remaining pictures dropped to the floor.
Albert dropped down to pick them up but one had slid under the Photo Booth.
“Don’t worry I’ll get a stick and pull it out.”
He rushed to the back of the office grabbing a ruler to try and extricate the picture from its hiding place.
As he rushed back to the front of the shop, Jacqueline was already out the door and calling back to him.
“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll collect it next time, got to get this bus”, she pointed at the 17 which was just drawing up. “Keep your fingers crossed for me” she gave him a gentle half smile and little half wave as she leapt onto the number 17 bus and was out of his world. “She said my name, she said my name”, he said in a pained sotto vocco.
He sighed a huge, long sigh as the bus pulled away and then he dropped to his knees with a resigned weariness. Fished around with the ruler and pulled out the errant picture from under the machine.
For a second or two he just stared at the small picture of the girl, with a mixture of desire and regret.
He popped the picture into the small clear holder in his wallet, next to the picture he carried of Clair. Next Saturday or next time she was in, he’d return it and perhaps even ask her out. Things could possibly be looking up.
He decided he probably wouldn’t tell Clair about Jacqueline when that next chatted on the D&D forums. Somethings were best left unsaid.
Chapter 2 and the AI illustrations will be along soon.
