A Fictional story from Skodaw
*
My name is Jack West; I am 22 years old. I arrived in London about three months ago, since then I have found somewhere to live and a job, I started in a local bar a couple of months ago.
I originally come from Chester, but a couple of months ago I took a job in Jersey on the Channel Islands, the job stank and I walked out. The first flight off the island happened to be to London Gatwick, hence my now living in London.
I'm not used to working in a bar, but to my good fortune, my new colleague Kelly has plenty of experience in bar work. Kelly has been travelling the world for the last eight months, her father had been paying the way for the first six months but now she had to fend for herself.
Kelly was a striking sight, she's about 5'7" tall, slim build with the most amazing jet black hair which hangs down her back to just above her backside, She is nineteen years old, and appears to never wear a bra.
"Jeez Dave get with the program will ya!" Kelly shouted across the bar, as usual as was serving to slowly for her, it was approaching the busy time and the queues were growing.
"I'm sorry Kelly; I'll soon get the hang of it with your help." I weakly responded. The night progressed, our shifts covered from ten pm to 6 am, it usually got quieter at around two am.
By around three am, there were only a handful of people left in the bar, Kelly started to clear the tables of the last glasses and I set them to wash in the big washer we had out the back.
Kelly turned to me and told me that she would give me some lessons for the different drinks and what they contained. We were being asked for many cocktails and I had no idea how to mix them, Kelly was left to cope with all of them.
I had no idea what a "Between the Sheets" or a "Singapore Sling" was and Kelly to her credit took the time to show me all these and many more cocktail recipes.
Over the next few weeks, I started to get the hang of the cocktails and all the other things that went along with the job. Another thing was Kelly; she was an amazing beauty. Her hair was always immaculate, not a strand out of place and it shone like a light was above her all-day.
Every night when we finished, we would walk around the corner to the café and have breakfast. Kelly always laugh's at the full English I have, she prefers to have something lighter, maybe scrambled eggs on toast or similar. We would then go our separate ways home until we would meet again at work.
This pattern would repeat itself for the five days a week that we worked, I had no idea what Kelly did outside of work, and we had never had that conversation. I was desperately trying to save money so that I could travel, although it was proving to be quite difficult, what with the cost of renting and everything else.
I was getting ready to leave for work on my first night of the rota; it was a Monday so should be quiet. Just as I was walking out of the door my mobile rang, it was Kelly "Dave, I'm sorry but I won't make it tonight." She explained that she was not feeling to good, but should be better in a couple of days.
In the end, it was four days before Kelly came back to work; she looked awful, I asked her if she was sure, she was ok to work. Kelly just shrugged her shoulders and muttered something that I didn't catch. What I did catch was that she was wearing a lot more make up than she would normally have worn; I swear I could see the outline of a black eye around her right eye.
The night progressed as usual, although Kelly was definitely not herself but I could not get anything out of her, after a few questions, I could tell she didn't want me to push it. I tried to take as much of the work that night as I could. We went to the café as usual next morning; Kelly was dragging out her food, in the end I could not resist any longer.
"Kelly, tell me to mind my own business if you like, but I've noticed you're not yourself, what's wrong?" I asked.
"It's fine Dave really." Kelly responded without looking me in the eye.
"Kelly, I don't call a black-eye fine!" Kelly's hand immediately shot to cover her eye; I could see tears forming.
"Oh god, I thought I'd covered it up." Kelly sniffed.
"Kelly; you did, it's just not normal for you to wear so much make up. Besides you don't need it." I hoped my compliment would brighten her up a little.
Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect and Kelly finally broke down; she told me that she had a row with her boyfriend because he was spending all the money she was trying to save. It ended with him punching her to the ground and kicking her in the ribs as he left the flat.
She had not seen him since; she was worried that he would have gone back to the flat when she was at work. "Well that's an easy one," I said, "I'll just come back with you, make sure everything is OK."
"That would be great Dave; thank you. " Kelly smiled. At last, she was looking a little happier.
We took a slow walk back to her flat, Kelly explained that she had come to London after meeting Simon in Paris, she had then stopped in London but her father had stopped paying the way for her travels.
She had taken the job at the bar to save some money on top of the small allowance her father still gave her, but Simon was treating it like spending money and buying all kinds of useless rubbish with it.
