Black Queen

"Three screws, two wires and one big push – easy man." Alby was grinning as he re-enacted with nothing short of baroque dramatic flare how he’d broken open a cash machine that had been done on Green Road in our bit of London.

He was lying of course and I knew he was, I’m his girlfriend. We’re sat in the corner of the pub on old, cracked leather seats soaked in generations of spilt pints. Under normal circumstances I’d call him out in front of his mates and enjoy watching him squirm as he tried to hold up the story. Not this time though, this money he was buying the rounds with was money he’d inherited from his grandmother who died last week. Buying the rounds, he's been attracting a fair amount of attention but around here having a bike is like having a Lamborghini.

He’s pretending he’s fine but he’s heartbroken, they were very close.

I met her once, we’re both from Zimbabwean families so grandparents are hugely important. She was a very calm woman with kind eyes and an exotic taste in coats.

“Can you do 'em when they’re in walls too?” asked one of his gullible mates as they stared at him dewy eyed.

"Nah mate, I’m pretty good but not a miracle worker. The ones that are like them temporary ones that stand on their own are all you can do it on. It’s cos you need to push 'em once you’ve sorted the electrics. Honestly, I’m so annoyed my shoes smell like piss now. Every man and his dog must’ve pissed on that corner by that cash machine."

"Don’t worry, you can’t smell it," said Kyle, the tallest and by far the most normal of Alby’s friends.

You really couldn’t smell it because it wasn’t there to smell, that’s how smart Alby was. He always knew how to add an irrelevant detail to his stories just to give them the sound of being too real to be a lie. I’ll give him that, he was always very convincing. He also loved machines so the details about the cash machine seemed very believable. His bedroom was cream with one wall which was painted the most hideous shade of brown you can imagine – his mother always saw herself as an artist. It had been covered with black and white pictures of Victorian engineers and photocopied pages of books he’d read about the philosophy of computers, all with his spidery handwriting underlining the ideas. I always saw these long dead men as my competition for his attention.

When we were in his room he'd say ‘Don’t limit yourself to being a waitress. Be more, be the change we should’ve seen in the world as kids.' I had always quietly wanted to be a journalist and Alby knew that. "Be the first Black Queen of fucking England.’ he used to tease whilst lying on his bed and playing with my hair.

I remember he used to read me his poetry.

'Eyes like spilt oil, white lipstick on antique oak, alas the surrealists have gone, so falls the cloak.'

He loved poetry, and wrote it all down in an old black Moleskine book he kept in the third drawer down of his bedside table.

He never liked showing his deeper or softer side in front of other people. In our part of London, it’s better to be tough than real. That was the reason he had to say he’d robbed a cash machine rather than admit he’d inherited it from his grandmother. It’s not “cool” on the estate to love your grandma, robbing cash machines is “cool”. Even though he was different to the others, he felt he had to keep up the act. When you think about it, someone obsessed with machines, circuit boards and poetry is probably quite rare. Alby was quite rare, to me at least.

When they stabbed him on the estate that night it was 11:47. I wasn’t there.

Of all the places to have been at 11:47, I was in the toilet. He’d walked me back to my mum’s flat and I’d been desperate so I kissed him goodnight quickly and ran straight into the toilet, he hadn’t even gone down two floors before he got knifed.

The white skinheads had been in the pub that night, watching Alby splash the cash and buy round after round. I’m sure they’d heard about the cash machine he’d supposedly robbed, everyone had, so they knifed him for the money.

We’d watched an old film the week before, it was a comedy and after a massive shootout in a 1980’s Paris restaurant, the old man told the French police that he’d been in the toilet the whole time.

Alby had laughed at that.

He was beautiful when he laughed, his teeth would flash like ivory against his dark skin and his eyes crinkled at the edge making them seem deeper.

Life can sometimes be horrifically ironic.

That was then. His old black Moleskine book sits in the top right drawer of my office desk. I can’t bring myself to read it but I keep it.

Then those words come again and break my moment of reflection, "Excuse me Prime Minister, the car is here."