The Pharmacist E-Book

Justin David

• Herausgeber: Inkandescent
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 108

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Love is the Drug Twenty-four-year-old Billy is beautiful and sexy. Albert—The Pharmacist—is a compelling but damaged older man, and a veteran of London's late '90s club scene. After a chance meeting in the heart of the London's East End, Billy is seduced into the sphere of Albert. An unconventional friendship develops, fuelled by Albert's queer narratives and an endless supply of narcotics. Alive with the twilight times between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness, the foundations of Billy's life begin to irrevocably shift and crack, as he fast-tracks toward manhood. This story of lust, love and loss is homoerotic bildungsroman at its finest. 'At the heart of David's The Pharmacist is an oddly touching and bizarre love story, a modern day Harold and Maude set in the drugged-up world of pre-gentrification Shoreditch. The dialogue, especially, bristles with glorious life.' —JONATHAN KEMP, author of London Triptych 'An exploration of love and loss in the deathly hallows of twenty-first century London. Justin David's prose is as sharp as a hypodermic needle. Unflinching, uncomfortable but always compelling, The Pharmacist finds the true meaning of love in the most unlikely places.'—NEIL McKENNA, author of Fanny and Stella. 'As lubricious as early Alan Hollinghurst, The Pharmacist is the perfect introduction to a singular voice in gay literature.' THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Biography

The Pharmacist

Acknowledgements

Biography

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JUSTIN DAVID is a writer and photographer. A child of Wolverhampton, he has lived and worked in East London for most of his adult life. He graduated from the MA Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, has read at Polari at Royal Festival Hall, and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers. His writing has appeared in many print and online anthologies and his debut novella was published by Salt as part of their Modern Dreams series.

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His photography collection of nocturnal performers, Night Work, has been exhibited in London at venues including Jackson’s Lane. His photographic works have appeared on the pages of numerous magazines including: Attitude, Beige, Classical Music Magazine, Fluid, Gay Times, Gaze, GlitterWolf, Muso, Out There, Pink Paper, Polari Magazine, QX and Time Out.

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Justin is one half of Inkandescent—a new publishing venture with his partner, Nathan Evans. Their first offering, Threads, featuring Nathan’s poetry and Justin’s photography, was long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. It was supported using public funding by Arts Council England and is available in paperback and ebook.

Praise for Justin David and

He’s Done Ever So Well for Himself

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‘A well-observed, charming account of small-town, working-class life and the move to the big, bad, brilliant city. This should strike a chord not just with gay readers but with anyone who’s lived, loved and fought to become the person they’re meant to be.’

MATT CAIN

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‘There’s not much rarer than a working class voice in fiction, except maybe

a gay working class voice. We need writers like Justin David.’

PAUL McVEIGH, author of The Good Son

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‘An entertaining, highly detailed story form the perspective of a queer outsider.

Insightful and inspiring. You’ll love this book!’

RHYANNON STYLES, author of

The New Girl: A Trans Girl Tells It Like It Is

Praise for Justin David and

Tales of the Suburbs

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‘Justin David’s Tales of the Suburbs reveals a true writer’s gift for comic and poignant storytelling, in which pithy dialogue and sharp characterisation

make for compelling reading.’

PATRICIA ROUTLEDGE

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‘Justin David’s tale of working-class gay life is a bitter-sweet, beautiful thing. The audience at Polari loved it —

as well they should.’

PAUL BURSTON, Polari Literary Salon

Praise for Justin David and

The Pharmacist

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‘The Pharmacist is a rare thing of perfection: a contemporary novella that reads like both a European classic and a page-turner. The writing is superb. Sense of place, story, insight into the human condition, gave me everything that I wanted from a work of fiction. Not five stars but an entire galaxy!’

VG LEE, author of Mr Oliver’s Object of Desire

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‘At the heart of David’s The Pharmacist is an oddly touching and bizarre love story, a modern day Harold and Maude set in the drugged-up world of pre-gentrification Shoreditch. The dialogue, especially, bristles with glorious life.’

JONATHAN KEMP, author of London Triptych

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‘A drug-fuelled, drug-fucked, sweat and semen-drenched exploration of love and loss in the deathly hallows of twenty-first century London. Justin David’s prose is as sharp as a hypodermic needle. Unflinching, uncomfortable but always compelling,

The Pharmacist finds the true meaning of love in the most unlikely places.’

NEIL McKENNA, author of Fanny and Stella

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‘Sexy, wistful, wise, haunting and totally full of surprises.

A real ride.’

NINA WADIA

THE PHARMACIST

By Justin David

Inkandescent

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Published by Inkandescent, 2020

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Text Copyright © 2020 Justin David

Images Copyright © 2020 Justin David

Cover Design Copyright © 2020 Joe Mateo

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Justin David has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

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Publisher’s note: a version of The Pharmacist was published

by Salt Publishing in 2014. Another version was included in

He's Done Ever So Well for Himself by Justin David,

published by Inkandescent in 2018

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A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

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Printed in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

ISBN 978-1-912620-04-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-912620-05-0 (Kindle ebook)

www.inkandescent.co.uk

For Nathan Evans

‘Our hearts are connected by a string,

as slender and as silken and strong

as that which a spider spins.’

‘We don’t see things as they are,

We see things as we are.’

– ANAIS NIN

‘To paint oneself is to paint the portrait of a man

who is going to die. Relationships are mirrors.

The painter looks to the mirror to paint himself,

The lover looks into his lover to love himself.’

– ROBERT O. LENKIEWICZ

Billy is in his usual spot, leaning against the wall of the pub, taking photographs and savouring a beer after a stressful week at work. Through half-closed eyes, he zooms in on an old man talking with the flower seller on the opposite side of Columbia Road flower market. A bunch of bright pink gerberas is being wrapped up, and then money is exchanging hands. Even from where he’s standing, Billy can see it’s more money than the cost of a bunch of flowers and the flower seller is counting it out to the old man, not the other way round. Billy lowers the camera. The old man in the cream linen suit turns and for a split second, in the fiery glare of summer, across the street, he and Billy are smiling at each other. Billy acknowledges him with a nod. But then, he appears a little self-conscious under his cream Panama. The old man looks back, shiftily, at the flower seller who’s nudging him with the bunch of gerberas. He takes the flowers. Billy watches them nodding agreeably to each other and, as they are shaking hands, he sees the old man quickly pass something, a tiny packet, to the flower seller who winks as they exchange inaudible words.

Often, on Sunday lunchtimes, Billy comes here to take photographs and chat to the traders selling the last of their flowers. He’s attracted by the atmosphere of the market and enjoys the eccentric postmodern revivalists, in their vintage costumes and designer accessories, who posture and parade as if the street were a catwalk. Yet on this occasion, he’s gripped by this debonair gentleman. Billy disregards the transaction he thought might have taken place. It’s the old man he’s interested in. He must live locally. Billy’s seen him at least three times before, here on the street. Unmistakable. When the old man walks, trailing rich aromatic smoke from his pipe, he holds himself taut and regal. This graceful image of a man is enough to spark Billy’s interest for unconventional behaviour, and he manages a couple of good shots of the man, amid his photographs of the flowers.

From his place in the sunlight, he observes the old man doff his hat and say ‘goodbye’ to the flower seller, punctuated by a flourish of his hand.

Look at that, thinks Billy, the flair, the twirl. He loves that the man doesn’t conform to any normal code of behaviour. Swanning swiftly through the crowds of fashionably dressed people carrying freshly cut flowers, the old gentleman disappears round the corner into Laburnum Road. Billy follows quickly to see if he can get another shot to take back to the studio. The old man fascinates him and he wonders if he may have found a new subject. The gentleman heads down the East End street towards the Victorian maisonettes where Billy lives. It’s a great surprise to him to see the old man take a key from his pocket and slip into the communal entrance of his building; Billy’s building. ‘Oh my God!’ Billy says out loud, before reaching the front door.

‘He lives upstairs.’

After that, Billy doesn’t see his mystery man again for days. While he’s curious about the old man living upstairs, he’s hardly had time to unpack, let alone introduce himself to the neighbours. Perhaps even a week goes by before he hears anything more than the old man’s footsteps, or the cackle of friends sloshing wine around upstairs. One morning, they meet in the little entrance hall to their maisonettes. They greet each other with the stiff, ceremonious air of businessmen, neither quite knowing how to react, having already met but not met.

‘Albert Power,’ offers the old man, replacing the pipe in his mouth, freeing up his remaining hand.

‘Billy Monroe,’ he returns. They shake hands, but with Billy beaming right at him, Albert’s eyes fall uncomfortably to the floor. He’s carrying a brown leather carry case. ‘Working?’ Billy asks, nodding to the case.

‘Er, no,’ Albert says and moves the case guardedly behind his legs. ‘I don’t work.’ Billy wonders what might be inside and why a retired old gentleman would be carrying such a thing.

Albert steps towards the interior door of his flat, adjacent to Billy’s door. ‘Well, neighbours we are,’ he says, inserting his key into the lock.

Billy allows his voice to deepen. ‘I’ve knocked a couple of times since I moved in, but I keep missing you.’

‘Not to worry,’ Albert replies, hurriedly. ‘We must keep different hours. Ships in the night and all that.’ He lets himself in and turns back to Billy, now that the ice has been broken, correcting what appears as plain aloofness. A streak of sunlight through the street door catches one side of Albert’s face. ‘But you’re here now. You’re not at work today?’ Albert asks, one eyeball gleaming like a pebble of tiger’s eye.

There is a charged moment when their eyes meet, in which Billy feels a knowledge pass between them. It’s the kind of cruisy look he only usually gets from young guys in bars and clubs. Billy knows he should look away, but Albert doesn’t, so he doesn’t. He feels something there—the weird sensation, perhaps, that they knew each other before. ‘I’m on holiday from work,’ Billy replies, and breaks his gaze.

‘Ah.’ Albert nods. ‘You live alone?’

Billy has no reason to be anything other than transparent now, but he finds himself saying, ‘Yes. I live alone.’

‘No... girlfriend?’

‘No.’ Not a lie. Though in omitting the fact that he’s actually in a relationship, he knows he’s not being honest either.

‘Oh?’

‘What?’

‘It’s just that I thought I’d seen someone else coming and going.’

Billy looks up and smiles at Albert’s blatant prying. ‘That’s Jamie. He’s been helping, since I moved in,’ Billy says, still being opaque. That puts an end to it, for now at least, allowing a silent moment in which Billy takes in every physical detail. Good muscles and bone structure give Albert a taut appearance. He looks younger than his attire would suggest and Billy thinks he would look more at home on the set of a Tennessee Williams play. He’s curious to see an off-white shirt, collars fraying at the sides of his neck.

‘Well, at last we meet,’ Albert says. ‘Pop up for a drink sometime.’ Albert’s gaze falls, less discreetly this time, over the length of Billy’s body, as if stroking each downy hair on Billy’s skin with his eyes. ‘I’m in and out. Just knock.’ Albert turns to enter his flat.

‘Thanks. I will,’ Billy says. He smiles and walks out into the sunlit street.

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§

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‘I prefer Dalston to Kentish Town. And that estate agent was a right slimy fucker.’

Billy glances sideways at Jamie. It’s the liveliest he’s seen him for a long time. Real joy. The end of Billy’s cigarette burns to the filter and he flicks it into the gutter. There are two pubs on this street. The first one they come to has a beer garden. ‘Shall we stop here for a pint and talk?’

‘Sure,’ Jamie says.

When Billy walks over to Jamie with two pints of lager, the sales materials are already spread out on the table. Jamie looks up, takes his beer. ‘Lovely’ he says, and he nods as Billy slides onto the bench. ‘You okay?’

Billy has hit a wall. The painting isn’t happening. The existing ones aren’t really selling. He’s going through the motions while Jamie’s doing so well. And it shows. Jamie is now splashing out on boutique clothes. ‘We need a fresh start. We need something new,’ Billy says.

‘Well, looking at these... loft apartment in Shoreditch, warehouse work-live unit in Clapton... I’m not sure we can really afford any of them, especially after all those fancy holidays

we’ve been having.’