In the Queue - Cashier Number Five, Please

“Is it your birthday, Doreen?”

“It is my birthday.”

“I saw your badge.”

Doreen’s wearing a “Birthday girl” pin badge.  She perches on her stool counting out the woman’s money.

“I’m taking tomorrow off, Jean,” Doreen smiles, “making a long weekend of it. Might have a facial.”

“Ooh! That’s nice.  Is it a big one?”

“Not particularly,” says Doreen.  She mouths “forty-five” through the glass.

“Oh, I had you as older?” says Jean.

Doreen stops smiling.

“How much did you want, then?” Doreen asks

“I’ll have the full two hundred.  I’ve gave up smoking and every week I’ve been putting it aside – twenty pounds a week.  Now I’ve got two hundred!  Just from not smoking.”

“Amazing,” says Doreen.

“I’m still doing them e-ciggies though.”

“Right, but they’re much cheaper, aren’t they.”

“Oh, so much cheaper”

Crystal is serving me.  She’s new.  There’s a sign above her window “Staff in training. Please be kind.”  I push the banking under the glass as kindly as I can.  A small rubber band rolls out of the cloth bag, too.

“I’ve just got some banking to do and a bit of change – oh, and a small rubber band,” I tell her.

“Oh, haha!” says Crystal.  “Er…”

Dawn has been spring-cleaning the shelves on our side: one by one emptying them off, wiping them down with a J-cloth and a bit of spray, then popping the things back on exactly the way they were but without the dust.  She comes up to the counter to talk to Crystal.

“Have you not done banking before?”

“No,” says Crystal.

“You’ll be fine.  Doreen, soon as you’ve finished Jean off can you help Crystal?”

“’Course I can, lovey.  I’ll help you, lovey, I’ll just finish Jean off, you’ll soon get the hang.”

“Here,” says Dawn to me, “look at the colour of my hands,” she spreads her fingers out to show me their blackened tips.

“That’s me done,” says Jean.  “ Bye all!” and she walks out struggling to close her purse around her two hundred.

A man walks up behind me heading for Doreen who has sidled across to look at what Crystal is doing.

“Hello, Len,” they all say.  He’s a regular I’m guessing.
“Hello, girls,” says Len.

Crystal is occupied slowly counting out my twenties into piles of four and wrapping a fifth around them, so Doreen slips back over and sidles her bottom onto her stool to serve Len.  Len puts his card in the card machine.

“How much do you want?” says Doreen.

“All of it,” says Len “soon as I can remember my number, er… .”

Dawn has taken the rolls of silver wrapping paper off the high shelf above where Len is standing.  Now she tries to put them back but they topple off and one hits Len on the head.

“Oh!!  Watch out skies a-falling!” says Len.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, Len!” says Dawn and another roll topples down.

“Wo-oah,” says Len “you take your life in your hands in here!  ‘Sallright Dawn I won’t sue you.”

Dawn picks up one of the rolls from the floor and taps him a hollow knock on the head.

“Steady on, lass,” says Len, “that’s my weakest point! Oh, hang on…” he’s remembered his number and presses it carefully into the machine. “Had to be rattling round in there somewhere! I’m obliged to you.”

Crystal’s been picking up speed; she’s finished the tens, and fives too, and is just fiddling the loose change onto her little coin rack.

“Did you get them bees, Len?” asks Dawn

“What?” says Doreen.  “Bees?  What bees?”

“Oh, did I not tell you,” says Len, “got chatting to a man over Wombwell way last Sunday.  Beekeeper chap.  BMW they used to call him - Bee Man of Wombwell.  But he’s ninety three and he’s giving it up.”

“And you fancied a bit of honey on your porridge, didn’t you Len!” says Dawn.

“Eh, it’s not just that,” says Len.  “I do, like, but it’s not just that.  He says he’s got hundred thousand bees but he wants to give them away.  So I says, well I’ll have ‘em.”

“ Blimey!” says Doreen

“I know!  With all the equipment, like.”

“Hundred thousand!  That’s ever so many.” Doreen can’t quite believe it.

“But you took them back,” Dawn chimes in, “’cause when you got them home there was one missing!”

“You’ve not done it before though, Len,” says Doreen

“No, no,” says Len, “no, not done it before – don’t know one end of a bee from t’other.”

“Haha!” says Dawn, “well I reckon you’ll find that one out soon enough, Len.  Eh?”

“Oh, be-hive yourself!”  says Len.  “Be-hive yourself!”

"Eh!  I'm Queen Bee around here, aren't I Dor?"

"Oh, yes."

Dawn grabs her midriff in her hands and wobbles it.

"Look you can tell I've had too much of that royal what d'you call it, y'know..."

"Jelly," says Len

"Ay, that's it," says Dawn, "royal jelly.  Too much royal jelly!"