Kisses for Lula

by Samantha Mackintosh

  The sound of steps came quietly up to the garden gate. I tried not to whimper, but I think I may have. The footfall was different now, so much surer than before.

  He knows his prey is defenceless, I thought wildly. Trapped in the shadows. No one to come to her aid.

  The gate opened, ever so slowly.

  The streetlamp would be shining right on whoever was there.

  I gritted my teeth and put my head back round the corner to take a look.

  His back was to me, carefully pushing the gate back into its latch, but I’d know that fake Chanel handbag anywhere.

  Dad.

  Dad?

  (How is it that my father, a man in his forties, could fall in love with a Coco Chanel handbag? My mother thinks it’s funny. While I don’t want to dwell on this matter, I reckon she should insist that he throws it in the bin. (Or into my welcoming arms. (It’s a great bag. (But not for a man.))))

  I ducked back round the wall, my heart still pounding.

  Yowzer!

  What was my father doing scaring the beheeners out of me in the pitch black of night? What was he doing coming home at this hour anyway? For once there was no whiff of alcohol following him along, so he hadn’t been out for his evening binge.

  I heard the bleep bleep bleep of mobile phone keys being pressed. Then Dad’s voice saying, ‘I’m home now, Freya. Thanks for tonight.’ A low laugh. The phone clicking closed.

  My body went cold, my mind a total blank, thoughts whizzing so fast I couldn’t work out what I was thinking at all.

  The front door opened and then it shut.

  I was shaking now. I couldn’t move. I wanted to go inside to my old room. Somewhere safe and warm and familiar. I didn’t want to be alone out in the annexe.

  And then I heard a voice hissing in the darkness of the front garden, and hesitant steps.

  Oh. Dear. God.

  Another late-night lurker? What are the chances?

  ‘Sffggssinashflgl!’ came the voice again, nearer by.

  Silently, stealthily, I felt for my key, and wondered if I could make it over the courtyard, unlock the annexe door, get inside and lock the door behind me before I got pillaged. I could taste blood from the inside of my cheeks where I was biting down.

  The quiet went on and on. There were no more footsteps. My hammering, yammering heart started to slow to a sustainable rhythm. I’d imagined it. Clearly. I held my breath and strained my ears.

  Then that hissing voice was suddenly against my ear – ‘Sffggssinashflgl!’ – and I nearly dropped dead right there. An icy hand clenched my bicep and pulled me round to face a dark figure, cloaked from head to toe in a black rippling fabric. I could see no face.

  From the shadows where the mouth would be came a question:

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Oh, for frik’s sake!’ I said, my fear flooding away. ‘Who’s he? What the hell are you doing, Pen? What’s with the sinister garb?’

  ‘Sinister?’ she squeaked. ‘Hardly! This is Agent Provocateur.’

  I grabbed her black satin sleeve and frogmarched her back to the front door. ‘You’d better tell me what all this is about, Penelope, or I’m going to go straight upstairs to check if Dad is still awake.’

  ‘Damn!’ Pen slapped her forehead. ‘Dad! It must have been him I heard, not Ang–’ she stopped short. ‘Not angry housebreakers, ready to burgle us.’

  ‘Ang–? Nice try. Expecting company, you little tramp? Ang– . . . Hmm. I’m guessing Angus? Please tell me not Fat Angus from the St Alban’s rugby team? The guy with the cauliflower ears? This is why you wanted my room tonight? Easy access to the front door away from Mum and Dad’s room? So you could seduce Angus? Are you nuts?’

  I was just warming up to big-sister mode when Pen flicked me on the nose and hissed, ‘Tallulah, don’t you go getting your big sensible pants in a twist. I’m just a lot more organised about my first kiss than you are. That’s all it’s gonna be, a kiss – a kiss before I get branded with the Jinxed Witch Girl label too. Okay?’

  Back to Thursday a.m., clearly still hard at work

  And so that’s how I had a sleepless night.

  Okay, so maybe that’s not all . . .

  More on last night – sorry, but you need to know

  My nostrils were partly to blame for the insomnia. Sometime after two I woke up to craft a plug from a small wodge of Andrex Aloe Vera for my left nostril that was streaming stuff down my face. The plug worked well until about five a.m. when I woke, coughing, to find it stuck to my cheek. I knew that bliddy camisole was a mistake! This head cold had better be vaporised by the time Operation Ben Second Date rolled around. I paused to consider before flopping back on my pillows.

  It would mean Vicks VapoRub on the chest.

  It would mean Lemsip.

  It would mean, perhaps, a woolly scarf for a time.

  Frik.

  I shuddered.

  My mobile rang. It was five in the morning! I pushed myself up off the pillows, coughing, and picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ I croaked.

  ‘Oh. Nasty,’ came the reply.

  I stiffened. ‘Who is this?’ I croaked again, then coughed at full volume, making no effort to turn from the receiver.

  ‘Youch. I deserved that. It’s Jack. Just calling to make sure you got in okay.’

  I lurched to the side of the bed to see my clock. Yep. 5.06 a.m.

  ‘It’s dawn! Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘No, no, not I. It’s just that . . .’

  Cough, cough. (Me.)

  ‘I – uh – I –’ Cough cough. (Him.)

  ‘You’ve got a cold?’

  ‘Me? No, I just, I –’

  ‘Oh, man. Will you – please! – just get on with it!’

  ‘Okay, maybe I am going a little mad. It’s just that I left you at the front gate, which Alex would flay me alive for, but I had to, you know, because I didn’t, you know, want to kind of muscle my way to your front door and then there’d be that whole do I come in for a coffee thing –’

  ‘Don’t even –’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Jack hastily, ‘against my better judgement, I leave you at the front gate and then I’m walking home and I see this guy loping along, must’ve been a transvestite, and I –’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘A glitzy bag? I know him.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I was going to say I wasn’t worried about him, just the other bloke.’

  ‘What other bloke?’

  ‘There was another guy heading up the road after Handbag Man –’

  ‘Please don’t call him that.’

  ‘Sorry. Why? Is he a neighbour? Anyway, I wanted to turn round and check you were safely inside and not erm outside, you know, potential victim and everything.’

  ‘Jack.’

  ‘Yes. Tallulah.’

  I tried to think of something to say.

  ‘Did guy number two have very misshapen ears?’

  ‘I don’t know. To be honest, at that point I’d got to your neighbour’s – you know, with all the gnomes – and I was a little distracted. Everyone around me had odd ears.’

  ‘Jack, you’re supposed to be a supersleuth kind of journalist!’

  He coughed. ‘I am usually. I’m really quite brilliant.’

  I shook my head disbelievingly, and reached for the toilet roll. I worked up another plug and said, ‘I dow who the odder guy is. I can look after byself, but thanks. And thanks for walki’g me hobe. Tell Alex to call be, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, about that.’

  ‘Hnh?’ (Frik! Now the right nostril was going full faucet on me!)

  ‘Could you not say anything to Alex about me walking you home?’

  ‘This is why you call be at five a.eb.!’ I squeaked. ‘You wanted to get to be before I spoke to by friends!’

  ‘Nonononooooo,’ said Jack quickly. ‘That’s not what this is. I was truly worried about you.’

  ‘So why are you ondly calli�
�g dow?’

  ‘It’s taken this long for Alex to wake up and give me your number.’

  I smiled, picturing Alex’s sleep constantly interrupted by a persistent voicemail alert.

  Justice!

  ‘Okaaay,’ I said, pulling the duvet up around my neck and settling my aching head back against the pillows. ‘Here’s how it is, bister. I tell by friends everythi’g. It seebs one of theb,’ I added darkly, ‘passes on that inforbation, but I ab dot one to judge. I will be speaki’g to Alex, sternly, of all that has passed in the last twelve hours and I will be expecti’g a full explanation.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Jack sadly. ‘Bring on the humiliation.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  He sighed. ‘She said I should work out a way to kiss you. At some point. Before Saturday.’ He sighed again. ‘But I –’

  ‘But you couldn’t bring yourself to stoop so low,’ I snapped. ‘I, Mister Don Juan,’ I was shouting now, nostrils miraculously clear, ‘am PERFECTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR A PITY KISS, A PITY DATE OR A PITY ANYTHING!’ I reached a full-blown shriek and slammed the phone down really hard, hammering my thumb in the process. ‘And I’m hardly likely to feel humiliated by confiding in my friends,’ I said petulantly, sucking my pained thumb.

  I picked up the receiver and dialled Alex’s mobile. 5.14 a.m. Lovely.

  ‘Unhughlkle?’

  ‘Alex, it’s me.’

  ‘HJKehe.’

  ‘Wake up. Jack’s just called. What have you said to him? Does he know I’ve never kissed anyone? I do not like this boy. Were you thinking I should put him on The List?’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘You sound like a toad.’

  ‘Tatty, I feel’ – cough, cough – ‘like a toad. An aged toad. A toad facing oncoming headlights on a distant Arizona highway.’

  ‘So you should, you cow. Jack walked me home last night and, for your information, there was no kissing.’

  ‘Oh, glory, I knew it.’

  ‘Alex!’ I shrieked. ‘I’m your friend! You should not sound unsurprised! I am worthy of a kiss!’

  Alex sighed. ‘Calm down, crazy person. I said I knew it because Jack would struggle to kiss someone he likes. And, no, I did not tell him you’d never been kissed.’

  ‘You didn’t? Whew! I couldn’t take any more humiliation. You came close to an early death. Hang on, what do you mean he’d struggle to kiss someone he likes?’

  ‘It’s just . . . he gets the jitters. He can kiss loads of randoms, but –’

  ‘Nice,’ I said.

  Alex sighed again, and then said, ‘Yes, it could only be Tatty Lula at this hour,’ to someone on the other side. Clearly my conversation with Alex had woken Carrie and Tam up too.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘Focus, Alex!’

  ‘Sorry, Lu. The reason he didn’t kiss you is obviously because he likes you.’

  ‘Oh, that I doubt. Plus he’s only just met me!’

  ‘Bet you ten bags.’

  ‘Peanut or chocolate?’

  ‘Half and half.’

  ‘Fine. No. Not fine. Cancel that. It’s not worthy of a bet. I’m focusing on Ben Latter. Alex, last night’ – my voice ascended into a squeal – ‘I went on a date with Ben Latter – and Arns and Mona but forget that – and I think Ben really likes me! Ben Latter! Ben Latter!’

  There was a whole lot of shouting and shrieking and amazement between Hambledon and the city. Then I forgot all the night’s strangeness and how tired I was and got totally caught up in the he said she said rundown of the evening and Jack didn’t even come into the picture. My story ended with me in the cinema and Mona and Arns snogging some rows back and then we got into a whole discussion about the cinema and what was showing and how hot Matt Damon was. And then those three went back to sleep and I started a production line of nose plugs to see me through a long day of library.

  Thursday a.m. I promise not to hark back to Weds p.m. – okay?

  So here I am now, hating the world cos I’m bored of nose plugs and I’m tired and cross. I wait until the second hand limps round to finish off the minute that clicks the big hand on to the hour of twelve and push myself to my feet.

  Officially one and a half days until I am sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

  Frik!

  Even though Ben felt like a sure thing, was he . . .? I mean, he hadn’t even called me yet . . . Was there still a chance of us kissing before Saturday?

  Ffff!

  We had to!

  Time for another layer of VapoRub!

  I pasted it on and breathed happily through clear nostrils.

  I was staggering along towards the staffroom – readjusting my scarf to keep my throat covered even though it resembled a kind of neck-brace thingy – when Ben hove into sight at the 300s.

  There was nowhere to run.

  ‘Tallulah!’ he said, walking smartly up to me with a smile. There was no hesitation in his lean in to kiss me gently on the cheek. It was suave. It was smooth. It totally made my knees buckle.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, looking at me closely. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve got the sniffles,’ I said with a watery smile.

  Arns said afterwards that Ben took a step back then, but that’s just mean. I maintain he took a step back at the next second when Arnold said, ‘Hi, Ben!’ really loudly as he walked on by.

  ‘Sooo,’ said Ben as Arns disappeared round the book stacks.

  I drank him in. Sun streaming through the high arched windows turned his hair ski-slope white. He was in his school uniform, immaculate navy blazer, tie perfectly knotted, crisp shirt collar. And, again, very good shoes. Extremely shiny. He shifted, coughed and smiled again. I dragged my eyes from his mouth to meet his gaze, and only just stopped myself from giving a lustful sigh. Gulp.

  He looked away. ‘I forgot you said you worked here.’

  Then I noticed he had an armload of books – Addicts Unravelled and Families Anonymous blah blah. I blushed. I mean, I hadn’t said anything, but I’d just assumed he’d come here to say hi to me and how presumptuous was that? The call of the library was stronger than last night’s date. I hated myself ten thousand times more. Was that possible? Yes, infinitely so.

  ‘I had a nice time last night,’ said Ben, flipping back his blond fringe.

  I looked him in the eye and tried to smile.

  ‘It’s great seeing you here, saves me a phone call.’ He laughed.

  I still had my fake smile stuck on.

  ‘Would you be keen for supper tomorrow night?’ he continued. ‘Just us . . .’

  ‘Uh,’ I blurted. ‘Th-that w-would be great. Sure. Fine.’

  ‘Great.’ He laughed again. ‘I’ll see you at the steakhouse again. The Booth. Seven thirty?’

  I nodded and he ducked his head to kiss me on the cheek before hurrying away to the front desk.

  I was still standing there, wearing a psycho smile, when my mother came to find me five minutes later.

  ‘Fancy a sandwich?’

  We trundled into the staffroom and found Arns at the tea urn.

  ‘Dr Bird! A cup of Earl Grey?’

  ‘You are so lovely,’ she said to him sweetly, and he blushed.

  ‘Mum,’ I said fiercely. ‘Sandwich.’

  She rolled her eyes and handed me a fiver. ‘Shall we all sit over there?’ she asked mildly, pointing to the only free table.

  Arns flung himself into a purple chair, Mum found comfort in an orange, so I’d have the remaining poo green. No biggie, I know, but that shade is so – infectious. My head cold would be rampant after half an hour. I could still have a blocked nose come tomorrow night. Frik! How does a girl kiss without a secondary air supply?

  ‘Egg mayo?’ asked the lady at the bar and I nodded yes.

  ‘And an Earl Grey, and freshly squeezed orange juice, please,’ I asked.

  She smiled. ‘You’ll be wanting to kick that cold before the weekend.’

  I looked at her blankly. How could she know about my hot date?
<
br />   ‘Yes, dear. All the schools coming back, the rest of the students. Frey’s Dam party. New term, Monday.’

  ‘Oh!’ I nodded vigorously. I had to get a grip. Not everything was about me.

  I managed to carry everything back to our seats, and carefully handed Mum her tea. She sighed her thanks, looking worn out. ‘You okay, Mum?’ I asked.

  Mum nodded. ‘Just stressed, Lula. Two meetings this afternoon, thanks to that newspaper article. Esme Trooter and her lot are coming in at two. Then Vice Chancellor Gordon. I don’t have any answers for them.’

  Arns’s eyebrows went up. ‘Esme Trooter?’

  ‘She is the town campaigner,’ I explained, rubbing a little VapoRub under my scarf. ‘You haven’t heard of her?’

  ‘I don’t do much campaigning,’ replied Arns.

  ‘Neither does she,’ I said darkly, taking a big bite of my sandwich and chewing furiously.

  ‘Lu . . .’ said Mum in a warning tone.

  ‘She makes a lot of noise,’ I clarified. ‘About everything from Mr Ranfulshuffer’s new conservatory to what they’re feeding the cats up at the RSPCA.’

  Arns looked appalled. ‘What are they feeding the cats at the RSPCA?’

  ‘The point is, dear,’ said Mum, ‘the pensionable population of this town are going to have my guts for garters. They’re the only ones putting up a decent argument against Harry Harrow’s development, but they’ll get nowhere without the historical documents. They need them to prove their case.’ She hefted herself out of the chair and collected her bags together. ‘I need to talk to Mike,’ she muttered, and left without saying goodbye.

  ‘What does your mother have in the bags?’ asked Arns. ‘Is she one of those ladies who just, you know, has bags?’

  Nodding my head, I rolled my eyes, my mouth too full to speak.

  Mum’s office is not altogether private. It’s in the middle of the historical library section, and while it’s got lots of lovely dark wood panelling, complemented by an enormous antique desk, the rest of it is miles of clear glass, barely single glazed. There are about eight permanent librarians, and often part-timers like me too. We could all hear Mum perfectly as her voice rose ever so slightly.