Girl 99

by Andy Jones

‘I had a nice night,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Verity.

  ‘I’d better . . . better get back to Bianca.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Verity.

  I lean in to kiss her goodnight and she twists her face away, offering me her cheek.

  When I get back to the flat Bianca is in her room. I should go to bed too but my mind is chattering, replaying, deconstructing. I pour myself a glass of Gavi and take it to the sofa.

  ‘What happened?’ shouts Bianca through her bedroom wall.

  ‘What do you mean, what happened?’

  Bianca d’oh’s loudly. ‘Did you get off with Verity?’

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Berk.’

  ‘Goodnight, sister.’

  ‘Goodnight, berk.’

  Bianca’s right.

  My bedpost is notched to matchwood but my bed is empty.

  Chapter Thirty

  I bang on Bianca’s door and she opens it one second later, already dressed, packed and caked in emo make-up.

  ‘Morning, berk.’

  ‘Good morning, sister. What happened to the makeover?’

  Bianca shrugs. ‘Not really my thing.’

  I turn away from her door, stop, turn back. ‘That was very devious,’ I tell her.

  Bianca smiles.

  Today it’s a full moon in Ad-Land and the set is crawling with monsters. No one is without a pair of fangs, a wart, an eyepatch, pointy ears, a dagger through the head. The script has a teenage couple snuggling on the sofa in front of a scary movie. They begin to kiss. Upstairs, Elijah’s ears prick up. As the kiss develops the teenagers recline further and further into the sofa. Elijah the werewolf creeps downstairs. And the moment the snoggers hit horizontal, Elijah pops up from behind the settee, scaring the bejesus out of the pair of them. They give him sweets, et cetera and so on.

  There was no kissing at the casting, which, with hindsight, was a mistake. The emphasis was on finding good monsters and a supporting cast who could act convincingly terrified – which our teenagers, Ray and Kelly, did. The kiss, though, it just isn’t happening.

  Take 1 is a dry clumsy effort that’s more of a lip collision than a kiss. Take 2 is not much better. Take 3 is a whole lot worse. We go again and again and again and it’s terrible and awful and woeful. When Ben calls ‘Cut’ for the fourteenth time, sections of the crew groan loudly. The actors’ embarrassment is escalating to the level of a fire hazard, and if we don’t get this kiss soon, we never will.

  ‘Fuck!’ Ben says. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  My mind flashes to last night, me kissing Verity, her reading my mind through the pressure of my lips. And I have nothing but sympathy for our actors.

  ‘Want me to have a word?’

  Ben nods. ‘Well, they’re not listening to me. Knock yourself out.’

  I walk on to set and tell Ray and Kelly to relax and have fun. I try to make them laugh, but they’re beyond being amused. We film two more takes and they’re so awful I’m blushing out of sympathy. It’s after four in the afternoon now, and the crew are restless. They can smell the weekend – we all can – and even without the catcalls their impatience is tangible.

  Crouching beside the prop sofa in the two-walled, studio-lit sitting room, in front of three dozen braying crew, I’m telling Kelly and Ray to forget they’re shooting a commercial. And then Kaz strides onto the set.

  ‘The client’s getting twitchy,’ she says, glancing at Ray and Kelly.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ I ask.

  ‘Just give it some enthusiasm,’ Kaz says to Ray. ‘Just get stuck in,’ she says to Kelly. And Ray and Kelly look more terrified than they ever did in the casting.

  Someone, it might be Ben, shouts, ‘Demonstration!’

  Everyone, even Ray and Kelly, laughs.

  Someone else shouts, ‘Show ’em how it’s done.’

  Kaz shrugs nonchalantly and raises her palms in a gesture that says, I will if you will.

  Someone wolf whistles. Someone else howls.

  Kaz looks at me: Well?

  Ray and Kelly look at me: Well?

  Ben and Judith and the creative and Rob look at me: WELL?

  A demonstration is not a bad idea, and it seems the entire room knows it. Not so much that the kids need to be taught how to kiss, more that the tension has reached a point where a sharp pin is needed to burst it.

  Kaz cocks her head to one side. ‘Since when were you so coy?’ she whispers.

  ‘Okay,’ I say to my actors, beckoning them off the sofa. ‘Stand there.’

  Kaz and I take their places on the sofa. Kaz wets the front of her teeth with her tongue and, despite myself, I experience a tingling frisson.

  ‘Ready?’ I say to Kaz.

  ‘You know me,’ she says.

  ‘Would somebody like to give me an “Action”,’ I shout to the gathered crew on the other side of the lights.

  Forty voices shout, ‘Action!’

  Kaz and I turn to face each other. She winks. I smirk. Kaz brushes her hair from her face, blinks lazily, parts her lips enough to show a flash of enamel. As I lean in to kiss Kaz, she grabs my face in both hands and pushes me back onto the sofa. Her tongue enters my mouth, finds my tongue, says hello and retreats.

  ‘Call it old times’ sake,’ Kaz whispers, holding my lip between her teeth. And she springs off me like a dismounting gymnast.

  The chorus of whoops and whistles sounds like something from a football terrace. Kaz takes a bow to ferocious applause, while I make a big deal of wiping my lips and drying my hand on my jeans.

  Kelly and Ray nail it in the next take.

  We break for the final set-up of the entire campaign – Ray and Kelly’s horrified reaction to Elijah the werewolf. It’s a simple shot, but I’m nervous as hell. So far today Verity and I have done a fine job of being polite and professional and pretending we didn’t kiss last night.

  But we did. I thought about it all night, and I want to do it again. Verity deserves better than me, for sure, but if I’m with Verity, I think I can be better than me. I know I can.

  I intercept Verity on the way out of the art department office.

  ‘That was a little awkward,’ I say, nodding towards the sofa.

  ‘What was?’ says Verity coldly.

  ‘You know, Kaz . . . and me . . . kissing.’

  She’s wearing an AC/DC T-shirt and the band sneer at me from beneath the heavy red letters.

  Verity shrugs. ‘Seemed pretty convincing.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I force a laugh. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Awkward,’ Verity says. ‘Do you remember when we first met? That kiss-handshake thing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nod.

  ‘Awkward!’ Verity says, throwing her hands in the air, re-enacting our introduction from a hundred years ago. ‘Typical Verity,’ she says, the humour appearing to ebb out of her.

  ‘Last night,’ I say. ‘It’s just . . . I’ve been so busy and my head’s . . .’ I swirl my hands around my skull to indicate all over the place, messed up, distracted.

  ‘Are you seeing someone?’

  I shake my head.

  Verity stares at me, as if trying to assess the honesty of my answer.

  ‘Cross my heart,’ I tell her, doing exactly that. ‘I’m not seeing anyone.’

  Verity shakes her head. ‘I’m looking forward to finding out all about you, Thomas Ferguson,’ she says, her voice breathy and self-mocking. ‘Talk about cornballs. No wonder you freaked.’

  ‘Hey, no, it wasn’t you.’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s you, right?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, no, well not like that. Sorry, mixed messages.’

  Verity half opens her mouth, half forms a word.

  ‘And I’d hardly say I freaked.’

  She holds her thumb a few millimetres from her forefinger. ‘Lil bit,’ she says.

  I shrug that this may be a fair point. ‘But here’s the thing,’ I say, moving half a step closer to her. ‘I want to learn al
l about you too. If that’s okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Verity, nodding. ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘Are you going to the wrap party tonight?’

  ‘I could force myself.’

  I take hold of Verity’s hand. ‘Good. And just in case that was another mixed message . . .’ I lean in and kiss her, and for a moment everything else fades into the background.

  We shoot the final shot. Ben gathers everyone into a circle, tells them they’ve been great, round of applause, it’s a wrap.

  Bianca has a train to catch and we’re reversing out of our parking space when Verity knocks on my side window – there’s no automatic switch and it takes what seems like an age to manually wind the bugger down.

  ‘I was going to give you this earlier,’ Verity says, holding up a paperback. ‘But the opportunity never . . . you know. And then I thought I’d give it to you in the pub, later, but I didn’t want to embarrass you. So, anyway, here.’ Verity passes the book through the open window.

  It’s shop-new, never read.

  They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but, judging by the sprawled bare-breasted woman on the front of this one, it seems the publishers have set out to prove the contrary.

  ‘Henry Miller,’ says Verity. ‘He wrote that book . . . the one we were talking about last week.’

  ‘What book?’ says Bianca.

  Sexus.

  ‘And, well, I know how much you like him,’ says Verity with a sly smile.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ says Bianca. ‘Why are you blushing?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say to Verity. ‘It’s perfect.’

  Bianca snatches the book from my hand. ‘Tropic of Capricorn? Ha. Uncle Tom’s a Capricorn.’

  ‘Is he really?’ says Verity with contrived surprise.

  ‘Yeah, Mum used to call him Goat Boy.’

  Verity laughs and I put the car into gear.

  ‘I think I’d better get this one to the station,’ I say.

  Verity blows a kiss across me to Bianca. ‘Take care, Goth Girl. See you later, Goat Boy.’

  At Euston station I return Bianca’s phone battery, and by the time we’ve unloaded her bags and carried them to the platform, her mobile has beeped the arrival of at least a dozen texts, missed calls and voice messages.

  Bianca laughs. ‘Sad really, isn’t it?’

  ‘Give you something to read on the train,’ I say.

  ‘Suppose,’ Bianca says, shrugging. ‘What was that book all about?’

  ‘The one off Verity?’

  ‘Dur. Which other book would it be?’

  ‘Just a present,’ I say. ‘For being such a cool guy.’

  Bianca rolls her eyes. ‘It looked a bit pervy to me.’

  ‘D’you think?’

  ‘I think,’ says Bianca, ‘that if you don’t pull Verity tonight, you’re a total and utter div.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Little Horrors party is at the Goose – maybe twenty people gathered on and around a rough circle of assorted pub furniture in a corner of the pub. A cheer goes up as I approach the group. I hold up my palms in appreciation, take a bow, and Ben shoves a pint of Guinness into my hand.

  ‘Twixes of Eastwick,’ says Marlon as I nudge into the circle.

  ‘Sweets in movie titles,’ says Ben in response to my nonplussed frown.

  ‘You’ve got to say one or down your drink,’ adds Marlon.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘Er . . . Mars Attacks?’

  ‘Had it,’ says Holly from atop Rob’s lap. There’s a shortage of seats, but does she really need to bounce up and down on his knee like that?

  ‘Mutiny on the Bounty?’ I try.

  ‘Had it,’ says Ben.

  ‘Ditto Galaxy Quest, Flake Placid, A Clockwork Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Kit Kat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Malteser Falcon,’ says Marlon.

  ‘Plus The Bourneville Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum,’ says Rob from beneath Holly.

  ‘Marathon Man.’

  ‘They’re Snickers now,’ says Marlon.

  ‘But they were Marathons.’

  ‘Overruled,’ says everyone.

  ‘Three Men and a Jelly Baby,’ says Verity.

  ‘Good one,’ says Ben.

  ‘Point Breakaway.’

  ‘Had it,’ says everyone.

  ‘This is a stitch-up.’

  ‘Drink, drink, drink,’ they chant.

  ‘Revels Without a Cause.’

  ‘Drink.’

  I raise my Guinness to my lips as twenty-odd people chant, ‘Down in one!’ I down it in three, but they cheer nevertheless.

  ‘Bar!’ shouts Marlon, holding up an empty glass.

  ‘Come on, big fella,’ says Ben, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  I raise my eyebrows enquiringly at Verity. She waggles a bottle of Sol and gives a semi-sympathetic smile.

  ‘Meester Tom,’ says Christina. ‘A long time.’

  ‘He’ll have the same again,’ says Ben. ‘And a London Pride and a Star, cheers.’

  ‘Muito obrigada.’

  ‘And a bottle of Sol,’ I say.

  Ben gives me an appraising look.

  ‘For Verity,’ I explain.

  Ben persists with the look.

  ‘What?’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Go on, what?’

  ‘She’s a nice girl,’ says Ben.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. She’s an extremely nice girl. That’s all.’

  My phone rings and I fish it out of my pocket.

  ‘One of your women?’ asks Ben.

  ‘No,’ I say, turning my phone off. ‘Estate agent.’

  ‘Not leaving us, are you?’

  ‘Just need a change,’ I say.

  Ben puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into a tight hug.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I ask.

  ‘For sorting this out.’ Ben takes in the party with a sweep of his arm, sloshing beer from his pint in the process. ‘I know I was in two minds about the shoot, but it was . . . not as shit as I expected. So thanks.’ And he kisses me on the ear.

  ‘How pissed are you?’ I say.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Ben says. ‘I’m not that kind of girl.’

  Christina lines up our drinks and Ben hands me my Guinness.

  ‘I mean it,’ Ben says. ‘Thanks.’ Then he hands me Verity’s Sol. He nods at the bottle and looks at me significantly. ‘And try not to be a tosser.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be easy, Benjamin, but I’ll do my best.’

  Verity is talking to the cameraman when I hand her her drink, and I end up stuck in a conversation with the soundman, who wants me to read a screenplay he’s written. The soundman goes to the toilet, but before I can get to Verity I’m cornered by Rob. And after Rob it’s the gaffer, and after the gaffer the spark. Holly appears, kisses me on the cheek and tells me Verity is a ‘special person’. ‘I know,’ I tell her, and glance towards Verity, who is now talking to the soundman, presumably about his screenplay. She smiles and I smile back. Judith the client drags me to the bar and we do a round of tequilas. When we rejoin the gang, Verity is sitting on the sofa between Ben and Marlon. Holly is perched on Rob’s knee and the pair of them shift along to make room.

  ‘Oopsy,’ says Holly, as Rob shuffles sideways.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ says Rob, and the pair of them laugh at their not-entirely-private joke.

  ‘Room for one more on top?’ asks Kaz, sitting on my lap and wiggling herself comfortable.

  ‘The Usual Suspects,’ says Marlon.

  ‘The Fast and the Furious,’ says the soundman.

  ‘Mission Impossible,’ says Ben, and everyone laughs.

  ‘What are we playing now?’ says Kaz, from on top of my lap.

  ‘Movies that describe your sex life,’ says Marlon.

  Kaz claps her hands. ‘Excellent. Er . . . For Your Eyes Only.’ And she wiggles just enough for me to feel it.

 
‘King Kong,’ says Holly, bouncing up and down excitedly.

  ‘Scream,’ says Rob, and the pair of them kiss.

  ‘Toy Story,’ says Judith.

  ‘Tom?’ says Kaz. ‘You’re awfully quiet.’

  And where to begin? The Jerk, It’s Complicated, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

  Verity is obscured from my view by Kaz’s back, which helps a little but not enough.

  ‘Thomas?’ says Ben. ‘Not shy, are we?’

  ‘Would be a first,’ says Kaz, half under her breath.

  And this must be how it feels to walk a plank.

  ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events,’ I try, receiving a mixture of groans, laughter and a sympathetic coo from Holly.

  ‘Enter the Dragon,’ says a voice I can’t identify.

  ‘Meester Tom,’ says a Brazilian voice, and for a second I think it must be a movie I have never heard of.

  ‘Phone call for Meester Tom,’ says Christina.

  I slither out from under Kaz to a chorus of boos and jeers and whistles, and follow Christina to the bar.

  ‘A woman,’ says Christina, pouting.

  Yvette!

  ‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Can you say I’m not here?’

  ‘Too late, Meester Tom.’ Cristina hands me a cordless handset, winks, and sashays to the opposite end of the bar.

  I hold the phone like a giant poisonous insect, and bring it slowly, reluctantly, to my ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Meester Tom,’ says the voice on the other end of the line.

  Christina is still behind the bar, serving drinks.

  ‘Sorry? Hello?’

  ‘About those mixed messages,’ says the voice.

  I glance around the bar, looking for a clue.

  ‘Outside,’ says the voice.

  Standing on the opposite side of the road, phone to her ear, is Verity. She waves. I hang up.

  Yes, snogging on public transport is embarrassing. No, I don’t care. We’re not devouring each other like European backpackers, but we definitely deserve it when some wag suggests we get a room. And that’s when the nerves kick in. Standing outside the Goose, I suggested we find a quiet bar somewhere. Verity laughed and reminded me that this was central London on a Thursday night in the middle of summer. So I suggested my place. If not the last thing on my mind, sex wasn’t the first thing either. And I think – hope – Verity understood that. Now, though, with the words get a room ringing in my ears, there is a palpable, charged anticipation between us.