The First Last Kiss

by Ali Harris

  ‘Me too,’ I say emphatically. ‘I expected it to be bad but it was the worst first kiss EVER!’ I giggle again. I never giggle. What’s wrong with me?

  Ryan gapes at me. ‘It was your first first kiss?’

  ‘Mmmhmm.’ I nod and then stop when I realize any vigorous movement makes my head spin. I must be drunk. ‘Didn’t you guess?’ He shakes his head and I prod my finger against his chest. ‘Well Cooper, unlike the rest of the boys in this town it must have escaped your notice that as a teenager I was NOT the hot piece of ass that I am now.’ Ryan bursts out laughing. ‘Hey, it’s not funny! Iss true. I know you kissed me for a dare. And I also happen to know that I have bloomed in the intervening years . . . Oh, yes . . . ’ I shake my new, longer, darker locks off my shoulders and prod him in the chest again. ‘I bet you’re kicking yourself now, aren’t you, huh?’ I bat my heavily liquid-lined eyelashes for comic effect.

  Ryan catches my finger and pulls my hand to his chest.

  ‘I didn’t kiss you for a dare, Molly Carter,’ he murmurs. ‘Is that really what you thought? That it was some sort of stupid bet?’

  I nod – and then burst out into a fit of uncontrollable giggles again.

  Ryan doesn’t join in. ‘I kissed you because I really liked you,’ he says solemnly. ‘I just happened to do it badly. The boys will never let me forget it either. “Shit Snog” Cooper, that’s what they call me. Imaginative, huh?’

  ‘Sounds about right to me,’ I smile and then immediately narrow my eyes. ‘But don’t try and lay on the charm now, Cooper. I’m not going to feel sorry for you.’

  Ryan holds his hands up. ‘I swear, Molly, I like – I mean,’ he coughs, ‘I liked you.’

  I fold my arms and stare pointedly at him. ‘So why do you regret that kiss then?’ I prod him again jubilantly. ‘Ha! Smooth talk your way out of that one!’

  Ryan turns and gently brushes my cheek then leans back and whacks me on the bottom. ‘Because, you hot piece of ass, what I was gonna say if you just let me finish, is that if I could wipe out that moment six years ago when I kissed you so embarrassingly badly, I would do it all over again. And,’ he leans in slowly, ‘I can guarantee it would be much, much better.’

  I burst out laughing again at the corniness of his line and am horrified when I notice that a little bit of my spit has landed on his face, but Ryan doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘The soft ripple of the waves would be like background music . . . ’

  I contain my laughter to a derisory snigger. ‘It’s an estuary, there aren’t any waves.’

  He stares at me for a moment then his eyes flicker out to the distance. ‘We’d gaze out across at the glimmering lights of Leigh-on-Sea . . . ’

  ‘Hardly Paris, is it?’ I say, folding my arms, my mouth twitching a little with the effort of disguising my smile.

  Ryan takes a step closer to me and untangles my arms, gripping lightly on to my wrists then lifting them up. I feel a snort of nervous laughter building. ‘I’d hold your arms out like this, so you could feel the wind in your face, just like Leonardo di Caprio did with Kate Winslet in Titanic . . . ’

  ‘HAAAAARRRRRRR!’ I explode with giggles, but they simmer to a stop as Ryan, still holding my arms, slides his body behind me. I shiver as he presses himself gently against my back, the urge to giggle now completely gone. He smells so good. Hugo Boss, I think.

  ‘The Bembridge is permanently moored.’ I mutter, trying not to show how affected I am by his touch, his scent and the feel of his breath on my neck. I turn and look up into his eyes. I feel like I’ve been cast with an enchantment. ‘There wouldn’t be any wind . . . ’

  He ignores me. ‘And then,’ he says turning me round to face him and putting his finger over my lips, ‘I’d lean forward . . . like this . . . I’d cup your face with my hands . . . like this . . . and I’d slowly lean in and . . . ’

  ‘Ryan!’ A shrill voice interrupts our moment. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ I feel the cool air hit my body as Ryan quickly moves away from me. A tall, blonde girl sidles up to him and lays her hand territorially on his arm.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for those drinks you promised us.’ She flirtatiously drags a finger down his arm, across his waist and threads it through his trouser belt-loop. She tugs. But he doesn’t move.

  ‘I’ll be right there, Stacey, I’m er, I’m just catching up with an old friend.’ She tugs again and looks at him beseechingly and I seize the opportunity when he turns to talk to her to slip away.

  That was close, I think as I run down Gypsy Bridge and on to The Green, not stopping to let Casey know I’m leaving. He nearly did it again, luring me in like a fisherman dragging his nets in with his well-practised pick-up lines. And I was there, in the palm of his hand, flailing around all breathless and bug-eyed. And I nearly bought his whole ‘wounded footballer turned sensitive high-school teacher’ act. For a moment there I thought there might be more to him than his fake tan and white trainers. I should’ve known better.

  Once a player, always a player.

  I’m furious with myself. I mean, trying to recreate Titanic? How pathetic is that? I hate that movie anyway, I mean, look where it got Kate Winslet; clinging on to a floating bit of debris in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And if that isn’t a fitting metaphor for love, then I don’t know what is.

  11.55 a.m.

  I’m washing up the kitchen paraphernalia I’ve left out until today. The single saucepan, the cutlery, mugs and all the wine glasses from last night. I dry them and then carefully put each of them on pre-cut pieces of bubble wrap. It is so weird packing everything up like this – especially in this room, which has always been so crammed full of stuff. Weird, but liberating. I finish drying up the pasta maker that I made ravioli with last night and pick up the floating food debris from the plug with one hand. Glancing back I notice some stubbornly stuck bits of pasta on the machine that I haven’t quite managed to wash off. I scrape at the cutters with the Brillo pad and when I’m satisfied that it’s gleaming I pack it in its original box. As I look at it I’m suddenly struck by a memory so vivid it transports me to another time, another place.

  The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Kiss

  Do me a favour will you? Break a rule today, go crazy, live in the moment. Open your heart. Now open it a little more. Love big, love even bigger. Don’t be afraid to stand up, to shout it out, to be heard. Say I LOVE YOU. Give it what for. Give love what for. For me. Because I didn’t. And now I can’t.

  That is all.

  (But that is nowhere nearly enough.)

  FF>> 30/10/04>

  The doorbell rings persistently and I put down the pasta maker I’ve just been furiously scrubbing with a Brillo pad. I love Ryan’s homemade ravioli but I hate washing up the bloody machine. I wipe my hands on my skinny grey jeans and open the front door. The overcast October day streams in – along with the ray of light that is Casey. No matter what the weather, you can always rely on her to be sunny. She has that in common with Ryan. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to them both? In many ways they’re really quite similar.

  She beams at me and then throws her arms out to reveal her bright-pink overnight bag and a bottle of champagne. She’s wearing a short, plunging, emerald-green dress with bare legs and over-the-knee boots. A bit much for a wintry lunchtime girlie day, but she gets away with it.

  ‘Let’s get this party started!’ she squeals, stamping her feet and lifting the bottle in the air over her head.

  ‘Case, it’s not even lunchtime!’ I laugh as we kiss each other jokingly on the lips and I take her bag off her. A passing car honks and she immediately turns around and poses in the doorframe, arms in each corner, one knee bent and pulled to her chest. The car, with two young guys in the front seat screeches to a halt and I drag her inside, both of us giggling irrepressibly like teenagers.

  ‘I’m so excited you’re here!’ I squeal, embracing her in a big hug.

  ‘I know, Moll!’ she grins. Her hair is really long
and poker-straight and has been dyed blonde. She can carry it off but it just doesn’t look like her. I prefer her natural dark hair. It made her stand out. ‘I can’t believe I’ve got a whole weekend off! It’s mad! Hey, isn’t Ryan here?’ She walks into the lounge and looks around the room, which is perfectly tidy – the biggest giveaway to his absence.

  ‘He’s gone back to Leigh for the weekend. There’s a Southend FC match on today, they’re in League Two of the Coca-Cola Cup, they’ve been doing really well since Tilson was appointed manager last year. Ryan reckons . . . ’ I glance at Casey and she rolls her eyes and yawns.

  ‘Moll, I did not come here to talk football. I came here to see you, get drunk and find me a man. Now, can you help me with that? Or is Boring, Brainwashed, Football-Widow Molly here to stay?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I grin at Casey. ‘I don’t even realize I’m doing it any more.’ Ryan’s obsession with his childhood football team has, by osmosis, made me knowledgeable. I think I might even understand the offside rule. I don’t think Casey would be impressed. ‘So what do you fancy doing? I’d really like to see the Edward Hopper exhibition at Tate Modern, the way he painted light is so inspiring, I mean it’s almost photographic—’ I burst out laughing at Casey’s curled lip and petulant expression. ‘I’m kidding Case, just kidding. I’ll go to that on my own!’

  These days when Ryan’s back in Leigh, I wake up on a Saturday morning, browse through the Weekend section of The Times whilst the coffee maker is warming up, working out what cultural event takes my fancy. Then I shower and head into town, always going via a market: Broadway if I fancy a young, hip vibe; Spitalfields if I want something a bit fancier; or Borough market, if I want to surprise Ryan with some great ingredients to make one of his incredible dishes.

  My camera is my only companion on these trips. I relish the time alone to morph into the bustling weekend city-life, making myself invisible so I can photograph the rich canvas, the cutaway of London’s core. I grab a sandwich for lunch and then visit a gallery or an exhibition, or take a walk along the Serpentine, or I head somewhere that I can observe people living and breathing the city’s pulse: the skaters down on Southbank, the shoppers on Sloane Street. Then I might sit in a little pavement café, like Bar Italia in Soho and have an espresso whilst I flick through my day’s photos before going home. I call Ryan for a chat and then go out for tapas with the girls from work, or, if Casey’s down, we head out to a cocktail bar and then a club. I miss Ryan, but I love this time too. It’s a day in my week where I feel most like me.

  Sometimes I am skewed by guilt that twists me over hot coals of doubt as I think about how I promised Ryan when we moved to London that I’d go back every weekend. But I can’t. I find it too stifling. And one of us should be making the most of what London offers at weekends, right? And I only promised to go back because I thought once he was here he’d change. But it’s like he’s on a bungee umbilical cord and it keeps pinging him back to Leigh-on-Sea. Whenever I complain he reels off his ‘Family comes first’ speech to me.

  And besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Everyone says so.

  The truth is Ryan and I have realized we like doing different things. And that’s OK. We still have plenty of things in common. Like . . . our history for one and, well, you know, like . . . Well, just plenty of other things.

  I shake my head, wanting to focus on my weekend with Casey.

  ‘We’re going to have fun!’ she squeals.

  ‘I know!’ I exclaim, clapping my hands excitedly. ‘Why don’t we go to Camden, have a mooch around, have a drink, then come back here and get ready to go out later! I’m so excited about having a Saturday night out! It’s been way too long!’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Casey says, lying down on the sofa languorously. ‘Just let me get over my hangover first. I was out late last night with the girls and came straight here.’

  ‘Really?’ I say, feeling a pang of unexpected jealousy. I guess that explains the outfit.

  She leans across to the coffee table to pick up a glass of water I left there and slumps back, spilling some over the floor. I quickly get up and go to the kitchen to get a cloth, wiping round her feet whilst she lifts them up like a teenager. I suddenly have an image of my mum doing the same and I throw the cloth down on the floor in disgust.

  Two hours later and Casey and I are wandering around Camden.

  ‘No wonder you like it here,’ Casey giggles, pointing at a stall that’s selling fringed, mirrored sequin bags.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, picking a bag up and throwing it over my shoulder. ‘I’ll have you know these are the height of fashion these days! Kate Moss has got one just like that!’

  ‘Only ten years too late for you then, babe,’ Casey giggles. ‘Didn’t you have one when you were fourteen?’

  ‘I can’t help being ahead of my time darling,’ I say faux pompously, and we burst into laughter. It’s lovely spending time with Casey, but ever since Ry and I moved to London, and we see each other less, we’re only really comfortable when we’re talking about the past, drawing on shared memories of our childhood when the bond between us was so strong that we couldn’t imagine anyone or anything ever coming between us. But the truth is, life has come between us. OK, I admit, my relationship with Ryan has contributed to that. I need to make more effort to spend quality time with Casey. But it’s weird; I sometimes find myself feeling nervous about spending time with her. Like I may bore her, or that we will run out of things to say. Our lives have been so different for so long that it’s hard to make more memories, maybe that’s why we rely so heavily on the past, using it to fill the moments now when it becomes glaringly obvious that we just don’t know each other as well as we used to. And in truth, half the time I can’t keep up with her. If she’s not working late, she’s out partying. The girl keeps vampire hours and doesn’t seem to need any sort of rest. I’m not going to pretend I don’t get worried about her sometimes. But I feel like I have to worry about Casey, because no one else will.

  I put the bag back and we continue walking silently around the market, with me picking up the occasional thing either for the flat, or for me. I like the long, gypsy-style tiered skirts but when I point them out to Casey she pretends to vomit into her takeaway noodles. She then picks up a suede miniskirt and holds it up against herself. I look at Casey chatting animatedly to the stallholder, flirting confidently like the pro she is. The girl knows how to talk, that’s for sure. I watch her now as she throws her head back and her chest out and laughs with total abandon as the young, attractive bloke looks at her with lustful approval. He touches her bum, and she doesn’t flinch, despite it making me do so. But she just winks provocatively and takes a step closer. Maybe I’m just a prude but this sort of thing makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been with Ryan for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like. Am I just getting old and boring?

  What do you mean ‘getting’? Hate to break it to you but you’ve been there a while.

  I feel the cold grip of doubt clinging to my heart and I look away, taking a sip of my coffee to make myself look busy while Casey gets busy. I think of Ryan and wonder what he’s doing right now. Then I realize I don’t need to wonder. I know. Because I always know what he’s doing, I know his routine – our routine – by heart. Every single day.

  So do something different! Something crazy! Be reckless for once, act your age not your European shoe size!

  Suddenly I feel the urge to do something crazy and spontaneous. I approach Casey and the over-familiar stallholder. I put down the skirt that Casey is still clutching and throw my arm possessively around her.

  ‘Would you mind not flirting with my girlfriend?’ I say vampishly, resting my cheek against to hers. Casey looks at me and grins.

  ‘Oh, babes,’ she says breathily, looking sideways at the stallholder who is now salivating at both of us. ‘I thought you might like me in this, I know miniskirts get you hot!’ And she plants a lingering kiss on my lips for full effect.

  Then
we stagger off, managing about five steps before breaking into fits of giggles. I hold out my camera and tilt it above our heads and still laughing, we pose touching tongues.

  Right then I vow it’s time to start having fun again, to start living.

  We emerge from the tube and into the sunshine at Waterloo station. The IMAX cinema dominates over a grey, urban concrete city. It’s started to rain and Casey looks up and throws her arms out and starts spinning around on the spot until she’s dizzy, like kids do. I join her and we start laughing as everyone walks past us with bemused expressions. We stop and grasp on to each other.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Casey says, looking around disapprovingly. Admittedly it’s one of the less appealing parts of London, but it’s one that I hardly ever go to and for that reason it is beautiful to me. It makes me feel like I could be anywhere. Like, say, New York, perhaps? God, I’d love to have lived there. There’s still time, I guess. I’m only twenty-five.

  Only twenty-five.

  I grasp her arm and start weaving through the streets purposefully. I’m not 100 per cent confident that I know where I’m going, but part of the adventure is the journey, not the getting there. Ryan’s always felt like a final destination for me, the point at which I rest. He was the first place I came to so I didn’t travel far to find him. Since then we’ve accelerated round the Monopoly board of life, passing Go, missing the chance cards and settling with a house on the very first square we landed on.

  And I’m trying to ignore my teen self, but recently, her voice is getting louder and more persistent, asking me if what I’ve got is enough. I’m not asking for the life equivalent of a hotel on Park Lane, but I can’t help but wonder if I settled too early, that I got the Old Kent Road when I could have had Regent Street. I push this terrible, disloyal thought out of my head. Everything’s OK really, I just need to have a little bit of fun.

  ‘We’re here!’ I exclaim as we arrive at a small door.