The First Last Kiss

by Ali Harris

  I cradle her in my arms as she cries and I’m so fucking angry, not just with them, but with me. Why wasn’t I there to protect her, like I’ve always been before? Back then, I didn’t leave her side but now, when she needed me, I wasn’t there. And I promised I always would be. Why have I been so consumed with myself and my life and this wedding that I’ve left her to fend for herself? Casey can’t look after herself, I’ve always known that. She’s not strong enough to live on her own, or to work in a club like that. I knew it but I didn’t do anything to protect her.

  What happened to BF’s forever?

  ‘I didn’t mean to make this happen, Molly,’ she sobbed, ‘you’ve got to believe me, I know I’m stupid and irresponsible but I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t, honestly . . . ’ She looks up at me imploringly ‘. . . and I didn’t mean to not call you, and I’m sorry Molly, I’m s-so, so sorry . . . ’

  ‘Shhh, you don’t have to be sorry for anything, Case, it’s my fault, I’m the one to blame here, not you. I’ve neglected you. I should have been there, not just tonight . . . ’ I say as she burrows into my neck and cries and then I cry with her, for her and for us. For the naive kids that we were who thought that life would always go in the same direction for us.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Moll,’ she weeps.

  ‘Shhh,’ I repeat, and kiss her on her head, and I sit there stroking her hair for what feels like hours until she drifts off to sleep.

  The Wish You Were Here Kiss

  Why is it when you’re about to wed there’s this ridiculous tradition to spend a weekend away from your intended? I mean the whole point of getting married is that you want to be together forever. From this day forward.

  In my lowest moments I have obsessed over the weekend of my hen do. Sometimes I lie in bed and I close my eyes and imagine that Ryan and I spent that weekend in Paris, or in Rome, or tucked up in a B&B on the coast together, or in a log cabin, lying in front of a roaring fire as the snow drifted outside the door, talking about the exciting future that lay before us. Sometimes we’re even in Jackie and Dave’s annexe in Leigh-on-Sea. Anywhere other than apart.

  But then it’s not long before my mum’s words spoken on my wedding morning permeate my dreams. ‘The only person your happy-ever-after is hinged on is you, Molly,’ and I realize that nothing has been stolen from me, not really. How can I think about what I lost when I have gained so much? Instead of wishing he was here, I just need to be thankful that I am.

  FF>> 15/04/06>

  ‘Woohoo, this is fun!’ squeals Lydia, lifting up two bottles and pouring the most gigantic amounts of tequila and vodka into her cocktail shaker, a tiny bit of orange juice, and then holds up a cranberry before dropping it in the drink. ‘I’m going to call this one “Lyd’s Loose Lips”,’ and she raises an eyebrow.

  ‘You’re all class, Lyd,’ I giggle as I make the raspberry Martini just as the mixologist guy showed me, batting my eyelashes as I lift up my finished drink for his inspection.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ he says with a movie-star smile.

  ‘So are you,’ sniggers Mia, and gestures pinching his arse as he turns his back on us. She gulps down her own Martini and slams the glass back on the bar.

  ‘Hey, he’s mine!’ Lydia protests.

  ‘I’ll fight you for—’ She bites her lip and glances at Casey, and I quickly grasp her hand and squeeze it. Some of her minor injuries have now healed but the emotional wounds of that night are still raw. ‘Sorry,’ Mia says, touching her bruised arm. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  Casey looks up from her own non-alcoholic concoction and smiles wanly.

  ‘Are you OK, Case?’ I murmur, like I’ve been doing approximately every three minutes since my hen party began.

  She nods and smiles at me – but without any of her usual sparkle. ‘Fine, babes, happy to be here.’

  I touch her arm. ‘You know you don’t have to be,’ I say.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ she says, her chin and nose pointed determinedly in the air.

  I’m still amazed she’s made it. She’s been staying with Ryan and me ever since that night – God, was it a month ago now? It feels like yesterday. We only went back to her flat to pack up enough things to bring them to ours for the forseeable. She didn’t want to go to her mum’s, understandably. I’m not entirely sure that Toni would have been particularly bothered; she’s got a new boyfriend at the moment. So Ry and I instantly offered her our couch. We’ve even exchanged it for a sofa bed to make it more comfortable for her.

  There are squeals as Freya and Lisa both clink their cocktail glasses at the other end of the bar. We smile and do the same.

  ‘To friends, your future and having FUN,’ Casey says with effort, and I swallow back a tear at her bravery. Mia hugs us and I link my arms through both of theirs, feeling so happy to have them here. My best friends.

  I still can’t believe my hen do is finally here and in one week’s time, I’ll be Mrs Ryan Cooper. It doesn’t seem possible, and yet it can’t come quickly enough as far as I’m concerned. I kissed Ryan goodbye this morning. He and the boys are heading out to Ibiza early for his stag do.

  I look at my two best friends either side of me and the other girls here – Lydia and the girls from work; I only invited a handful because I wanted the chance to spend quality time with everyone and not feel part of a circus. And more than anything, I didn’t want to have a celebration that would make Casey feel awkward. Historically she hasn’t coped well with other friends of mine, and although she and Mia have been fine(ish) for years, I’m sure that’s only because Mia moved to Australia. I think as far as Casey has always been concerned, Mia couldn’t ever threaten our closeness whilst she was living 10,000 miles away. Which is funny, because although Mia may live on the other side of the world, in many ways we’ve actually grown closer over the years. Perhaps it’s because we understand each other’s jobs, maybe it’s because we don’t demand much of each other, perhaps the distance stops us from having the petty ups and downs of most friendships, but Mia is my rock.

  ‘OK ladies,’ says the super-cute mixologist, ‘are you ready for the next cock—’

  ‘OH YES!’ we chorus.

  ‘ . . . tail.’ He finishes and we all fall about laughing. He rolls his eyes good-naturedly and throws his shaker into the air Tom Cruise-style, as we all ooh and aah and gasp with pleasure like we’re at a fireworks display.

  ‘Okaaay,’ he drawls lazily, ‘now I’m going to make someone a special cocktail designed just for them. A Moll . . . Flanger? Is that right?’

  I scream and burst out laughing as Mia points and winks at me across the bar.

  ‘And a virgin one for the pretty lady in the black dress,’ he grins wolfishly at Casey, who has stuck to her decision to stop drinking since the night of the attack.

  She lifts her glass and winks with the eye that isn’t healing from the stitches (a heel cut the corner of it – she was lucky not to lose an eye). For a moment both eyes shut in transition and I realize that with no fake tan, her long black hair unstyled (she can’t lift up her arms for long) and her olive skin sallow and still bruised from the attack, she looks ghostly, ethereal almost. ‘I’m about as far from a virgin as anyone can get! Haaa!’ she blurts out jokingly with what seems like a desperate attempt to get into the hen spirit. ‘Besides, there’s no chance of me getting any with this beat-up face!’

  We all look at each other awkwardly as a ripple of discomfort works its way through the group. Lydia has assured her it’s nothing that can’t be covered with make-up on the big day. She is now determined to be chief bridesmaid at my wedding. I take Casey’s hand and squeeze it again, trying to let her know that she doesn’t have to do this, that we don’t expect her to try and make crude jokes just because we’re on a hen do. It’s enough that she’s here and she still wants to be there on my big day.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘you have to admit it’s a bit funny! Laugh!’

  And we obey her. If it’s
what she needs to feel like herself again, to claw back that confidence she once had, no matter what anyone thought, then I will laugh till my throat aches and my stomach hurts.

  Casey begins to play up, dancing around, making jokes, and I know she’s really making the effort for me. I want her to know that I love her and that I’d do anything for her. I might have neglected her a bit over the past few years but if I could have taken those kicks and punches for her, saved her from them like I did when we were teenagers, I would. I’ll just have to make sure, as I swore to myself on the night she turned up on my doorstep, that I’m always there to take them from now on.

  The morning after the night before, after we’d taken her to A&E, she and I and Ryan went for a walk along the Southbank. I think she hoped that the blustery gales coming in from the river would blow away the memory of the incident. But even as I told her how terrible I felt that she’d been alone and how I wished I’d been there to stop the girls, it occurred to me how horribly self-obsessed it was that in hearing her talk about that moment of horror, I’d been thinking about how it affected me. I told her that too, and then apologized profusely.

  ‘Molly,’ she’d said quietly, her brown eyes glassy with sadness that was reflected in the mulchy Thames beyond. ‘You’ve done so much for me, you are the least selfish person I know. You both have,’ she’d added. She smiled first at me then at Ryan and slipped her arms around us both, clearly still in pain, inside and out.

  ‘You know you can stay with us as long as you need too, right?’ I said as we’d walked across Waterloo Bridge, not asking Ryan first but knowing he’d agree.

  ‘But, the wedding . . . you don’t want me . . . ’ she’d begun, her fingers hovering over her poor face.

  ‘Ah ah ah,’ I’d stopped and interrupted her by popping my hand over her mouth, but she’d instinctively jolted back and I’d put it up to my own mouth in horror as I realized that this is what they must’ve done to her last night when she was screaming out in pain.

  ‘Case, I’m sorry!’ I’d sobbed then. I’d pulled her into my arms and we’d stood hugging on the bridge as Ryan had looked on. I desperately wished that a tornado would sweep us up and away, back to the past, before this had happened to her.

  It’s been a slow rehabilitation for her over the past five weeks. On day four she’d turned on the TV. On day ten she’d smiled at an old episode of Friends. On day thirteen she’d gone home to her mum’s for a couple of days. She’d returned to us and told us that she’d quit her job – and the drink.

  ‘I want to take control. I don’t want to be fun-time Casey any more. I’m twenty-eight years old, babe. I need to grow up. I want to start making good decisions for me. And the first one is to stop drinking. Even if it’s just for a while, to help me sort out my head. I’m trying to find a positive out of all this, Molly, please, will you help me?’

  ‘Of course, I will,’ I’d cried. ‘I’ll do anything you like, just tell me.’

  ‘Thank you. I just hope I can repay you one day,’ she’d said, adding whimsically, ‘but your life is perfect. It always has been . . . ’

  A sad ghost of a smile had wafted over her face, illuminating her now-fragile features even more. ‘You got your happy-ever-after,’ she’d finished plaintively.

  ‘I’m not sure such a thing exists,’ I’d replied, feeling a momentary flash of my inner cynical Harry returning. ‘After all,’ I’d said, ‘who ever really knows what’s in their future?’

  And she’d nodded sadly in agreement, and rested her head on my shoulder as she’d continued watching Friends.

  Since then she’d agreed to be my bridesmaid and I’d shown her the dress I’d bought her from a designer sample sale when we weren’t in contact, just in case she’d had some drastic change of heart. We never did discuss her reaction to my engagement. I knew she was jealous, and after what happened to her, it felt completely reason able that she would resent the wedding. But strangely, it had done the opposite.

  We bundle out of the Lab Bar in Soho, feeling deliciously relaxed. I have no idea what has been planned for the day. Mia has done it all.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ I ask, grasping the overnight bag I was instructed to pack.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Mia smiles, stepping confidently into the street and hailing two black cabs, ushering me and Casey into one, and the rest of the girls into the other. She steps in after me and sits behind the driver.

  ‘Knightsbridge please, mate.’

  ‘Maiiiite,’ Casey and I echo Mia’s affected Aussie accent and follow it with a burst of laughter.

  ‘What?’ she says innocently, taking out a Bobbi Brown compact and reapplying her lip gloss.

  ‘You,’ I say. ‘No,’ I look at Casey and we chorus in an Australian accent, ‘Youiie! You’re quite the Aussie these days; you’ve gone native, Mi.’

  Mia raises an eyebrow. ‘Do I look native to you?’ she says imperiously, gesturing at her Havaianas, faded jeans and vest top.

  ‘Yep,’ I say cheerfully.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m on holiday.’

  ‘You dress like this for work, too. I saw you,’ I point out.

  ‘Oh yeah, well, I LOIKE it. I loike not having to make a constant effort. I loike that I don’t have to waste time blow-drying my hair to perfection or obsessing over what handbag I should be carrying. I still loike to dress up, but I’m too busy having fucking fun to worry about what I’m wearing. Even at work. Ooh, look, we’re here!’

  ‘Oh my GOD, this is AM.AZ.ING, Mia!?’

  ‘Yep,’ she’d grinned. ‘And don’t worry – I got it for free by doing a review for the magazine. Although you have to do one too for Viva. I figured your boss wouldn’t mind!’

  I look around our classy penthouse suite at The Berkeley hotel as we all burst through the door, chattering excitedly at the prospect of spending a night in the two-bedroom apartment that Mia has blagged. The room is an oasis of class and calm, white drapes fall from the windows, and everywhere is a sea of mushroom, taupe, beige and ecru – the exact opposite of what you’d expect on a hen night. I love it.

  After we’d got dressed and had in-room manicures, Mia had taken us down to the cinema room at the hotel where we’d watched Cocktail. Then she’d played some messages she’d recorded from people who couldn’t be here. There was one from Jo, my first ever picture editor, who now works with Mia in Sydney. Then my mum said a few stilted but sweet words from the comfort of her lace doily-topped chair; telling me to be good and to not get into any trouble because ‘what will people think?’. Everyone had laughed at that, especially Case. Even Jackie popped up on screen in all her vivid-pink tracksuited glory, patting her hair and trying to check her reflection in the camera lens. ‘Do I look alright, darlin’?’ I could hear her ask Lydia, who was clearly behind the camera for this one. We were in hysterics by the end of Jackie’s gloriously irreverent speech where she gave me first-night sex tips and offered me a box of her Ann Summers products. And then, just as our sides had stopped aching and we’d wiped away the last tears of mirth, darling Nanny Door had stood directly in front of the camera and screeched, ‘Big Brother house, this is Nanny Door, do not swear, ha haaaa!’ Then she’d cackled so much she’d nearly missed Jackie’s throne she was trying to sit on. She’d composed herself, swatted Dave, who was trying to help her, out of the way and with her blue eyes twinkling with memory and love and wisdom, she’d smoothed down her hair, glanced momentarily off camera and said something that had made my throat ache and my heart swell and then dip, wishing that Ryan were here right now to see this.

  ‘My only advice to you, Molly dear, is what I learned from the thirty-five wonderful years I spent with my Arthur – and the eighteen years I’ve spent without him. Savour every single moment, every word, every kiss.’

  Then the video had gone fuzzy and the smiling face of my fiancé had appeared. This one had been Casey’s doing, apparently.

  ‘You were doing this when you kicked me out of the flat the other evening!�
�� I’d exclaimed and hugged her. She’d just nodded.

  ‘Hello, Harry,’ Ryan said, his grin lighting up the entire screen. ‘So this time next week you will be Mrs Molly Cooper, you’ll have promised to love, honour and of course, the most important of all – obey me forever!’

  ‘Never!’ I yell, and we all laugh as Ryan rolls his eyes.

  ‘Did you just shout “never”?’ he asks into the camera. ‘Well, don’t you worry, I’m happy for you to promise never to obey me as long as you promise to never obey me as long as we both shall live.’ He’d winked and grinned. ‘I love you Molly Carter-almost-Cooper, have fun at your hen, don’t let those girls lead you astray, and I’ll see you next week, back in the place where it all began. I can’t wait, babe!’ Then he signed off with a kiss.

  Ever since I’d seen him up on that screen I’ve missed him more than ever. I want to speak to him, but don’t want the other girls to know. They’ve banned me from any contact, but now all I want is to let him know how much I love him. And so I activate the camera on my new phone, turn it to face me and I blow my kiss back at him and then attach it to my message:

  I can’t wait to be Mrs Cooper. Love you forever xxx

  And I hit send.

  2.07 p.m.

  The missed call flashing up on screen is from Mia. There’s no voicemail but she’s sent a text: You’re HOT! M x

  I smile as I deftly type my response: Not as hot as you . . . x

  Another text comes back immediately: You will be. Soon!

  My phone rings almost seconds after I hit send.