The Kiss

by Lucy Courtenay

  ‘What next, polishing the barrels? I gave you this job assuming you could cope with an ex-boyfriend. You knew you’d have to work with him when you applied. Have I made a mistake here?’

  ‘He’s not my ex,’ I say in mortification. ‘He’s – OK, so I kissed him last night, but that’s it. He’s totally not a problem.’ Pulling myself together, I wave my feather duster around in a super-efficient manner. ‘But the spiders down here, Val – they seriously ARE a problem. You could get Health and Safety on your back if they’re not sorted. Dad’s pub got into all kinds of trouble over it. If you ask me, that’s why it closed.’

  ‘You’re embarrassed.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes.’

  I let the feather duster fall to my side. ‘OK, yes, a bit,’ I mumble.

  ‘My son’s a good lad,’ Val says more gently. ‘And you have to work together. So unless you man up, you can forget this job because it’s not going to work. It’s time to start doing what I pay you for, love. Serving customers.’

  Tumbleweed seems to roll through the cellar in a gust of imaginary desert wind.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ I squeak.

  Jem is spraying the bartop with something that smells of lemons and hospitals. He turns, aiming the spray nozzle at me like a gun.

  ‘Stick ’em up or I’ll disinfect,’ I say weakly. ‘The boss is your mother?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘But you call her Val!’

  ‘Always have.’

  ‘You didn’t think to mention this before I told her we kissed?’

  He smiles slightly. ‘Sorry.’

  Focus on the conversation, Delilah, not the smile. ‘Would she really have docked your wages last night if you’d missed your shift?’

  ‘She’s running a business, not a charity. Did your dad pay you at the pub?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Not much but – yes.’

  ‘And there were rules about not knocking off early or generally taking the mick?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘We have more in common than you think.’

  I lace my fingers together. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you.’

  ‘Girls don’t usually run away when I kiss them,’ he says wryly. ‘One minute we were moonstruck, the next you were legging it like a greyhound. Was it Studs? That mutual friend he mentioned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And are you seeing this mutual friend?’

  I stare. ‘No! No, that’s not— the mutual friend’s the guy I dumped.’

  He looks confused. ‘So why was it a problem?’

  ‘My ex was seeing someone else the whole time we were together. Studs was there when I found out . . .’ I swallow. I haven’t had any practice in saying this stuff out loud. ‘I didn’t take it very well. I’m still not taking it very well, to be honest.’

  The clouds in his eyes evaporate. He steps towards me. ‘I’ve been going nuts, wondering.’

  I raise my hand, placing it on his chest to stop him getting any closer, feeling his warmth radiating through my palm. ‘I’m not looking for . . . any complications in my life.’ I cringe inside as I say this. It sounds extremely naff. ‘That’s why I ran away. So I’m telling you now, please don’t try and kiss me again or do anything to make me like you because I don’t want to like you.’

  ‘OK,’ he says slowly, looking down at my hand. ‘No complications. Check.’

  I laugh, a combination of embarrassment and nerves.

  He turns away to serve a cluster of customers who’ve suddenly come into the bar. I want to say something else, but don’t know what. So I suck it up and get to work.

  It isn’t long before we are drowning in a blur of beer and Twiglets. I fetch glasses, fire the soda gun, count change, ring the till, change the music, change the music back, distribute beer mats, wring out bar towels, twist off Coke lids, take empty crisp boxes round the back, learn the knack of the hand-held swipe machine and the way the vodka optic dribbles sideways, blush and mumble my way past some of the friskier customers, scarf a packet of crisps for my dinner and grab precisely one visit to the loo. It isn’t even that busy, punter-wise. Val watches me throughout; Jem, not so much. In fact, not at all.

  ‘So much for the lull during showtime,’ I gasp in the kitchen, wiping my sweaty forehead with my sleeve as Jem calls last orders.

  ‘There’s no show just now,’ says Val.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, now feeling stupid on top of tired.

  ‘We have the annual amateur Musical in a Month starting next week, with a performance around Hallowe’en,’ she adds. ‘That’ll perk things up.’

  Musical in a Month sounds as much fun as a harpoon through the neck. Mum did am-dram, leaving a toxic trail of high kicks, ambition and melting vinyl records in her wake. I still can’t hear Chicago without breaking into a sweat. I try to focus on what Val is saying.

  ‘Kids with stage ambitions and enough energy for long rehearsals come from the college. They get in a couple of pros to give it some weight. The theatre lends costumes and props and expertise. It’s good publicity working with amateurs, and big business for the bar at a quiet time of year.’ She smiles a little evilly. ‘Think you can take the pace?’

  I give a fixed smile. ‘No problem.’

  By the time we have put the dishwasher on for the final load of the night, it’s close to midnight. Val gives me my money and I pull my coat from one of the kitchen lockers, heading wearily for the door.

  ‘Tomorrow at five!’ Val calls after me. ‘Don’t be late!’

  Jem is waiting for me on the steps.

  ‘Thought I’d walk you wherever you need to go,’ he says.

  ‘There’ll be a bus in five minutes,’ I say, feeling stupidly shy as I point at my bus stop opposite. ‘It takes me to the end of my road. I’ll be fine.’

  He rubs his jaw. I have a terrible urge to rub it too. Maybe even kiss it a bit, on the part where the stubble gives way to the softer skin on his neck.

  ‘Guess I was the only one that felt it,’ he says.

  ‘Felt what?’ I ask nervously.

  He frowns. ‘Like the moon was inside me.’

  I open my mouth like a poleaxed goldfish. He turns away, head down, pushing back inside the theatre doors and out of sight.

  ‘Babe, it’s me,’ I say through Tabby’s bedroom door the following morning, unfeasibly bright and early. ‘Your mum let me in. I know it’s Saturday first thing but she says you’re going out later and we have to talk. I brought you tea.’

  Tabby peeps blearily out from under her duvet as I flip on the light and crash into her room, putting the tea on her bedside table.

  ‘Wher time zit?’ she croaks. ‘Wass happened?’

  Where to start? The beginning, I decide. It’s going to sound crazy however I do this, but beginnings at least prove there’s some kind of order in the world.

  ‘Remember me telling you about making out with that French guy in the holidays? About the incredible brain-frying kiss and the moon?’

  Fumbling on her bedside table, Tabby finds her glasses and slides them on. She’s starting to look more awake. ‘Lilah, in what way is this urgent? First thing in the morning, a wee is urgent, not a chat about kissing. On the subject of which . . .’

  ‘The French guy Laurent,’ I resume the minute Tab returns from the bathroom. ‘He spun me this line on something called Aphrodite’s Kiss in the sand dunes. A load of donkey doodah about—’

  ‘I know about Aphrodite’s Kiss,’ she interrupts.

  I freeze. This is exactly what I don’t want to hear.

  ‘You do?’ I say weakly.

  Tab extracts a bit of sleepy dust the size of Wales from one eye. ‘I’m studying Classics, babe. We talk about Aphrodite a lot. Not that she’s been m
uch help lately,’ she adds bitterly.

  ‘Tell me,’ I order.

  ‘According to the legend, Aphrodite first gave the Kiss to a huntsman in the foothills of ancient Athens by the light of a full moon,’ Tabby says with a yawn. ‘The Kiss drove him gloriously, happily mad. But life is fickle, and Aphrodite didn’t stick around.’ Her voice wobbles, but she steadies herself. ‘The huntsman caught the eye of a girl in the market place and gave her the Kiss instead. The girl instantly fell in love with the huntsman. Then a soldier with nice biceps passed through Athens and gave the girl a pretty bead necklace, causing her to thank him in the traditional manner and do the dirty on the huntsman. Cow. And basically the Kiss is supposed to have spread from there, leaving a trail of love and agony in its wake.’

  So far, Tab’s version of the story tallies with what Laurent told me. This is NOT GOOD.

  ‘It’s all a big fat lie,’ I prompt her.

  ‘I guess,’ Tabby says, looking wistful. ‘Why is this important?’

  ‘Something Jem said to me last night.’

  Her eyes narrow. ‘You saw him again? More kissing?’

  ‘I went to the bank yesterday, learned I was broke, got a job at the Gaslight bar because seriously it was the ONLY job I found, embarrassed myself with his mother, worked myself to a shred beside him last night, end of story,’ I say in one breath.

  Tabby reaches for her tea. ‘Sounds more like the beginning to me.’

  ‘I told him I don’t want anything else to happen,’ I say impatiently. ‘It was all massively Jeremy Kyle. And then he said . . .’ I pause. This is still extremely weird. ‘He said, when we kissed, he felt like the moon was inside him.’

  ‘That’s so romantic,’ gasps Tab.

  She’s missing the point. ‘Tabby,’ I say, ‘the thing is, I felt like that when Laurent kissed me. Like the moon was shining inside me, sort of cold and bright and intense. I can remember thinking it in exactly those terms. It was a full moon both times – when Laurent kissed me, and when I kissed Jem. Don’t you think that’s a weird coincidence? Both of us describing – feeling – a kiss in that way?’

  Tabby ponders this. ‘Maybe you read it somewhere?’

  ‘That’s what I was wondering,’ I say. ‘Can we check for quotes online?’

  We start scrolling through variants on ‘kiss’, ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘moon’ on Tabby’s phone. (‘Not that kind of moon,’ says Tab at one point. ‘Honestly, my eyes.’) A couple of academic websites pop up; so does the British Museum.

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of gossip mags and New Scientist,’ I say, feeling worried. ‘I don’t read this stuff.’

  ‘How about movies?’ says Tabby, scrolling on. ‘Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to have given Aphrodite’s Kiss to Richard Burton.’

  I think back to a recent Grazia retrospective I read a while back, about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. ‘Not ringing bells,’ I say, a little uncertainly.

  We suddenly hit gold. An Australian Classics professor has written an entire thesis on the subject of Aphrodite’s Kiss and uploaded the lot. There is silence as we both read what we can – me on Tabby’s laptop, Tab on her phone.

  ‘This weirdo’s tried tracing it,’ I say after a few moments’ rapt silence. How could a theoretically intelligent person be so gullible? ‘He says it went from Ancient Greece to Egypt – he’s quoted some source about Anthony and Cleopatra – to Rome . . .’

  ‘Italians!’ Tabby says with excitement. ‘It explains a lot about Italians.’

  My best friend is supposed to be putting me off the idea that there’s something in this.

  ‘Tabby, it isn’t true,’ I insist.

  ‘The guy’s a professor,’ Tab points out. There’s a look in her eye that I don’t like. ‘Professors don’t publish theories without evidence. All the other academics would laugh themselves sick. Where did it go next?’

  I scroll on and on, knowing this whole weirdness to be a massive heap of dungballs and yet somehow unable to tear my eyes away. ‘Apparently it pops up in Venice in the eighteenth century— no way, Casanova?’

  ‘See? Italians again!’ Tab is now hovering over me, still-undrunk tea in her hand.

  I scroll faster and faster. Venice, London, Naples, Sicily, back to Rome. I reach a bit about Richard Burton and my skin goes clammy.

  ‘. . . in Burton’s own words, recorded shortly before his death in 1984: “When I kissed Elizabeth Taylor for the first time that day in Rome, it was as though a light had gone on inside me. As if the moon had poured through my skin and taken hold.”’

  By the time we finish reading Professor Aussie Crackpot’s thesis about the whole myth-made-flesh thing, my brain has been through the tumble-dryer and come out again the wrong shape for my skull.

  ‘The last known record of the Kiss was the South of France!’ Tab starts bouncing on the bed like a crazed kangaroo. ‘That’s how your Frenchman caught it! Delilah, you are a legend. An actual Greek legend! Actually, not you, you passed it on . . . Jem! Jem now has the Kiss! He—’ She stops bouncing abruptly. ‘Sweet mother of all marzipan, I know how to get Sam back.’

  This has ‘wasp in your swimsuit’ written all over it.

  ‘Tabby . . .’ I start in warning.

  Sliding off the bed, Tab grips my jumper, hauling me up from where I’ve been sitting at her desk. Red spots of colour have flared in her cheeks. ‘I have to get with Jem again. Then I’ll have the Kiss – oh my God, historic – and then I’ll waylay Sam at college and give the Kiss to him and he’ll forgive me and come back to me and we’ll be the most famous lovers in the universe just like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor!’

  She clearly hasn’t had enough sleep.

  ‘No,’ I bleat.

  ‘Delilah, you were meant to bring the Kiss to me like this so that my life stops being awful,’ she says feverishly. ‘When Jem kisses me and I then kiss Sam, Sam will actually feel the moon inside him. Only an idiot could fail to fix a love affair when they’ve got Aphrodite on their side. OMG, the sex!’ Her cheeks brighten even more, and she clutches herself a bit. ‘When we finally have sex, it will be Greek-god awesome! I really, really need new knickers.’

  She looks so sweet and excited – so like the Tabby of old – that I have to smile. This is mad, but anything

  is better than her previous soggy-cotton-ball-of-misery approach.

  ‘Oh,’ she says suddenly as she fixes on me. ‘Will you be OK if I kiss Jem again? I promise I’ll only do it once. Once is all I need.’

  ‘Of course I’ll be OK!’ I protest, laughing loudly. ‘Are you crazy? I don’t like him! Don’t you know me at all? We only had one kiss, one moment of insanity, and I’m not going there again. N-O-T.’ I make vague ‘As if, do I look mad to you?’ gestures with my hand.

  ‘Brilliant!’ she says happily. ‘So I’ll come and visit you later at the Gaslight. My technique at the college party worked fine so I’ll do the same thing again. I—’

  ‘Tabitha!’ her mum calls up the stairs. ‘Have you packed yet? We’re leaving in half an hour.’

  My best friend gasps in horror. ‘Oh poop, we’re going to lunch with my aunt in Southampton and staying the night – I totally forgot. Tomorrow? Monday?’

  I wrench myself out of the peculiar bog of discomfort that is suddenly clogging me up. Come on Delilah, I think. Tabby needs you to fix this. And it comes to me in a marvellous haze of sequins and jazz hands. The vision I am having almost obscures Mum in her Chicago outfit. Not quite, but almost.

  ‘Your Auntie Delilah has the perfect solution,’ I announce. ‘When does she not? There’s an am-dram thing auditioning at the Gaslight next week. Calls itself Musical in a Month. Loads of college students go in for it. You’re into musical theatre, you’d love it. Lots of opportunities to put your Aphrodite theory into action. When it a
ll turns out to be a load of rubbish – and it will, trust me – it could work as your “keeping busy” challenge. The one we said you needed in order to let Sam go. And we can see each other while I’m working. Is that win-win or what?’

  ‘You’re my guardian angel,’ says Tabby in bliss. ‘Phone me later with details. And help me find clean socks. Oh, and my suitcase. Auntie Nora’s doing roast pork for lunch and if we’re late the crackling will be soggy.’

  At the Gaslight that night, I locate a poster advertising Musical in a Month. WHAT AN ADO! it says. AUDITIONS TUESDAY 7PM! There’s no website, no email address, no Twitter tag, nothing anchoring it to the real world at all. Tab is going to love it. I tap her a message. My phone interprets my intentions in its own special way.

  Tues 7pm auction

  What a dodo Gaslight xx

  Auction for dodos? What? xxxx

  Suction What An Ado

  Do you mean audition?? xxxx

  Stupid auto cat rectal

  CALL ME 2MORON

  omggggg, dead from laughing xxxx

  ‘Are you into that stuff?’ Jem says behind me.

  I feel my ears going scarlet. Will they always do that now, every time I see him? Last night’s uncomfortable conversation looms in my memory as I shove my phone in my pocket. ‘It’s for a friend. The one you . . . you know.’

  For a wild moment I wonder if he can read Tabby’s insane plan through my guilty eyes. But he merely nods and heads for the kitchen.

  ‘Hey,’ I call after him, unable to stop myself from asking. ‘You know the moon thing you said last night?’

  He stops and scratches his head. His black hair somehow gets cooler. ‘I’m trying to forget I said it out loud.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ I say, hoping I sound casual. ‘Did it really feel like the moon?’

  He looks puzzled.

  ‘Sorry, stupid question – who goes round swallowing the moon and then making comparisons,’ I say hurriedly.

  ‘I mean, did you read it somewhere? Like, a quote to try on a girl?’