The Kiss

by Lucy Courtenay

  He sits on a nearby sofa and links his arms behind his head. ‘You’ve got an audience of one.’

  ‘Sorry about the performance I gave earlier,’ I mutter.

  ‘Forget about it.’

  I make it to the end of the room without falling over. Crossing the carpet I stand at the long windows and rest my elbows on a chest-high window table, gazing at the black river and the dark tops of the trees against the glowing brown sky. There is no moon tonight. I put my chin in my hands, watching the trees go shush-shush-shush.

  ‘He had a car,’ I tell the window. ‘Great clothes. I was going out with a guy half the girls would have given their hair-straighteners for. Everyone started looking up to me, coming to me for relationship advice, sex advice, life advice. I may not have had money, or designer gear, or expensive holidays, or a mum but I had him.’

  ‘Only you didn’t,’ Jem says.

  There was a time and a place for his truth thing.

  ‘Do you want the rest of this story or not?’ I demand. I steady myself at the window by putting my palms down on the table. ‘When I caught him with Louise, I didn’t know how to tell anyone. I decided it was better to have my perfect boyfriend dump me than have me catch him with his actual girlfriend, so that’s the story I told.’ I pause. ‘Does that make any kind of sense?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I knew you’d see it my way,’ I say drily.

  ‘Are you going to tell your friends, now you’ve told me?’

  ‘Probably. Maybe. Some day.’

  ‘Liar.’

  We are both silent for a bit.

  ‘Remember that lie you asked me about on Tuesday?’ he says into the darkness. ‘I said I’d tell you one day. I think one day just came.’

  ‘Shock me,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘You shoplifted a Mars Bar. Left the TV on standby all night.’

  ‘I killed someone. Want some peanuts?’

  Leaving some money balanced on top of the members’ bar till, he rips open a bag of dry roasted nuts, tips half of them into his mouth and then approaches me, nuts held out like an edible shield, eyes almost impossible to see.

  ‘Want one?’ he offers cautiously.

  I have moved back from the window as if the glass has just vanished, leaving nothing between me and a forty-metre fall. He is close enough now for me to make out his eyes. There is no humour in them at all, just ghosts.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask when I can formulate the words.

  ‘I was thirteen, driving a car around the Watts Estate. The car hit a guy and his dog. I lied to the police about it. Said I was somewhere else.’

  My throat feels as dry as dust. ‘Makes my boyfriend stuff look pretty lame,’ I say, swallowing.

  He rubs his head fiercely. ‘Hey. Not your fault. I’ve had a thing about truth ever since.’ He concentrates on ferreting out the last peanuts from the little bag, then drops the wrapper in the bin. ‘It doesn’t help the guy who died. It doesn’t help me much either. But it’s the best I’ve got.’

  We make our way through the theatre dressing rooms, the private boxes, the lighting and sound desks and assorted cupboards of interest. I know that I can say nothing to make him feel better about what he’s told me. Small talk feels wrong. The only option left is silence. It is weirdly comfortable in its loudness. Like we are underwater, looking at sea urchins and coral reefs, companionable and wordless.

  We enter the auditorium via the lobby door which leads straight into the wings of the theatre. Mum isn’t in my head for once because, for now anyway, that space is occupied by someone else.

  Jem flicks on a bank of spotlights as I walk to the centre of the stage, listening to the echo of my feet. The shadowed seats soar up and away from the light, receding in form and definition, and my shadow splits in eight different directions beneath the spots.

  ‘Speech.’

  It’s the first thing he’s said since the members’ room.

  ‘All the world’s a stage, and something something something something,’ I declaim obediently. Dust motes dance about my head, silent as fairies.

  He crosses his feet at the ankles, balancing them on the backs of the stalls in front of him. ‘Louder, Dame Judi.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Bond?’ I return, warming up. This is kind of fun. ‘You wait until the PM hears

  about this.’

  A half-smile breaks across his face. ‘A moving performance. The voice of a generation.’

  His words make me think of one of Mum’s favourite songs. It died on the gas fire but I still hear it on the radio sometimes. ‘People try to put us down,’ I sing a little hesitantly in a voice that croaks like a pond full of frogs.

  ‘I would lie about you having the voice of an angel if I could, Delilah Jones.’

  ‘People try to put us down,’ I repeat a bit more forcibly.

  ‘Talking ’bout my generation . . .’ he concedes after a moment.

  He knows it. I point a finger at him. ‘Just because we get around . . .’

  ‘Worst Roger Daltrey impression I’ve ever heard. Talking ’bout my generation . . .’

  ‘Things they do look awful cold . . .’

  ‘Talking ’bout my generation . . .’

  ‘Hope—’

  I stop, horrified.

  ‘Hope I die before I get old,’ he supplies. ‘It’s OK. Keep singing.’

  ‘Only if you come up here with me,’ I say, blushing.

  He jumps on to the stage with a passable impression of Pete Townshend whirling his arms around and smashing his guitar up. I sidle out of his way, giving up my croaky lyrics with increasing gusto.

  We grow dizzy with a kind of escalating madness, singing until we have no breath left, dancing to the music in our heads. Jem attempts a caterpillar and ends up with his shoulders covered in fluff from the floor. I mosh around the middle of the stage until my hair looks like one of those huge woolly dogs you get at Crufts. It’s ludicrous and amazing and entirely nuts.

  ‘Drug police!’ I gasp, pointing at the silent auditorium doors. ‘Hide the stash!’

  ‘I won’t go down for this!’ Jem bellows.

  We both do a massive leap into the orchestra pit, one of those jumps that gets freeze-framed in bad pop videos.

  ‘We’ll have to disguise ourselves before the rozzers nab us!’

  He whirls back on to the stage, running through the great black curtain. When he runs back again, he’s holding it about his head like an old-fashioned nun.

  ‘Who is this Mary Joanna you speak of, officer?’ he says in a high voice. ‘No one of that name has entered this convent.’

  ‘You are lying through your butt, sister,’ I shout, levelling an imaginary gun at him.

  ‘And you are farting through your teeth, girlfriend!’

  I almost choke myself laughing. ‘I have never met a nun with such a filthy tongue!’

  Two fingers peek out from beneath his nun’s chin and flick at me. I grab them before they vanish behind the curtain again. ‘I don’t care how many hit records you’ve made, it’s life imprisonment for you, lad. Lass. Creature from the planet Zorg,’ I puff, wrestling with his hand.

  We grin at each other, blazing with the knowledge that we have pulled back from the maw of the sea monster among the corals. His palm fits mine perfectly.

  ‘Where next, Mother Superior?’ I say, dropping his fingers reluctantly and making a show of stashing my gun in my belt.

  ‘The psychiatric ward.’ He tips his head so the curtain drapes coquettishly over one side of his face. ‘You’ll find it marked Props and Wardrobe.’

  The props room is like Aladdin’s cave, covered in velvet hangings, stuffed with costumes encrusted with gilt and paste and ribbons, shelves covered in helmets and suitcases, shields and walking
sticks. Scenery towers around: palm trees, a ship’s prow, castle walls.

  If anything, we get giddier. We fence for a bit with two swords that wobble pleasingly every time we jab each other in the stomach. Hardly knowing where to begin with the costumes, I try on a pantomime dame frock, a pirate’s outfit and a pretty golden dress with wings. Jem dresses up as the Emperor of China in a long satin robe, then lies down watching me as I run back and forth with a fairy wand that I’ve found, drunk on gauze and glitter, satin and silver.

  ‘I’m going to try the Peter Pan outfit next,’ I say, wriggling out of the fairy dress and dashing for the green leggings hanging on a nearby rail. ‘You be Captain Hook.’

  Jem shoots out his hand and catches me by the ankle, bringing me tumbling down beside him on a heap of

  fur-edged Dick Whittington robes. I realize with a sudden rush of delicious shock that I am in bra, pants, socks and nothing else.

  ‘Do you have any idea how sexy you are?’ he says.

  The cold satin of his emperor robe on my hot skin liquifies my insides. I stare into his eyes with their huge pupils, now so close to mine, and fiercely wish that I’d thought to remove my socks. He shifts on to his elbow, keeping his eyes on my face. I can’t look away as his fingers circle my belly.

  ‘Does this count as a complication?’ he says.

  ‘Complicate it some more,’ I beg.

  He kisses me, his hands skimming me, his hair against my skin, the smell of him up close and everywhere. The ball sails high, high into the air – and the Lust Labrador gallops joyously after it into the sea, tail thrashing, water glinting, barking at the big bright moon as it fills me to bursting in that windowless room.

  We lie nose to nose, Dick Whittington robes wrapping us up in a big fur cocoon.

  ‘Crazy evening, huh,’ I mumble.

  ‘Certifiable.’

  I study his expression in the half-light, trying to see the shadows. ‘How do you live with it?’ I ask. I want to understand.

  I feel his body tense. ‘I live. I tell the truth. That’s it. We shouldn’t have got in the car. My life, boiled into one sentence.’

  I pause. We? ‘Who was with you?’

  He is silent. The answer dawns like a little winking diamond.

  ‘You were driving with Studs,’ I breathe. ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘He was driving.’

  I prop myself up on one elbow. Is it wrong to feel this delighted? A man died. ‘Then it was his fault, not yours!’

  He won’t look at me. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Someone told me the other day that I should never take responsibility for someone else’s life,’ I say. How can he be so blind? ‘Tall guy, likes wearing teatowels, I forget his name . . .’

  ‘It’s not the same.’ He rolls away from me and stares up at the single bulb swinging above our heads. ‘I took a life. It doesn’t compare.’

  I feel a chill. I need him to look at me again. This thing that I am feeling – confidence, I suppose – is still very fragile.

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ he says, still staring at the lightbulb.

  ‘No.’

  He turns back with a slow smile. ‘Are you sure?’

  That should fix things – him looking at me with his beautiful stormy eyes, his mouth knowing and a little bruised. I scrabble for the feeling, but it’s like grabbing smoke.

  ‘You are beating yourself up over someone else’s mistake,’ I say, forcing myself to focus on the conversation.

  ‘I know what I know,’ he says.

  It suddenly hits me like a thunderbolt in boxing gloves.

  The Kiss.

  I hurtle to my feet.

  Jem sits up. ‘You OK?’

  My heart lurches at the sight of him sprawled among the furs: a proper, full-on, no-messing Aphrodite lurch. If I have the Kiss back, I am basically screwed. All I have to do is look at him and I am a howling wreck. Open. Vulnerable. All my favourite things.

  What am I talking about? The Kiss isn’t real.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say, mildly hysterical. I grab my clothes, then try and fail to flatten my hair. I have a nasty feeling it’s not the only thing that’s beyond repair.

  ‘How are you getting home?’

  ‘I’ll walk.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. It’s late.’

  ‘I can’t afford a taxi because I am broke,’ I hiss. ‘The bank’s after my blood, they keep ringing me up, and I don’t know how I got here because this was never the plan.’

  ‘Stay here,’ he says in a soothing voice. ‘I’ll walk you home at sunrise.’

  ‘Tell me something.’ The question comes out angry. ‘Why did you leer at Tabby the other day?’

  He looks taken aback. ‘For her ex-boyfriend’s benefit, of course. To kick him into action.’

  This feeling scares me and I’ve messed up with Tabby all over again. ‘I just – I have to go,’ I say in desperation. ‘My dad will notice if I’m not in my own bed in the morning.’ I back towards the props-room door, clutching my bag before me like a shield. ‘Which door can I use?’

  ‘Everything’s locked.’

  ‘Then we need to unlock it!’

  ‘Delilah, what’s going on?’

  I almost stamp my foot. ‘I told you not to be nice to me!’

  ‘Hey,’ he says, frowning. ‘You gave me the go-ahead. Complicate it some more, you said.’

  ‘You have no idea how complicated this has just become!’ Almost gibbering, I open the props-room door. ‘I need to go home.’

  Silently we make our way out to the lobby and the great glass doors. He unlocks them and makes a little bow.

  ‘Your escape route,’ he says.

  I guess I deserve that.

  ‘Jem, I—’

  But he’s closed the door behind me.

  I spend most of Saturday morning in bed, cursing my stupidity. Then I ring Val.

  ‘I’m sick,’ I mumble. ‘I’m really sorry to let you down but I won’t be able to come in tonight.’

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t have left you two alone,’ she says. ‘What’s he done?’

  She is almost as perceptive as her son.

  ‘Nothing! It’s nothing to do with Jem. I – I threw up in the night and I think I might . . .’ I push the phone aside and make some convincing retching noises. ‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t want to puke over the regulars.’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Val says with a sigh. ‘There’s some nasty things going around. If you’re still ill on Friday, you’re fired.’

  I hang up, not entirely certain that she’s bought my story. However, it looks like I won’t have to face Jem for a few more days and I still have a job. The week will be tight, but I’ll just have to bear it. I punch my pillow in impotent rage. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  My phone rings cheerily.

  ‘Hi babe. I just made a hair appointment. I’m revising my look to wow Jem. I thought I might come to the bar tonight and try my luck.’ Tabby pauses. ‘He didn’t kiss anyone last night, did he?’

  Never have I felt my dishonesty so acutely. ‘I didn’t see him with anyone new,’ I say with a squirm.

  ‘Phew. My appointment’s at two this afternoon. Meet me there? You’ll be able to tell me if what I’m planning is the worst idea I’ve ever had. I need your expert opinion as usual. Love you.’

  She is pacing outside the salon when I arrive.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asks, thrusting the magazine at me.

  The picture she’s circled shows a model with a peroxide pixie-cut. I blink, unable to picture Tab as a blonde at all.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I say. ‘The colour too?’

  ‘I’m not sure at all,’ she sighs, pushing open the door to let
me into the salon first. ‘But Sam must like blondes because he’s going out with Maria. And Jem got with you, and you’re blond.’

  ‘I think you might be better going red, because of your colouring. I mean,’ I add a little bumblingly, ‘it’s your choice, obviously. But that’s what I’d do if I were you.’

  The stylist agrees with me. ‘Red or a deeper chestnut brown, love. Blond will make you look like a corpse.’

  Tabby goes with a henna rinse. The pixie cut emphasizes all the best bits about her face. She tips her head from side to side, smiling at me in a pleased kind of way. ‘Red’s not bad on me, actually,’ she says. ‘Is it?’

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ I say truthfully.

  ‘You want me to get my straighteners on that lot, love?’ the stylist asks me, eyeing my cloud of hair as Tab goes to pay.

  ‘No she doesn’t,’ says Tab without looking round.

  We push through the doors, back out into the glimmer of the late September sun.

  ‘When do you have to be at the Gaslight?’ Tabby asks. ‘Do you think it would be weird if I rocked up with you? I might stand more chance of catching Jem before the competition pours through the doors.’

  ‘Can we go for a walk up the Hangers?’ I ask.

  She looks strangely at me. ‘The last time we went for a walk up the Hangers, you told me you’d started your periods. What are you going to tell me now?’

  People push past us on the pavement, hurrying about their lovely, uncomplicated, truthful lives. As if I’m not nervous enough, I start worrying about Val or Jem spotting me when I’m supposedly at home puking my guts out.

  ‘Can we walk or not?’ I demand.

  We head over the town bridge and up through some residential streets, leaving the town behind as we make for the Hangers: a stretch of woodland at the top of Leasford Hill. Tabby knows enough not to press me until I am ready to speak, and as speaking requires breathing, I don’t begin until we reach the top and collapse on a nearby bench. The humps and bumps of the North Downs spread before us like the underside of a mighty green pine-covered eggbox.