The Kiss

by Lucy Courtenay

  Everyone claps. I wonder who General Gordon is, but look around the room and try to enjoy the smiles being aimed in my direction.

  Sam is looking at me oddly.

  ‘What?’ I say, feeling defensive.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  How long have you got? I think. ‘Lots of reasons,’ I say out loud. ‘I don’t want the Gaslight to lose business, I don’t like anything being wasted, I like zombies. Anyway, it’s not me that’s going to be doing it. It’s you.’

  ‘But why zombies?’ Maria says in a plaintive voice. ‘They’re so ugly.’

  I hope my ultimate weapon will prove the last piece in this extremely exhausting puzzle.

  ‘Will you excuse me a second?’ I say.

  I hurry to the toilets, remove my top and hoodie, press them firmly up against my chest, swallow my blushes and hurry out again. The cast boggles at me as I present my back. Warren makes a kind of mooing noise.

  ‘The girl who did this has a team,’ I say, peering back at them all over my shoulder. ‘She rang me ten minutes before you got here, confirming that they’ll do the make-up for the whole cast. You’re all going to look unbelievable.’

  ‘If it’s on, why aren’t we meeting at the theatre like normal?’ asks Rich.

  ‘I didn’t want Val to think it was on again, in case you all decided not to go for the new approach,’ I say. That is half true. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair, getting her hopes up that you’d all be back buying drinks at the Gaslight if, well – you weren’t.’

  ‘But we’ll be there tomorrow,’ says Patricia, taking charge again. I am so grateful I could kiss her. ‘Usual time. What an Ado About Zombies! is our phoenix. Or to be more accurate, our Frankenstein. And Maria, if you go to that bar even once before the break tomorrow night I’ll demote you to the back row of the chorus.’

  Several people cheer.

  ‘More wine!’ shouts Niko.

  Tab rushes over to me as everyone gets out of their chairs and aims for the bar. ‘That was amazeballs!’ she says, bouncing around me like Tigger. ‘What made you think of all this?’

  ‘Repentance,’ I say. I clutch my clothes a bit closer. ‘Don’t ask me any more, OK? Just go and chat up Sam. I have to go home and zombify a load of lyrics.’

  In the little bathroom I pull my top and hoodie slowly over my head, and examine my face in the mirror over the sink. Yup, still me. Still breathing. I’ve done this thing, and now it is up and running. My stupid idea has come to life. A zombie theme has never felt so apt. I want to sleep, but I still have stuff to do. Calling the almost-forgotten band for starters.

  My phone rings at eleven. I lurch upright from where I have been snoozing on my desk.

  ‘We’re coming over.’

  Tabby sounds strange.

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and Sam.’

  My eyelids fly open like shutters in a thunderstorm. ‘You and—’

  ‘We got talking at the bar tonight and I mentioned how you were going to re-write some lyrics tonight and he said he’s good at lyrics and suggested we come over to help you!’

  From the bright, loud way Tab is talking, I gather that Sam is within listening distance and I am not allowed to say anything stupid like: ‘Have you kissed him?’ which he might overhear.

  ‘Awesome,’ I say, and gratefully lay my pen down over a heavily hatched area of paper where I’ve written heart / cart / fart?! ‘I’m discovering that rhymes aren’t really my forte.’

  ‘Hi Delilah. Don’t worry about the rhyming thing. I did poetry at GCSE.’

  Sam has a nice voice. Deep. I picture him snuggling his ear up against Tabby to hear the conversation, and am amazed I can’t hear Tabby wheezing beside him with badly suppressed desire. Maybe they are on speaker.

  ‘Sam?’ I say. ‘Can I talk to Tabby on her own for a minute?’

  There is a bit of rustling at the other end.

  ‘He’s still listening even though I just walked ten feet away from him down the road,’ Tabby says in a low, agitated voice. ‘Maria left half an hour ago – she’s still in a massive strop about the show-as-zombies thing – but Sam stayed. And we started talking. And he truly honestly suggested the lyric thing all by himself.’ Her voice starts rising. ‘Lilah, do you think—’

  ‘Don’t think,’ I order. ‘Just get here. We have eighteen songs to rewrite, zombie-style.’

  On the other end my best friend laughs hysterically.

  ‘You might want to tone that down,’ I advise. Despite my own pathetic situation, it is impossible not to smile. ‘Girls who cackle like Vincent Price may not float Sam’s boat.’

  ‘We’ll be with you in half an hour.’

  I tidy my little room as best as I can. Check Dad is securely in front of the TV and OK with the prospect

  of guests this late. Locate three packets of Skips from the back of the cupboard in the kitchen. I don’t examine the sell-by dates too closely. I line up the kettle, teabags, three mugs, a pint of milk and a box of sugar cubes. I am contemplating running the vacuum up the stairs when I hear Tab’s tentative knocking.

  ‘How far have you got?’ Sam says, edging himself sideways through our skinny door.

  ‘One song,’ I say. ‘Not great for two hours’ work, sorry.’

  ‘Kissing?’ I mouth at Tab behind Sam’s back. She blushes and shakes her head. I make encouraging faces. The fact that Sam is here at all is worth at least ten before the evening is out, in my opinion.

  ‘This zombie theme has given me lots of ideas.’ Sam puts his jacket neatly on one of the hall pegs. I hope the peg doesn’t fall off the wall. Dad’s DIY is patchy. ‘Where’s your room?’

  ‘He’s suprisingly forceful without Maria,’ I whisper as Tabby and I follow him up the stairs.

  ‘I know,’ Tabby sighs.

  I’ve never fully appreciated how small my bedroom is. Sam lounges across my bed with his feet dangling off the end. I perch at my desk. Tabby curls up on the carpet by Sam’s feet and stares at his toes with longing.

  ‘The first song, “Sore about the War”.’ I start singing it, while doing my best to ignore the startled expression on Sam’s face. Tab has heard my voice before so she doesn’t react, much. ‘Pretty sore about the war, pretty sore—’

  ‘All this fightin’ ain’t excitin’ but a bore,’ Sam and Tabby both sing out loud, him low and her high. Then they say ‘Sorry’ and blush and look hard at me as if I’m the most interesting thing in the room.

  ‘I thought,’ I say, after an awkward pause, ‘we could rhyme gore with war instead of sore. Love the gore in

  the war, love the gore. And we call the song “Gore in the War” instead.’

  Sam and Tab look expectantly at me.

  ‘That’s it,’ I say.

  ‘Good thing we came,’ says Tabby the diplomat. ‘We can work on the rest of that song later. What’s next?’

  ‘“Bad Baby Bea”,’ says Sam.

  He and Tab start tentatively working out zombie rhymes. They both seem jumpy. The way they edge around each other makes me think of unfurling flowers ready to pull back into their buds at the first sign of a frost.

  ‘Bad Baby Bea,’ Sam hums, ‘became a zombi-ee?’

  Possibly the worst lyric ever. GCSE poetry is going to be no help at all.

  ‘Comfort break,’ I say, getting up. ‘Dazzle me when I get back.’

  I stay in the bathroom as long as I can without appearing constipated. Pushing open my bedroom door very gently, I consider – with some disappointment – that Sam and Tab are sitting in exactly the same positions as before, hot mugs of tea in their hands. They have switched back to ‘Gore in the War’.

  ‘. . . So far we’ve got, Love the gore in the war, love the gore, All this bitin’ is excitin’, not a bore. N
ext line: We need wine, we need women, or a vat of beer to swim in,’ Sam is humming. ‘What can we do with that? We need blood, we need brain . . .’

  Tab steadfastly studies his socks. The steam from her tea is misting up her glasses. ‘We are all a bit insane,’ she says vaguely.

  ‘Brilliant,’ says Sam in admiration, writing it down in big loopy writing. ‘You’re really good at this, Tab.’

  Tab’s whole face turns puce. ‘I am?’

  I write some new lists to soothe myself as they work through the rest of the song. The band – they call themselves the Slaughterhouse Seven – are still on. Have I covered everything else? Will Jem agree to join Ella’s make-up team? Will she tell him I’m the cause of this new direction, this opportunity to showcase his mad skills to a wider world? If I know anything about Ella, she likes causing trouble. I feel a bit sick.

  We move on to ‘Who Needs a Wife’, Benedick’s big number. It’s a tick list of women he’s known and why none of them are wife material. You can see why I get wound up by this musical.

  It is instantly improved by Tabby’s rhyming genius. She is coming up with some absolute stonkers, fuelled by tea and the encouraging presence of Sam, who can’t take his eyes off her. Soon we’re all loudly singing, ‘Ah dearest Katie, from sunny Haiti, she ate my eyes to my surprise and grew quite weighty, and lovely Linda, we met on Tinder, left her rotten and forgotten when I binned her. Who needs a knife, not I! Who needs a knife, not I!’

  We wallop through an astonishing eight songs. ‘A Weddin’ and a Shreddin’’ is perhaps my favourite. We hardly have to touch Tabby’s ‘Love Eternal’, because it’s all about loving someone till you die, and as all the characters are already dead it’s full of unintentional gags from start to finish.

  ‘Tod Slaughter wrote a show for zombies without even realizing,’ I say in delight.

  Sam trumpets with sudden laughter. ‘Tod Slaughter!’

  It turns out that Tod means ‘dead’ in German too.

  It’s two am when I kick them into the night. They both promise to deal with the remaining lyrics over the rest

  of the weekend.

  ‘Get Tab home safe and unmolested, Sam,’ I say at the door without thinking.

  I get a heavily loaded look from Tabby.

  ‘Of course,’ I say hurriedly, ‘you can molest her as much as you like. I was thinking more along the lines of weirdos in the shadows. Though of course with you going out with Maria and everything, I’m sure you wouldn’t dream of it!’

  My best friend does a finger-across-the-throat thing.

  ‘I’m going to stop talking now,’ I say before I make things worse. ‘I can’t make the rehearsal tomorrow – today, I mean. Studying to do. Hope everyone likes the new improved lyrics.’

  ‘I look forward to killing you,’ Tab says in my ear as she kisses me goodnight.

  ‘Thanks for the tea and crisps,’ says Sam, shepherding Tab down the path. Leaving her by the gate, he comes back towards me.

  ‘I’m an honourable guy,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Tabby’s safe with me.’

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  ‘Great,’ I say out loud.

  I offer a limp fist-bump which he returns with vigour, and wave as they walk off together down the dark street. What’s with all these honourable guys? They’re more trouble than they’re worth.

  Fatima arrives on Tuesday. Actually, ‘arrives’ doesn’t really cover it. ‘Blasts in’ is closer, or ‘teleports’.

  She is draped on the doorstep like a dying opera singer as I come in through the gate after a long day at college. She can never do anything without turning it into performance art.

  ‘Cherie,’ she husks, propping her head up on one elbow. ‘I arrived since three hours and your father is not here and you don’t answer your phone innit. A lot of English people say this on YouTube.’

  I’ve been so preoccupied with the show and my endless looping anguish about Jem that I forgot her plane would come in today around lunchtime.

  ‘I wouldn’t lie there,’ I advise, grinning. ‘Mr Djembe next door’s dog likes to pee on our mat.’

  Fatima leaps to her feet with speed. For someone of her size, it’s an amazing thing to watch. She kisses me on both cheeks and puts her finger under my chin.

  ‘You have a lot to tell me,’ she observes. ‘You will keep nothing back. Why don’t you answer your phone?’

  ‘New phone,’ I explain. ‘New number. Sorry.’

  Fatima gazes around Wyvern Court, the different coloured doors, the walkways strewn with bicycles and potted petunias that all look brown in the street lights. Probably are all brown, actually, it being October.

  ‘England is a nice place,’ she says.

  I decide to overlook the tone of surprise. ‘Want to dump your stuff and hit the town?’

  ‘We must hit your town until it falls down,’ she agrees.

  As she puts her sleeping bag and rucksack on my bed and disappears to the bathroom, I track down the old camp-bed mattress to its place of hibernation under the stairs. My room isn’t enough to contain Fatima Ammour. This whole block isn’t enough to contain her. I wonder what on earth Dad is going to make of her.

  ‘You will now go in the bathroom and make yourself sexy,’ Fatima declares, billowing out forty minutes later in an eyewatering cloud of perfume. Her eyes are ringed with kohl like the Algerian gypsy that she is, cascades

  of black hair falling down her back and dark berry lips gleaming.

  ‘I’ll feel as sexy as a slug next to you,’ I confess.

  ‘Go to the shower and we will make war on your face together.’

  Half an hour later, with my hair bullied into shining curls and my eyes smokier than a barbecue grill, we slide out of the door.

  ‘We can walk or take the bus,’ I say, glancing cautiously at the sky. In the streetlight, it resembles old brown leather. ‘Either way, I think we’re going to get wet.’

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Fatima says.

  She knocks on Mr Djembe’s door before I can stop her. Mr Djembe’s dog starts barking like a mentalist.

  ‘Allo,’ she purrs when Mr Djembe opens up.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Djembe,’ I say, firmly taking Fatima’s arm. ‘My friend knocked on the wrong door.’

  ‘I see that you have bicycles, monsieur,’ Fatima says, undeterred, gesturing at the two bikes chained beside Mr Djembe’s door. ‘We can borrow them?’

  ‘I . . . suppose so,’ says Mr Djembe, bemused.

  Fatima kisses him twice, one on each cheek. The man looks half-fossilized with shock.

  ‘We will return them very soon or you can tell Delilah to the police,’ she says generously. ‘Allez,’ she says to me. ‘We can ride now.’

  ‘You’re unbelievable,’ I yell when we round the corner, Fatima gliding ahead and me peddling my little legs like a maddened hamster to keep up. ‘I’ve spoken to Mr Djembe twice in my life. And you steal his bicycles?’

  ‘I don’t steal.’ Fatima leans in towards the kerb, one knee almost grazing the tarmac. Her long ebony hair billows behind her like a black pirate sail, the chiffony bits on her tunic threatening to tangle themselves in the spokes. ‘I ask very nice and I borrow. Hey, you ride in the front. I don’t know where I am going for the hot spots.’

  A couple of cars parp us for riding without lights. I haven’t ridden a bike since Mum left. The wind drives cold fingers through my hair, raking my scalp deliciously. Somehow I don’t care all that much that my skirt is short and – with every corner, every gust of wind – steadily getting shorter. I whoop and crash through a set of traffic lights on amber. Pedalling behind me, Fatima sails blithely through the red, nearly taking out a couple of pedestrians and blowing such generous kisses of apology over her shoulder that one of them blows a kiss back.


  Ten minutes later I stick one hand out and veer towards Aphrodite’s Moon as we approach the station. It isn’t the best place to drink in town, but when you are underage there aren’t many options. Niko will turn a blind eye as long as we pay our bill. Dismounting, I hoik my skirt back down to a respectable length.

  Fatima swerves right across the path of an oncoming Range Rover to join me at the pub door, earning a horrified blast on a horn.

  ‘These English drivers are very bad,’ she says, lowering the finger she has proffered at the shocked blond lady behind the wheel.

  ‘Have you got a death wish?’ I yelp. In a head-on collision with a Range Rover, even Fatima’s indestructability would be tested. ‘Cars drive on the left in England.’

  Fatima’s face clears. ‘Desolée!’ she shouts, waving in the direction of the disappearing 4x4. ‘So,’ she says to me, gazing at Aphrodite’s boobs swinging in the breeze. ‘This bar has men?’

  I glance through the window. The view isn’t promising. ‘It has Niko, the bar owner,’ I say. ‘He’ll love you. But there’s a problem. We can’t leave these here.’ I indicate the bikes. ‘Not if we want to return them to Mr Djembe later. There’s a bike rack at the station we can use, maybe.’

  ‘Pah.’

  Which is how we end up wheeling Mr Djembe’s bikes through the door of Aphrodite’s Moon, avoiding punters’ ankles as best we can and giving Niko our most winning smiles. After an initial frown, he catches sight of Fatima.

  ‘What can I get you?’ he says in excitement.

  Fatima shoots him her most smouldering stare through outrageously sooty lashes. ‘I think you can maybe get me to heaven,’ she murmurs, upping her French accent to heroic proportions.

  Three free drinks later, and we have exchanged most of our gossip. Mine pales in comparison to Fatima’s, but it’s hard to compete when you’re talking to someone for whom conquests are as frequent as buses. Half the drinkers in here haven’t taken their eyes off her since we arrived. At least four guys try to hit on her as we talk, offering drinks and phone numbers, but she swipes them away like flies. I’ve never felt so invisible.