The Kiss (12 page)

‘O
f course it’s not your fault,’ Tabby says for the millionth time as we mount the Gaslight steps on Saturday evening. ‘He’s
ancient
. Had a heart condition for years.’

‘But if I hadn’t pulled that stunt with Sam and the vodka—’

‘That, as we have established, is totally irrelevant. Desmond was purple in the face about Maria and the bar refills already. It would have happened whatever you or anyone else did. Anyway, he’s obviously going to get better or Honor would have cancelled tonight’s rehearsal and most likely the show as well.’ She pauses, halfway up the steps. ‘Do you think Sam will be here tonight? I wonder how he’s feeling?’

‘Like death in a blender, probably,’ I groan.

‘He told me I was pretty. He asked me to kiss him. Should I have kissed him?’

‘And had your reunion kiss forever etched on your memory as tasting of puke? No.’

‘Oh
why
is Maria still with him?’ Tab cries passionately. ‘I swear, she doesn’t even
like
him that much. Did you see the disgust on her face when they left last night?’

‘Sam’s basically a decent guy, popular at college, nice-looking, good singing voice, wears muscle-enhancing shirts, blah blah,’ I say. ‘Maria’s not going to give up that easily. Plus she probably enjoys annoying you. It’s hard when your boyfriend goes woozy over his ex in public.’

Tab gives a snort of laughter, then stops. ‘Is it bad to have enjoyed that?’

‘Darling Tabbywabby,’ I say, ‘it’s as evil as evil can be.’

She squeezes my arm. ‘Anything from Jem yet?’

‘Ooh,’ I say, and point at the sky. ‘Pigs.’

‘What?’ says Tab, looking up.

Last night was bad, but tonight is guaranteed to be worse. Sam will probably threaten to report me for assault by alcohol – assuming he’s here and not nursing a killer hangover – and Tab’s director is three-quarters dead in the Royal Surrey Infirmary. With or without Jem, I am looking at an evening in Fun Central.

Honor is pale, the gathering cast subdued. Sam, white as paper, is sitting with Maria, who is holding his hand ostentatiously and playing with her hair with her free fingers. Rich and Henry – who play Don Pedro and bad guy Don John – are sitting even closer together than normal. Patricia is uncharacteristically silent; Warren too. I make my way behind the bar as Tabby takes her seat beside a red-eyed Eunice. A hopeful glance in the empty kitchen tells me Jem isn’t back. My spirits sink even lower.

‘Two things to report,’ says Honor when everyone has taken their seats. ‘One, Desmond’s condition is stable but not improving. Two, I will have to take a decision next week on whether doing this show is still realistic without Desmond in the driving seat.’

There is a horrified hubbub. It’s hard to tell what some of the hard-core members of the cast are more concerned about: their director’s health or the fading chance of their moment in the spotlight. I mechanically polish the glass in my hand. If the show is under threat, so is my job. Without the show, the bar will be less full and Val will have no further need of my services until panto season – and maybe not even then. How am I going to survive?

‘Desmond would want us to continue,’ says Eunice. She is looking particularly rough and her cardie is buttoned up wrong.

Honor looks harassed. ‘That’s easy to say but hard to achieve. Desmond knows precisely how to make the most of the two weeks remaining to us. Being so well-known for his work in musical theatre, he is also the reason people come to watch the show. Without him, we will struggle to sell the tickets that we need to make this viable.’

‘Rubbish,’ Patricia says, roused to speech. ‘People come for the tunes, for the flash of nostalgia. For the romance, for the fact that tickets are only a tenner. We can still do this if we stick together!’

There is a smattering of applause.

‘You don’t understand, Patricia,’ Honor says. ‘Word is out that Desmond’s off the project. And the Peacock Theatre in Woking has just pulled
Me and My Girl
and are staging
What an Ado!
in two weeks’ time instead.’

‘Those Machiavellian backstabbers are after our audience!’ shouts Henry.

‘What have I missed?’ says Jem behind me.

My stomach drops like a severed elevator to see him standing there like a very real, very wide-shouldered, dark-blue-T-shirted sex-god Colossus – even with the enormous disfiguring bruise running down the side of his face.

‘You look like you’ve been in a car accident,’ I say when I can speak. ‘
Have
you been in a car accident?’

‘Good, isn’t it? Took several hours.’

He gives a small smile, and winces at the pressure it puts on the tight skin around his eye. We look at each other, brown on grey-blue, as the air thickens with the long, silent week that has passed. I can’t decide if I want to kiss him or kick him.

‘Paint doesn’t puff up your face,’ I say. ‘Unless you’re allergic. Are you allergic?’

Why does that matter?
my brain screams.
You’re doing this ALL WRONG.

‘Who said anything about paint?’ he says.

He bends down to heave up the trapdoor leading to the cellar. I catch him by the arm. He feels firm and warm and real. It’s so very hard not to melt like cheese on a radiator.

‘That’s
it
?’ If I don’t sound loud and angry, I’ll know I’ll sound pathetic and needy instead. ‘You’ve been off the radar for an entire week and that’s all you’re going to say?’

‘I can add “ouch” if you like,’ he says, looking at my tightly gripping hand.

‘Why didn’t you answer my text?’ I say in a small voice.

He straightens up, the trapdoor clattering open between us. ‘What text?’

‘The one I sent last night, asking if you were OK.’

He looks surprised. ‘I didn’t get it.’

My phone is
ruining my life.

Cast members shuffle about gloomily on their chairs, turn pages, whisper together as Honor goes on about being flat here and sharp there.

‘I got the one about the wolf though,’ he says. ‘You really should go see your bank.’

Oh good. The bank thing again. Just what I need to hear at this, my most vulnerable moment. Not trusting myself to speak, I go back to cleaning glasses.

Tabitha sends me a startled glance as she registers Jem in all his bruised magnificence standing beside me at the bar. Within moments, Maria is resting her slim arms on the bar top so that her bangles jingle against the wood. Her cheeks have a pretty flush to them.

‘So,’ she says to Jem. ‘What happened to
you
?’

‘A fight, funnily enough,’ he replies, fingering his cheekbone.

I detect a hint of sarcasm, which cheers me.

‘Very macho.’ She flicks a glance at me that brims with dislike. ‘I want to lodge a complaint.’

‘About what?’ asks Val, coming out from the kitchen.

‘Her.’ Maria jabs a finger at me. ‘Lacing my boyfriend’s drink with alcohol last night.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ says Val blandly.

‘Maria,’ calls Honor, tapping her music stand.

‘Sam’s underage, you know,’ Maria continues, ignoring the summons. ‘It’s illegal, what she did.’

‘So was your double vodka,’ Val counters.

I glance up from the glass I’ve assiduously been polishing. Maria looks like someone has just chucked a bucket of cold water on her head.

‘I wasn’t drinking,’ she says in confusion.

Val taps her nose. ‘I don’t like dropping my underage customers in it. But my licence is at risk when kids like you get at the optics.’

‘But I
wasn’t
—’

‘You need to be careful.’ Val looks Maria up and down. ‘The booze is already starting to make you fat.’

I watch with ill-concealed delight as Maria gulps like a fish at a fireworks display. Val drums her fingers beside the prominently displayed
Don’t be offended if we ask your age
sign on the bar.

‘What’s it to be?’ Val inquires.

‘
Maria
!’ calls Honor in exasperation.

‘Fanta,’ says Maria at last. ‘Two.’

‘That was brilliant,’ I say, overcome with gratitude as Maria walks slowly back to her chair with two Fantas on a tray and a strong haze of ‘outmanoeuvred’ about her head. ‘Thank you.’

‘If it happens again, you’re out,’ says Val.

‘Understood,’ I say humbly.

I reach up on tiptoe to put the glass on its shelf. When I come back down again, I catch Jem looking at me, his elbows propped on the bar behind him.

I can’t figure out his expression at all.

O
n Tuesday night I lie on my bed, staring at the tiny heap of cash on my bedside table. After Sam’s vodka shots, Eunice’s wine and my usual contribution to the household budget, I am out of pocket already. Reaching down, I pick up my Vans and consider the holes in both soles. I can’t walk to and from college in heels or flip-flops. There’s no way I’m doing it in my tatty old school trainers. How much will a decent pair of shoes cost?

Honor said she’d make a decision about the show on Friday. No more show, no more job. No more brown packets. No more Jem.

I put my so-called earnings in my bedside drawer, switch off the light and fail to sleep for several hours.

‘I’ve cracked “Love Eternal”, my solo,’ Tabby announces at lunch on Wednesday. ‘I was doing it last night with Honor and Warren and I actually got to the end without losing it by pretending Warren was Sam. The power of imagination is a wonderful thing.’

We both glance to where Sam and Maria are queuing at the food counters, hand in hand. Tabby blinks hard.

‘I’ve got to find another job,’ I say as I force the last bit of cheese sandwich down my neck.

‘Too difficult working with Shoulders this weekend?’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t survive on what I’m earning, even with tips.’

‘Jem looked awful on Saturday, didn’t he?’ Tabby says. ‘Have you found out how he got that face?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me on Saturday and I haven’t seen him since.’

‘Did you want to jump on him every time he asked you to take out the bins?’ she asks. ‘Even though we did that snog experiment, I think maybe you’ve still got the Kiss. You’re so . . . moony at the moment.’

‘I had the old pesky jumping urge under control,’ I say drily. ‘But it wouldn’t have been reciprocated even if I’d let it off the leash. I don’t think we’re . . . in the same space any more.’

‘Self-protection,’ says Tab, with the air of expertise that I’ve noticed she’s developed lately. ‘I’ve been reading
Cosmo
this week and it had this whole article about how guys self-protect. They act like your most basic arthropod, closing off all but the most essential levels of communication. In other words, they shut themselves up like snails. I’ve seen it with Sam. You’re seeing it with Jem. He likes you but he can’t risk it because you’ve already rejected him once.’

‘Twice,’ I correct. ‘If you count the first time we kissed.’

‘Self-protecting,’ Tabby confirms.

‘I’m running just to stop falling over,’ I sigh. ‘And now, if the show doesn’t go ahead, I’ll lose my job altogether because Val won’t need me any more. At least, not till panto season in November.’

‘If Honor
does
cancel,’ says Tab in her best grief-counsellor voice, ‘it’s not the end of the world. I’m sure your dad would help if you were really at a crisis point.’

I look wearily at her. With her regular weekly allowance from her entirely reasonable parents, she has absolutely no idea what my life is like.

‘Have you actually talked to your dad?’ Tab prompts, all optimism. ‘
Really
talked to him?’

‘About what? Dad hates the fact I’m at college. He gets fifteen quid a week housekeeping off me at the moment, and he makes it clear that’s way under the going rate.’

‘But you’re going to be a
scientist
! You’ll end up researching something really important, like . . . like rabbit fertility, or thermal underwear fibres, or . . .’

Not being a scientist, Tab swiftly runs out of career options.

Am I? I’m seriously starting to wonder. It’ll take five years of studying from this point – minimum
.
We’re still in the free part, and I’m already thinking about jacking it in. ‘Try telling him that,’ I say.

Oz plonks his tray between us. ‘Party tonight at this place by the station,’ he announces. ‘I need bar staff. You up for it, Delilah?’

If Oz was a bone, I would lunge like a bloodhound. ‘Oh my God – a hundred times
yes
,’ I say. I have homework, but it will have to wait. ‘What are they paying?’

‘Four seventy-five an hour.’

Slavery rates. ‘Why don’t I donate my blood while I’m at it?’ I complain.

‘If a donator donates, shouldn’t a blood donor
done
?’ Tab muses.

‘Four hours’ work, cash in hand,’ says Oz persuasively. ‘That’s nineteen quid all in, plus tips. It’s at Aphrodite’s Moon.’

Tabby spits out her Coke.

‘
Where?
’ I say.

‘The Greek place by the station.’ He looks from me to Tab. ‘I take it that you know it? They do—’

‘Great mezze, I know.’ Weird has nothing on this. ‘What time?’

‘Eight.’ Oz frowns at Tabby, who is gurning at me like a madwoman. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘Nope,’ I say. ‘I’ll take the job.’

Even on a Wednesday night, the student body needs amusing – and apparently has the cash to do it. The music is pumping, the queue snaking out the bar’s half-glass door is as long as last week’s party at the Fire Station. The name of the bar hangs mockingly over the door, complete with a half-naked Aphrodite dancing in a brightly painted moonlit glade.

Niko the bar owner is delighted to see me.

‘Flirt with the punters. Pile it on thick. Tell them about Aphrodite’s moon. You know about the moon? Very powerful. Sends people crazy with lust.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ I say, doing my best to ignore the way he’s waggling his eyebrows. ‘Where do I put the empties?’

‘Keep them coming, Delilah!’ Oz shouts, beckoning for beer over my head as the evening gets a nice tight grip on the swaying sociability of the crowd.

I serve and serve and serve, and wonder if I am the only person under eighteen in the whole of Surrey that doesn’t have money to burn. Val would kill for mid-week custom at the Gaslight like this.

Tab appears through the sweaty, heaving crush. She glances up at the bar name. ‘It’s a sign, you know,’ she confides.

I flip off a Coke lid against the bottle opener with one hand and siphon lemonade with the other. ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘A badly painted sign that makes me want to heave every time I see it. Five thousand years since the Greeks civilized the world, and all us girls get for it is an immortal half-naked nymph. Who’s the goddess of brains?’

‘There’s a goddess of wisdom,’ says Tab. ‘Athena.’

‘There you go. Why can’t we have a few bars called Athena’s Wisdom, covered in wall paintings of brainiacs hanging out solving the world’s problems?’

‘Athena doesn’t sell beers,’ says Niko as he swoops past.

‘I think it’s the
other
kind of sign.’ Tabby takes the lemonade and shovels ice into it. ‘That the Kiss hasn’t given up on us yet. That it’s still out there, fired up and dangerous. Oh boil a brick, Warren’s here.’

Warren waves across the dancefloor just as a cross-eyed, red-haired peacock emerges from the toilets and starts dancing with him. He looks as if he can’t believe his luck. Just behind the peacock, a figure in bright white trainers with winking diamonds in his nose is leaning against the wall, observing the crowd with shark’s eyes.

‘Who is
that
?’ Tab says, looking at the glittery peacock in awe.

‘Ella,’ I say, feeling the familiar clench in my gut when Studs is around. He makes me think of Jem instead of Dave these days, which at least makes some kind of change. ‘Bodypainter. Scary, kind of funny. And right now, higher than Mary Poppins’ kite. There’s no other explanation for that bump and grind thing she’s got going on with Warren. Niko!’

The bar owner looks alert.

‘I think there may be a problem in the toilets,’ I say. I nod at Studs.

‘Oi!’ Niko roars, striding across the room in a flash.

Ella bounds to the bar. ‘Hello Delilah,’ she grins. ‘You ever fancy girls?’

‘Delilah’s a lesbian,’ says Warren, looming up behind Ella.

‘First Jem, now this little bombshell,’ says Ella with interest. ‘You get more intriguing every time I see
you, Delilah.’

Delighted by the painted girl’s reaction, Warren thrusts out his chest and points at Tabby. ‘She’s a lesbian too. Delilah was kissing her on Leasford Hill last weekend.’

Ella presses beringed hands on either side of Tab’s blushing face. ‘Call me if you fancy a change, darling,’ she whispers, and kisses Tabby on the end of the nose.

I watch it dawn on Warren that Ella’s provocative dancing has meant precisely zip. ‘Is everyone around here a lesbian?’ he says in dismay.

‘Must be your aftershave, Warren,’ I say.

‘Not in my bar!’ Niko bellows. He has seized Studs round the back of the neck and is now dragging him towards the door, with Studs loudly protesting all the way.

‘Isn’t he the dealer guy from the start-of-term party?’ says Tabby as Niko throws Studs outside like a builder chucking an old toilet in a skip.

‘And my evening is complete,’ I say happily.

‘No drugs here,’ Niko shouts at the crowd, slamming the door and dusting his hands down his shirt. ‘Drink
and enjoy!’