The Kiss (13 page)

T
ab looks at my glass of water as we make our way to our customary table. ‘Not having anything today?’ she says in surprise.

‘Not hungry,’ I lie. ‘I’ll get something later.’

‘Good last night, wasn’t it?’ Tabby is in the mood for dissecting the previous night’s adventures in detail. ‘That Ella was terrifying, but there was something about her . . .’

‘You
definitely
caught the Kiss off me,’ I say.

Tab’s eyes snap back into focus. ‘Do you think this is what happens?’ she says, looking genuinely amazed. ‘You get the Kiss off someone of the same sex and it actually, you know – turns you?’

‘You’re living proof, babes.’

‘Wow.’ Tabby sinks back in her chair. ‘Wow,’ she says again.

‘Ella is weirdly gorgeous,’ I point out. ‘If girls in crazy make-up are your thing.’

‘But even if I do – did – kind of fancy Ella, I still want to get back together with Sam,’ Tabby says firmly. ‘I’d just like to make that clear.’

‘Crystal,’ I assure her.

My phone beeps.

Chérie, call me, F xxx

‘Fatima,’ I say, perking up. ‘How much is it to call France?’

‘Text’ll be cheaper,’ says Tab.

I have about a fiver’s worth of credit on my phone. Like everything else in my life, it needs rationing.

Babe, too broke to call.

Story of my life.

U still coming?

Like a chou-chou train ma chère tout
le temps. Tell the boys to get ready
for me. You like foie gras? Champagne?
I will bring. xxx

Prefer Carambar and pate.

I will bring. BISOUS xx

‘She’ll be here a week on Tuesday,’ I say with satisfaction, clicking my phone off.

‘Is she really as mad as you say?’ Tabby asks.

‘Madder,’ I say. ‘We’ll have a job keeping her entertained. You rehearsing tonight?’

‘Yes. Assuming Honor’s not decided to can us.’

I feel the customary wave of nausea at the prospect of unemployment. ‘You’d have heard by now, wouldn’t you?’ I ask anxiously.

‘I guess,’ Tabby agrees, blithely unaware of how my stomach is tying itself into knots. ‘Want to come?’

‘Studying,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘You should try memorizing chemical formulae some time.’ I eye the half-sandwich on her plate. ‘You having that?’

‘I thought you weren’t hungry.’

‘Shame to waste it.’

Dave is waiting on the college steps as I leave the building, pacing back and forth like a nervous stork in a leather driving coat.

‘Oh,’ I say, stopping dead.

He clears his throat. ‘Dee, I wanted to ask you something the other day, but I bottled it. Can we go for a ride?’

Tabby is long gone, off to sing songs of submission to the manly ideal of the nineteen-fifties. I long to be with her. Even the pain of an evening with Jem curled back into his shell is preferable to five minutes with Dave.

His car is parked by the river. In the daylight it looks more knackered than it did in the orange sodium streetlights. It has been raining, and the paintwork is speckled with tiny wet diamonds of light.

He sounds almost eager as I slide reluctantly into the passenger seat.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘I don’t
want
to go anywhere with you,’ I say. ‘Just drive.’

I rest my head on the back of the seat and finish the remains of a tube of paprika Pringles stuffed into the car door as we head out of town towards Leasford Hill. What does Dave want with me? Why am I even in the car?

‘It’s like this,’ he says when we have parked and the North Downs are spread before us, hazy and darkening in the rain. ‘I need money.’

A lone runner in blue sprints past the car as I start laughing. Proper laughing. I hold the car door and laugh so much that I spray Pringle crumbs across the dashboard. Two dog walkers glance curiously through the windscreen.

‘It’s not funny,’ Dave moans. ‘I
owe
people. Nasty people who will castrate me if I don’t pay up.’

‘Trust me,’ I say as I catch my breath. ‘It’s hilarious.’

‘It’s why I broke up with Louise,’ he says pathetically. ‘She was vulnerable, going out with me. I’m in a mess, but at least I’m by myself.’

‘By yourself plus me, apparently,’ I point out.

The irony is lost on him. ‘You’re the only one that can help me,’ he says.

I shake my head, feeling so old and wise you could coat me in feathers and call me an owl. ‘Believe me, Dave, I can’t help anyone. I’ve got nothing for you.’

He pats the air like some kind of large, unruly dog. ‘Just let me talk, OK? I’ll talk and then you can talk.’

‘I won’t have anything to say.’ I fold up the Pringles tube and stuff it back in the door. ‘But I won’t stop you talking.’

Dave grips the wheel of the car like he’s driving at a hundred miles an hour, not parked perilously close to a wasp-infested rubbish bin. ‘I owe these people five hundred quid,’ he blurts.

If the door hadn’t been shut, I’d have fallen out of the car. ‘Five . . .? Are you
insane
?’ I gasp. ‘What makes you think I have that kind of money?’

‘I’m not asking you for money,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m asking you for help. They’ll pay you.’

I frown, trying to keep up. ‘Who’ll pay me?’

‘These guys.’

‘The testicle-removers?’

He nods.

I rub the bridge of my nose, wondering how I’ve slid sideways into a gangster movie. ‘What have you done?’ I ask.

He groans and rests his head on the steering wheel. ‘Too much stuff that I haven’t paid for.’

He’s an idiot. ‘You’re an idiot,’ I tell him. How did I never notice this when we were together?

‘I know. But there’s a way out.’

He reaches under his seat and pulls out a large grey plastic brick. I stare at it. My evening is getting weirder by the minute.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ I say.

‘Depends whether you think it’s an elephant,’ he answers, with a sad attempt at humour.

I take it. Stare at the buttons, the receipt paper, the little slot at the bottom for credit cards. It strikes me too late that I’ve just splashed my fingerprints all over it. My ex-boyfriend is
officially insane.

‘You’re not seriously thinking of using this? It’s like robbing a bank!’

‘Robbing a bank with no security guards, no cameras, no beady-eyed witnesses. It’s a whole different game. And this baby routes straight into the bank account of your choice.’

He is looking at the fake swipe machine like a man looks at his first-born child. It’s scaring me.

‘You’ll go to
jail
if you use this,’ I say as clearly as I can. I’m still holding it like it’s glued to my hands. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘From a friend.’

Dave’s taste in friends is shocking. But I know this already.

‘Wait,’ I say cautiously. ‘You’re showing me this because . . .?’

At least he has the grace to blush.

‘Oh my God,’ I say, realization dawning.

‘It’s just a simple switch,’ he pleads. ‘Do it at the Gaslight on a busy evening. A hundred quid for ten seconds’ work, that’s all it is. Make the switch for me, Dee. Please?’

A hundred quid isn’t that much when you think about it. Two fifty-pound notes. I imagine the gangster suitcase, empty but for two sad and flapping bits of paper.

I thrust the horrible machine back at him, yank open the car door and start running back down Leasford Hill to reality, trying to ignore the wet from the rainy ground as it seeps through the holes in my shoes. I want nothing to do with what Dave is suggesting. Nothing at all.

I make it home an hour later, my hair frizzed up by the damp air, my legs freezing. My shoes are wet and my toes feel squelchy. Thoughts and feelings in my head are pushing and shoving for my attention.

I need the money. I would never do it to Val. I would be caught. I could do it in between Maria’s endless Fantas and Eunice’s peanuts. Jem hates me already, what’s one teensy crime going to do to change that? I’m not a bad person. One hundred quid is more appealing when you picture it in clinking gold nuggets.

I’m
not
thinking about it, I think desperately. I’m just . . . thinking ABOUT it.
There is a difference.

As I put my house keys on the hall table, I see a plastic bag leaning against the table legs. My stomach feels like it’s full of ants as I peer inside, already knowing what it contains.

Half now / half later
Dave has written, on a torn-off bit of the Pringles tube I finished. The whole bag smells of paprika crisps.

‘Lad in a car stopped by twenty minutes ago with that,’ Dad says as I creep past the living-room door, clutching the bag to my chest.

I pause in horror, one foot on the stairs. ‘Did you look inside?’

He looks at me oddly. ‘I couldn’t give a stuff about textbooks. Put the kettle on if you’re passing.’

I make him a cup of tea and retreat to my room, where I shove the bag under my bed. I feed Marie Curie. She boggles at me in her usual silent, orange way.

‘Work,’ I say loudly, pulling out my folder and slamming it on my desk, like the noise alone will hammer the facts I need into my head and push away the creeping thoughts.

My phone goes off.

‘I need to ask you if I should wear my green jumper or my blue one for rehearsal tonight.’

Leaning one elbow on a list of empirical and molecular formulae, I take off my bust-up shoes and massage my toes. New shoes would be good.

‘Talk me through both,’ I say wearily.

Tab lingers on her description of the low-cut green jumper a bit longer than the tight-fitting blue one. When I advise green, she argues the case for blue, so I switch arguments, which brings her back to the green again.

‘Rehearsal starting at seven?’ I check when we have exhausted both options and she is as confused as she was at the start of the conversation.

‘Assuming I ever get any clothes on. Any messages for Jem?’

‘Tell him to kiss Maria. She blatantly wants him to. He can do it in front of Sam like a
Crimewatch
reconstruction.’

‘I’m not sure Sam could cope with
two
girlfriends kissing the same guy in front of him.’

I rub my eyes. ‘OK, scrap that. Anyway, he does his bodypainting thing on Thursdays. He won’t be around much.’

‘Is he good at the body art thing?’

‘You saw what he did to my hand,’ I say.

‘I dreamed about Sam last night,’ she tells me. ‘He was singing to me, only I was on the top of this bus on the way to Ibiza and I was leaving him behind. I tried to stop the driver, but he was a dog so he didn’t understand.’

Much as I love her, I need Tab to go away. ‘I have to learn about the ratio of atoms in compounds, babe,’ I say, hoping she’ll take the hint. ‘Will you try and get a decision out of Honor about the show tonight? I
really
need to know.’

When she’s gone I set my alarm for one hour. I’ll learn as many formulae as I can and then forage for food. There are usually a couple of tins of spaghetti knocking around in the cupboard. It isn’t steak, but it will do.

My phone rings again. I snatch it up, irritated now. ‘What?’

‘Did you get it?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ I say. ‘I passed it to the police.’

Dave sounds terrified. ‘No way, Dee! You—’

‘I’m joking,’ I say shortly. ‘I’m not doing this.’

‘They said I could offer you up to a hundred and fifty quid. They’re trialling these things, testing them out. If yours works, they’ll do more in the area. It’s worth their investment.’

I’m pressing the phone so hard to my ear that my ear hairs are buzzing. ‘No.’

‘Dee, I meant something to you once. They’ll kill me if I don’t sort my debt out. You want that for me? You want my death on your conscience?’

‘I thought they were only after your balls,’ I say, and hang up.

O
n Friday evening I prowl behind the Gaslight bar, watching the doors of the auditorium like a cat waiting for the mouse convention to emerge for their half-time cheese. Honor is making a final decision about the show tonight. They’re in there right now, deciding my future. That’s what this is. No show means no job, no money, no college, no research work, nothing ahead of me but pulling pints and dreaming of what could have been.

‘I’m guessing you know that if she cans it, there’ll only be enough work for me and Jem?’ Val says, turning the screws. ‘I’m sorry love, but that’s economics.’

Keynes is nodding sagely somewhere, an otherworldly wind riffling through his moustache. I nod, biting my lip. I can taste the blood.

‘It’ll be panto season in a month’s time,’ she says. ‘Plenty then for a hard worker like you.’

A hundred and fifty would tide me over until panto season, with a couple of extra bar jobs through Oz along the way and the odd stroke of luck.

‘Great,’ I say, hopelessly. ‘Thanks.’

Val pops out for milk as Jem strides among the tables, disinfectant in one hand and cleaning cloth in the other. The bruising on his face has gone down, and is now brown and yellow at the edges. Whoever did it really worked him over. I hope they have a couple of bruises of their own to show for it. I watch him for a bit, wondering if I’ll ever see him again after tonight.

Coming up to the bar, he sets his squeegee and his cloth down. ‘You look like a corpse,’ he says bluntly.

I should have conditioned my hair this morning, I realize. It is standing out around my head like an anaemic microphone. My shirt needs a wash too. My mind hasn’t been on shampoo bottles and laundry baskets of late.

‘I saw you in a car yesterday,’ he says. ‘On Leasford Hill.’

I blanch. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘Running.’

I stare at him, feeling hunted.
Your deeds will find you out.

‘Who was the guy?’ he asks. Ever so casually.

‘No one important,’ I manage to reply.

‘Looked like maybe that ex of yours.’ He studies me. ‘Whoever it was, was making you laugh.’

I remember the runner now. The Pringles crumbs. Talk about timing.

‘Been to the bank yet?’ he says, with a sudden subject swerve that should make me feel calmer but doesn’t.

I roll my eyes jerkily. I probably look like a terrified cow. ‘I’ll go in my own time, OK?’

I wish I’d never told him about the flaming bank. Right now I’m feeling like a kid caught shoplifting and I haven’t even
done
anything. The air crackles. We are back in the wardrobe, talking of life and death, guilt and responsibility, and the scent of him is making me breathless.

I need to get away from him. I need to know what they are deciding through the double doors of doom. The two elements come together with perfect urgency as I half-run towards the auditorium doors, tripping over my bag in my haste. Opening the doors as quietly as I can, I enter the dark space.

The stage is lit softly, illuminating a beautiful set: an Italian courtyard, cobbles on the floor, a flight of stairs rising to some kind of balcony. The cast is sitting slumped in metal chairs beside an ornately tiled fountain.

‘More!’ Honor shouts, banging away at the piano.

No one is giving it much. The air of hopelessness is tangible. The voice coach rubs her face with long-taloned fingers. ‘Give me a reason to keep this going, people.
A weddin’ and a beddin’, it’s where we’ll all be headin’, although the bride is lookin’ kind of pale .
 . .’

‘
A weddin’ and a beddin’
,’ drones the chorus in response,
‘
is something Hero’s dreadin’, and not for fear of treadin’ on her veil . . .
’

‘Can’t say I’m looking forward to it much myself,’ says Patricia.

I slide out again as silently as I entered. They won’t be continuing after tonight. My granny could sing that stuff better, and she’s dead.

The contents of my upturned bag lie spilled around Jem’s feet beside the bar. Tampons, tissues, a hairbrush. The swipe machine is in his hand. I think haphazardly of a guinea pig facing a jaguar deep in the Amazonian jungle because that’s the way I roll when I’m in a corner and there is precisely
no way out
.

‘When exactly,’ Jem says in a voice of dangerous calm, ‘did you start keeping a spare card reader in your bag?’

I am so frightened by the sight of Jem holding the machine that I practically wet myself.

‘What are you doing, going through my stuff?’ I manage to say.

‘You kicked your bag over,’ he says. He rises slowly to his feet, waggles the incriminating gadget from side to side. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘I know it looks bad,’ I begin, trying to get a grip on the situation. ‘But seriously, I—’

He pulls his arm back and lobs the machine across the room. It skids on the crusty carpet, takes out a wastepaper basket, whangs into a fire extinguisher with the most appalling clang and breaks in half. He points at the bruise on his face, his voice way calmer than his gaze. ‘I got this for you,’ he says.

I stare at him, uncomprehending. ‘What?’

‘Go to the bank. Go to the bank. How many times do I have to say it?’ He runs his hands through his hair, swears under his breath. ‘You were about to rip off my
mother
, Delilah!’

I urgently need to explain. ‘I
wasn’t
—’

He is advancing towards me. ‘Banks don’t care if you’ve spent your own money. They only call when there’s a problem. A
real
problem.
I can’t believe you’d be so stupid as to add to that problem
.’

‘I wasn’t going to use it! I swear!’

My head is going BOOM BOOM BOOM. I can’t think. The questions are still coming.

‘You carry spare card readers around for fun? Where did you get it?’

‘I wasn’t going to use it!’ I repeat helplessly. ‘I was going to chuck it in the river after work!’

His expression suddenly changes. ‘You got it from your so-called ex, didn’t you? Dave, the guy in the car? The one that was making you laugh, the one you wept all over me for?’

He isn’t listening. This is bad. I cover my face with my palms. THIEF is as good as inked on the backs of
my hands.

‘I can’t believe I fell for you,’ he says in wonder. ‘I thought you were real, Delilah. What kind of idiot am I?’

There is a massive wrecking ball of misunderstanding crashing through the bar, choking everyone with dust.

‘I know what you must think, but I wasn’t going to use it,’ I insist, shaking like tissue paper in a high wind. ‘It was tempting, but I wasn’t – things have been really hard lately, but I would never . . .’

He leans towards me, his voice low and hard.

‘Liar.’