The Kiss (15 page)

A
t eight pm, I’m in front of the reassembled cast for
What an Ado About Zombies!
, leaning against the long bar of Aphrodite’s Moon to support my shaking legs. This is even more terrifying than my tragic Keynes presentation. Standing by the door, Oz gives me an encouraging wink.

‘Thanks for coming,’ I begin. ‘It means a lot, especially since you’ve all bothered to come to this dive where the beer’s not even very good.’

‘Hey,’ says Niko, prepared to be genial as I have brought more drinkers than he normally has on a Thursday evening. ‘You don’t like my beer, I got wine.’

‘Bring out the bottles, Maestro,’ Patricia booms. ‘I’m buying.’

Cheerful conversations break out as Niko uncorks the retsina. Beneath the swinging bar sign of Aphrodite and her grapes, I reflect on the weirdness of a cast and how it can function as a single creature with one mood. One mood enhanced by free wine. I wish my mood would hurry up and enhance as well. I am cacking myself.

‘OK,’ I say, as the wine is passed around. ‘First, the bad news. We don’t have a director.’

Maria shifts in her seat and looks at Sam in annoyance. ‘You didn’t say she hadn’t got Honor.’

‘
Delilah
didn’t get Honor, no,’ Tab says, a little coolly. ‘So
we
are going to choose someone else.’

‘I could do it, I suppose,’ says Maria with a show of reluctance. ‘I directed a show at school once. It went pretty well.’

Patricia pours herself a generous glass of wine. ‘Never directed anything in my life,’ she says cheerfully. ‘But I have this show tattooed on my broad backside so I’ll give it a go.’

When Patricia wins the unanimous vote, Maria sinks back in her chair looking thunderous. I uncross my fingers and rub my knuckles. I’m proud of getting my idea this far, but I can’t help the acute sense of relief that there’s finally a grown-up involved.

‘Everyone at the theatre’s still up for it,’ I go on as they all settle down again. ‘Costumes, set, box office. Oz over there is in charge of publicity, and sorting out the cast party.’

Oz waves, then goes back to scrolling through his screen.

‘What about the band?’ asks Eunice.

My eyes widen. I have forgotten the band. ‘Under control,’ I lie, making a frantic mental note to track them down and beg them to stay in the show. ‘We need to redo the posters though.’

‘What’s wrong with the old ones?’ Henry asks.

This is the bit I haven’t broken to them yet. I brace myself.

‘We’re renaming the show
What an Ado About Zombies!
,’ I announce, before adding a little unnecessarily, ‘because we’re having zombies in it.’

Patricia spits out the large mouthful of wine she’s just slugged.

‘
Zombies?
’ says Maria in horror.

‘Genius!’ blurts Tabby.

Everyone else is nodding or looking quietly stunned. I take this for encouragement.

‘I’ve conducted some research and there’s a definite market for shows with zombies in them.’ My research has stretched to a few punts around Twitter, but no one needs to know that. ‘Especially in this town, which as you know has got students everywhere.’

‘Students never come near us,’ Eunice says, a little sadly. ‘Present company excepted.’

‘Your usual audience won’t like what we’re doing, so we have to think wider,’ I say. ‘Hence the change of focus. Which brings me back to my point about the posters. Anyone handy with a spray can? I need someone to go around the town centre adding
About Zombies!
to all the posters that are already out there. It’ll be fiddly, but it’s cheaper than reprinting. It’ll also look kind of street, which is important if we’re trying to get a younger crowd through the theatre doors. Volunteers?’

Two of the older members of the chorus – I don’t know their names – look at each other and raise their hands.

‘I use a can of hairspray most days,’ says one. She nods at her even more elderly companion. ‘So does Dorcas.’

I scrutinize their solid grey helmets. ‘Er, OK,’ I say, overcome with a mad urge to laugh and bolt for the hills. ‘Thank you, Dorcas and . . .?’

‘Gladys.’

I’m curious. ‘Do you like zombies, Gladys?’

‘Mad for them,’ Gladys says comfortably.

Maria pushes back her chair with an angry scraping sound.

‘Babe,’ Sam says, reaching out a hand to stop her. ‘It could work.’

‘It’s the most stupid idea I’ve ever heard,’ Maria spits, shoving his hand away. ‘Not in a million years am I doing it. The agency scouts will
laugh
at us.’

‘Director’s vote still rankling?’ says Warren.

For the first time, as Maria blasts him with a look of withering fire, I see a glimmer of likeability about Warren.

‘Leave if you want to, Maria.’ Patricia has come to stand beside me at the bar, wine glass in hand. ‘We’ll pop Tabitha in as Beatrice instead, find someone to sing Hero. Shouldn’t be too tricky. God knows, you’re flat half the time.’

I almost feel sorry for Maria, who sits down again.

Patricia has slid so naturally into the role of director that I wonder why she hasn’t been directing things from the start. ‘I think Delilah deserves a round of applause for getting us here,’ she goes on, looking round the room. ‘She’s not even in the show, but she’s stepped into the breach like General Gordon. Bravo.’

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.

M
y 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.
Next 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.