The Kiss (17 page)

M
y stomach folds in half at the sound of Jem’s voice calling last orders at eleven. I’ve been sitting with my
back to the bar for maximum avoidance of eye contact, and have been relatively successful. The only time he looks
at me is when I weave my way a little unsteadily to the bathroom, eye make-up probably running down my face like Usain Bolt in sooty shoes. His gaze is dark, his face set in a frown.

By midnight the bar has cleared. Tabby has left with stoic kisses, Rich and Henry with high-fives, Eunice with a delicate wave and Patricia a less delicate one. It’s strange, watching the evening’s action wind down from a punter’s viewpoint instead of with my head dipping in and out of the dishwasher.

‘You waiting for Fatima?’

I leap out of the sofa like I’m wearing a pair of jumping stilts. He’s approached as quietly as a ghost.

‘I – what?’ I say. Slick, I think.

‘She’s disappeared somewhere. Probably the bathroom.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yes. Thanks.’

There is an awkward silence. What is a girl supposed to say to a guy who thinks she is a waste of space?

‘Fatima’s . . .’ I watch him hunt down a suitable adjective. ‘Something,’ he concludes.

‘Mmm.’ Oh crusty carpet, swallow me now.

‘Not really my type though.’

I decide to take refuge in attack. ‘Why? You catch her with her fingers in the till?’

He doesn’t answer that. ‘How are you?’ he asks instead.

Drunk, I realize. ‘Me?’ I say out loud. ‘Oh, I’m brilliant. Fantastic. Like one of those swans.’ He looks puzzled. I paddle with my hands. ‘All elegance and refinement on top but swimming for my life below.’

‘Right,’ he says.

‘What do you care anyway,’ I say morosely.

He stares at me like he’s trying to peel back the layers and get to the nerve endings beneath my skin. Trying to burn through to the truth. ‘Just taking an interest.’

‘Didn’t think I was worth your interest.’

He fiddles with his ear. ‘Delilah—’

‘I’m not up to a repeat of our last conversation, if that’s where you’re going.’

‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘Trust me.’

Why should I trust you when you don’t trust me? I think.

More silence.

‘What were you doing at the collective last week?’ he asks at last.

‘Ella asked me.’

‘Oh,’ he says. He pauses. ‘I didn’t think you knew her that well.’

Ella hasn’t shopped me. Part of me is a little annoyed. I know I asked her to stay quiet, but having Jem know I am trying to put things right would be . . . comforting.

That isn’t the point, of course.

‘Guess I know her better than you think,’ I say waspishly.

‘Guess you do.’

This conversation is flowing as smoothly as molten fudge. It’s Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, warm and rich and fulfilling. I stare out of the double doors for a bit, at the dark brown night. Perhaps he’ll go away.

‘I keep seeing you in my head,’ he says eventually. ‘Laughing.’

‘Oh, I’m a laugh a minute,’ I agree. ‘Though of course, criminal intent runs through me like Brighton rock. Which is a flaw.’

Where is Fatima? I am getting reckless with this strange grief I am feeling.

‘I hated it.’

‘What, Brighton rock?’

‘You, laughing. With him.’

‘You put me on trial,’ I say, angry suddenly. ‘You found me guilty. So what if I laugh with someone that isn’t you?’

‘What were you laughing about?’

‘I was laughing about my impending villainy,’ I say. ‘Wasn’t I?’

We both hear a strange noise. It seems to be coming from the box office. Jem glances at the closed ticket window, then looks back at me.

‘All I know is that I hated it,’ he says.

‘What are you condemning me for here?’ I demand. ‘Having a laugh with the wrong person or planning
my heist?’

We are both angry now.

‘How can you
joke
about this?’

‘Best thing to do in desperate circumstances. If you’re so convinced that I’m a thief, why didn’t you tell Val?’

‘What makes you think I didn’t?’

‘She offered my job back.’

Lightning flickers across his eyes. ‘So why didn’t you take it? Not many thieves get a second opportunity. Busy bar tonight. Plenty of profit.’

‘I thought I would find the working environment a little trying,’ I say through gritted teeth.

The odd noise has started up again. It’s definitely coming from the ticket office.

Jem swears loudly. ‘Got one of your pals in to clean out the safe?’ he inquires, striding towards the ticket office.

‘If that’s a thief,’ I roar after him, ‘they’re the noisiest . . .’

I suddenly realize something with ghastly clarity. Jem does too.

‘Is it just me,’ he says, his footsteps slowing, ‘or does that sound like—’

Warren’s head pops up over the ticket office desk. A long hand with dark red fingernails slaps across his mouth and pulls him back down.

Fatima means ‘abstinence’ in Arabic. Talk about ironic.

‘
Vive la France
,’ Jem says in wonder.

‘I wish I could say she isn’t normally like this,’ I squeak through my fingers in an agony of embarrassment, ‘but we all know how you feel about lies.’

Jem indicates the kitchen diplomatically. ‘Perhaps we should . . .’

‘Right behind you,’ I mumble.

By the time we reach the kitchen and shut the door behind us, Jem is nearly paralyzed with laughter. ‘Know any good songs we could sing?’ he chokes out, leaning against the lockers for support. ‘You know – loudly?’

The only one I can think of is ‘My Generation’ and look where that got me. ‘Nothing’s coming to mind,’ I say weakly. ‘You?’

‘
People try to put us down
,’ he sings close to my ear.

My knees actually buckle. Fold sideways and lose anything approaching substance. His breath is warm.

‘Not that one,’ I say.

He stops laughing and visibly collects himself. ‘Sorry.’

We concentrate on the sink, wiping and stacking. I have never been so aware of him in my life.

Val comes into the kitchen from the back yard. She stops when she sees us, back to rigid back, silently scrubbing the kitchen surfaces.

‘Isn’t Fatima supposed to be doing this?’ she says.

The kitchen door opens. Fatima sweeps her fringe out of her eyes. ‘’Allo,’ she says, sounding a little breathless. Over her shoulder I see Warren sliding out a little unsteadily through the double doors.

Val lobs Fatima her pay packet. ‘Great work. Same time tomorrow?’

Tomorrow? I never work Wednesdays.

‘I will be here,’ Fatima says gaily.

Jem keeps scrubbing surfaces and doesn’t look up as I tow Fatima towards Mr Djembe’s bicycles, still stashed behind the sofa.

‘You are a true piece of work,’ I hiss. ‘
Warren?
Are you insane?’

We push the bikes through the doors and bump them down the steps. Warren has disappeared. I hope he’s fallen down a drain.

‘I think I will teach Warren many interesting things,’ Fatima says in a contented voice.

The doors clatter open behind us.

‘You’ll want lights for those,’ Jem says.

He tosses me a set, then a second lot for Fatima.

‘
Chéri
,’ Fatima gasps, examining the lights like they are precious jewels. ‘They are adorable. For us?’

‘Someone left them here last week,’ Jem says shortly. ‘Try not to get run over between now and tomorrow.’

‘He is so pretty,’ Fatima sighs as he closes the doors. ‘It is a shame about his nose.’

E
lla’s call takes me by surprise on Thursday.

‘What, the whole cast?’ I say, my canteen sandwich halfway to my mouth.

‘No, just the ugly ones,’ she says, dripping sarcasm like rain off an umbrella. ‘Of
course
the whole cast. Everyone’s got different faces. Different angles, different elements to work with. We’ve done our designs but we need to practise them. Can you get them here tonight?’

‘Can’t you do it at tomorrow’s dress rehearsal?’

‘Need to know what paints to bring to the theatre. You want this make-up to look good or not?’

Ella is jittery. It strikes me she is just as nervous about this as me.

‘Maybe we can take a portable keyboard and rehearse there,’ Tab says, listening in. ‘Run through the songs while we’re being painted.’

‘Sort it, Delilah,’ says Ella. ‘As close to five as you can. There’s a lot of you to get through.’

The buzzing tone informs me that she’s rung off.

‘Do you think Patricia really will agree to rehearse at Ella’s flat tonight?’ I ask Tab, lowering my phone uncertainly.

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘But the show’s in two days’ time! You need to be on the actual stage, with your props and everything. Don’t you?’

‘Done the staging already,’ Tab says. ‘We’ve all gone up a gear since your brainwave. Call Patricia and give her details. I can’t wait to try my zombie look,’ she adds with enthusiasm. ‘I hope I get flaking skin. Maybe bleeding eyes.’

She taps Ella’s address into her phone, pulling up a map.

‘Hi,’ says Warren, appearing at the end of our table. ‘Is Fatima around? I didn’t get a chance to, er, talk to her last night.’

I left Fatima on her camp-bed mattress this morning, draped like a flamboyant starfish across half my carpet after another full evening behind the Gaslight bar. I haven’t told Tab the full facts of Tuesday. They are too gruesome.

‘Is she working at the theatre again tonight?’ Warren says hopefully. ‘I’d kind of like to see her again.’

‘And I’m sorry to report that she’d kind of like to see you again too,’ I say.

Warren adjusts his face with a transparent attempt at nonchalance. ‘I’ll er . . . do my best to fit her in.’

‘We’re getting painted tonight, Warren,’ Tabby says. ‘I’ll text everyone directions to Ella’s flat. We’re meeting there from five. I guess we’ll all head to the Gaslight afterwards.’

‘Great,’ says Warren. He shifts from foot to foot. ‘Sorry I’ve been a bit of an idiot about the whole lesbian thing.’

‘We’re not lesbians,’ says Tabby patiently.

Warren’s phone beeps. He pulls it out and stares at Tab’s message. ‘Five tonight?’ he says, walking away with his nose to his screen. ‘Cool.’

Tabby gets busy with her list of cast members’ mobile numbers and attaches the map. I picture the directions being fired in thirty different directions from a load of tiny cannons on the tabletop.

‘You’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way with the oldies,’ I remind her. ‘Phone them up. Post them printouts.’

‘Gladys is on Facebook. Dorcas has a iPad. Everyone’s covered.’

At four-thirty I stand shivering at the bottom of the High Street. Despite Tab’s texted directions, a mass of calls from assorted cast members asking for someone to guide them through the scary maze of the poorly lit Watts Estate has resulted in an old-fashioned element after all: me, waiting to escort old ladies Gladys and Dorcas and students Sam, Maria, Warren and Tabby like a tour guide with an umbrella in Piccadilly Circus.

Fatima has come along for the ride. She flaps her arms. ‘English weather,’ she grumbles.

‘Your coat’s too thin,’ I say. ‘You could get one of those long downy ones you see in
Grazia
with your Gaslight earnings. I can’t believe Val had you working last night. I only got Fridays and Saturdays.’

‘Tonight too. I am popular,’ Fatima says without apology.

‘Everyone ready?’ I ask as Gladys finally turns up.

‘Thunderbirds are go,’ says Dorcas.

‘You will be my ’ot water bottle,
chéri
,’ Fatima shivers, linking arms with Warren and making his cheeks light up.

‘That girl’s rather obvious, isn’t she?’ Maria says loudly, one gloved hand tucked into Sam’s elbow. ‘She shouldn’t get Warren’s hopes up like that. Anyone can see the poor boy’s developing a crush.’

The road is steep. Dorcas rubs at the panes on a greenhouse and admires the tubs of growing things inside. Fatima sings French marching songs, stamping her booted feet and moving in synch with Warren, as I shepherd and cajole and warn of puddles like a teacher on a school trip.

‘Why aren’t there any posters along here?’ says Dorcas as we climb.

Gladys pushes her sleeves up. ‘Set to, Dorcas.’

Dorcas pulls spare posters from her handbag and sticks them on fences as we pass. Gladys gets industrial with a spray can of yellow paint she has tucked in her rucksack.

‘I’ve got a stitch,’ Tab says. ‘Is it much further?’

We reach the double doors of Ella’s building at around five-fifteen. The lift is too small for all of us, so we go up in two groups. Patricia answers the door in a fug of marijuana smoke and the wall-shaking sound of a boom box at full volume. Her face is red and fleshy and covered in unpleasant welts.

‘You look rotten, Patricia,’ says Dorcas and giggles.

‘Bang on for a first attempt,’ Patricia shouts over the music. ‘Eunice and I got here half an hour ago.’

Eunice waves at us from a chair in the middle of the room, her face half-painted in the same style as Patricia’s.

‘Those with honest jobs are coming after work.’ Patricia is holding something that looks suspiciously like a joint. ‘Pick anyone you like, darlings.’

‘She’s stoned,’ whispers Maria disapprovingly to Sam.

Patricia points the reefer at Maria. ‘I can hold my smoke better than your boyfriend can hold his drink. Looking ugly’s going to do you the world of good, girl.’

Sam is coaxed away with a lad whose head is half shaved and whose nose looks like it won’t support much more in the way of metalwork.

‘Can you make me a
pretty
zombie?’ Maria asks plaintively as a willowy jet-haired boy – the one Ella was painting with angel wings the first time we met – leads her towards a stool.

‘I’ll go, shall I?’ I say to no one in particular.

‘Oh, don’t!’ says Tabby at once. ‘Ella, can’t you paint Delilah again?’

‘I’d love to, but I have to make that chick look like a corpse.’ Ella nods at Gladys.

‘Shouldn’t take long,’ says Dorcas naughtily.

I keep meaning to leave, but somehow stay. Maria skulks over to the camera, looking as miserable as a green-faced zombie can, as Kev takes photos and chats her up. Sam is enjoying himself a lot more with Mr Metal, to judge from the gales of laughter sweeping through the room from their corner.

At six, Rich and Henry blow through the door with wine and a twelve-pack bag of crisps.

‘You all look like hell,’ says Henry admiringly as Rich uncorks the wine and sloshes it generously into polystyrene cups.

‘Mission accomplished,’ says Patricia, her second joint of the evening drooping between her lips. She has set up a small portable keyboard. ‘Do you mind turning your music off, Ella love? From the top, you half-dead darlings.’

There is something both odd and awesome about hearing old-style musical tracks sung by zombies. A couple of Ella’s team members wrinkle their noses. Sam’s Mr Metal adds a few
Be-dooby-dooby-doo
’s during ‘Gore in the War’.

‘This music is like Marmite,’ says Ella. She adds a layer of ripped skin to Gladys’s neck. ‘You spend the whole day trying to sponge it off your vest and by teatime the bastard’s still there.’

‘
Merde
,’ says Fatima suddenly. ‘I am late for my job.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Jem, coming through the door as she races past him in a billow of chiffon. ‘Mum will only rip your head off.’

His T-shirt is dark red tonight, and fits his chest like someone has painted it on to his body. Not unlikely, in present company. Our eyes meet. Flick away. Meet again. Kind of like those magnetic dogs that sniff each other’s rear ends but leap apart when you put them nose to nose. The air shrieks with awkwardness.

‘
Hey
,’ I picture myself saying brightly. ‘
You know this whole zombie make-up thing? I came up with it because I’m crazy about you and you like painting blood and bones. Yes, of course you can apologize for getting the wrong idea about the swipe machine and kiss me in your hot red T-shirt until I forget everything you accused me of. Go right ahead
.’

‘I should probably . . .’ I say instead, edging towards the door.

‘If you say so,’ he says. He set his paints down beside Dorcas, who is halfway through the soppy ‘Love Eternal’ with the rest of the chorus.

‘
Say you love me
,’ Dorcas warbles, ‘
for my flaws
 . . .’

‘Oh, I do,’ Jem assures the old lady. Pulling a brush from his pocket, he twirls it between his fingers. ‘Can I make you super-evil?’ he asks her with the kind of smile to floor a girl.

‘
Say you’ll hold me
,’ Dorcas sings dreamily. She looks a little pink. ‘
With your claws
 . . .’

I open my mouth, shut it again and flee.