The Kiss (4 page)

H
e says it like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like he’s offering me a cup of tea or something. He’s so blinking
close
.

‘What?’ I stammer.

‘You don’t have to sound so shocked,’ he says reasonably. ‘Your pupils are enormous, which means you like the idea as much as I do.’

‘I—’ No one has ever read my eyes like that before. ‘It’s the pot, OK?’

‘That makes your pupils smaller.’

I fight back feebly. ‘These are the pupils in my poo-coloured eyes we’re talking about?’

‘I was trying to win back some of the ground I’d lost to that teatowel. I’m thinking more topaz now, or tiger’s eye. You’re lovely.’

I summon the strength from somewhere and duck under his arm.

Outside the long windows, the light has faded to nothing and the moon is rising: a great Toffee Penny of a moon, still wearing its golden cellophane, shining over the pinprick lights of an urban evening. I feel like I’m floating on the haze, high up here above the town. Bullet-holed Kev takes pictures; people talk to Jem and peer at my hand like forensic pathologists studying a murder victim. I hardly listen, bombed out by the smell of dope and the effect Jem is having on me.

The lift back down the block seems smaller than ever. I hold my fingers carefully away from my body and try to think about anything but the figure lounging against the steel walls of the lift beside me.

‘Why the zombie stance?’ he inquires, amused.

‘I don’t want to smudge it.’ I still find it hard to believe that the skin on my hand genuinely hasn’t been flayed off.

‘The sealant will hold it for a while. Anyway, Kev got plenty of good shots, which is all that matters. You’ll have to smudge it eventually. I’ll smudge it for you, if you like.’

The implication scorches like a red-hot iron. He grins as he catches my reaction.

‘I’ll do your collarbone next time,’ he offers.

My hand was bad enough. Two hours of this guy’s brush on my collarbone and I’ll be a wordless wreck.

‘Who says there’ll be a next time?’

‘I do,’ he says as the lift stops. ‘Can I kiss you yet?’

‘No!’

He takes my unpainted hand and pulls me down the bleach-flavoured corridor to the double doors and out into the evening. The cool air smacks me in the face like a big glassy glove.

‘Not exactly romantic, is it?’ he says, looking at the waterstained concrete and over-full wheelie bins nearby. ‘We’ll find somewhere else for that kiss.’

‘You’re very sure of yourself,’ I say, trying not to sound as breathless as I feel.

‘Call it optimism.’

The moon is already starting to lose its golden edge as it pulls away from the earth’s grip. The shadows are confusing, part streetlight and part moonlight, striping the broken tarmac below our feet. I order my fingers to detach themselves from his but they aren’t listening.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asks as we walk.

Say yes and all this will go away.

‘No.’

‘Did he dump you?’

‘Other way round.’ What is this, truth or dare? I’ve caught Jem’s habit of telling it straight. I haven’t even told Tabby that.

‘Did you love him?’

‘I just said I dumped him, didn’t I?’ I snap, groping for focus.

‘Doesn’t mean you didn’t love the guy. Just that you had your reasons.’

We walk on in silence for a while, which is just as well because I am trying not to cry. As we reach the road that will lead us back down towards the Gaslight, the town lies at our feet like a glittering carpet. The moon shines large and bright over our heads.

‘Aphrodite’s moon,’ Jem says, turning to me. ‘Isn’t that what they call the really full, fat ones?’

The view spreads behind him like a spangled magician’s cloak.
Bloody moon
, I think with ecstatic dread as he leans forward to kiss me.
Bloody Aphro-bloody-dite.

He’s hardly started when he pulls back like I’ve electrocuted him. His eyes are wide.

‘Whoa,’ he says. He sounds shaken.

I have that panicky sensation I had when I was fourteen and kissing a boy for the first time. That need to appear confident with absolutely no experience to back it up. If used incorrectly while kissing, tongues are little better than slugs. Have I just done a slug?

‘What?’ I ask nervously.

He mutters something I can’t hear, gathers me back into him and kisses me harder. The kiss is deep and full and, frankly, lush. I soften and mould myself to him. If I’m honest, I practically start climbing him like one of those ropes in an old-school gym.

A chuckle from the shadows breaks the spell. I fling myself out of Jem’s arms like a spring-loaded sucker toy as Studs walks into the glow of a street lamp, fists thrust deep into the pockets of his denim jacket.

‘Jem,’ he remarks, grinning. ‘Doing fine, I see.’

Jem is having difficulty focusing on the change in circumstances. I hunch myself into my clothes, wishing and
wishing
that my hair wasn’t so distinctive. It’s hopeless.

‘And Deli-la-lah,’ whistles Studs, suddenly recognizing me. ‘Naughty girl, messing with this one.’

‘You know each other?’ Jem says, surprised.

‘Depends how you define “know”,’ I mutter.

‘Delilah and me got a mutual friend,’ Studs says, smiling slyly.

Recovering, Jem exchanges a complicated palm-and-knuckle routine with Studs that speaks volumes: the kind of routine you come up with when you’re ten and hone for years until it’s second nature. Any fool can see that these guys have a history. Studs winks at me and vanishes again. There’s no denying he has that melting-into-the-shadows thing down.

My heart hardens. How many cars have Studs and Jem robbed together in the dark of night, sneaking around, spraying their territory like skunks?

‘Kiss me again,’ Jem whispers, sliding his warm hand under my hair to rest on my neck, bringing me back
to him.

I bat him off and run down the hill, keeping in the glow of the streetlights. The moon feels like it’s burning my skin. It’s only when I reach the safe haven of the High Street and fling myself on the almost-departing forty-two bus that I realize something crucial.

I haven’t given him Sam’s number.

‘Lilah! It’s nearly ten o’clock! Where have you been? You haven’t answered your phone or
anything
. I’ve been worried sick! How did it go?’

I wonder how to explain the evening to Tabby as I kick my shoes off.

‘Not brilliantly,’ I say at last, sinking on to my bed.

‘Did he say he wouldn’t do it?’

‘I . . . forgot to give him the number.’ I hold the phone away from me as Tabby squawks. ‘I’m sorry!’ I say at a safe distance. ‘I got distracted, OK?’

‘I left you at the Gaslight nearly five hours ago! What have you been
doing
?’

‘Tab, please don’t go on,’ I beg. ‘I’ve just walked back from town and my head and feet are killing me.’

‘You walked? Are you nuts? Lilah, it’s over a mile and it’s
dark
. Why didn’t you get the bus?’

‘I did! But the bus driver threw me off because I didn’t have any cash on me to buy a ticket so I went to the cash point to get some and catch the next one but just like at M&S my stupid card wouldn’t let me take any money out. I felt like a medieval peasant walking home from the market because he’d sold his donkey by mistake.’

‘Why didn’t you call me? I could have asked Dad to fetch you in the car!’

‘I didn’t know how to tell you I’d messed up,’ I improvise lamely.

‘You said you’d fix this . . .’

‘Jem promised to call Sam and explain,’ I tell her, pleating my crumply duvet cover between my fingers. How he’s going to do that without Sam’s number is something I’ll worry about later. ‘I tried to message him the details about ten times throughout the evening but he kept saying, “Later, I’ve just got to paint one more teensy blood vessel on the back of your hand and will you kiss me” and all this stuff about moonlight and I
forgot
.’

There is a long pause.

‘What?’

I just want to put my head under my pillow and sleep until Wednesday.

‘Can we talk about it tomorrow?’ I mumble. ‘Love you. And sorry. Again.’

I switch my phone off and crash out, fully dressed. At some point in the night I have the kind of dream you don’t even tell your best friend about. I’m human, OK? You try getting through the kind of evening I’ve just had and then deciding: ‘Right, where’s that ice-pack, I’m going to sleep on it and dream about road maps and plumbing.’

I
press the button again. Nothing.

‘Get a move on, love,’ says a voice behind me in the queue.

I stare at the cashpoint, willing it to spit my life out. ‘It just swallowed my card!’ I say in dismay.

The grizzled guy in a workman’s hat behind me shrugs. ‘You finished?’

I hesitate. If I move away from the cash machine, I’ll never see my card again. The next person’s transaction will lie over the top of mine, like a Rottweiler on a trapdoor.

‘What’s up?’ Tabby stands over me, head hunched into the woolly scarf she wears round her neck.

‘Your mate’s holding up the queue.’ The grizzly workman’s eyes flick over our student gear. ‘Some of us have to get to work this morning.’

‘But—’

Tabby pulls me away from the cash machine. The queue moves up; the grizzly guy punches numbers on to the keypad with calloused fingertips. I watch, hoping the machine is broken. But no: fat ten-pound notes come crinkling through without a problem. Folding the cash and sliding it into his back pocket, Grizzly Guy eyes me narrowly, as if I am after his PIN number.

‘I’ll buy you lunch,’ says Tab, marching me across the street to college. ‘Not that you deserve it. I can’t
believe
you got with the bar guy last night.’

‘I didn’t set out to kiss him,’ I say crossly. Losing my card is all I need today. ‘Unlike
some
people I could mention.’

Tab leans against me in silent apology and I pat her with my painted hand. The fake veins and arteries are still pretty freaky, even though I left half of them on my sheets in the night.

My phone shrieks like a boiled cat in my jacket pocket. After failing to hear any of Tab’s calls yesterday, I’ve turned it up deliberately loud. Unknown number. I hit the green button.

‘Whatever you’re selling, no thanks.’

‘I was going to say, good luck with Keynes,’ Jem says.

I am so shocked I can’t speak.

‘I went home and Googled him last night. Interesting guy, if massive moustaches and the cause of a boom-and-bust economy are your bag.’

‘How did you get my number?’ I stammer.

‘I texted myself on your phone last night when you were half-asleep. You know. Just in case you forgot your very important promise to your mate about giving me her boyfriend’s number.’

Tabby is watching, hawk-eyed.
Is it him?
she mouths. I nod. My mind is racing like the Grand National round a small suburban garden.

‘Why did you run away last night?’ he asks. ‘We were only just getting started.’

The heat in his voice almost scorches my ear off. I hang up and stare at my phone like it’s a bomb.

‘What did you do that for?’ Tabby demands. ‘That was your chance to give him Sam’s number!’

‘I panicked!’ I say helplessly.

My phone rings again.

‘I really want to kiss you again, Delilah. And you still haven’t given me your mate’s boyfriend’s number.’

I can feel myself flushing. ‘I . . . I’ll text it.’

I message Sam’s number and turn off my phone as quickly as I can. Then I shove it deep into my bag where I plan to forget about it all together.

‘Did you—’

‘I sent the number, OK? Can we now stop talking about this?’

‘Welcome to Friday, ladies!’ Oz bounds up the college steps towards us with his arms extended and his bag bouncing on his back. ‘Delilah Jones, will you be my date in Chemistry? I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go with.’

Tabby is still looking at me with anxious puppy-dog eyes. Reminding myself how much she relies on me, I give her a hug. ‘Jem’ll call Sam and sort everything out,’ I tell her in my most bracing tone of conviction. ‘Trust me, your lippy will all be kissed off by lunchtime.’

‘I’m not wearing lippy.’

‘It’s a figure of speech,’ I say patiently.

Tabby looks dreamy and disappears off down the long corridor to the Arts Department, her clumpy boots echoing on the lino.

‘Do you think Tab will ever kiss me?’ Oz asks, watching her go with the thousand-yard stare of a lovelorn sheep.

‘Move on,’ I advise. ‘There are hundreds of unattached girls here to suit your wide-ranging tastes.’

‘But I think I love Tabby,’ says Oz earnestly. ‘Seriously, Delilah. I’ve never felt like— hel
lo
.’

A girl in a very tight tank has just swayed past us.

‘You’re breaking my heart, Osgood,’ I say.

‘Are all girls as sympathetic as you?’ Oz grumbles, pulling his eyes from the tank girl. ‘Coz if they are
I’m going to turn gay. What the hell have you done to your hand?’

Chemistry is a lot more fun than Economics. I scrub my hand as clean as I can at the big sinks at the back, then stir and mix and measure and note stuff down. It soothes me, proves how the world – a world I am learning has way too many shades of grey – can sometimes just be straightforward black and white. It is, in scientific parlance, the dogs.

I want to kiss you again
. There was a focus in Jem’s voice that makes me nervous. I need to avoid him from now on or he’ll try it again for sure. And then where will I be? Making all the old mistakes again, that’s where.

The class starts winding up. Kids are taking off their goggles, formulae are being scrawled on the whiteboard for us to copy down. I make a few final notes in the margin of my pad and stuff everything into my bag. My fingers close on my silent phone.

I switch it on cautiously. A message flashes up.

His phone was off. Will try later. Gaslight tonight?

I delete it before I do something stupid like answer.

‘He couldn’t get through,’ I say, the minute I see Tabby, looking wan by the chillers in the canteen at lunch. ‘He texted to say he’d try again.’

‘How do you know he’s telling the truth?’ Tabby wails.

I always mean what I say
.
I think of Jem exchanging greetings with the most untrustworthy guy in town and feel confused.

‘I don’t,’ I admit.

My phone beeps.

Please?

‘Can lunch be quick?’ I say, deleting the message and switching my phone off. ‘I need to go and see someone about my bank card.’

‘I’ve only got three quid on me so it’ll be as quick as one egg sandwich each,’ says Tab. ‘Do you want me to come to the bank . . .’

Her voice trails off, her eyes fixed on the canteen door. Sam has come in, talking and laughing with a doe-eyed girl whose blond hair almost reaches her bum. Several other guys are with him, trying to get in on the conversation.

‘Who’s
she
?’ I ask, so struck by her curvy figure, confident manner and gleaming poker-straight hair that I forget any kind of sensitivity.

‘Maria.’ Tabby’s tone of voice indicates
Maria
is perfectly interchangeable with
Witch Knickers
.

I look at the girl again. She
seriously
lucked out in the hair lottery. ‘Don’t lose faith. They’re only talking,’ I soothe. ‘I’ll do the bank thing on my own, it’s fine. See you after college, OK?’

‘Jem had better call Sam,’ Tab wails after me as I head for the street. ‘Or there’ll be murder in the corridor this afternoon!’

The personal manager that has been assigned to me is finally saying goodbye to an old lady who’s been yakking at him ever since I arrived at the bank fifteen minutes ago. It’s weird being in here on my own. I feel cowed, like I am in the head teacher’s office for setting fire to the staffroom. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that, of course, unless you count that time with the Bunsen burner and the corner of the supply’s lab coat.

I sit on the mauve chair in front of the manager’s desk and smile nervously. He looks back at me with all the emotion of an egg as I stumble through my situation.

‘Do you know your account number?’ he asks when I’ve finished.

‘I normally look on my card only I can’t do that now, can I? My name’s Delilah Jones though and I live at twenty-three Wyvern Court and my security question is Marie Curie – that’s the name of my fish, but you probably don’t need to know that?’ I know I’m waffling but I can’t seem to stop.

He looks impassively at me. ‘We have that information.’

‘Oh. Well, this is my branch and everything so you’ll have my details on your computer,’ I stumble on. ‘When can I get my card back?’

‘Assuming everything’s in order, it’ll be a different card,’ says the manager, tapping his keyboard in a bored fashion.

I think a little sadly about the nice picture I had on my old one. Then I frown.

‘
Assuming
everything’s OK? Are you maybe assuming that it isn’t?’

‘Can you tell me how much you have in your account?’ he asks, still tapping.

‘I had about four hundred pounds in there a couple of weeks ago. I earned it at the lido in the summer,’ I say, feeling the need to explain myself.

‘You have exactly four pounds and twenty-three pence in your account. According to the records, you have tried to access non-existent funds three times, hence the recall of your card today.’

I grip the chair. ‘That’s . . . that’s not right. Four pounds? As in . . . as in four hundred
pence
?’

‘Four hundred and twenty-three pence, yes.’

I reel. I’ve spent a fair bit recently, getting ready for college and so on – but I haven’t spent
all
of it. Have I? There was my winter parka, of course. And eating out in France. And my new phone, lost forever somewhere in the Mediterranean. And – well, a bunch of other stuff. My heart sinks. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How can I have messed this up so badly? Has the Euro exchange rate short-circuited my head?

‘Independence is more expensive than most students realize,’ he says a little more kindly. ‘It’s easy for our inexperienced customers to lose track of their finances. I’ll order a new card for you, but unless you put some more money in your account, you won’t be able to use it. Your age means we can’t give you an overdraft.’

‘Oh,’ I say, trying to control the wobble in my voice. Like ‘Oh’ covers even one
millionth
of the situation. ‘I’ll check it out and . . .’

I have to leave or I am going to burst into tears and no way is Egg Face seeing that. Flapping my hand in silent farewell, I back out of his office and make my way to the doors of the bank, where I take several deep, shocked breaths. I’ve spent four hundred pounds without noticing. I am totally skint in week one of my first year at college. This is bad.

For one brief unwitting moment, I think of asking Dad to loan me some money. A millisecond later, I realize what a pointless hope
that
is. He made it clear that I was on my own, cashwise, when I said I wanted to go to college in the first place. I squirm to think of what he’ll say if I tell him I’ve already managed to spend everything I saved. It looks like I’ll just have to stick it out, prove him wrong about being as capable of looking after myself as a hamster in a plastic ball on the M25.

I need another job. It’s the only way. Where do people find work in term time? They know people, they ask around. Who do I know? How can I find employment?

I try to calm myself down. I’ve seen something about job vacancies recently. Where? It flickers at the edge of my mind. A pinboard. A crusty brown carpet . . .

Oh rats.