A Kiss in the Dark

by Cat Clarke

  It was a USB flash drive keyring in the shape of Yoda; Kate knew I was a massive Star Wars fan. It was pretty cool. Kate was watching me closely so I smiled as genuinely as I could and told her I loved it. She started laughing so I figured I’d well and truly failed the reaction test. ‘What’s so funny?!’

  ‘Your face! You do know it’s not just a flash drive, right? There’s something on the flash drive, you numpty.’

  I could feel myself blushing. ‘Oh. Yeah, I knew that. Of course. Um … what is it?’

  ‘Yeah right, sure you did.’ She rummaged in her bag to take out her phone. ‘I have a copy on here. I thought we could listen to it together. It’s not very good or anything. I just thought you might like it. And you said you wanted to …’ Now Kate was the one blushing. She was right – we really were as bad as each other.

  We each took an earbud and Kate fiddled with her phone. Before she hit ‘play’ she said, ‘I really hope you like it but it’s totally OK if you don’t. You don’t need to pretend or anything. We can just forget this ever happened and you can open your other present, because I’m almost sure you’ll like that one–’ I grabbed the phone from her and pressed ‘play’ myself. Otherwise we’d have been there all night. Or at least until old Scrooge behind the counter chucked us out.

  I recognized the song straightaway, even though the version I knew kicked off with thumping drums. It was a piano arrangement of the last song Saving Serenity had played at the gig the night we met. The song we both loved, which had become ‘our’ song, after much debate over milkshakes one day.

  I closed my eyes and listened right to the end. Then I hit play and listened again, even though I could see Kate looking at me anxiously out of the corner of my eye. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

  When I finally took out the earbud, I realized I was scarily close to blubbing. I had to clear my throat to get rid of the lump there. Kate was looking at me shyly. I forgot all about being worried about my reaction. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Was it OK?’

  I took her hand in mine. ‘It was perfect.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, I know you wanted to hear me play but I was way too shy to do it in person and I was going to do one of my exam pieces but then I thought that was a bit boring. And then I had a brainwave and I had this idea of how to arrange the song and it took me ages to get it right and … I should really shut up now because I’m probably high on chocolate or something. Anyway … why don’t you go ahead and open your other present?’

  I shifted in my seat so I was facing her. I grabbed her other hand so she’d stop fidgeting. ‘Thank you. That was … well, it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I can’t believe you did all that work just for me.’

  ‘It wasn’t work – it was fun!’ She kissed my cheek. ‘And you do know I’d do anything for you, don’t you?’

  I did know that. She didn’t have to tell me. And I would have done anything for her. Anything except the one thing I should have done.

  *

  I burst out laughing when I opened my other present. It was a knitted black and white beanie hat. If you looked closely you could see the pattern was a skull and crossbones.

  Kate thought I hated it, but I just handed her a parcel from my bag. She kept saying, ‘What?! What’s so funny?!’ I told her to go ahead and open her present. She rolled her eyes but did as I asked. She unwrapped it slowly, careful not to tear the wrapping paper. She peeked inside the package and a smile crept across her face. ‘No way!’

  I put my new hat on and Kate did the same. Kate snorted with laughter. It was the same hat. I’d found it in a little shop on Victoria Street; it had made me smile and I thought it would make her smile too.

  Once we’d stopped looking at each other and laughing, Kate said, ‘What were the chances of that?! You know that’s the only shop in Edinburgh that sells those hats? The woman there knits them herself.’

  ‘That’s what she says. I reckon she probably buys them for 50p each from some sweatshop in China.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Now you mention it, I did think she looked a bit shifty.’ Kate took off her hat and shook her head, smiling. ‘I can’t get over this. You do know what it means, don’t you?’

  I grabbed her hand and kissed it. ‘That we’re destined to be together forever and ever?’

  ‘That we’ll have to text before we meet up to make sure we’re not both wearing the hat.’

  I feigned shock. ‘What?! You mean you don’t want us to be one of those couples who wear the same clothes? Damn, I was thinking matching Berghaus fleeces might be a good idea too. So … you don’t think we’re destined to be together forever and ever then? Way to ruin my Christmas.’ My pretend pout was nowhere near as good as Kate’s – I hadn’t had nearly enough practice.

  Kate put her finger to my bottom lip and pushed it. ‘You can put that away right now. We’re obviously destined to be together forever. I just didn’t want to freak you out. Astrid says you lot can be weird about that kind of thing.’

  It took me a split second to realize that ‘you lot’ meant boys. Or men. I tried not to let the mention of Astrid spoil the moment. Together forever. I liked the sound of that. One part of my brain even believed it could happen, and that part of my brain was amazingly effective at shutting out the other part of my brain that saw those words for what they really were: impossible.

  The man behind the counter was glaring at us so Kate had to hurry to open her other present. She even tore the wrapping paper a little. She wrapped her arms around my neck as soon as she realized what it was. ‘My very own tiny unicorn horn!’ It wasn’t an actual tiny unicorn horn, because Diagon Alley was a bit of a trek from Edinburgh. It was a shell we’d found on the beach one day. It even had a tiny hole in it so I’d been able to string a thin piece of leather through it to make a necklace.

  I hadn’t wanted to get Kate some poxy expensive watch like Justin was apparently buying for Astrid, which was just as well because I was pretty skint. I’d wanted to get her something meaningful. From the tears shining in her eyes it looked like I’d succeeded. She turned away and swept her hair from her neck. I put the necklace on her and adjusted the length.

  When she turned back round she kissed me hard. ‘I can’t believe you kept this!’

  I looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Well, duh. You don’t just go round chucking tiny unicorn horns in the bin, you know. They’re a pain in the arse to recycle, apparently … Do you really like it?’ I suddenly felt shy, wondering if maybe a poxy expensive watch was exactly what she wanted – instead of some random beach detritus.

  ‘I love it! You really do know me, you know? This is already the best Christmas of my entire life and it’s not even Christmas Day yet.’ She sighed and leaned back into the sofa. ‘I’m going to miss you tomorrow.’

  I leaned back too, ignoring the man who was now sighing loudly while he rolled down the blinds. ‘I’ll miss you too.’ I’d always loved our crazy family Christmases, but the thought of spending the day without Kate was almost overwhelming.

  ‘Will you Skype me?’

  I’d been avoiding any type of video call with Kate, even though she’d been mentioning it for ages. I’d have to make sure my room was free of anything remotely girly (which wouldn’t take long). Or maybe I’d call from Jamie’s room when everyone was busy arguing over charades or Trivial Pursuit. Hopefully I’d be able to get away with not bandaging up my boobs or stuffing anything down my pants. That might be a bit hard to explain if Grandma Doyle wandered into my room, as she had a tendency to do these days. I’d have to be careful, but it would be worth it just to see Kate’s face. I kissed her nose. ‘Of course.’

  After a lot of non-subtle sighing and glaring at us, Scrooge finally asked us to leave. Kate apologized and complimented him on the pain au chocolat. She asked if he baked them himself (he did) and said she’d never had better – not even in Paris. You could tell he didn’t want to smile but he couldn’t hel
p himself. Kate tended to have that effect on people. He ended up wishing us a very happy Christmas and saying he was sorry he couldn’t stay open longer but his son was waiting for him at home. So of course Kate asked him how old his son was, and whether he’d written a letter to Santa Claus. I had to drag her away in the end, and when we left the guy he was whistling a Christmas carol and one step away from jumping up and clicking his heels together. Scrooge had been well and truly reformed by Kate the Christmas Elf – who, incidentally, had never been to Paris.

  We spent even longer than usual kissing each other goodbye. Neither of us could quite bear to tear ourselves away. I think I would have happily stayed in that moment forever. Especially if I’d have known we only had a week left. Exactly seven days.

  I forgot to give her the chocolate snowman.

  chapter twenty

  Christmas Day was even more chaotic than usual – one of my Glasgow cousins had brought her six-month old twins because apparently they were too young to be left home alone. Everyone was obsessed with the babies, passing them round and bouncing them on knees. Everyone (even Jamie, whose man flu had somehow miraculously disappeared) put on these ridiculous baby voices when talking to them, which didn’t make any sense to me. The babies obviously couldn’t understand a word they were saying, so why not just talk like a normal person and not look like a complete idiot?

  Of course one of the babies landed in my lap eventually. And of course it started crying straightaway and everyone laughed. It looked like an angry alien, face all red and scrunchy. I wasn’t about to waste my breath trying to reason with it so I held it close to me and rubbed its back. The baby stopped crying and started gurgling.

  ‘Look at that! She’s a natural!’ Grandma Doyle sounded delighted – and surprised. I looked up and everyone was watching me with goofy smiles on their faces.

  ‘There’s nothing more magical than a baby at Christmas … and we’ve got two!’ Oh man, Grandma’s about to go off on one. ‘That’s where it all started, isn’t it? With a baby! It looks like Alfie’s taken a liking to you, Alexandra.’ That at least confirmed that it was Alfie I was holding and not … the other one. ‘You’ll have one of your own before you know it, dear.’

  Not. Bloody. Likely. I couldn’t even handle the responsibility of a snowpig. I smiled politely and didn’t say anything. Jamie did though – the bastard. ‘Oh yes, Alex wants to have lots of babies.’ He stuck his tongue out at me when no one was looking.

  ‘Really? Why, that’s marvellous. Let me tell you something, Alexandra dear … there’s nothing in this life as rewarding as being a mother. Of course these days women want a career too, don’t they? Well that’s all well and good, but they should really focus on what’s important in life, and that’s family. So don’t you go leaving it too late, love. You find a nice boy and settle down before that biological clock stops ticking for good.’

  ‘Grandma! I’m sixteen!’ Something about being around my entire family never failed to bring out the whining brat lurking inside me.

  Mum came to my rescue, bringing Grandma a glass of sherry even though it wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet. ‘Don’t you go putting ideas in her head, Mother. There’s plenty of time for all that. Alex is going to do great things with her life, I just know it. And if that includes children, that will be lovely. And if it doesn’t … well, that’s fine too. There’s more to life than having kids. No offence, Natalie.’ Natalie smiled and went back to staring into space. ‘Actually, would you mind giving your dad a hand in the kitchen, Alex? Your expert potato-peeling skills would be much appreciated, I’m sure.’

  I jumped at the chance to escape the spotlight. I handed Alfie over to Jamie and gave him (Jamie, not Alfie) a subtle kick in the process. I followed Mum into the kitchen to find that Dad had already peeled every single potato. He was sitting sipping a cup of coffee, flipping through the pages of the book I got him. He looked up and nodded. ‘Good book, this.’

  I nodded back, which was all the response Dad required. Then I turned to Mum. ‘I thought you wanted me to …’

  Mum shrugged as she slung a tea towel over her shoulder. ‘I thought you might appreciate a break from the delights of family time.’

  Mum could be pretty great when she put her mind to it. I hugged her. ‘What was that for?!’ She sounded surprised.

  ‘Rescuing me. Thank you. Now is there anything I can do? Apart from keeping Grandma’s sherry glass topped up?’

  Mum smiled at me. ‘I think I’ve got that covered. We’re all set in here, I think. If you want to hide in your room for a bit I won’t tell anyone … I thought there might be someone you might … oh never mind.’ She shook her head. ‘Right, off you go before I change my mind.’

  She didn’t need to tell me twice – I scarpered. Strangely enough I didn’t freak out about what she’d said – or been about to say. I had no idea how, but somehow she knew I was seeing someone. A couple of months earlier this would have felt like the biggest disaster in the world. And maybe it should have still felt like that, but for some reason it didn’t. Weirdly enough I found myself feeling sort of glad that she knew.

  Mum clearly didn’t want to intrude. For one thing, she hadn’t even asked me about it. And that was a big deal for her – she loved to gossip. She was always telling me about the tangled love lives of various friends and family members (Natalie had been a focus of this up till last year when she’d married her boring husband who always sat ramrod straight, as if he had a ventriloquist’s hand up his arse.) So for Mum not to have said anything at all to me … well, that was kind of miraculous in itself.

  I wondered if she knew it was a girl and that was why she hadn’t said anything. I hadn’t exactly reacted well to the whole I-think-you-might-be-gay chat. And she had said she’d be totally fine with me being gay and maybe she really meant it. Maybe I could tell her all about Kate and she’d be really happy for me and she’d want to hear all about her. And then she’d invite Kate round for dinner and we’d all sit around the table talking and laughing and Kate and I would hold hands under the table. I could picture it all so clearly.

  But Mum would be horrified if she knew what I was doing, even if she was OK about me going out with a girl. She had very clear ideas about right and wrong, and there would be no doubt in her mind that this was as wrong as you can get. So I’d just have to hope she’d keep respecting my privacy and that her nosiness wouldn’t get the better of her. And I’d have to shelve that ridiculous dream of me being with Kate and not having to hide.

  *

  I grabbed my laptop off my bed, made sure the coast was clear and ducked into Jamie’s room. Kate answered the Skype call straightaway – she was on her phone. I heard her say to her mum that she’d sort out the Brussels sprouts in a minute. She flopped down on her bed and then her face appeared on my screen. She was wearing earrings in the shape of Christmas puddings. We wished each other a happy Christmas and just looked at each other for a while. It was enough just being with her, even though I wasn’t really with her.

  She showed me her Christmas presents, which she’d opened at seven in the morning, dragging her mum out of bed because she was too excited to wait any longer. She put on her skull and crossbones beanie, which made the earrings look extra ridiculous. ‘Put yours on too!’

  ‘I can’t … it’s in my …’ Room. It was in my room. Except this was supposed to be my room. ‘It’s in Jamie’s room. He nicked it last night. Can’t blame him really – it is the finest hat in the entire universe.’ Kate asked about my presents and I said we hadn’t opened them yet. I’d actually opened almost all of them.

  Telling these lies – these tiny white lies – was harder than I’d have thought. They’re the kind of lies people tell each other all the time. Lies that are meaningless – harmless, even. But I had to force the words out of my mouth. I hated telling these lies. They were harder to stomach than the lie our whole relationship was based on. Like the shaky foundations of a house in an earthquake zone, it was only
a matter of time before the whole structure came crashing down on top of us.

  Looking at Kate – with the beanie pulled down almost to her eyebrows and her Christmas pudding earrings bobbing about as she leaned over to put some music on so her mum wouldn’t overhear us – I knew she trusted me implicitly. It would never occur to her that this wasn’t my bedroom. It must be, because I said it was. It would never occur to her that half an hour earlier I’d opened my Christmas present from Grandma Doyle to find a pink basket of heart-shaped soaps and sickly-sweet smelling things from Lush and a sparkly fake-diamond necklace from Next. No matter how many times Mum told Grandma to get me vouchers or a book token or something, every year she insisted on getting me something pink and impossibly girly. Last year it had been a fluffy pink scarf and gloves set. Jamie made a big fuss about how fabulous they were and made me put them on in front of the whole family. Dad laughed so hard he nearly choked on a brazil nut. Mum came into my room on Boxing Day and picked it out from my pile of presents. ‘For the charity shop?’ It was our little twice-yearly ritual.

  Kate turned up the volume of her music and looked over her shoulder. ‘So … I’ve been thinking …’ I already didn’t like the sound of that. She had a glint in her eye and as far as I was concerned that glint could only mean one thing. ‘You know how we’ve been wanting to be … alone together? Well, I’ve had the best idea.’ I most definitely didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘And what might that be?’ My mind was racing, trying to come up with excuses before I even knew what she was going to suggest.

  ‘Astrid’s family are going skiing in a couple of days … and she’s going to give me her house keys so we can stay there on Hogmanay.’ Kate and I had talked about spending New Year’s Eve together, but I was thinking we could meet up at Arthur’s Seat, maybe bring a blanket and watch the fireworks exploding all over the city. I hadn’t quite worked out the details, like how to tell my parents I wouldn’t be spending the evening with them like I had done every year since I was born, but I was pretty sure that I’d find a way. ‘So … what do you think?’