Kiss Me First

by Lottie Moggach

  In reply, I wrote:

  What a silly cow.

  Connor’s reply:

  Has the leopard changed its spots? I thought you loved that stuff. You were always telling me that I was, if I remember rightly, ‘unspontaneous and stodgy’, because I was a Taurean.

  At that point, I could have got away with it. I could have fudged it and said what I meant by the remark was that the woman didn’t know what she was doing, and those signs were actually perfectly compatible, or something along those lines. But I didn’t.

  Well, I’ve seen the light, I wrote back.

  After a moment’s hesitation I pressed Send, feeling a surge of anxiety mixed with excitement. By knowingly making Tess do something that she would probably not have done in real life, I had broken the one big rule I had for my job. It felt rather like going back in a time machine and interfering with the past – except, of course, it was the present.

  When Connor’s reply came seven minutes later, however, my worries evaporated.

  Aw Heddy, he wrote – that was his nickname for Tess, I never found out where it came from – that makes me happy. Don’t get cross, but that was always something I had to bite my tongue over with you. I always thought it was a load of old bollocks. Welcome to the rational world!

  Seeing the word ‘rational’ gave me a thrill; it seemed further confirmation of the rightness of my decision. I wrote back, as Tess would,

  Oi, don’t push it!

  But it was as if I had broken a seal. From then on I began to put more of myself into the correspondence.

  I don’t want to overstate this. It wasn’t that I suddenly abandoned Tess and started responding as myself. I didn’t do anything that would alert suspicion. At that stage, there was just the occasional moment when, if it were fitting, I would respond to him more as myself than as Tess. It was only minor things and, like I say, it was mostly what I left out: her irrationality, her ‘mysticism’. I replied promptly to his emails, rather than leaving it for hours or days, like she did. I answered his questions. I didn’t go on and on about feelings and dreams.

  Sometimes, I had to improvise when Connor asked me a question I didn’t have the answer to. For instance, he was initially quite keen on reminiscing about the past when he and Tess were together. Do you remember that man with the kitten on Dean Street? And I would say Of course, even though it was quite likely that Tess wouldn’t have.

  Occasionally he’d ask trickier questions, such as Did you really mean what you said about those Hampton Court photos? And I would have no idea what he was talking about, and whether the original comment had been bad or good. In those instances I would deflect the question.

  He also had a tendency to tell stories or make observations about his children, and use these as a springboard to ask me questions about my childhood. For instance, he told a story about how his daughter Maya had asked him whether he had liked being five years old, and how he couldn’t remember anything about being that age, and then he’d ask me what my memories of being five were.

  Unless I definitely knew Tess’s answer to this, I would answer as myself, adapting details when necessary. For instance, I substituted Kentish Town High Street for Dulwich, where Tess had lived with her family from the ages of three to eleven. It was quite interesting to consider my past like that. I hadn’t done so before. I didn’t even talk about those things with mum. She and I talked a lot, but mostly about little things, arrangements or school or what was on the TV. We didn’t really discuss past events; because we had both been there, I suppose, and there was no need.

  The time difference helped me a lot here. By the time Tess woke up in Sointula it was 4.30 p.m. in London, and there would be at least three or four emails sent by Connor during the day. She would then respond to them promptly. But, of course, since I could see Connor’s emails as soon as he sent them I had time to do any research and formulate my replies before ‘Tess’ woke up and I pressed Send. I found myself sleeping less and less during the day, unable to resist checking Tess’s inbox.

  I was concerned at first that I would say something that contradicted what Connor knew about Tess. But it quickly became apparent that he had little knowledge of her background. Either they had never discussed it, or he had forgotten. For instance, he thought she had a sister rather than a brother, and had grown up in Greenwich, not Dulwich. After that, I felt I had licence to be freer, since a) it was clear that he did not know Tess that well, b) even if he had asked her the same questions eight years ago, it’s unlikely he would remember the answers and c) Tess was known to be mutable and change her story, and have a bad memory herself.

  And, after all, they had last seen each other nine years ago. Naturally, she would have changed over such a period. I think that essentially we’re not the same people as we were nine years ago: all our cells have been renewed, let alone our attitudes and experiences of the world. Locke’s Sock, it’s called. It’s a discussion I’ve had with people on Red Pill, and I actually brought it up with Connor one evening, when we were talking about what age children’s memories start forming. He seemed very interested in what I had to say on the matter, and responded in an intelligent, considered way.

  That was the thing, you see. Connor and I had much more in common than he and Tess ever did. We were like-minded. As a lawyer, he had to keep a level head, examine things in forensic detail, identify weaknesses, follow arguments to their logical conclusion. He couldn’t let himself be clouded by emotion. And once I became a little less Tess-like and a little more myself, I found that the tone of his emails changed. It was like he relaxed, and didn’t feel that he had to work so hard. As if he had taken off a tight suit and put on some tracksuit bottoms. His tone became more straightforward and intimate.

  Only occasionally did I remember the age difference between us. Connor made occasional references to TV programmes and songs from the Eighties – Bagpuss, for instance, or Spandau Ballet – which I would have to Google. But then, I had to Google the references of my own generation, so I was used to that.

  In contrast to the other emails Tess sent and received, which were mostly exchanges of information, ours hardly ever had practical, boring things in them. Instead, we wrote about thoughts and observations. Often, the emails would be just a few lines long, like we were having a conversation next to each other. They could be silly or profound. In one he described how that morning on the way to work he had seen a tramp cry on the street near London Bridge, and how awful that made him feel. Or he might send me a poem he had made up when bored in court that morning. There once was a Q.C. from Hull, Who had a tendency to mull … .

  Sometimes, when he knew I was online, he’d switch over to IM and fire a series of one-line questions at me, on seemingly random topics: Twix or Snickers? Is it OK to have no interest in contemporary dance? Because I had no time to process his messages and prepare my answers, those sessions were rather challenging, but the speed required was exhilarating too. I had never had that kind of exchange with anyone, and enjoyed using those new muscles.

  The thing I found most interesting about it all was there was no wrong answer. Connor seemed to find everything I said funny or wise, as if he was clicking ‘Like’ next to every response.

  I should point out that I wasn’t neglecting other aspects of Tess’s life as a result of such frequent contact with Connor. I answered the emails that came in, updated Facebook. I played pre-recorded messages to the answerphones of her mum every few weeks and her friend Susie on her birthday. I spent three hours researching contemporary sculpture in order to form an educated but sarcastic opinion about a new artist Isobel was considering investing in. I continued to spend a large chunk of time each day working out her plot lines and revising areas of her life I wasn’t so good on.

  After Connor, the correspondent I spent most time on was Tess’s friend Shona. Shona was an old school friend of Tess’s, married with a fifteen-month-old baby called Rufus. She had thin blonde hair and a sharp nose, and her profile picture sho
wed her gazing down at Rufus in the manner of an old religious painting. To look at her profile, you’d think she was loving being a mother, but her messages to Tess told a different story. She was, she wrote, in mourning for the old me. She said there was a conspiracy that being a mother was fulfilling, and that if she could go back to her single life, when she could walk out the door whenever she liked, she would do so at the drop of a hat. Tess taking off to Sointula had started to obsess her – you’re living my fantasy – and for the first few weeks she wrote almost daily, complaining about being stuck indoors with the baby and asking for details about what Tess was up to. It seemed to me like she was torturing herself, like someone starving asking for a vivid description of a meal. So, for Shona, I had to not only think of new and interesting things to tell her about Sointula but also console her over her anguish about being a mother, which, as you can appreciate, was not my forte. I discovered a website forum for parents and studied their responses. It’s always hell for the first few years, I wrote. Soon, he’ll be his own little person who you can talk to and then it’ll all seem worthwhile. I was diligently providing progress reports to Adrian, or ‘Ava’, through Facebook. After that initial hey there contact we had settled into a semi-regular exchange of messages. Well, it was regular on my side, not so much on his. Twice a week I would send him an outline of what Tess was up to, a list of what communication she had had with friends and family and any new plans I had made for her future. His responses were much more haphazard. Sometimes he wouldn’t reply at all to these reports, or I’d get one a few days later: Good work! You sound like you’ve got it all in hand. I knew you were the woman for the job. His messages often had a rushed feel: sometimes, his spelling and punctuation were sloppy. He was, I knew, a very busy man and I didn’t resent these irregular and sketchy replies, but I was pleased on the rare occasions when he had obviously had more time to consider his response. In those messages, he would pick up on things I had said and ask further questions, as if he was really interested. For example, if I had mentioned that Tess had gone horse riding at the weekend, he might ask what colour her horse was and whether they had gone over any jumps during the ride.

  And then sometimes, he wouldn’t seem bothered at all about Tess and instead ask me about how I was doing, how I was ‘bearing up’, with what felt like real interest and concern. Then, I would be reminded of our real-life meeting on the Heath: it was the electronic equivalent of those moments of eye contact when he fixed on my face in a way I’d never had before, even from mum. I’m fine, I would reply. More than fine. Happy. Yes, I’m enjoying the work very much.

  Anyway, as I was saying: all things considered, those first six weeks of Project Tess were not very taxing. It’s surprising how little people actually need from someone they don’t see. Even Shona’s messages started tailing off after a few weeks, and those who were initially keen to talk on Skype, like Simon, gave up after I made a few excuses. No one bothered to ask three times. I probably could have got away with just a few status updates each week.

  Even so, I admit I was concerned about the amount of time I was spending on Connor. I knew that the more extensively I corresponded with him, the less likely it was that I was doing what Tess would have been doing. After all, Tess had been the one to end their relationship, and she had thought the whole affair so unimportant that she hadn’t even mentioned it to me. Furthermore, apart from her first ever boyfriend, Michael ‘Bootsy’ Collingwood, she didn’t believe in remaining friends with ‘old flames’, as she called them. ‘Never go back’, was her view. So, it was quite likely that she would not have been receptive to Connor re-establishing contact. She may have exchanged a few polite messages, but it was doubtful she would have spent as much time emailing him as I did.

  It was for this reason that I didn’t mention Connor in my reports to Adrian; although he was officially a correspondent of Tess’s, it was as if he was more part of my life in London than hers in Sointula. And it was by that same token that I decided that it was time to give Tess her own boyfriend.

  You see, rather than sitting at home writing to Connor she would most likely have been out exploring the island and meeting new people. And it seemed to me to be quite possible that during that time she would have met a new man. Tess seemed to meet men everywhere; she was often approached in public by aspirant suitors. Once one came up to her as she was leaving a tube carriage and gave her the book he was reading, called The Alchemist, with his phone number written inside. And when she worked in the clothes shop and the art gallery, nearly every day a customer would ask her out: the attention seemed entirely routine and unremarkable to her.

  So, it had always been on the agenda for Tess to find a boyfriend, and I had pencilled it in for three months after she arrived on the island. In the circumstances, however, I decided to bring the event forward a month. I informed Adrian of the development in my next message. Good idea, about time too! he replied. And who is the lucky gentleman?

  I had already roughly sketched out the character of Wes Provost. Canadian, thirty-three years old – Tess liked younger men. His looks I modelled on a builder called Mike, who for one summer worked on the house next door to us in Leverton Street. He had thick, short forearms and oddly red lips, like a girl. After he found out my name, every time he saw me he used to sing, ‘You knock me off my feet’, which mum said was a line from a famous song called ‘Layla’. I pointed out to Mike that my name and the song title were not spelt the same way, but he kept on singing it.

  Mike’s van was always getting parking tickets and I’d hear him get upset when he discovered them. So, when he was up on the scaffolding, I’d watch from the window and, when the traffic warden put one under his windscreen wiper, I’d rush out and take the ticket and push it down the drain in the road before he saw it. I also took some photos of him on my phone, without him seeing, and I did this thing on my computer where I made the pictures into a montage and had the song playing in the background, like a pop video. It was just for me, I didn’t post it on YouTube or anything.

  At the end of the summer, when Mike was taking the scaffolding down, I told him what I’d done with the parking tickets: there had been five I’d disposed of for him. I suppose it was my way of telling him that I felt the same way about him that he felt about me. I was expecting him to be pleased, but his face went pale, and, just for a moment, scrunched up. Then he smiled weakly and said, ‘Thanks, very good of you.’ He didn’t sing the song the next time he saw me, and left the street without saying goodbye.

  Anyway, I only used Mike’s looks for Wes; the rest of his character I made up. I was getting better at being imaginative. Wes worked on the whale-watching boats with Roger, Leonora’s boyfriend. That’s how he and Tess met. He had lived on the mainland in a place called Edmonton before moving to Sointula with his girlfriend four years previously, wanting to be closer to nature. The relationship hadn’t worked out and she had left to go back to Edmonton, but Wes had liked the island and stayed put, going into business with Roger. In his spare time he liked listening to soundtracks from musicals and cooking, especially pies. He drank only white wine because red gave him migraines. On their first date, he and Tess went for a glass of ginger beer at the Waterside Cafe and since then had seen each other three times. At first Tess was worried he was ‘too’ good natured – everything I do or say is ‘great!’ – but liked him more and more the better she got to know him.

  There would need to be a photo. Tess’s friend Simon, in particular, would insist on seeing one. Pic needed was his standard response when, in the past, Tess had emailed him about a man. I looked in case I had kept any of those photos of Mike, but then remembered I had deleted them that day he left without saying goodbye. Anyway, they depicted him as a scaffolder in London, whereas Wes worked on boats in Canada, so they wouldn’t do.

  I realized I would have to use a photo of a different man. I thought I’d find a suitable one on Flickr and spent an evening compiling a shortlist of candidates, but I couldn
’t shake the worry that because it was in the public domain one of Tess’s friends might chance across the photo. The risk was small, it’s true, but there nonetheless. Much more preferable would be to take a photograph myself, because then I could be in control.

  It was then that I thought of Jonty. The chances that anyone Tess knew would bump into him in the street and recognize him were very slight (I checked his Facebook friends, but there was no connection with anyone Tess knew). He was fifteen years younger than them and had only just arrived in London. He moved in entirely different circles to Tess’s friends, many of whom were married or in long-term relationships with children and lived in affluent London suburbs. Most of Tess’s friends rarely went out, and when they did it was to the cinema or to Pilates classes, or to big group lunches in a pub at which, according to the emails sent afterwards, someone would always leave behind some item of baby clothing or not pay their share of the bill. When Jonty went out with people from his college, they went to kebab restaurants in Dalston or moved between sports bars in central London according to their happy hours.

  Besides, even if by any chance someone did run into him in London and thought he looked familiar, Occam’s Razor said that they wouldn’t think it was Wes; who, after all, was in Sointula. Even if they approached Jonty and asked if he was Wes, he would of course have no idea what they were talking about. So, the very worst that could happen was a message to Tess from one of them saying that they had seen someone who looked quite like her new boyfriend.

  With Jonty I’d be freer to pose the picture as I wanted it, to be Photoshopped onto a Sointula background later, and I would have the opportunity to use him again if need be. At twenty-six, he was slightly too young for Wes, but I decided that the photo I’d take would show him with sunglasses on, like Connor’s had, which would help to obscure his face. He was not as good looking as the men Tess usually went out with, but I figured that this was quite appropriate. After all, there would be a much smaller pool of men to choose from on Sointula, and him being ordinary looking was indicative of her new, less shallow approach to life, going for what was inside rather than appearance.