Kiss Me First

by Lottie Moggach

  Once I decided to use Jonty, I wanted to get the photos done as soon as possible. But ironically, the one time I actually wanted him to be around, he wasn’t, and I had to wait for a day and a half before he returned to the flat. It was a Sunday afternoon, and he told me that a party to celebrate St George’s Day on the Friday had, I quote, ‘turned into a bit of a bender’. He and his friends seemed to view even the most obscure occasion as an excuse to get drunk. I waited until he had got back in his room and had put on his music before knocking on his door. It was the first time I had approached him since he had moved in, and he looked surprised when he answered.

  ‘Oh, hello!’

  I was in turn taken aback, because he was just wearing his underwear. His chest was thick with blond hairs. I averted my eyes and glanced around his room. I hadn’t seen it since he had moved in, and he had transformed what was a featureless box into what I can only describe as a disgusting dump. It wasn’t like the mess in Tess’s room, where you could tell that, despite the disarray, her possessions were of good quality; this was a standard, cheap mess. The walls were papered in photographs of him and his friends and pictures cut from magazines. There was a big poster of a cat wearing sunglasses, and one for a band called The Stone Roses. There was no cover on his duvet, and a couple of big holes in the wall where the plaster had been gouged out.

  Jonty saw me looking at the wall and explained that he had tried to put up a shelf but it had fallen down because the walls were so soft.

  ‘I’m going to sort it out,’ he said. ‘Sorry sorry sorry.’

  I told him I didn’t mind, which I didn’t, and then cleared my throat and said that due to the fact that it was a pleasant day, I had decided to go for a walk and wondered if he cared to join me. He looked even more surprised, and far more delighted than was warranted by the request.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the beach!’

  ‘What beach?’

  ‘The one on the Thames I told you about. It’s only five minutes away.’

  I couldn’t remember him talking about a beach, and thought he must be mistaken, but I nodded.

  ‘It’s quite sunny,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should bring some sunglasses.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Never go anywhere without them.’

  So far, so good.

  On his suggestion, we stopped at Londis to buy a ‘picnic’. I picked up a bag of crisps and a Ribena but he bought a whole basket of things, little tubs of olives and spreads, a baguette and some cans of beer. He greeted the man behind the counter as if he knew him. When we left the shop, he whispered, ‘Have you noticed that Manu puts white wine vinegar in the fridge, beside the Chardonnay?’

  Then he led me down a side street in the direction away from Tesco, which I hadn’t been down before. We passed a pub with a sign outside reading: Tonight: Live Singer Clive Stevens. Quite soon our surroundings became prettier, the road turning from tarmac into cobbles and the houses from new red brick into older, crooked white buildings. Jonty kept up a running commentary about the history of Rotherhithe, which he seemed to have researched.

  Within minutes we were at the river. I had no idea it was so near to the flat; as mentioned, my knowledge of Rotherhithe was limited to the tube, Tesco Extra and Albion Street. There was a path running alongside the river, and you could see Tower Bridge and the tall buildings of the city in the distance. It was quite nice.

  And Jonty was right – below the footpath was a beach, accessed by a rickety looking ladder. The beach was small and pebbly, and there was a fair amount of junk washed up, plastic bottles and the like, but it was a beach nonetheless.

  I had planned to take Jonty’s picture with the sky as background, but then I had a new thought: the beach could stand in for the one in Sointula. That was pebbly, too. If I took a close-up of him, cutting out the surroundings, then I would hardly need to use Photoshop at all.

  I was pleased by this unforeseen and fortuitous development, but kept my excitement to myself. First, we climbed down the ladder and sat on the stones to have our picnic. It occurred to me that this was my first meal alone with a man, and I had been slightly concerned about what we would talk about. But I needn’t have worried. Jonty cheerfully chatted away, about the history of the area, about pirates and whaling boats.

  ‘Imagine all the things that have gone on right here, on this beach,’ he said. ‘It’s mental.’

  I said that I didn’t really think about things like that, and I couldn’t see the appeal of history. He reacted to this with exaggerated surprise.

  ‘But aren’t you interested in how you fit in?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve never thought about it,’ I said, but was distracted just then by the memory of something that Tess had once told me: that she had attended a party at a flat overlooking the Thames, got drunk and climbed down into the mud of the riverbank, ruining her dress. I looked at the flats lining the water, the rows of empty little balconies, and wondered if it was one of them. I imagined her standing on the railings, her arms outstretched, like that scene in Titanic, ignoring the entreaties of her friends to come back inside.

  Jonty had started talking about his acting classes, telling me how they had done an exercise in which they had all gone to London Zoo, picked an animal to study and then had to spend an entire afternoon acting like that animal, in front of everyone. He had chosen to be a monkey.

  ‘I mean, it’s pretty obvious but what else would I be?’ he said. He then told a story about how there was this ‘amazingly fit’ girl in his class and word had got round she was going to be a gazelle. On the day of the performance, no less than four of the men in the group chose to be lions, and spent the afternoon prowling around after her.

  It was a fairly amusing story, and I filed it away to tell Connor that evening. I’d attribute the story to Leonora, who had once been an aspiring actress.

  ‘Are you any good at acting?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Not very. I seem unable to be anything but myself, which isn’t ideal. But I got a call back for an ad for an insurance company. They’re after, I quote, “a gormless bloke”. I can do that. So that’s exciting.’

  I pointed out that it was ironic that he had left the insurance industry for acting and now he might appear in an advert for it.

  ‘I never thought of it like that,’ he said. ‘But yeah, maybe I’m a hypocritical twat.’ He didn’t sound too upset by the prospect. ‘What about you? What do you do in your room all day?’

  I had prepared for this question, and told him that I was writing a film script.

  ‘Cor!’ he said, eyes wide. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘A love story,’ I said.

  He gave a big sigh and lay down on the pebbles. It must have hurt his back.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about love. I’m totally hopeless. I just get obsessed and then they think I’m a freak. I keep on falling for girls when they just want a bit of fun.’

  By then I had finished my crisps, but Jonty was still munching French bread – he had a habit of assembling each mouthful so it contained a bit of each topping he had brought, leaning on his elbows to construct a small tower of cheese and ham and spread. I tried to hide my impatience, but the moment he stopped chewing I took out my phone and asked him if I could take a picture.

  He readily agreed – ‘as long as you send it to me’ – and leant back in a relaxed pose. He had, however, taken his sunglasses off whilst we were eating, so I suggested he put them back on again.

  ‘Yeah, may as well try and hide the hangover.’

  As he put them on I casually moved aside the picnic, so the English packaging wasn’t visible, and took a picture from above so only the beach was in the background. Then he insisted on taking a photo of me, which I let him do so he didn’t think the whole thing was too odd.

  Afterwards, we walked back to the flat. Jonty seemed sincerely delighted with our little trip. ‘It’s good to hang out,’ he said. I let him hug me, trying not to show how much I d
isliked it.

  Back in my room, I prepared the picture – I was right, it only needed a tiny bit of Photoshop – and drafted emails to Justine, Shona and Simon. OK, so, I’ve met a bloke … Marion I would also tell but later, and in more formal language.

  Justine wrote back immediately. I don’t fucking believe it. Or, rather, I do, but it’s SO UNFAIR! I haven’t had a sniff for two years, and you pull before you’ve even unpacked your washbag.

  Simon, meanwhile, replied in his usual blunt manner.

  Fairly cute, but I need to see him without the glasses. Eyes = windows to the soul, and all that.

  I didn’t take much notice of this at the time. Simon was my least favourite of Tess’s friends. Whilst everyone else seemed happy to take what Tess said at face value, Simon seemed to see it as his role to challenge everything, as if he knew Tess better than she did. Obviously, I like people who think about things and take issue with stupidity but he didn’t do it in an intelligent way; rather, it was his default reaction to everything. He was also very shallow, only interested in socializing with the ‘cool’ people and judging others purely on what they were wearing. He did this even when they were supposed friends of his and Tess’s, like Joy, whom he disapproved of for still wearing bootcut jeans. Describing a night out to Tess, he said that the club wasn’t as glamorous as he hoped, full of suburbanites and size twelves. He had nine hundred and thirty Facebook friends and his updates were meaningless and annoying, links to songs that he demanded everyone listen to right that second, or just updates of where he was – Vauxhall. Home. Berlin – as if the world was hanging on details of his whereabouts.

  But his comment lodged in my head, because it chimed with something that had been bothering me somewhat about Connor: I didn’t really know what he looked like. In the only picture I had of him, the one in the park, he too was wearing sunglasses. I didn’t think I’d be able to spot him in a crowd. I had a sudden, intense desire to see his face.

  It then occurred to me that, actually, seeing Connor in the flesh would be a perfectly simple thing to arrange, and not in the least risky. I knew where he worked, at a solicitors’ called Asquith and Partners in Temple. I knew vaguely what he looked like. And, from our emails, I had a pretty good idea of his daily routine.

  My plan, then, was to go past his office at lunchtime, on a day I knew he was there and not in court, and wait for him to come out to get some lunch. I would then be able to get a good look at him. I rationalized it: after all, it could only aid my work for Tess to have a thorough knowledge of one of her correspondents. All the information I could gather on Connor was pertinent to my job.

  That evening in our emails I asked him what he was doing the next day, whether he was going to be in court. He replied that he was stuck in the office, working on a particularly dull case. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I had a double session with Natalie, the girl I was tutoring, because she was preparing for a scholarship exam for an art school in Vancouver.

  The next day I woke at noon, having slept through my 11 a.m. alarm, and didn’t have time to pick up my washing from the launderette, so put on the same tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt I had worn the previous day. My outfit didn’t really matter, I thought: after all, Connor was not going to know who I was; he might not even notice me. I left the tube at Temple and my Google map directed me off a main road down an old passageway, not much wider than myself, at the end of which I emerged into a space which, had I been the kind of person to gasp aloud, might well have made me do so. It had the appearance of a secret, magical city. The streets were cobbled and the buildings ancient: there was a beautiful church made from stone the colour of Werther’s Originals. There were almost no cars or signs of contemporary life – it wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Harry Potter film. It was quiet and peaceful, and everyone I saw seemed to be wearing a dark suit, as if there had been a sign advising a dress code which I missed on the way in. It was hard to believe that this place was actually in London, and I remember feeling a moment of regret that mum had never taken me to places like this, that we’d spent all of our time in the house.

  It took a while to find the offices of Asquith and Partners, which were housed in a wonky, narrow building. Beside the black door was a plaque with half a dozen names on it. Connor’s wasn’t on there, but I knew that he wasn’t yet a partner in the firm, so perhaps that was why. There was a little park opposite, and I sat down on a bench to wait.

  It was 12.50 p.m. when I arrived. I presumed that Connor would be coming out for lunch at some point between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., but of course I couldn’t be sure. I had with me a free newspaper which I had picked up on the tube, and so pretended to read that whilst I kept an eye on the door.

  Inconveniently, the park bench faced away from Connor’s office, so I had to keep twisting round. Although I had of course thoroughly examined his photograph, I was concerned I might miss him, because men in suits look quite similar. Besides, I didn’t know when that photograph he sent me was taken, and I reasoned he could have cut his hair or changed weight since then.

  But as it turned out I did recognize him, instantly. It was 1.17 p.m., and I was half-reading a newspaper article about a teenager who was stabbed to death, when the door opened and there he was.

  I wasn’t prepared for the effect of seeing Connor in the flesh. I felt almost dizzy, my heart pounding; when I stood up, my legs seemed boneless. I think it was the subterfuge of it, as much as anything; I remember something of the same feeling from watching Mike from behind the curtain on Leverton Street.

  He was with another, older man, both in suits. They appeared to be in the middle of a conversation and headed up the street together. Connor had his hands in his trouser pockets; the older man produced a cigarette and lit it as they walked.

  My legs still feeble, I started to follow them, picking up pace until I was about ten metres behind. I reminded myself that there was no way Connor could know who I was. Obviously, I could mostly just see the back of his head. His hair looked different from the photo; now it was wet-looking and slicked back. Occasionally he would turn to say something to the man beside him and I would catch a glimpse of his profile, but from that position it was impossible to get a good look at his eyes.

  I wondered whether the other man was his colleague Colin, whom he mentioned often in his emails. Colin was, Connor said, a ‘good bloke’ but had a tendency to be pedantic and dull, and Connor enjoyed winding him up. He had never mentioned that Colin smoked, however, and he didn’t seem to find this man boring. Indeed, Connor was laughing quite hard at something Colin said. From the glimpses I got when he turned his head, his eyes crinkled up when he smiled.

  It sounds odd, I know, but when I saw them laughing together I felt a pang of discontent that he was finding someone else amusing and engaging. He had told me that writing to me was the highlight of his day, and so I suppose I expected to see him looking more miserable than he was. But almost as soon as the thought entered my head, I reprimanded myself for being unreasonable. I should be happy that he was enjoying his working environment and the company of his colleague.

  The men walked along the street for a hundred metres or so before turning off into a smaller, cobbled road. They stopped at a cafe. It must have sold very good sandwiches, because the queue snaked out of the door. Connor and the other man joined the back of it. I hesitated, and during my inaction a woman got in behind them. I quickly moved to take the place behind her.

  It was actually a good thing that I wasn’t directly behind Connor. My heart was still pounding so loudly I felt like everyone in the queue could hear it. There was an odd, hollow feeling in my stomach, not quite the same as being hungry but close.

  Even with the woman between us I was near enough to make out some of the conversation between Connor and his colleague. They seemed to be talking about a footballer who had performed badly the previous evening: ‘What a joker,’ Connor said, ‘I can’t believe he missed that penalty.’ ‘Schoolboy error
,’ his friend agreed.

  At that proximity I could smell a lemony fragrance which seemed to come from Connor, and noticed that he had a patch of thinning hair, the size of a Wagon Wheel. The back of his neck was newly shaved, and I had a bizarre, fleeting urge to touch the skin there. I looked at his ears, which stuck out just like they did in the photograph, and thought of how, if I stepped forward, I could whisper things in them that would give him the shock of his life. Private things that he had told me in emails. He had confessed that when he was a teenager he had had a crush on the singer of a pop group, and even now the word ‘T’Pau’ made him shiver. I could have whispered that. I could have told him what he was thinking about in court the day before, during that hearing for the Polish shoplifter: about an article he had read in GQ magazine about an explorer in the Antarctic who had to eat emperor penguins to survive.

  Of course, I didn’t actually say any of those things. The queue inched forward into the shop, where heaps of sandwich fillings lay congealing under a glass counter. I wondered which Connor would choose, and decided on something fishy: he had told me he was jealous of all the fresh seafood available on Sointula. I couldn’t help a quick smile when his turn came and he asked for crab mayonnaise on a white baguette. That he would accompany the sandwich with cheese and onion crisps I knew almost as a certainty, as he had confided in me during some of the ‘ironically trivial’ banter we had exchanged that he was worried he was actually addicted to them, and felt ill if he didn’t have a packet a day.