‘I’ve got to find another job,’ I say as I force the last bit of cheese sandwich down my neck.
‘Too difficult working with Shoulders this weekend?’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t survive on what I’m earning, even with tips.’
‘Jem looked awful on Saturday, didn’t he?’ Tabby says. ‘Have you found out how he got that face?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me on Saturday and I haven’t seen him since.’
‘Did you want to jump on him every time he asked you to take out the bins?’ she asks. ‘Even though we did that snog experiment, I think maybe you’ve still got the Kiss. You’re so . . . moony at the moment.’
‘I had the old pesky jumping urge under control,’ I say drily. ‘But it wouldn’t have been reciprocated even if I’d let it off the leash. I don’t think we’re . . . in the same space any more.’
‘Self-protection,’ says Tab, with the air of expertise that I’ve noticed she’s developed lately. ‘I’ve been reading Cosmo this week and it had this whole article about how guys self-protect. They act like your most basic arthropod, closing off all but the most essential levels of communication. In other words, they shut themselves up like snails. I’ve seen it with Sam. You’re seeing it with Jem. He likes you but he can’t risk it because you’ve already rejected him once.’
‘Twice,’ I correct. ‘If you count the first time we kissed.’
‘Self-protecting,’ Tabby confirms.
‘I’m running just to stop falling over,’ I sigh. ‘And now, if the show doesn’t go ahead, I’ll lose my job altogether because Val won’t need me any more. At least, not till panto season in November.’
‘If Honor does cancel,’ says Tab in her best grief-counsellor voice, ‘it’s not the end of the world. I’m sure your dad would help if you were really at a crisis point.’
I look wearily at her. With her regular weekly allowance from her entirely reasonable parents, she has absolutely no idea what my life is like.
‘Have you actually talked to your dad?’ Tab prompts, all optimism. ‘Really talked to him?’
‘About what? Dad hates the fact I’m at college. He gets fifteen quid a week housekeeping off me at the moment, and he makes it clear that’s way under the going rate.’
‘But you’re going to be a scientist! You’ll end up researching something really important, like . . . like rabbit fertility, or thermal underwear fibres, or . . .’
Not being a scientist, Tab swiftly runs out of career options.
Am I? I’m seriously starting to wonder. It’ll take five years of studying from this point – minimum. We’re still in the free part, and I’m already thinking about jacking it in. ‘Try telling him that,’ I say.
Oz plonks his tray between us. ‘Party tonight at this place by the station,’ he announces. ‘I need bar staff. You up for it, Delilah?’
If Oz was a bone, I would lunge like a bloodhound. ‘Oh my God – a hundred times yes,’ I say. I have homework, but it will have to wait. ‘What are they paying?’
‘Four seventy-five an hour.’
Slavery rates. ‘Why don’t I donate my blood while I’m at it?’ I complain.
‘If a donator donates, shouldn’t a blood donor done?’ Tab muses.
‘Four hours’ work, cash in hand,’ says Oz persuasively. ‘That’s nineteen quid all in, plus tips. It’s at Aphrodite’s Moon.’
Tabby spits out her Coke.
‘Where?’ I say.
‘The Greek place by the station.’ He looks from me to Tab. ‘I take it that you know it? They do—’
‘Great mezze, I know.’ Weird has nothing on this. ‘What time?’
‘Eight.’ Oz frowns at Tabby, who is gurning at me like a madwoman. ‘Am I missing something?’
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘I’ll take the job.’
Even on a Wednesday night, the student body needs amusing – and apparently has the cash to do it. The music is pumping, the queue snaking out the bar’s half-glass door is as long as last week’s party at the Fire Station. The name of the bar hangs mockingly over the door, complete with a half-naked Aphrodite dancing in a brightly painted moonlit glade.
Niko the bar owner is delighted to see me.
‘Flirt with the punters. Pile it on thick. Tell them about Aphrodite’s moon. You know about the moon? Very powerful. Sends people crazy with lust.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ I say, doing my best to ignore the way he’s waggling his eyebrows. ‘Where do I put the empties?’
‘Keep them coming, Delilah!’ Oz shouts, beckoning for beer over my head as the evening gets a nice tight grip on the swaying sociability of the crowd.
I serve and serve and serve, and wonder if I am the only person under eighteen in the whole of Surrey that doesn’t have money to burn. Val would kill for mid-week custom at the Gaslight like this.
Tab appears through the sweaty, heaving crush. She glances up at the bar name. ‘It’s a sign, you know,’ she confides.
I flip off a Coke lid against the bottle opener with one hand and siphon lemonade with the other. ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘A badly painted sign that makes me want to heave every time I see it. Five thousand years since the Greeks civilized the world, and all us girls get for it is an immortal half-naked nymph. Who’s the goddess of brains?’
‘There’s a goddess of wisdom,’ says Tab. ‘Athena.’
‘There you go. Why can’t we have a few bars called Athena’s Wisdom, covered in wall paintings of brainiacs hanging out solving the world’s problems?’
‘Athena doesn’t sell beers,’ says Niko as he swoops past.
‘I think it’s the other kind of sign.’ Tabby takes the lemonade and shovels ice into it. ‘That the Kiss hasn’t given up on us yet. That it’s still out there, fired up and dangerous. Oh boil a brick, Warren’s here.’
Warren waves across the dancefloor just as a cross-eyed, red-haired peacock emerges from the toilets and starts dancing with him. He looks as if he can’t believe his luck. Just behind the peacock, a figure in bright white trainers with winking diamonds in his nose is leaning against the wall, observing the crowd with shark’s eyes.
‘Who is that?’ Tab says, looking at the glittery peacock in awe.
‘Ella,’ I say, feeling the familiar clench in my gut when Studs is around. He makes me think of Jem instead of Dave these days, which at least makes some kind of change. ‘Bodypainter. Scary, kind of funny. And right now, higher than Mary Poppins’ kite. There’s no other explanation for that bump and grind thing she’s got going on with Warren. Niko!’
The bar owner looks alert.
‘I think there may be a problem in the toilets,’ I say. I nod at Studs.
‘Oi!’ Niko roars, striding across the room in a flash.
Ella bounds to the bar. ‘Hello Delilah,’ she grins. ‘You ever fancy girls?’
‘Delilah’s a lesbian,’ says Warren, looming up behind Ella.
‘First Jem, now this little bombshell,’ says Ella with interest. ‘You get more intriguing every time I see
you, Delilah.’
Delighted by the painted girl’s reaction, Warren thrusts out his chest and points at Tabby. ‘She’s a lesbian too. Delilah was kissing her on Leasford Hill last weekend.’
Ella presses beringed hands on either side of Tab’s blushing face. ‘Call me if you fancy a change, darling,’ she whispers, and kisses Tabby on the end of the nose.
I watch it dawn on Warren that Ella’s provocative dancing has meant precisely zip. ‘Is everyone around here a lesbian?’ he says in dismay.
‘Must be your aftershave, Warren,’ I say.
‘Not in my bar!’ Niko bellows. He has seized Studs round the back of the neck and is now dragging him towards the door, with Studs loudly protesting all the way.
‘Isn’t he the dealer guy from the start-of-term party?’ says Tabby as Niko throws Studs outside like a builder chucking an old toilet in a skip.
‘And my evening is complete,’ I say happily.
‘No drugs here,’ Niko shouts at the crowd, slamming the door and dusting his hands down his shirt. ‘Drink
and enjoy!’
Tab looks at my glass of water as we make our way to our customary table. ‘Not having anything today?’ she says in surprise.
‘Not hungry,’ I lie. ‘I’ll get something later.’
‘Good last night, wasn’t it?’ Tabby is in the mood for dissecting the previous night’s adventures in detail. ‘That Ella was terrifying, but there was something about her . . .’
‘You definitely caught the Kiss off me,’ I say.
Tab’s eyes snap back into focus. ‘Do you think this is what happens?’ she says, looking genuinely amazed. ‘You get the Kiss off someone of the same sex and it actually, you know – turns you?’
‘You’re living proof, babes.’
‘Wow.’ Tabby sinks back in her chair. ‘Wow,’ she says again.
‘Ella is weirdly gorgeous,’ I point out. ‘If girls in crazy make-up are your thing.’
‘But even if I do – did – kind of fancy Ella, I still want to get back together with Sam,’ Tabby says firmly. ‘I’d just like to make that clear.’
‘Crystal,’ I assure her.
My phone beeps.
Chérie, call me, F xxx
‘Fatima,’ I say, perking up. ‘How much is it to call France?’
‘Text’ll be cheaper,’ says Tab.
I have about a fiver’s worth of credit on my phone. Like everything else in my life, it needs rationing.
Babe, too broke to call.
Story of my life.
U still coming?
Like a chou-chou train ma chère tout
le temps. Tell the boys to get ready
for me. You like foie gras? Champagne?
I will bring. xxx
Prefer Carambar and pate.
I will bring. BISOUS xx
‘She’ll be here a week on Tuesday,’ I say with satisfaction, clicking my phone off.
‘Is she really as mad as you say?’ Tabby asks.
‘Madder,’ I say. ‘We’ll have a job keeping her entertained. You rehearsing tonight?’
‘Yes. Assuming Honor’s not decided to can us.’
I feel the customary wave of nausea at the prospect of unemployment. ‘You’d have heard by now, wouldn’t you?’ I ask anxiously.
‘I guess,’ Tabby agrees, blithely unaware of how my stomach is tying itself into knots. ‘Want to come?’
‘Studying,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘You should try memorizing chemical formulae some time.’ I eye the half-sandwich on her plate. ‘You having that?’
‘I thought you weren’t hungry.’
‘Shame to waste it.’
Dave is waiting on the college steps as I leave the building, pacing back and forth like a nervous stork in a leather driving coat.
‘Oh,’ I say, stopping dead.
He clears his throat. ‘Dee, I wanted to ask you something the other day, but I bottled it. Can we go for a ride?’
Tabby is long gone, off to sing songs of submission to the manly ideal of the nineteen-fifties. I long to be with her. Even the pain of an evening with Jem curled back into his shell is preferable to five minutes with Dave.
His car is parked by the river. In the daylight it looks more knackered than it did in the orange sodium streetlights. It has been raining, and the paintwork is speckled with tiny wet diamonds of light.
He sounds almost eager as I slide reluctantly into the passenger seat.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you,’ I say. ‘Just drive.’
I rest my head on the back of the seat and finish the remains of a tube of paprika Pringles stuffed into the car door as we head out of town towards Leasford Hill. What does Dave want with me? Why am I even in the car?
‘It’s like this,’ he says when we have parked and the North Downs are spread before us, hazy and darkening in the rain. ‘I need money.’
A lone runner in blue sprints past the car as I start laughing. Proper laughing. I hold the car door and laugh so much that I spray Pringle crumbs across the dashboard. Two dog walkers glance curiously through the windscreen.
‘It’s not funny,’ Dave moans. ‘I owe people. Nasty people who will castrate me if I don’t pay up.’
‘Trust me,’ I say as I catch my breath. ‘It’s hilarious.’
‘It’s why I broke up with Louise,’ he says pathetically. ‘She was vulnerable, going out with me. I’m in a mess, but at least I’m by myself.’
‘By yourself plus me, apparently,’ I point out.
The irony is lost on him. ‘You’re the only one that can help me,’ he says.
I shake my head, feeling so old and wise you could coat me in feathers and call me an owl. ‘Believe me, Dave, I can’t help anyone. I’ve got nothing for you.’
He pats the air like some kind of large, unruly dog. ‘Just let me talk, OK? I’ll talk and then you can talk.’
‘I won’t have anything to say.’ I fold up the Pringles tube and stuff it back in the door. ‘But I won’t stop you talking.’
Dave grips the wheel of the car like he’s driving at a hundred miles an hour, not parked perilously close to a wasp-infested rubbish bin. ‘I owe these people five hundred quid,’ he blurts.
If the door hadn’t been shut, I’d have fallen out of the car. ‘Five . . .? Are you insane?’ I gasp. ‘What makes you think I have that kind of money?’
‘I’m not asking you for money,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m asking you for help. They’ll pay you.’
I frown, trying to keep up. ‘Who’ll pay me?’
‘These guys.’
‘The testicle-removers?’
He nods.
I rub the bridge of my nose, wondering how I’ve slid sideways into a gangster movie. ‘What have you done?’ I ask.
He groans and rests his head on the steering wheel. ‘Too much stuff that I haven’t paid for.’
He’s an idiot. ‘You’re an idiot,’ I tell him. How did I never notice this when we were together?
‘I know. But there’s a way out.’
He reaches under his seat and pulls out a large grey plastic brick. I stare at it. My evening is getting weirder by the minute.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I say.
‘Depends whether you think it’s an elephant,’ he answers, with a sad attempt at humour.
I take it. Stare at the buttons, the receipt paper, the little slot at the bottom for credit cards. It strikes me too late that I’ve just splashed my fingerprints all over it. My ex-boyfriend is officially insane.
‘You’re not seriously thinking of using this? It’s like robbing a bank!’
‘Robbing a bank with no security guards, no cameras, no beady-eyed witnesses. It’s a whole different game. And this baby routes straight into the bank account of your choice.’
He is looking at the fake swipe machine like a man looks at his first-born child. It’s scaring me.
‘You’ll go to jail if you use this,’ I say as clearly as I can. I’m still holding it like it’s glued to my hands. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘From a friend.’
Dave’s taste in friends is shocking. But I know this already.
‘Wait,’ I say cautiously. ‘You’re showing me this because . . .?’
At least he has the grace to blush.
‘Oh my God,’ I say, realization dawning.
‘It’s just a simple switch,’ he ple
ads. ‘Do it at the Gaslight on a busy evening. A hundred quid for ten seconds’ work, that’s all it is. Make the switch for me, Dee. Please?’
A hundred quid isn’t that much when you think about it. Two fifty-pound notes. I imagine the gangster suitcase, empty but for two sad and flapping bits of paper.
I thrust the horrible machine back at him, yank open the car door and start running back down Leasford Hill to reality, trying to ignore the wet from the rainy ground as it seeps through the holes in my shoes. I want nothing to do with what Dave is suggesting. Nothing at all.
I make it home an hour later, my hair frizzed up by the damp air, my legs freezing. My shoes are wet and my toes feel squelchy. Thoughts and feelings in my head are pushing and shoving for my attention.
I need the money. I would never do it to Val. I would be caught. I could do it in between Maria’s endless Fantas and Eunice’s peanuts. Jem hates me already, what’s one teensy crime going to do to change that? I’m not a bad person. One hundred quid is more appealing when you picture it in clinking gold nuggets.
I’m not thinking about it, I think desperately. I’m just . . . thinking ABOUT it. There is a difference.
As I put my house keys on the hall table, I see a plastic bag leaning against the table legs. My stomach feels like it’s full of ants as I peer inside, already knowing what it contains.
Half now / half later Dave has written, on a torn-off bit of the Pringles tube I finished. The whole bag smells of paprika crisps.
‘Lad in a car stopped by twenty minutes ago with that,’ Dad says as I creep past the living-room door, clutching the bag to my chest.
I pause in horror, one foot on the stairs. ‘Did you look inside?’
He looks at me oddly. ‘I couldn’t give a stuff about textbooks. Put the kettle on if you’re passing.’
I make him a cup of tea and retreat to my room, where I shove the bag under my bed. I feed Marie Curie. She boggles at me in her usual silent, orange way.
‘Work,’ I say loudly, pulling out my folder and slamming it on my desk, like the noise alone will hammer the facts I need into my head and push away the creeping thoughts.
My phone goes off.
‘I need to ask you if I should wear my green jumper or my blue one for rehearsal tonight.’
The Kiss Page 14
