Kiss Me First (25 page)

This is what I drafted when I got home that day:

Dear mum

I’m still feeling a bit shaky after that phone call on Tuesday. Sorry I hung up, I was just really shocked to hear dad in that state. I had thought that episode in France last summer with the cheese was pretty bad, but had no idea it could get so much worse. It’s hard being so far away and not being able to do anything or help you out.

I really admire the way you’re dealing with this. I know I’ve never said that before, and I’m ashamed I haven’t. It took coming here to really see things clearly and I regret the years we spent in conflict. It was almost always my fault – that incident at Harrod’s aside! – and I think I knew that at the time, which is why I was so defensive and angry with you. Anyway, I just want to say that I think you’ve been an amazing mother to me and I admire you greatly as a person, too. I can only hope I’ll be as strong as you when I’m your age – and as beautiful, too.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it but I’m seeing this great therapist here, Trish. She’s really helping me get to the bottom of myself – a fascinating process, if sometimes scary. Yesterday I was telling her all about dad and you and the phone call, and how bad I felt about everything, and she suggested I write it all down – this is it! – and then have a period of time by myself, to reflect and embark upon the healing process. So I hope you don’t mind if we don’t speak for a while. I know I’ll be a better person at the end of it – someone fit to be your daughter.

Tess x

I had barely pressed ‘send’ when a whole new tricky situation presented itself: this time, with Connor.

In an email, comprised of amusing but inconsequential details about his day, he asked with a deceptively casual
p.s.
what my plans were for the following weekend.

None so far
, I replied.
Combination of walking on the beach, trying to finish
A Suitable Boy
and drinking gallons of rooibos tea with Leonora, I expect.

Him:
How about a combination of walking around an exciting new city, four hour lunches and drinking espresso martinis with me?

Me:
What u on about, sport?

Him:
I’m being sent to the Toronto office for a few days. Fortuitous, or what?

At first, I thought I had a failsafe get-out.

Aw, lovely thought, but I am S.K.I.N.T. You do realize that Toronto is about two thousand miles from Vancouver, right? Don’t think I’ll be able to fit in the however many hours of art lessons necessary to earn the plane fare before next Friday.

His reply:

I’ll pay.

I thought quickly.

Fuck, you know what? Just remembered I promised to visit Sheila. This old lady I met on the ferry over. She’s disabled and I said I’d go over and spend Sunday with her.

Him:
Rearrange?

Me:
She’s disabled, dude! Stuck at home, no visitors, such a sad, sweet lady.

Him:
Well, if she’s disabled she’ll still be there the next weekend, won’t she? She’ll understand. Come and run around Toronto with me. A few days of classy debauchery.

Me:
I’ve given up drinking.

Him:
Well, we’ll have Lucozade then. Wheatgrass milkshakes. Whatever! Come on, Heddy, we can’t pass this up. This is our opportunity. It’s usually Richard who gets to go but he’s on paternity leave. It’s not going to happen again. It’s fate, don’t you see?

In my reply I decided on a variation on the approach I took with Marion, just a few hours earlier.

OK, straight up. I can’t see you. Please understand. I told you a bit about what’s been going on with me, and why I had to leave London. I feel like I’m getting better, but I’m still not there yet. Yes, I associate seeing you with happy times but it was also a tricky period in my life. I was doing too much gak, being lairy, going mental . . . all these things that I have to avoid now for my life’s sake. I think that if I see you they’ll all come flooding back, and then that’ll be me gone, all the good work undone. I’ll be jumping on the ferry to Vancouver every evening to try and score, hanging around horrible skanky little bars, getting into trouble. I’d love to see you, but please, believe me when I say it’s not a good idea. We can see each other when – if – I come back to London for a visit. Deal?

Connor’s reply came a nerve-wracking thirty-five minutes later.

OK, deal. But if you don’t come back soon I’m going to come over there and find you.

Thx, I replied. We can still write, tho?

Of course
, he replied.
This is what gets me through the day.

Again, my initial reaction to this incident was a sense of satisfaction at my deft handling of a potentially tricky situation, and pride at my fluent use of Tess’s tone and vocabulary. However, it also sowed the seed of an idea, which over the next few hours rapidly grew until it blocked out all other thoughts.

I
could
see Connor again. Not just look at him, like in the sandwich shop, but actually meet and talk to him. And perhaps he and I could start a relationship. A real one.

You see, I felt that things between us had developed to the point where Tess was surplus to requirements, and could be cut out of the equation altogether. The fact that it was ostensibly ‘Tess’ who Connor was professing his love for – not me, Leila – was not difficult to rationalize. By this point in proceedings – that last exchange excepted – the content of my emails to Connor was largely mine; that is, my own thoughts and feelings, rather than those of ‘Tess’.

And remember the facts. Connor had not seen Tess for nine years, since a time when she, and he, were very different people (
I don’t blame you for dumping me,
he wrote one evening,
I was a tosser. The insecurities of youth, and all that
). When Connor got in touch with her that first time, he wasn’t in love with her; he was, he had said, just catching up with an old friend. It was only through the email exchanges,
my words
, that he fell for her again. It was me who had created that love.
Me.

There was, however, the physical issue. From their old emails, it was clear that Connor had found Tess very attractive. There were many comments along those lines.
Hot stuff. Sexy beast. Woman of my dreams.
And it’s true that she did possess attributes that are apparently considered desirable in women: large eyes, a small chin, and a heart-shaped face.

Yet her features were definitely flawed. As I have mentioned, her eyes were too wide apart and one was slightly smaller than the other. Although mine were not as large as hers, they were more symmetrical. Furthermore, her eyes were dark and mine blue, which men prefer because it reminds them of babies. She also had short hair, whereas men prefer long. And she was thin with no discernible curves, which are a marker of fertility and thus desired by the opposite sex.

My biggest advantage over Tess, however, was age. I was fifteen years younger than her. In their emails, Tess and her friends often talked about how men like younger women. They made it sound as if that was the deciding factor, the one that negated all others.
Bet she’s younger,
they’d say, talking about an acquaintance’s new girlfriend.
25 year old bitches. I feel ancient.
I had what they seemed to covet more than anything: youth. Moreover, I decided that I looked even younger than twenty-three. I have no lines on my face, except for a very faint crease between my eyebrows from frowning at my computer.

So, in conclusion, I thought there was a strong possibility that, on appearance alone, Connor would find me as attractive as Tess, if not more.

There was one major obstacle, however. If Connor was in love with Tess, that would preclude an active interest in other women. Were we to meet, it was likely that out of loyalty to her he would not engage in the length of conversation necessary to establish our similarities and ‘connection’. He had mentioned several times in his emails that he had left social events early because he had found other people lacking,
because they’re not you.

The obvious thing to do, I concluded, was for Tess to end their relationship prior to my meeting Connor in real life. That way, he would feel free to converse with a ‘new’ woman. The following day, Tess sent Connor an email.

Sweetheart. I’ve been thinking. This is madness. I’m here, you’re there. I think about you all the time, and it’s not healthy, dude. Let’s release each other! There must be a million women in London who would adore to be with you, I’m depriving them of you. Thirtysomething single men are like unicorns. Agreed?

And then, in a moment of inspiration, I added:

In fact, I can think of one girl I should set you up with. You’re really similar, I think you’d get on like the proverbial house on fire.

His reply came quickly.

What the fuck are you talking about, Heddy? Don’t be ridiculous. There may be a million women out there, but they ain’t you. I’m not interested in anyone else. Don’t insult me.

As you can imagine, my reaction to this was mixed. Part of me was pleased at the strength of his feelings; another was dismayed. I decided to try again, this time with a firmer approach.

K, I’ll be straight with you. You know before, when you asked me whether there was anybody else, and I said no? Not strictly true. There is this guy. It’s early days, but I do like him. He is not as great as you, but he’s calm and kind and I think he might be good for me. He also has the advantage of not living four thousand miles away. What do you think?

Again, his reply came a moment later.

What do I think? I think that I want to cry, and I think that I want to jump on a plane and come over there and shake you. Come on, who is this guy?
Another email followed almost immediately. It contained just one line.

If you’re really serious about this, then I can’t keep writing to you. I’m sorry.

My chest seized up, as if filled with concrete, and my hands fell limp on the keyboard. It took some moments to collect myself sufficiently to reply, and my fingers were still feeble as I typed.

No, no, don’t say that. We can’t stop writing. The thing with this guy is nothing serious, my heart belongs to you, you know that. Please don’t stop writing.

His reply came a whole, agonizing minute later:

I won’t.

I closed my eyes and exhaled with relief. Then, when I opened them, another email was waiting.

P.S. – Kiss me first.

Despite this scare, I couldn’t shake off my need to see Connor in the flesh again. After a day in which I could think of little else, I concluded that there was nothing to be lost in engineering a meeting anyway. Even if it didn’t lead to the desired outcome, a face-to-face encounter would at least replenish my stock of mental images of him.

I admit, though, that I still held out hope that it would lead to something more; that the ‘connection’ between us would be strong enough to override his loyalty to Tess. A key weapon in my arsenal was the fact I had extensive knowledge of his likes and dislikes, and so could quickly introduce those topics into our conversation.

Bumping into him was the easy part. I knew that he went out with fellow lawyers most Friday nights, often for someone’s ‘leaving drinks’. So, the following Friday, as soon as I logged on, I casually asked what he was up to that evening.

Oh, the usual – swilling five pound pints with gentlemen of the bar.

Who’s leaving today?

Justin.

Which one’s he?
He had told me amusing stories about many of his colleagues.

The part-time body-builder who keeps Tupperware boxes of chicken breasts in the fridge.

Aha, yes. Jumbo Justin. And what’s the venue for this thrilling event?

Some grim hole in Shoreditch.

Ah, the old stamping ground.
I did a quick check in Tess’s file from that period.
Is the Electricity Showrooms still going?

Haven’t you been there since then? Blimey. No, the Leccy closed years ago.

So where do the cool kids go now then?

Well, I wouldn’t know about that. But we deeply uncool middle-aged men are going to The Dragon Bar. Know it?

After a hasty Google to check that the Dragon Bar had been open for some years, I wrote,
Of course, had several a crap evening there. Have fun!

It was that easy.

That was at 6.15 p.m. GMT, so I had to leave to get down to Shoreditch almost immediately. I had already prepared my outfit – my long black-tasselled skirt and my newest hoody – and washed my hair in anticipation. I had also dug out some of mum’s make-up: a pot of blusher and some face powder that had broken up in its little box but was still useable. Although I knew that Connor wasn’t shallow and believed that it was what was inside that mattered, I wasn’t naive: it would do no harm to look my best. Before I left the flat, I wrote Tess a status update saying that she was out all day on the mainland, and put my copy of
The Princess Bride
in my bag.

I had never been to Shoreditch before, although the girls at school used to go all the time. In fact, after seeing Facebook photos of their nights out there, I had sworn I’d never set foot in the place: it looked a vile scene, full of sweaty people in ridiculous clothes, crammed up against each other and grinning inanely. Sometimes the men they had their arms around would be wearing make-up, and the expressions on their faces made it clear they all thought this was something to be immensely proud of.

I emerged from Old Street tube just before 7 p.m, and my phone’s GPS directed me to a grimy side street, five minutes’ walk away. The bar didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside it was already quite full with drinkers, talking loudly over the music. Contrary to my fears many of them looked fairly regular – lots in suits – although I did spot one woman who looked like she had put her top on backwards, and a man with spiky bleached hair. The few tables were already taken but I found a stool at the bar, ordered an orange juice and opened my book, ostensibly reading but keeping an eye on the entrance.