The Kiss (16 page)

F
atima arrives on Tuesday. Actually, ‘arrives’ doesn’t really cover it. ‘Blasts in’ is closer, or ‘teleports’.

She is draped on the doorstep like a dying opera singer as I come in through the gate after a long day at college. She can never do anything without turning it into performance art.

‘
Cherie
,’ she husks, propping her head up on one elbow. ‘I arrived since three hours and your father is not here and you don’t answer your phone innit. A lot of English people say this on YouTube.’

I’ve been so preoccupied with the show and my endless looping anguish about Jem that I forgot her plane would come in today around lunchtime.

‘I wouldn’t lie there,’ I advise, grinning. ‘Mr Djembe next door’s dog likes to pee on our mat.’

Fatima leaps to her feet with speed. For someone of her size, it’s an amazing thing to watch. She kisses me on both cheeks and puts her finger under my chin.

‘You have a lot to tell me,’ she observes. ‘You will keep nothing back. Why don’t you answer your phone?’

‘New phone,’ I explain. ‘New number. Sorry.’

Fatima gazes around Wyvern Court, the different coloured doors, the walkways strewn with bicycles and potted petunias that all look brown in the street lights. Probably are all brown, actually, it being October.

‘England is a nice place,’ she says.

I decide to overlook the tone of surprise. ‘Want to dump your stuff and hit the town?’

‘We must hit your town until it falls down,’ she agrees.

As she puts her sleeping bag and rucksack on my bed and disappears to the bathroom, I track down the old camp-bed mattress to its place of hibernation under the stairs. My room isn’t enough to contain Fatima Ammour. This whole
block
isn’t enough to contain her. I wonder what on earth Dad is going to make of her.

‘You will now go in the bathroom and make yourself sexy,’ Fatima declares, billowing out forty minutes later in an eyewatering cloud of perfume. Her eyes are ringed with kohl like the Algerian gypsy that she is, cascades
of black hair falling down her back and dark berry lips gleaming.

‘I’ll feel as sexy as a slug next to you,’ I confess.

‘Go to the shower and we will make war on your face together.’

Half an hour later, with my hair bullied into shining curls and my eyes smokier than a barbecue grill, we slide out of the door.

‘We can walk or take the bus,’ I say, glancing cautiously at the sky. In the streetlight, it resembles old brown leather. ‘Either way, I think we’re going to get wet.’

‘I have a better idea,’ Fatima says.

She knocks on Mr Djembe’s door before I can stop her. Mr Djembe’s dog starts barking like a mentalist.

‘Allo,’ she purrs when Mr Djembe opens up.

‘Sorry, Mr Djembe,’ I say, firmly taking Fatima’s arm. ‘My friend knocked on the wrong door.’

‘I see that you have bicycles,
monsieur
,’ Fatima says, undeterred, gesturing at the two bikes chained beside Mr Djembe’s door. ‘We can borrow them?’

‘I . . . suppose so,’ says Mr Djembe, bemused.

Fatima kisses him twice, one on each cheek. The man looks half-fossilized with shock.

‘We will return them very soon or you can tell Delilah to the police,’ she says generously. ‘
Allez
,’ she says to me. ‘We can ride now.’

‘You’re unbelievable,’ I yell when we round the corner, Fatima gliding ahead and me peddling my little legs like a maddened hamster to keep up. ‘I’ve spoken to Mr Djembe twice in my life. And you steal his bicycles?’

‘I don’t steal.’ Fatima leans in towards the kerb, one knee almost grazing the tarmac. Her long ebony hair billows behind her like a black pirate sail, the chiffony bits on her tunic threatening to tangle themselves in the spokes. ‘I ask very nice and I borrow. Hey, you ride in the front. I don’t know where I am going for the hot spots.’

A couple of cars parp us for riding without lights. I haven’t ridden a bike since Mum left. The wind drives cold fingers through my hair, raking my scalp deliciously. Somehow I don’t care all that much that my skirt is short and – with every corner, every gust of wind – steadily getting shorter. I whoop and crash through a set of traffic lights on amber. Pedalling behind me, Fatima sails blithely through the red, nearly taking out a couple of pedestrians and blowing such generous kisses of apology over her shoulder that one of them blows a kiss back.

Ten minutes later I stick one hand out and veer towards Aphrodite’s Moon as we approach the station. It isn’t the best place to drink in town, but when you are underage there aren’t many options. Niko will turn a blind eye as long as we pay our bill. Dismounting, I hoik my skirt back down to a respectable length.

Fatima swerves right across the path of an oncoming Range Rover to join me at the pub door, earning a horrified blast on a horn.

‘These English drivers are very bad,’ she says, lowering the finger she has proffered at the shocked blond lady behind the wheel.

‘Have you got a death wish?’ I yelp. In a head-on collision with a Range Rover, even Fatima’s indestructability would be tested. ‘Cars drive on the
left
in England.’

Fatima’s face clears. ‘
Desolée
!
’ she shouts, waving in the direction of the disappearing 4x4. ‘So,’ she says to me, gazing at Aphrodite’s boobs swinging in the breeze. ‘This bar has men?’

I glance through the window. The view isn’t promising. ‘It has Niko, the bar owner,’ I say. ‘He’ll love you. But there’s a problem. We can’t leave these here.’ I indicate the bikes. ‘Not if we want to return them to Mr Djembe later. There’s a bike rack at the station we can use, maybe.’

‘Pah.’

Which is how we end up wheeling Mr Djembe’s bikes through the door of Aphrodite’s Moon, avoiding punters’ ankles as best we can and giving Niko our most winning smiles. After an initial frown, he catches sight of Fatima.

‘What can I get you?’ he says in excitement.

Fatima shoots him her most smouldering stare through outrageously sooty lashes. ‘I think you can maybe get me to heaven,’ she murmurs, upping her French accent to heroic proportions.

Three free drinks later, and we have exchanged most of our gossip. Mine pales in comparison to Fatima’s, but it’s hard to compete when you’re talking to someone for whom conquests are as frequent as buses. Half the drinkers in here haven’t taken their eyes off her since we arrived. At least four guys try to hit on her as we talk, offering drinks and phone numbers, but she swipes them away like flies. I’ve never felt so invisible.

When I have brought her up to speed on generalities, we move on to my present situation. I leave out certain details, like my real reason for resurrecting the show
à la
zombie and the bit about the swipe machine. The memory still makes me flush with shame from my head to my toes. I also fail to mention the Gaslight by name, and leave out precisely how hot Jem is. I’m not about to give Fatima Ammour ideas.

‘So you like him, and you kiss him, and now he don’t like you?’ she summarizes, twirling her bottle of cider.

‘It’s not that simple.’

She clicks her tongue. ‘With men, it is always simple. With Laurent, it was simple. With Dave
le bâtard
it was simple.’

There is nothing
simple
about my feelings for Jem.

‘I can’t work at the bar any more,’ I groan. ‘I can barely walk around my own town without knowing that I’ll see him somewhere.’

‘All of this searching in the soul,’ Fatima grumbles. ‘All you do is to have sex in the wardrobe.’

‘We
didn’t
have sex,’ I say. ‘And you make it sound like we were crashing around among coat hangers and lavender-scented drawer liners.’

Niko is hovering. Fatima gives him a devastating smile, and dazzles him into handing over two more bottles of cider and a free bag of peanuts.

‘Niko never gives away free stuff,’ I marvel.

‘I think he is in love with me,’ she says with satisfaction. ‘But he is very old.
Salut
, Delilah.’ She raises her bottle at me. ‘I will tell you about the man in the airport today. He was very beautiful but his nose was too small. They say the nose is very important when you judge a man.’

She looks meaningfully at me over the top of her drink, then checks out the rest of the bar. ‘This is the best you can show me in this town?’ she inquires, looking disappointed.

‘It’s only Tuesday,’ I bleat.

‘Tuesday is the best night in Argole-sur-Mer,’ says Fatima, unimpressed.

I check my watch. Nine-thirty. Rock on. I feel panicky. Pubs aren’t really my thing. Nightclubs in this bit of Surrey are thin on the ground, and non-existent on Tuesdays. Fatima will be on the next plane home if I don’t rustle up something better than this faded joint.

‘I’ll text Oz,’ I say, fumbling for my phone. ‘If anywhere’s rocking tonight, he’ll know about it.’

HELP.

French friend arrived tonight.

What’s going down?

Gaslight’s banging. Totally the
venue for Halloween. Get ur butt
over here.

Zombie on.

‘What is Gaslight?’ Fatima reads over my shoulder. ‘Pub? Nightclub?’

‘We’re not going to the Gaslight,’ I squeak in a state of panic.

‘Pah,’ says Fatima for the second time that night.

I
’ve forgotten how single-minded Fatima can be when in search of entertainment. I stutter at her as we wheel the bikes out of Aphrodite’s Moon, deeply regretting how I failed to mention the Gaslight by name when I had the chance. We roll down the High Street and swing past the river towards the mouth of Hell with me hissing like an enraged goose all the way.

‘Don’t make me go in there,’ I implore as we come to a breathless halt at the foot of the Gaslight steps.

Music pumps into the street from the bar, enticing as a siren on a rock in the middle of a stormy sea. Fatima looks up at the pink-lit basking-shark windows approvingly and starts up the steps, where the glass doors swing shut behind her and Mr Djembe’s best bicycle. I sigh and plod up the steps after her, heaving my wheels behind me.

The place is swamped. A younger crowd than normal swarms the bar alongside the post-rehearsal cast of
What an Ado About Zombies!
and there is a buzz about the place that takes me back to the start-of-term party. I can’t believe my eyes. College kids, here? Mid-week?

Fatima slings her bike behind the sofa by the double doors and absorbs the shoving throng, assessing, dismissing, noting the talent with lethal precision.

‘I am glad we come,’ she pronounces.

Towering over the top of stretching arms and heads at the bar I make out Jem’s hair, glossy and gorgeous as ever. I stuff my bike behind the sofa alongside Fatima’s and wonder if I’ll fit back there as well.

‘Delilah!’ Val shouts, fighting her way towards us with glasses held high above her head. ‘This place has turned into a lunatic asylum. Did you know the show’s back on? They’re rehearsing every night this week, and bringing the world with them. You want your job back? You can get behind the bar right now before Jem collapses under the strain!’

‘This is the place with the man and the wardrobe?’ Fatima says in surprise, turning to me.

‘And it’s too late to leave now,’ I mutter. ‘She just offered my job back.’

‘That is good! You always say you are broken.’

She drives me
mad
. ‘Didn’t you listen to anything I told you? I can’t work here because
he
works here!’

Fatima strafes the bar. Her gaze slows at the sight of Jem’s long, muscular arms reaching up to the optics. ‘Oof,’ she says with a deep, sucking intake of breath.

Jealousy bites down hard with sharp green teeth. ‘Don’t,’ I say.

Her gaze is now sliding along Jem’s jawline and down into the neck of his black T-shirt until she is practically licking the shadowed dimple of his collarbone with her eyeballs. Fear grips me by the throat.

‘Promise me,’ I almost shout.

‘OK, OK,’ Fatima grumbles. ‘I don’t go near him except for a little drinking. And maybe sexy talk?’

‘No sexy talk!’

‘You want the job or not?’ Val shouts at me over the hubbub.

‘I will work tonight,’ Fatima announces.

It’s a solution, I realize, once I’ve got over the surprise. With any luck I’ll have sorted the Jem situation by the time Fatima leaves, and my job will still be waiting for me on her departure. Theoretically.

‘I will keep Jem warm for you,
cherie
,’ says Fatima, fluffing her hair as Val nods and mows on through the crowd. ‘Like a chicken with an egg.’

More like a lioness with a wildebeest, I think.

‘Delilah!’

Oz stops dead at the sight of Fatima clearing a path towards the bar. Even from behind, she is magnificent.

‘I thought you said your French friend was brainy,’ he accuses, his eyes like saucers.

‘Sexy and brainy aren’t mutually exclusive, Oz.’ If Fatima gets off with Jem, I’ll kill her. ‘What’s going on? The Gaslight’s never full like this.’

Oz is still watching Fatima recede. ‘I . . . what?’

‘She affects everyone within a two-hundred-metre radius. Like plutonium,’ I say kindly. ‘The bar? The action?’

‘It started with your posters,’ says Oz when he gets his focus back. ‘Those grannies you armed with spray cans have done a fantastic job. Apparently they got stopped by the police on the High Street, and had a time explaining themselves. Meanwhile I’ve been putting out the word that this is the place to be seen. I’m combining tickets for the fancy-dress party on Saturday with tickets for the show. Take-up’s already looking good.’ He looks in Fatima’s direction again. ‘Where’s she going?’

‘To serve a lot of beer,’ I say.

‘Mine not to question why, mine just to get the beverages. What are you drinking?’ He looks me up and down. ‘You’re looking good tonight, by the way. Liking the boxer eyes.’

‘Lilah!’ says Tab joyfully, leaping to her feet as I make my way to where half the cast are sitting at a table. ‘I thought you were never setting foot in this place again?’

‘Never say never,’ I mutter. ‘Fatima rocked up on my doorstep a couple of hours ago and now she’s behind the bar. Say what you like about that girl, she’s a fast worker.’

Word on the new barmaid is out. Half the room – the male half, by and large – has surged towards the bar for sudden refills. Oz finds our table and plonks several bottles down, a far-away look in his eyes.

‘I’m in love,’ he says. ‘She’s bringing the rest of the order in a moment.’

‘Her surname’s not “Ammour” for nothing,’ I say.

Tabby cranes her neck towards the bar, eager for a glimpse of the legend that is Fatima Ammour, but is foiled by a sea of boys’ backs.

‘Musical in a Month should officially be renamed Miracle in a Month,’ Patricia enthuses to me. ‘I can’t believe this zombie business hasn’t been tried before. The songs fit perfectly and Sam and Tabitha’s new lyrics are terrific. I can honestly say that I haven’t laughed this much since Alan died under that tree.’

‘How’s Desmond?’ I ask.

‘A little better I believe.’ Eunice tugs her cashmere cardie around her body. ‘Mortality is such a ghastly thing.’

‘Mortality’s a hard topic to avoid when you’re playing a zombie,’ Patricia says. ‘I can’t decide if telling Desmond about our new approach will push him through the Pearly Gates or shock him back to this life, so for Eunice’s sake we’re holding fire.’

‘Patricia,’ Eunice protests, blushing.

Sam and Maria are sitting together at a table across the room. I want to hurl my cider bottle at the girl, chase her off Tabby’s property like an aggressive guppy.

‘It’s OK,’ Tab says, doing her best to sound serene. ‘He told me a few times on the way home on Saturday night how crazy he is about her.’

‘Are you sure he wasn’t just saying that to keep himself on the straight and narrow with you?’ I check.

A glimmer of hope wanders across her face, a lost duck in search of a pond. ‘I wish.’

‘Drinks,
mes biches
.’

Fatima leans in at Oz’s eye-level, placing bottles and glasses in front of everyone. Our table is suddenly swamped by boys sticking out their chests and doing little chicken struts to get her attention. It’s hard to introduce her amid the madness, but I do my best. She does the two-kiss thing to everyone around the table, even Warren.

‘I have already twenty pounds in the tips,’ she confides, patting her bosoms.

‘How’s Jem?’ I ask casually.

‘I don’t talk so much with him yet. We have no time. We already change two beer barrels. I must go back
.
Laters, alligators.’

She runs a finger thoughtfully down Warren’s nose and chucks him under the chin before the crowd swallows her up again. Warren touches his nose in wonder.

‘I love her.’ Oz props one elbow dreamily on the table and rests his chin in his hand. ‘Did I already say that?’

‘Even I fancy her,’ says Rich.

Henry frowns. ‘You don’t.’

‘I do. But I fancy you more.’

‘She reminds me of myself at that age,’ says Patricia as Rich and Henry beam at each other. ‘Fatima Ammour. Are we sure that’s not a stage name?’

‘She’s Algerian,’ I say. ‘Descended from bandits.’

‘She can rob me anytime,’ Warren mumbles.

‘There’s more chance of our little zombie hell freezing over, I fear,’ Patricia says to me, in a low voice for once.

I consider Warren’s nose. It’s actually kind of enormous.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ I say doubtfully.