I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
Away from all the smart, smug kids who can only talk about mocks and revision and conditional offers.
Away from Tim, who looks like the cat who got the bloody cream, as he snakes his arm around Kerry’s waist. Whenever my ribs ache or my scar itches, I blame him. The idea of him pawing at my body as I lay dead on the grass makes me want to hit him, and I’ve never hit anyone in my life.
But mostly I need to get away from her. Until she walked into the Arsehole tonight, I thought she would only ever be a mate, yet the minute I saw how beautiful she looks, I realized . . . it’s nowhere near as simple as that. And it’s scrambling my crappy brain.
I spin back towards the bar and look for Ant. He grins and grabs another bottle of Sol for me. I shake my head and mouth, ‘No, I’m going home.’
‘You lightweight, you only just got here!’ he calls out, the way he always does when I drink softs or leave a club early the night before a match, and it’s like the old days when we took the piss out of each other all the time. But his face changes, suddenly fearful. ‘Are you sick?’
‘Nah. This isn’t my scene.’
‘Mine neither, but once they’ve got through a few crates, they’ll be . . . friendlier.’ Ant winks at me. It’s not even eight weeks since I had that thing put in, and I’m meant to be getting back to normal: being the old Joel, the one who pulls girls without trying, and has random Dolphins fans buying me drinks in clubs and telling me I’m the future of the team.
Mostly, I feel like that Joel is dead. But when Kerry walked in, my body responded like it used to. I wanted her.
She’s not mine to want. I’ve already had too much from her. She visits me with Ant, and tells jokes and makes me do my exercises and eat healthy food. I know I ought to be working even harder at building myself up, but it’s hard to see the point of the protein and veg I used to mainline because my perfect diet didn’t protect me.
‘Want me to come out, Banana Man, help you get a cab?’ Ant asks, even though he’s the only one behind the bar.
Fury rises from nowhere. What, I can’t even be trusted to get a fucking taxi now? I close my eyes. Don’t hate him, he’s your best mate, he only wants you to be OK.
‘I’m not an invalid,’ I say. Still rude, but nowhere near as nasty as what I wanted to say.
The music changes. That bloody awful Westlife song, ‘Flying Without Wings’. Enough.
Out on the blustery seafront, the anger is whipped away with my breath and I look for the lights of a taxi.
It’s past two, and I’m making toast in the kitchen to take back to the den when someone knocks on the door.
In the porch light, Kerry looks like the dancer on the top of my mother’s musical jewellery box.
‘You left,’ she says.
‘Sorry. Tired.’ It’s my get-out-of-jail-free card. No one challenges someone who died for eighteen minutes.
Her forehead wrinkles in a cute frown. ‘You don’t look tired. Can I come in? I’m not ready to go to bed.’
Bed. A flash of her in my bed, naked.
She stumbles on the doorstep and falls towards me, and when I catch her, I feel the strength in my arms, the sharp reflex that helps me stop her from hurting herself. Her face is so close to mine, I want to kiss her but . . .
She pirouettes away from me, across the chequerboard tiles in the hall, into the kitchen. Her feet look impossibly tiny in silver high heels.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘Mum’s in Magaluf filming a Scottish family finding their forever home and Dad is out with a “friend”.’
She nods sympathetically. I’ve never told her outright about his affairs, but I’ve come closer than I have with any of my mates. ‘Is he coming back tonight?’
‘Probably not. Quite often he stays over with his friends.’ With her. A different her every few months. They never last. My parents don’t seem to like each other, but they’re still wedded to the idea of being a power couple.
‘Home alone, then?’ she asks, mischief making her voice all husky.
‘I was in the garden den, watching telly. Do you want to join me?’
Before now, we’ve always only chatted in the kitchen.
She blinks.
I hold my breath.
‘Why not?’ she says.
The den was built as Mum’s swanky garden office, but when I got the apprenticeship I moved in, because I wanted more independence and she didn’t want me to leave home. I slept out there, brought a few girls back. But mostly it was mates I had round, playing Resident Evil and GTA. They’d drink beer and smoke weed but I never did.
Now I do. Why wouldn’t I? It’s temporary, though. As soon as I’m back at the club, I’ll have a reason to look after myself again.
I flick a switch by the back door and the pathway lights up, a dozen spotlights leading the way to the den a hundred metres from the house. The design is feminine, with mullioned window panes and a blue-slate roof with a real chimney for the log burner.
‘Oh, that looks adorable.’
And so does Kerry, standing there in her puffy dress, eyes wide from drinking, hair shining like the conkers in Stanmer Park.
Without thinking, I take her hand to lead her towards the den. Our feet brush against the pink flowers planted along the path, and their perfume drifts towards us.
After admiring the wood burner and the soft-green walls and the mint-velvet daybed, Kerry plonks herself down on the sofa with a sigh. The skirt of her dress rides up but she doesn’t seem to notice and it’d seem creepy to mention it.
I get her a beer. ‘What’s it like being eighteen? My birthday’s not till August.’
Kerry laughs. ‘The same, except my feet hurt more than they did yesterday.’ She stretches out her legs.
I try to only look at her shoes but my eyes travel past her slim ankles to her calves, her thighs . . . I blink, thinking of Tim’s arm around her waist. My fists clench. ‘Did you do a lot of dancing?’
‘Yeah. I’m a terrible dancer. But it was my party so I thought I should give it a go. And anyway, it didn’t matter after you—’ She stops suddenly, swigs her beer. ‘Why did you go so early?’
‘Tired, like I said. Did I miss any gossip? Any punch-ups, anyone get off with anyone else?’
‘No. Unfair, right? I’m the birthday girl. I should have been kissed, at least. But I guess the entire population knowing I’ve never kissed anyone means it’s not a tempting prospect. I might be as bad at kissing as I am at dancing.’
I say nothing. Nothing happened with Tim. It’s stupid but it feels like a tiny victory.
‘You’ve kissed a lot of girls, Joel.’
‘Not that many.’ It’s a lie, but suddenly it matters to me that Kerry doesn’t think I’m some cliché footballer who shags a different woman every weekend.
‘Are some girls no good at it? Like some people can’t sing in tune or draw a straight line?’
It crosses my mind that this might be her way of asking me to kiss her and let her know if she’s any good.
No. I’m being an idiot. Clever people have always done my head in, but since my cardiac arrest, it’s much worse. Everything they say is a riddle or a puzzle that my brain can’t unravel. Does she want to kiss me or not?
I want to kiss her.
My bottle is empty so I go to the fridge and take two fresh beers to her end of the sofa.
I still want to kiss her.
I set the bottles down on the Moroccan brass table. I’ve wanted to kiss her since I saw her walk into the Girasol tonight. Would she be here, be saying these things if she didn’t want the same?
Slowly, I sit on the sofa next to her and turn her face towards mine. ‘No one is crap at kissing with the right person.’
I lean in towards her, smelling the yeasty beer on her breath, and our lips meet for the second time ever.
At least this time I’m awake.
Her face gives off heat like a bonfire. I part her lips with my tongue, gently, wanting it to be right for her. She sighs and begins to kiss me back. I run my hands through her thick hair and I can smell coconut.
I move away for a moment. ‘OK?’ I whisper, looking into her eyes.
‘Yes. Except . . . tell me. Am I a crap kisser?’
‘I think you already know the answer to that one.’
This time she kisses me. I haven’t touched a girl since 1999. Ant says I’ll want to when I’m ‘on the mend’. But what if I brought a girl home and she was revolted by the raw scar under my ribcage and the freakish bulge where the metal edge of my implant pushes out the skin?
Plus, what will happen to my heart when I come? I haven’t even dared to have a wank, I’m so scared of my defib going off.
But with Kerry, it’s safe. She’s a virgin, so nothing more is going to happen. This is just about making her feel amazing. I relax into the kiss and I feel like I’m thirteen again. No pressure, no expectations.
Except she’s moving my hand towards her breast, slipping her dress off her shoulders . . .
‘Kerry. You’ve had too much to drink. The kissing is fine.’
‘No. I’ve been waiting so bloody long.’ Her voice is a whisper. She reaches towards my jeans and tries to undo the top button.
‘You should wait until you’re really sure, or at least sober.’ I’m not the kind of guy who takes advantage of a girl who has had too much to drink, but I don’t know if I can keep protesting much longer.
‘I fancied you since the first time I saw you, Joel.’ She takes my other hand and pulls her knickers aside so I can touch her. The look on her face makes me feel like a god, not a tragic cardiac patient. Like the old Joel.
She won’t be shocked by my mutilated body: the night after my operation, I showed her the line of stitches and the bump where the implant sticks out.
Kerry wants me despite all of it.
And I want her too.
I take her hands to help her raise herself off the sofa. She stumbles slightly.
‘Are you sure you won’t regret this?’
She kisses me again, and I reach behind her to unzip her dress, which falls to the floor with a sigh. Underneath, she’s wearing a light pink bra with a rosebud at the centre between her breasts, and matching knickers. I want her now but I try to take everything slowly. I take off my jeans and lay the sofa throw over the wooden floor and draw her down towards me, so we’re kneeling facing each other.
I kiss her lips, her neck, her collarbone, as I unclasp her bra. My lips move towards her nipples. I hear her heartbeat and my own.
I take her hand and guide it across my ribcage, tracing the line of the wires along to the defibrillator. The skin is still sore most days but not now.
‘Is it going to be OK?’ she asks me. ‘Is it safe?’
‘I hope so.’ But I no longer care.
I move her hand away from the box, down past my belly. She touches me. Will being this hard put pressure on my heart?
Fuck it. I reach over to the drawer where I keep condoms.
‘You’re so beautiful, Kerry. I won’t hurt you. I promise.’
She smiles back. ‘And I promise I won’t hurt you either.’