7

The Kiss

(The Cure)

‘OK! WELCOME EVERYBODY! Today we’re doing home security and then following it up with some hands-on practice at getting out of tight corners. And talking of which …’

Steve jumped down from the stage and approached one of the ponytail girls who had arrived at the class late, crashing in through the door with her coat still on.

‘Sorry!’ she gasped at him, sliding her arms out of her sleeves. ‘Got caught up at work. Ouch! What the fuck …!’ Steve grasped the end of her scarf, swung her round and pulled her off balance so she fell against him. She struggled and grabbed at the scarf as it tightened round her neck. Just at the point where Nell and Hell’s Angel Mike were looking anxiously at each other, wondering how far he’d take this, Steve let her go. ‘Sorry, Patsy. I just wanted to demonstrate something and you came in with the perfect opportunity. It’s the way you’ve tied your scarf. What’s it called, when you make a loop like that and pull the ends through?’

‘It’s called a Fulham knot. Because the Sloaneys all used to have it,’ Abi told him.

‘That’s the one. All I can say about that is, ladies, just don’t. As you can see, if someone grabs the ends of the scarf and pulls, there’s absolutely no way out. It just gets tighter and tighter. Any other way of wrapping it and you’ve got a chance of unravelling yourself. But not with that one – it’s instant strangulation, no question. Scumbag sees you on the street, grabs the loose ends of your scarf, hauls you behind a bush and you’re an instant murder statistic being probed by Forensics under a white tent. Now …’ he said, returning to the stage as Patsy rubbed her neck. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. Home security.’

‘God, he’s in a cheerful mood,’ Abi whispered to Nell.

Nell grinned at her, thinking of Steve’s visit and her vision of him hiding in a cupboard. ‘He’d probably say it was just his way of showing he cares,’ she muttered back.

‘Sure, he’s all heart!’ Abi replied.

‘How many of you have a lock on your bedroom door?’ Steve asked. Only two people put their hands up, one of them Hell’s Angel Mike, who looked embarrassed.

‘It’s left over from the last people who lived there,’ he explained. ‘I never actually lock it. You don’t, do you?’

‘Well actually, yes. I do. And you should. Always,’ Steve told him. ‘Because …’

‘But what about if there’s a fire?’ Wilma interrupted.

‘I couldn’t lock the bedroom door – how would the cat get in?’ Patsy protested.

‘Or your Darren!’ one of her friends giggled. ‘He’d kick it down!’

‘OK, OK, if you’d rather talk amongst yourselves …’ Steve folded his arms like a cross schoolteacher and waited for them to settle. The buzz of conversation faded and he went on, ‘As for fire – there’s no excuse not to have smoke alarms. And a closed door is a barrier that could even save your life. I just want you to imagine … it’s the middle of the night. You hear a noise downstairs. What do you do? Do you go down and investigate?’

‘I’d send Darren,’ Patsy suggested. ‘With his baseball bat.’

‘OK, so Darren goes downstairs, probably not wearing a lot, definitely half asleep, completely vulnerable, and the burgling scumbag has a knife in his hand. One of yours, that he’s helped himself to from your cute All Men Are Bastards knife rack that you keep fully loaded with handy weapons on your kitchen worktop. Do stop me if I’m wrong …’

Patsy scowled. ‘How do you know about my knife block?’ she asked.

Steve tapped his nose. ‘Man’s intuition,’ he told her. ‘Some of us have it, believe it or not. So there we are. Your Darren’s now lying on the floor covered in blood and no use to anyone. If you’re lucky, Scumbag does a runner and leaves you with nothing more than a dead boyfriend to clear up. If you’re not – and remember he’s now got nothing to lose – well, he’s halfway up the stairs and you’re under the duvet playing dead, rehearsing for the real thing, which will be any time soon.’

Everyone was listening closely now. Nell felt slightly chilled by the picture he’d presented, and yet a bit sceptical too. How likely was this to happen? You heard about it on the news, this kind of thing, but entirely because it was news. It was surely an incredibly rare worst-case scenario if ever there was one.

‘So let’s rewind a bit,’ Steve said. ‘Let’s say you’ve taken on board what I’m saying here and you’ve got a lock on your bedroom door and you’re lying in bed hearing the noise downstairs. You stay where you are, don’t you, and you phone the police?’

‘How do they get in?’ Abi asked, pertly. ‘You’re locked in your bedroom but you’ve got to let them in.’

‘Exactly.’ He grinned, looking pleased with himself. ‘When you go to bed at night, you take a glass of water with you, right?’

‘Right,’ Abi agreed reluctantly, ‘No, make that a last gin and tonic,’ she muttered.

‘And your handbag … and your keys. Please tell me you take your keys?’ Steve looked mildly despairing.

‘I don’t take any of those things,’ Nell admitted. ‘The keys stay on the hook in the hallway, my cash and stuff is wherever I’ve left it and if I take a glass of water I wake in the night to the sound of the cat lapping it.’

Why had she said all that? Nobody needed to know this. She put it down to having barely spoken all day. She’d concentrated hard on mixing paints, experimenting with colour. Cobalt blue, dulled down with Payne’s grey, seemed to work well for the cabbage leaves, mixed with varying amounts of yellow ochre, then the veins added by drawing across the wet paint with a scalpel … you really didn’t want anyone around chatting and being a distraction for that bit. It could have all gone horribly wrong, but the cabbage was now finished and quite glorious with its colourful selection of terrible diseases and infestations.

‘So that’s kind and sportingly generous,’ Steve was saying. ‘You leave everything conveniently at ground level so when Scumbag’s got your stuff together, he can load it into your car and take that as well. For the police – or fire brigade, if it comes to that, because it could save time and your life – what you need to do,’ Steve explained patiently, as if they were nine-year-olds of limited intelligence, ‘is to keep a spare front-door key in the bedroom in case the police need to get in. You don’t just hurl it out of the window to them in the dark, either. You keep it in something that’s easy to see, a white sock, a pillowcase, anything so they’re not blindly scrabbling on your front path, looking for a means of getting in.’

‘Um … and all this time,’ Mike was looking puzzled, ‘the scum— the intruder can’t hear any of this going on and is still hanging about disconnecting your telly, with the police car’s blue light on the go outside and them crashing about among your flowers and shouting up at your window …’ There was a ripple of giggling.

‘Always one smartarse.’ Steve shook his head. ‘Trust me, go home and think about it. You’ll work it out for yourselves later – you’ll decide I’m right. One more word on this: spyholes. No point fitting a good strong lock on the bedroom door if you then let in any friendly-sounding voice that comes knocking. He might not be who he says he is. You need a proper spyglass in the bedroom door. Cheap to install, any good DIYer can do it. Ladies, if you have doubts about wielding a Black & Decker, just give me a call and I’ll be round!’

‘I don’t think so,’ Abi whispered to Nell. ‘I wouldn’t trust a man who was so into chains and locks, would you?’

Nell giggled. ‘He’d be a risky date. I wouldn’t want to go back to his, that’s for sure. You might never escape.’

All the same, she felt impressed. Steve was right – most of this added up to top tips for a safe night’s sleep, even if she now felt that actually getting to sleep at all was going to be both perilous and extremely hard to do. Every creak on the stairs, every rattle of Pablo’s cat flap, each scrape of the lilac tree’s branches against the windows would have her reaching for the phone. Perhaps until she’d fitted locks, spyware and a dozen or two sturdy chains, she and Mimi should barricade themselves into her bedroom at night with a selection of house keys lined up in Mimi’s school games socks, ready for the various emergency services.

‘Right – that’s enough theory,’ Steve was saying. ‘Now watch carefully: I’m going to show you something simple but effective. I need a volunteer – Mike, you’ll do. Just come at me and grab my left arm.’

Mike, hefty as he was compared with Steve, looked wary and hesitant.

‘Come on, Mike!’ Steve taunted, walking backwards in front of him as Mike cautiously inched forward. ‘Not scared, are you? Just go for me. I won’t hurt you – Health and Safety don’t allow it!’ Mike lunged forward, grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him towards him. With a movement so fast no one could swear they’d seen what happened, Steve twisted Mike’s arm behind him, flipped him sideways and sent him spinning towards the mirror wall.

‘Bloody ’ell!’ Mike gasped, rubbing his arm. ‘You lied! That did hurt!’

Steve gave him a look that suggested the move had been sweet revenge for the earlier crime of flippancy. ‘Big tough bloke like you? I don’t think so! But the serious point is that it was a simple counter-move any one of you can do. It’s easy, needs balance rather than strength and it will give you that crucial time for getting away. Into pairs, everyone, quick.’

Abi and Nell teamed up together and listened carefully while Steve demonstrated (on pale and terrified Jason this time, but slowly and much more gently) how to do the move.

‘Don’t you go hurting me now,’ Abi said to Nell. ‘And watch the nails. I’ve just had new extensions.’

‘Will you say that to your attacker?’ Nell asked as she tried to copy Steve’s flick-and-twist technique. ‘I mean, it might be worth a go, talking your way out of trouble. I’m not sure about going straight in with the violence. It’d be sure to be someone bigger and stronger than me, and I wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m going to be so wound up at this rate, if someone asks me the time, I’ll bloody kill them.’

Steve, doing the rounds to see how they were going, heard her. ‘It’s not about beating someone senseless,’ he explained as he took hold of her hand and rearranged her grip round Abi’s wrist. ‘It’s about self-preservation. I’m only trying to equip you, just in case the worst happens. When you go for the talk option, you’re assuming you’ve got a scumbag who’s prepared to listen. Or one who even understands your language. OK, now that’s it, Nell, just turn and push.’ Nell did as she was told and Abi went flying.

‘Wow! It works! And it’s so easy!’ Nell felt thrilled, exhilarated. It would be all she could do not to accost the first man she saw on the calm suburban streets and demonstrate her new-found skill.

‘OK, my go.’ Abi floored Nell easily and swiftly and the two women hugged each other in a silly dance of delight.

‘Hey, steady. That was just one move. There’s plenty more to learn here. And don’t forget – this is a long way down the line. First rules, everybody?’ He turned to the class, and obediently they yelled back, ‘Make noise! Get distance!’

‘Great. We’re getting somewhere. OK, the hour’s up. Class dismissed. Usual time next week, folks, and if you’ve got anything at home that you’d consider a useful blunt instrument, like a torch or Patsy’s Darren’s baseball bat, bring it in. We’ll be doing show and tell.’

Abi giggled. ‘Last time anyone did show and tell with me and a blunt instrument, I got pregnant with my third,’ she said to Nell. ‘Must dash, that third is being minded by a teenage babysitter and her boyfriend, and I have a feeling they’re up to no good in my bed. I’m going to rush in and catch them at it, that’ll teach them.’

‘Ah well then, it’s lucky you haven’t got a lock on your bedroom door, isn’t it?’ Nell commented as she put her coat on. ‘Do try not to traumatize them!’

As she walked past the bar area on her way to the main doors, Steve caught up with her. ‘Got time for a quick drink?’ he asked, indicating a vacant table alongside the glass wall adjoining the swimming pool. Nell slowed, thinking. What was to rush home for? Mimi would be lying on a sofa, deeply into either a texting session or a gruesome makeover programme that involved extreme cosmetic surgery. She liked that sort of thing, which, considering she was possibly at the stage of looking the most beautiful she ever would in her life, wasn’t a good sign.

‘OK, that’d be good, thanks. Only a small spritzer, though – I’ve got the car.’

‘I know,’ Steve said. ‘And I bet you know exactly where you’ve parked it, too. These classes might seem a bit superficial but you won’t forget the common-sense stuff. No one does.’

The bar was crowded with after-work gym members. Nell would guess the average age was early to mid thirties. They were younger than her and Steve, anyway. These must be the people who so quickly snapped up the tickets to club events – the Valentine’s ball, the quiz nights, the Fake That tribute show, the firework party. It had never occurred to her to join in all these activities and, looking at the mean age of those around her, she realized she probably never would. Where did single women (and men) of her age go to meet people? Oh … the answer seemed to be the one coming across the room towards her carrying drinks. You went to self-defence classes. Not that this was like a date. It was just a casual drink with a friend. A rather attractive new friend, albeit in a clean and scrubbed sort of way.

‘Here we go, one small spritzer as ordered. And a bag of good, healthy, gym-approved, protein-packed, salt-free nuts.’

‘Thanks, Steve. It was a really good class tonight. Do you ever teach all this in schools? It’s the kind of thing everyone should learn. I’m always amazed at the practical stuff Mimi just hasn’t a clue about. She can’t change a plug, because they now all come welded to whatever gadget they’re attached to, she can only cook just enough to survive and that’s only because I let her do some when she was really too little. If I’d left it any later she wouldn’t have been interested. I don’t think she knows one end of a screwdriver from the other.’

Steve laughed. ‘So she won’t be attaching her own lock to her bedroom door?’

‘Don’t even think about it. Frankly, you don’t want teen daughters to be able to lock themselves in. It’s bad enough that they race up the stairs in a fury and slam the door on you. Locking it for hours on end would be too much. And I’d never get her up in the mornings for school on those days when the alarm, me shouting up the stairs at her and phoning her mobile just doesn’t do it.’

‘Seriously, if you want help with security attachments, don’t hesitate to call. I’m happy to come and help out.’

Nell thought for a moment. ‘Well … there is one thing. Not about security or anything. I hardly think I should ask you but …’ She waited for a bit longer, wondering why on earth she was even thinking of asking this near-stranger. But that was why, really. It was because Steve was an unknown. There were no explanations to be given, no need to go through the convoluted ins and outs here. Though he might ask … She’d deal with that. Needs must.

‘The electoral roll. Do you have signed-up access to it on your computer? I thought you mentioned the other day that you did.’

‘Sure. It’s easy, just a subscription thing. I needed it for work,’ he said. ‘Why, are you looking for someone?’

‘Sort of. I tried that website that we looked at the other day and they … he … wasn’t there. I know you can opt out of that one, though, so I assume he did.’

Steve frowned. ‘If he’s opted out, he must be pretty keen on privacy. Is he famous or something?’

‘No. If he was I’d have also found some small trace of him via Google.’

‘And nothing there?’

‘No. Not a mention.’

‘Unusual. Bordering on the reclusive.’ Steve looked at her. Nice eyes, she thought.

‘Are you sure you want to track him down? Has it been a long time? And let me guess – he’s an old boyfriend that you’re pretending wasn’t that important?’

Nell laughed. ‘Yes! You were good at that detective stuff, weren’t you? I’m surprised a bit of gun damage made you give it up. And I haven’t seen Patrick for years and years, but now I’ve been told more or less where he is, or might be, I thought it would be easy. Obviously I tried directory enquiries – he’s not listed. Look – don’t worry about it. Let’s just forget I mentioned it, shall we?’ Nell felt disappointed. She had hoped Steve would simply say, ‘Yes, no problem. I’ll give it a whirl when I get home and email the instant results.’ She hadn’t expected him to come up with all the hesitant problems she herself had already thought of. She didn’t want that at all.

‘I wasn’t going to race round to his gaff and bang on the door, you know,’ she went on. ‘I do have some sensitivity! I thought I’d send a simple, short letter or a card. Nothing heavy, nothing frightening. Just regular, old-fashioned mail, not anything electronically intrusive.’

‘OK,’ Steve said.

‘OK?’

‘Sure.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll have a look. Can’t promise anything. He might not believe in voting and possibly isn’t even on the roll. But if he is, I’ll find him. Just give me a rough idea of the area and your email address. As long as he’s not called Smith, it should be no problem.’

* * *

Mimi was lying on her bed with Tess alongside her, both girls busy with intense manicure maintenance. Having just finished, between them, a vital and difficult piece of maths coursework, they were feeling entitled to some down-time and were sprawling about, filing and trimming and buffing their fingernails and talking of intimate things. You couldn’t do this at school, Mimi thought, you couldn’t confide the things that worried you in front of girls you didn’t a hundred per cent trust not to laugh at you. Everyone always made out they were so clued-up. It was only on safe premises that you could be honest. Tess could be bossy, and a total pain, but what you told her stayed with her. Mimi wouldn’t go into the French class after lunch tomorrow and see Em and Chloe whispering and giggling about her.

‘You can’t just do it with the first boy who asks you out; it’s like, so needy,’ Tess was saying. ‘We’re not even sixteen yet. If you start doing that, you’ll end up with a list like some gross slapper by the time you’re twenty. Why don’t you hang on a bit with Joel? Do everything but.’ She giggled. ‘Though I don’t know why giving someone a BJ is, like, more kind of moral than having proper sex with them. My mum told me that in her youth it was thought, like, some disgusting perversion. I don’t think of it like that but I don’t actually fancy doing it very much, do you? I think I’d rather just have real sex. Suppose it makes you feel sick or something?’

Mimi laughed. ‘Well no, I don’t much want to either, really. I wonder what that bit of a boy tastes like? Is there a flavour that you could identify for just about any of them and think, if you did a blindfold test, oh yeah, that’s boy?’

‘Ask Polly Mitchell! If you could get fat giving blow jobs, she’d be the size of a whale. Remember last year, when she did it to creepy Carl at the bus station and Lucy Flynn picced it with her phone? I mean, what was Lucy doing, watching something like that and getting all involved? She was only thirteen.’

‘So was Carl. He must have thought it was Christmas.’

‘Well, he was still just about young enough to believe in Santa!’

‘I was glad they got caught. Lucy shouldn’t have shown the photos round the Year Sevens and tried to charge them. They’re only kids. They shouldn’t even know that stuff yet.’

‘My dad would say I shouldn’t, even now,’ Tess said. ‘Probably shouldn’t, like, ever!’

Mimi got up and went over to the window, looking up the road to where Polly Mitchell lived. You couldn’t miss the house – the garden had a row of purple spotlights directed up at the roof as if their particular three-storey Edwardian villa was historically interesting, like a cathedral. Pink fairy lights hung in their magnolia tree, a really stupid thing to do, Nell had said, because it upset the blossom so it only lasted a few days, much shorter than the other trees in the road. Which was a shame, because magnolia only looks good for a short time anyway. After that, it’s just another dull, small tree, nothing special. It was typical of Evie Mitchell, though – she liked a lot of show. At Christmas everyone in the road had half expected her to put a lit-up Santa with reindeer on the roof. She’d gone for blue lighting all over the porch instead and twinkling ones in the hedge, that someone had nicked.

‘Do you know what Polly’s dad said to my mum?’ Mimi turned back to Tess. ‘He told her that when she was older, he’d give Lucy a job in one of his companies. He said she showed a good head for business.’

‘As opposed to his own daughter, who just has a good head for head!’ Tess rolled about on the bed, laughing.

Mimi watched her, wondering if Tess too had someone in mind to be that special first one. She couldn’t be considering one of the Stuart twins. For one thing, how could she tell them apart? Duane and Shane looked completely identical.

‘Tess?’ Mimi came back and sat on the bed. She looked at her nails: cuticles perfectly shaped, no bits of flaky skin. They were ready now for varnish.

‘What is it, babe? You look worried. Is it your dad? You must miss him.’

‘I do a bit. And I miss Seb too. I email him almost every day and he just sends back something really short. Reminds me of when I talk to him in the mornings and he just grunts. Boy-grunt, that’s what it is. No, it’s not that.’

‘What then? Come and sit with me and tell me.’

Mimi nudged Tess out of the way, turned the duvet back and the two girls settled into bed.

‘Cosy,’ Tess said, cuddling closer to Mimi. ‘Now tell me.’

‘I just wanted to ask you. Who would you do it with? What about Duane Stuart?’

Tess shrieked, ‘Duane? Are you mad? NOOO! I would NOT! I love the Stuarts but … no, they’re just mates. Good for a laugh and everything, but NOOOO! Aaaagh! They’re good snoggers, though. What’s Joel like?’

‘Are they? You’ve snogged them both? When?’

‘Claire’s party. At least, I think I’ve snogged them both. It might have just been Duane.’ Tess thought for a moment, then said, giggling, ‘Or Shane …’

‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘Well, that’s my point. That’s why I can’t do anything more with … one of them. I’d never know, would I? Which one it was. And suppose I did go out with one of them, and the other thought that just for a laugh, he’d give me a go so they could talk about me. No way. But come on, Mimi, tell me about snogging Joel.’

‘Haven’t,’ Mimi admitted. ‘We just talked and stuff.’

‘Hold hands?’

‘No. Not even that.’

‘Ah. Right. And like, here you are, having this conversation with me about whether you’re going to have sex with him or not?’

‘At this rate I’ll be twenty-one before we get that far,’ Mimi said, gloomily.

‘No you won’t, don’t be mad.’

‘Suppose he doesn’t even fancy me? Suppose when he does kiss me, he doesn’t like me because I do it all wrong? I haven’t had enough practice.’

Tess looked at her. ‘I’ll tell you if you do it right, if you like.’

‘What?’ Tess was lying back on the pillow, her long dark hair spread out and shiny. It reminded Mimi of Marmite, though Tess’s hair was more likely to smell sweet – Bed Head serum.

‘It’s OK, I won’t tell anyone. We’ll just kiss and I’ll tell you if you’re OK. It’s no big deal.’

‘Um … well, I think it might be, actually. I’m not a lezzer.’

‘I’m not a lezzer either. I don’t think so, anyway. Aren’t we a bit young to tell? Come on, give it a go.’

Mimi wriggled a bit closer. ‘Tess … you haven’t set up a secret webcam thing in here, have you? I don’t want this to be the next thing Lucy has on special offer round the school.’

‘Come here – just kiss me.’ Tess reached up and pulled Mimi towards her. Mimi closed her eyes and connected softly with Tess’s mouth. And then it didn’t feel like Tess – this could be anyone’s mouth, anyone’s tongue … Whoever, it was a sheer, utter delight; she didn’t want it to stop. But hey no, she thought suddenly, and pulled away.

‘Wow. You’re more than OK,’ Tess said, looking startled. ‘What do you think?’

Mimi was finding it hard to breathe. ‘Um … yeah. You as well. It’s just …’

‘What?’ Tess sat up abruptly. ‘Tell me!’

‘I really don’t want to do that again with you, OK? No offence!’ She tried to laugh but it didn’t sound right. It wasn’t convincing. What she’d said wasn’t true.

‘Nah – me neither! It was an interesting go, but I don’t fancy girls. You don’t feel hard like a bloke,’ Tess spluttered. ‘I don’t mean hard like that! I mean hard like your whole body. Girls don’t do it for me. They’re too … squashy.’

‘Exactly,’ Mimi said, getting out of bed to look out of the window, check that the car pulling up in the driveway was her mum and not, say, Johnny Depp come to whisk her away.

‘Squashy,’ she murmured, staring into the darkness as her mother climbed out of her car.

* * *

It was that simple, that fast: Steve must have gone straight home and got on with the mission. His email was short and to the point:

‘Got him! He’s very ex-directory – address is Hanbury Mews, Water Lane, Chadstock, Near Wallingford. Best of luck and stay safe. Steve x’

All Nell had to do now was decide how to use the information. There was no question about any ‘if’.