Angel Kiss (3 page)

A few minutes later I glanced at my phone again, and could hardly believe it when I saw one teeny bar. Yay! Contact with the real world. Afraid to move the phone, I lay down on the bed and dialled my friend Hannah’s number. It rang and rang.

I decided to text Ross rather than ring him, because I knew he’d be in work. I wrote a text that spanned three messages, ranting about how boring Avarna was and how much I missed Dublin. In his signature goofy tone he replied, ‘Keep calm and rock on.’ Great. Thanks, Ross.

I called Sophie too, but it also rang without answer and I got a text from her a few minutes later saying that she was jamming with her brother’s band and that she’d call me afterwards. I got a horrible sinking feeling. I hadn’t talked to her in days – she could at least have spoken to me for two minutes. I tried not to get mad though. It wasn’t her fault Mum had made me move to the middle of nowhere.

I picked up a marker and started to doodle on my hand. I liked drawing little sketches on my skin – plans for the tattoo
I was going to get once Mum finally gave in and let me. Earlier I’d drawn a heart, broken down the middle, on the inside of my right wrist, where I hoped to eventually get a treble clef tattooed. Mum sat down beside me and gave me a gentle squeeze.

‘Your heart’s not broken. It’s still in one piece,’ she said, pulling my hair back from my neck and prodding the little heart-shaped freckle below my left ear. I couldn’t resist smiling too. It was in the perfect shape of a heart, tiny but distinct. My gran had been the first one to notice it, and had always insisted that I’d been kissed by an angel.

I smiled at Mum. No matter how much I hated it that she’d dragged me here, I still couldn’t help loving her more than anyone else in the world. Since it had been just us we’d grown closer than any other mother and daughter I knew. We screamed and shouted and fought and bickered, but we adored each other all the same.

Apart from hating the thought of a treble-clef tattoo, Mum had always been supportive of my love for music. She’d spent her entire childhood dreaming of being a movie star. She’d had half a dozen posters of Marilyn Monroe taped to her wall and had watched
Some Like It Hot
hundreds of times. But my grandparents insisted that acting was just a hobby, and that she couldn’t possibly expect to pursue it as a career. So from the time I was four and had said I wanted to be a rock star, Mum had been driving me to guitar lessons, saving up for music equipment and listening to me singing much too loudly around the house. Her only request was that if I became famous I would dedicate one of my songs to her. I decided that was a fair trade.

I waited until she’d left the caravan, then took Alf Meehan’s
letter out from my back pocket. I knelt down on the floor beside my bed and pulled out my suitcase. Mum had allowed me to bring just one suitcase of stuff to the caravan, as there wasn’t room for any more. It was packed full of clothes and a Converse shoebox that held my most prized possessions including a little silver bracelet given to me by my dad, my purple hardback notebook that I wrote my lyrics in, a couple of photographs of my friends and me and a battered paperback copy of
The Commitments
. I carefully hid the letter in the shoebox and placed it back in the suitcase. I knew Mum wouldn’t be impressed that I’d opened someone else’s post. I didn’t even know why I had, so there was no way I’d be able to explain it to her. But something was stopping me from throwing it away.

When I stepped out of the caravan Des was talking to Mum again. I decided to go over and rescue her. But the closer I got to them the more freaked out I became. Mum was standing close to Des and twirling a strand of her hair. Then I heard her giggle. This was actually making me queasy. I wanted to turn round and go back but Des had spotted me.

‘Jacki, we were just talking about you …’

I faked a smile and walked towards them.

‘Hi,’ I said to Des. A
hi
that said
If you lay one finger on my mother, I will most certainly strangle you
. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘So,’ he said, ‘your mum was telling me you like to play guitar? And that you’re in a band?’

‘
Was
in a band,’ I corrected him. ‘I had to leave it because we were moving here.’ Myself, Sophie and Ross had played together, but we’d all agreed that there was no way we could keep it up now that I was living so far away. I’d also done a stint
in my cousin Steve’s heavy metal band. I wasn’t majorly into heavy metal, but they were all eighteen and I got to play in Whelan’s a few times. The bouncers got to know me, and so Hannah and I had managed to get into a couple of other gigs there on Saturday nights. It’s amazing where a fake ID, a push-up bra and a familiar face can get you.

‘And you like Thin Lizzy?’ said Des.

‘Love them,’ I said.

‘I went to see them in Slane in eighty-one,’ he said. ‘Best gig of my life.’

‘Wow, legend,’ I said limply.

OK, so Des was going up in my estimation. But only slightly.

‘Oh, by the way, Jacki,’ said Mum. ‘You and I are going to the Smyths’ house for dinner in half an hour.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘The Smyths. They own the guesthouse on the main street. I met Brigid in the shop and she invited us down. It was so thoughtful of her – she said I must be tired of trying to cook in the caravan.’

I’d never met any of the Smyths but I’d seen the guesthouse where they lived. It was across from Mary’s shop and painted an insanely bright yellow.

‘Do you know the Smyths well, Des?’ said Mum.

‘Ah yeah, Brigid and Pa are lovely people. They have a son your age, Jacki. And I’m good friends with Brigid’s sister, Lydia. She lives there with them too. She’s a dressmaker.’

So they had a son my age, did they? My mood lifted a little bit. I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt and made an excuse to get back to the caravan. Now that it seemed Cian and Nick were in the past, maybe I needed to dress for the future.

The Smyths’ sitting room resembled the chaotic interior of a back-street antique store. I breathed in the stuffy air as I sat on the couch among the tasselled cushions, staring up at the dusty chandelier. I like antique stores. I like rummaging through all the objects to find hidden treasures. In that sitting room I longed to examine the ornaments and the photographs and memorabilia, but I couldn’t, because Colin Smyth sat on the chair across from me, his eyes fixed on the flickering television. He had a thick mop of red hair and his attractive face was covered in pale freckles. He wore a blue shirt and grey cord trousers.

Quite a stylish dresser
, I thought. Back in the caravan I’d frantically tried to make myself look presentable. I was wearing a short purple velvet dress that I’d bought in a vintage shop, black fishnet tights and black Converse. Although Colin wasn’t really my type, he had a certain cuteness, so I was glad I’d made an effort.

Colin hadn’t said much during dinner but he seemed nice. He had happily obliged when Brigid suggested that he bring me into the sitting room to watch TV, but he totally avoided making eye contact with me. I don’t normally like people who
do this – it makes me uneasy. But I decided to let Colin off the hook, as he just seemed to be a bit shy.

We hadn’t spoken a word since we sat down in front of the TV. I tried to think of a conversation starter as I scanned the framed paintings and prints that clashed with the floral-papered walls.

Several times it seemed as if Colin was about to say something, but then he would just look back at the television, pretending to be enthralled by it. Then when he wasn’t flicking through the channels he was fidgeting with the button on his shirtsleeve. He twisted it round and round and round.

Just think of something to say, Jacki. Anything at all.

Round and round it twirled, then –
ping!
– the button bounced on to the wooden floor and rolled away, skimming the rug and disappearing from view. Colin’s face went bright red. I stood up to look for it.

‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matt–’

‘I think it went over here,’ I said.

I knelt down to check under a glass-fronted cabinet, but was distracted by the unusual objects inside. These included a perfume bottle, a magnifying glass and a delicately painted porcelain egg with a hinge on the side. I very much wanted to open the egg to see what was in it.

‘Found it!’ said Colin.

‘Thought you two might like a snack –’ Brigid Smyth walked in with a bowl of freshly made popcorn to find us both on our knees on the floor.

‘Oh … thanks,’ I said, scrambling back to the couch.

‘Are you two OK?’

‘Yes, Mam,’ said Colin. ‘We were just looking for my button.’ He held it up to show her.

‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’ She headed back to the kitchen.

Colin took a handful of popcorn from the bowl. I noticed that there were flecks of paint on the backs of his hands and remembered Brigid had said at dinner that Colin liked art, so I decided to spark up a conversation and find out more.

‘What kind of art do you do?’ I said. I liked drawing, but I wasn’t very good at art and I didn’t know a lot about it.

‘Oh, I like lots of different styles. At the moment I’m really into Manga-inspired stuff, you know, like the Japanese comics,’ he answered, shifting his gaze away from the TV and looking at me instead.

‘Wow, that sounds really cool.’ My friend Hannah would’ve been disgusted if she’d heard me say that. Last year her brother had done a twenty-four-hour comic workshop in Dublin with some famous Manga artist. She said she wouldn’t be seen dead going to such a nerdfest. But Hannah wasn’t here now, and I really needed to make some new friends.

‘Yeah, I read a lot of Manga,’ said Colin, ‘so I like drawing that sort of stuff. Anything Japanese really fascinates me.’

‘How do you do it?’ I asked. ‘Do you use a computer?’

‘First I make a sketch,’ he said, sitting up a little bit straighter, ‘then scan it on to my laptop. Then I either work on it digitally, or print it off and use ink and watercolours. That’s what I was doing today, before dinner. I just finished one off.’ It seemed that Colin could be quite talkative once he was concentrating on a topic that interested him.

‘Can I see it?’ I said.

He hesitated for a moment but then got up from his armchair and lowered the brass handles of the doors that separated us
from the next room. Then he pushed them open to reveal possibly the coolest bedroom I’ve ever seen.

‘This is your room?’ I said in awe.

‘Yep,’ said Colin, clearing a path through the chaos of clothes and comics on the floor. ‘One summer Mam wanted to use my old bedroom for some guests so I got shoved in here. I really like it so I convinced her to let me keep it.’

Colin’s bedroom was really big, just slightly smaller than the sitting room. The walls were covered in various Japanese film posters. I recognized
Akira
and
Spirited Away
. Computer games and DVDs were stacked beside a TV along with an assortment of anime figures. There were a couple of plates and glasses on the floor. The blue duvet cover was crumpled up at the foot of the bed and a noticeboard hung over the headboard with tons of stuff pinned to it – sketches, magazine clippings, ticket stubs. The computer desk was littered with pens, pencils and discarded pieces of paper. I followed Colin through the mess to the back corner of the room. A wooden easel stood there, holding a recently completed project. It was of a girl with jet-black hair and blood-red lips. Her head was bowed and a single red tear, like a drop of blood, stained her white cheek. The overall effect was striking, and I
was captivated by it.

‘It’s incredible,’ I said. ‘You’re really talented.’

I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

‘Thanks,’ he said, blushing slightly.

‘Is she based on anyone you know?’ I asked, as I took in all the detail.

‘No, she just sort of appeared in my head.’

I knew what Colin meant. Sometimes ideas for songs just popped into my head, and I had no idea where they came from.

‘Are you going to do art in college?’ I asked, still fascinated by his painting.

‘Hopefully,’ said Colin, flopping down on the swivel chair at his desk. ‘I’d really like to study in New York. What do you want to do in college?’ He had this intense look when he asked questions, like he was really interested in what I had to say. His initial shyness seemed to have vanished, and I felt relaxed in his company.

‘Music, I suppose. All I really want to do is sing and play guitar. But I’ve got another three years before I have to think about college. I was actually hoping to work on a demo this year …’

I surprised myself by telling him that. Maybe Colin would turn out to be one of those people you could share your secrets with. I was even beginning to wonder if I could fancy him.

‘I can’t wait to finish school,’ he said. ‘It’s so boring sometimes. Anyway, wanna go back and watch TV?’

I couldn’t help looking longingly at his computer. I was having serious withdrawal symptoms.

‘Em … would you mind if I used your computer for a few minutes? We don’t have Internet in the caravan and I’d love to just check my messages …’

‘Sure. Knock yourself out,’ he said, pushing some rubbish off the keyboard.

I sat at his desk and logged on while Colin lay down on his bed and picked up a book.

Fifteen messages. The first was from Hannah wondering how I was. The next five were Hannah wondering why I hadn’t messaged her back. She wanted to know was I mad at her because she kissed Ross? Hannah and Ross. Weird. I wasn’t mad
though. I used to fancy him, but then I’d seen him throw up after drinking too much cider, and the attraction had dwindled. I presumed they wouldn’t last very long anyway. Hannah disposed of boys just as often as she blew her allowance on Topshop accessories, i.e. almost every fortnight. The next message was a dirty joke forwarded by Ross to me and twenty other people. And the next was a picture of a tiny kitten wearing a top hat, forwarded by Sophie. The rest were spam. I quickly replied to Hannah, explaining why I hadn’t been in contact.