It Felt Like a Kiss Read online

  Then Ellie had bought him a birthday consultation with a personal shopper at Selfridges and he’d fallen heart first for his birthday present, Sophie – they’d just become the proud parents of twins.

  Yes, Ellie’s love life was perfect to serve up as bite-sized anecdotes on a girls’ night out when everyone moaned about how rubbish men were, but just as she remembered the good and bad bits of each relationship, she also remembered how they’d ended and that the heartache had never got any easier. On the contrary, it had got worse and had become her special friend, threatening to drag her under, and it had taken all of Ellie’s considerable self-control to pick herself up each time, set her shoulders back and try again.

  At least Tess and Lola appeared to have reached the end of their intervention because they each took hold of one of Ellie’s hands.

  ‘You’re a smart, lovely gorgeous girl,’ Tess told her, holding up her phone to show Ellie a photo as proof. It had been taken on a girls’ weekend in Brighton last summer. Ellie was posing on Palace Pier and, yes, she was quite pretty. Or rather she thought of herself as a bit of a blank canvas. She was five foot seven, and slim because she worked hard at it, with long, straight shiny brown hair, though her mother and grandmother both insisted her best features were her big brown eyes and her smile. But the raw material had been shaped with some subtle warm-toned highlights, not to mention the Brazilian blowdry every three months to transform her Jew-fro into sleek and shiny perfection. The brown eyes were made more remarkable by lash extensions and her eyebrow threader’s skill with cotton, wax and dye, and the smile was a result of several years of painful orthodontics. She wasn’t going to be giving Alexa Chung any sleepless nights, but Ellie was perfectly satisfied with how she looked, apart from her 34As and the sign on her forehead that read, ‘All your problems solved, stop and ask me how,’ which apparently could only be seen by men with severe behavioural disorders.

  ‘I don’t have bad taste in men,’ she said hotly, though admittedly the evidence was pretty damning. ‘Everyone has some kind of issue they need to work on so it’s completely unfair of you to act as if my exes were Care in the Community case studies. They might have been fixer-uppers but—’

  ‘No, this is way beyond ironing out a few flaws on an otherwise decent boyfriend,’ Lola argued. ‘You’re an emotional fluffer, Ellie.’

  ‘What’s a fluffer?’ Tess asked.

  ‘It’s a girl on a porn shoot who gets the men all hard and primed for action, then after doing all the heavy lifting, as it were, she has to watch while all her good work is enjoyed by another woman.’

  Tess looked appalled. ‘Oh my God, that’s exactly what you do, Ellie!’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Ellie yanked her hands out of their grasps so she could fold her arms, her head lowered so her chin was almost on her chest. ‘Danny was the only one who went off with another woman.’

  ‘And you stay friends with all of them,’ Tess added accusingly, like that was a bad thing.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Ellie demanded. ‘What’s wrong with being the bigger person and keeping in touch with your exes? It’s a sign of maturity.’

  ‘It’s a sign of you not being able to cut the cord. If I’m into some guy and he treats me like shit and dumps me, then no, I’m not going to banter with him on Facebook or invite him to my birthday parties. Look, we just want you to find a nice, normal man instead of these lame ducks you always manage to bring home,’ Lola said, patting Ellie’s knee again, even though Lola, who looked like a 1940s pin-up girl with her dark auburn hair styled in a slinky Veronica Lake do, tight wiggle dresses and tattoos, would never, ever entertain the idea of finding a nice, normal man.

  Ellie slowly shook her head. ‘Sometimes lame ducks appear nice and normal. It’s not until you’re at least seven dates in that they reveal themselves and by then, well, it just seems rude to make your excuses and leave.’

  ‘She can’t dump people,’ Tess explained to Lola over Ellie’s head. ‘Never could. When we started secondary school, we were all assigned people to sit next to until we made friends and Ellie got this horrible girl called Laura Mulkenny, who had BO, the most pustular acne I’ve ever seen …’

  ‘Which wasn’t her fault. She had a hormonal imbalance.’

  ‘… she copied Ellie’s homework and left grease stains over it because she was one of those girls that ate her packed lunch in registration, and teased Ellie for being flat-chested. Ellie was far too chicken to come and sit next to me, even after we bonded about how much we loved Westlife.’

  ‘I felt sorry for her. No one else wanted to sit next to her.’

  Lola smiled knowingly. ‘How long did you sit next to her for?’

  ‘It’s neither here nor there.’

  ‘Five years,’ Tess replied. ‘Then Laura failed most of her GCSEs despite copying Ellie’s homework, and wasn’t allowed to stay on for A levels.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to dump Richey,’ Lola said. ‘He’s more than just a lame duck. I know his type from way back, and his type is big, fat trouble. And once you’ve sent him packing, unless you find a decent bloke who isn’t a complete freak of nature then you’re forbidden from bringing any men back to the flat.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but that’s how it has to be,’ Tess added. ‘I know it sounds harsh but it’s for your own good. You have to get rid of Richey.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything on the basis of your flimsy circumstantial evidence,’ Ellie argued. ‘It might all be a simple misunderstanding, and if it is then I’ll have broken up with Richey for no reason. He might be the One.’ They both snorted. ‘But he might be! I’m not going to throw that away on a load of hearsay.’

  ‘It’s not hearsay. It’s your two best friends who witnessed your current boyfriend off his tits on class-As and we’re not doing this to be cruel, Ellster, we’re doing this for your own good.’ Tess had the sanctimonious note to her voice that brooked no denial.

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ Ellie conceded. ‘But it’s Glastonbury this weekend and he’s booked time off work. I can’t get all heavy and issue ultimatums then head off to Somerset with him like nothing’s happened.’ The injustice of their demands made Ellie clasp her hands to her heart. ‘You can’t expect me to do that!’

  ‘Don’t care when you do it, just that you do it.’ Lola stopped with the knee-patting. ‘He’s not stepping foot in this flat ever again. End of. Now, can we get the pre-cleaner tidy-up over and done with?’

  There was no budging them. Tess and Lola refused to discuss the matter further because Tess was too busy snapping at Lola, who spent the entire pre-cleaner clean moaning about the pointlessness of having a cleaner if you spent the evening before she came tidying up. ‘It’s so middle class,’ she complained.

  ‘You are middle class,’ Tess told her. ‘I don’t care if one of your grandfathers was a coal miner, your parents live in Reading and your dad’s a GP. We wouldn’t have to do a pre-cleaner tidy-up if you didn’t have a dirty crockery mountain in your bedroom and you never rinse the sink after you’ve brushed your teeth.’

  It seemed as if the row would descend into hair-pulling until Tess played her trump card and threatened to get rid of the cleaner altogether and Lola was forced to admit that paying ten pounds for her share of the cleaner was money well spent.

  They had the same argument at the same time every Monday evening and it ended only when Theo brought up a bag bulging with takeaway containers, as he did this evening, so the three of them could pick their way through a selection of stuffed vine leaves, lamb souvlaki and assorted dips while they caught up on trashy TV. Every time they skipped through an ad break, Lola would shake her head and sigh. ‘Jesus, I can’t believe I’m living with two people who used to like Westlife.’

  Then Tess would bop Lola with a cushion and Ellie would smile faintly, while on the inside she was in turmoil; not sure whether she should be angry with her friends or angry with her boyfriend. She was already steeling herself for
the talk she needed to have with Richey. Past experience had proved that these kinds of talks always ended with her boyfriends having some kind of epiphany, then heading off into the sunset without her.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning Ellie was pulled out of sleep and fitful dreams of being followed around by a family of fluffy ducklings, who had a nasty habit of falling off kerbstones into the path of oncoming traffic, by the chirp of her phone.

  She opened one eye. It was only six fifteen, three-quarters of an hour before her alarm. The number of the Mayfair gallery where she worked was flashing on the screen. Her boss had no respect for an eight- or even a nine- or ten-hour working day. If he was paying your wages and a hefty sales commission on top, then he owned your arse.

  ‘Hello? Is there a problem?’ Ellie hoped she sounded vaguely alert.

  ‘You have to come in right now. I’m in a world of trouble.’ It was Piers, her boss’s hapless assistant, so, no, she didn’t have to come to the gallery right now.

  ‘Give me one reason why you felt it necessary to wake me up at such an ungodly hour,’ she demanded, because, contrary to popular opinion, there were lots and lots of people who Ellie could say ‘no’ to, and Piers was at the top of the list. ‘It had better be a really, really good reason.’

  ‘Oh, please, Ellie. I’ve been here all night trying to fix it and I’ve just made it worse.’ Piers sounded shrill and hysterical. ‘There’s a virus on my computer and somehow it’s spread to all the other computers.’

  That got Ellie’s attention. She sat up. ‘What kind of virus?’

  She heard Piers swallow hard. ‘Penises,’ he whispered. ‘There are pop-up penises on all the computers.’

  ‘Have you been looking at porn? Again? You were warned about this.’ She was already throwing back her duvet. ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

  Piers moaned. ‘It’s an emergency! Just this once can you not walk to work? I’ll order you a car.’

  Ellie always walked into work. She walked through heatwaves, torrential rainfall and even the occasional blizzard, and although pop-up penises on the gallery server were serious, they didn’t warrant extraordinary measures. Besides, since their boss had got married he’d become boringly fixated about his own work/life balance – not that of his employees – and his wife got very pouty if he left for the office before eight thirty, so there was plenty of time.

  ‘I don’t need a car. But I’m going to need copious amounts of coffee when I get to work,’ Ellie said, phone clamped between ear and shoulder as she rifled through her summer work dresses, which ranged from taupe to white to pale blue to show off her tan, and also because anything brighter (or, God forbid, with a print) tended to clash with the art. ‘Also, I’m planning to smack you repeatedly with Davenport’s Art Reference & Price Guide.’

  Fifteen minutes later she was stepping out onto Delancey Street, showered, dressed and wearing really big sunglasses because it was an emergency and there wasn’t time for a light I’ll-apply-my-proper-make-up-later make-up.

  Regent’s Park was deserted apart from a few dog walkers and dedicated runners, but there was no time to appreciate the almost preternatural stillness of the early morning, as if the trees rustled in the breeze and the water rippled on the boating lake only when there were people around to appreciate these selfless acts.

  There wasn’t even enough time to pop into Le Pain Quotidien on Marylebone High Street. Ellie crossed Oxford Street, which was just starting to come to life, and headed for the rarefied thoroughfares of Mayfair and instantly, the bustle was muted. The hedge fund managers had been at their desks for at least an hour but it was too soon for the imperious-looking girls who worked in the luxury stores to start work and it was far, far, far too early for the ladies who still lunched to be heading for Miu Miu or Moschino or Marc Jacobs for a quick retail hit before their roast chicken, saffron, almond & parmesan salad (without the parmesan) and a bottle of sparkling water at Cecconi’s.

  Ellie didn’t even dare dawdle for a little window-shopping as she walked past the hip boutiques on Dover Street and arrived at Thirlestone Mews, a pretty cobbled street just round the corner from Berkeley Square, at thirty-one minutes past seven. Piers hurried towards her. He was tall, thin and effete-looking, which made people automatically want to look after him, which was fortunate as his greatest talent was for getting himself into serious trouble.

  ‘I thought you’d never get here,’ he cried, grabbing Ellie’s hand and tugging her towards number seventeen, which was identical to all the other stucco-covered houses in the mews, its door wide open.

  ‘You must never leave the gallery unattended,’ Ellie gasped as she was yanked through the door. ‘Someone could already have had a painting off the wall.’

  ‘Don’t even joke about things like that,’ Piers snapped, as they both turned and looked across the reception area into the main gallery to make sure there were still fourteen paintings by an obscure yet collectable British Pop artist. There were.

  ‘See? Things could be worse,’ Ellie said brightly, though she didn’t feel bright and Piers didn’t seem to have delivered on the coffee front. ‘Now shall we sort out this penis infestation?’

  It was just as well that Ellie hadn’t had breakfast because the sight of so many angry red, tumescent cocks multiplying every time she pressed a key on any of the gallery’s computers made her feel bilious.

  Piers twitched behind her. ‘Oh my days! I never want to see an erect penis again.’

  ‘If you hadn’t been trawling the internet for erect penises in the first place this would never have happened,’ Ellie told him sternly, though she knew they’d laugh about this, probably in a few short hours. Right now, it was Penis Apocalypse. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done. I can’t fix it. We have to call IT.’

  ‘You can’t! They’ll log it and he’ll know. He’ll fire me for absolute certain this time.’

  Ellie doubted that. Anyway, it wasn’t as if Piers needed to work when he had a private income and trust funds. This wasn’t even as bad as the time he’d put his foot through a painting when he’d been mucking about in the packing room, though that time he’d got his long-suffering mother to buy the painting. So Ellie ignored Piers and dialled their IT service’s emergency number.

  She was put straight through to Danny, her ex, who happened to be on-call. Ellie always prided herself on remaining on good terms with her exes, but now having to speak to Danny after last night’s conversation with Tess and Lola made her feel raw and exposed. Maybe staying on speakers with all the men who’d done her wrong, hurt her heart and made her cry was just another example of her total pushoverdom.

  ‘Ellie? How are you?’ At least Danny sounded pleased to hear from her, which was nice, even if there was the sound of a baby squalling in the background.

  ‘I’m good, except we have a porn virus on the computer system,’ Ellie said, deciding it was best to get straight down to business, because Piers was now huffing on his asthma inhaler.

  Danny chatted away as he took control of their servers by remote access and painstakingly removed each and every penis from the system. He and Sophie had just got back from their first weekend away without the twins, who’d been left with her parents, and were teething and refusing to sleep through the night.

  ‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Danny said when the last penis had magically melted away and he was doing something with their firewall to make it penis-repellent in future. ‘What’s your news?’

  Now that the crisis had been averted, Piers, inevitably, was nowhere to be found.

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Work is busy and I’m going to Glastonbury this weekend. You know how my mum feels about Glastonbury.’

  ‘It’s like her Christmas, birthday and all other major holidays rolled into one,’ Danny said, and he chuckled and then suggested that they should get together for lunch or, even better, she should come round for dinner and some twin-cuddling time because Sophie was saying only the other day that they
hadn’t seen her in ages.

  Ellie finished the call in much better spirits. She’d also come to a new conclusion about her past relationships. Yes, she’d been involved with men who’d been challenging, and yes, they’d become a lot less challenging thanks to her support and guidance, but that was what she brought to a relationship. The fact that they stayed in touch proved that she was a person worth having in their lives. How could that be bad?

  She was only twenty-six. Of course she was going to rack up a few failed relationships. It didn’t mean she was addicted to lame ducks. What it meant was that every time her heart got broken, it healed and was stronger than it had been before. Like her grandfather said, ‘Broken hearts make the best vessels.’

  Ellie wasn’t ready to write off Richey because of half an hour on Saturday night. Richey liked a good time, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that, but he also liked talking quietly for hours over pizza and beer about everything from French New Wave cinema to climate change to how they could both see themselves buying a dilapidated house near Deauville and doing it up on long weekends, as the restaurant staff pointedly kept wiping their table down because it was well past closing time. Ellie and Richey had a connection and Ellie wasn’t sure how deep it went but she owed it to herself – to them – to get Richey’s side of the story before she walked away.

  Anyway, nobody was perfect. Not Tess, who was always jumping to conclusions, and especially not Lola, so they could get off her case.

  ‘So … is everything all right? Is my nightmare over?’

  Ellie swivelled round to see Piers standing behind her, asthma inhaler poised. She gestured at the computer. ‘Do you see any penises? Danny is going to log the job as a non-specific virus and system reboot, so you’re off the hook.’

  Piers still looked as if he was about to burst into tears. ‘Are you really sure that there isn’t some great big todger that you’ve overlooked that’s going to pop up and it will start all over again and never end until I’m fired and I’ll have to explain to Mummy why I’ve been fired and then she’ll tell my grandfather and he’ll—’