The First Last Kiss (57 page)

The photos were simple. There were no fancy settings, no beautiful backdrops, just these terminally ill cancer patients kissing and being kissed, just them and their love shining through the lens. I realized that this was what I have always loved about photography; everything we can’t find the words to say, it snaps. Everything we feel, it frames.

The exhibition was shown in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support and the Haven Hospice – and so far has raised lots of awareness and money. After London, it travelled around the country. I still can’t believe how successful it’s been, with national and international press picking up on it – and now international exhibitions, too. It is a wonderful feeling to be finally doing some good, making sense of, not just my life, but Ryan’s too. I honestly believe that it helped to heal my heart and gave me the confidence to do what I’ve always dreamed. And then I met Chris.

I pull over in the car park as I hear my phone by his feet. He grapples for it amongst the passports and tickets and the tinfoil-wrapped ginger biscuits I carry with me at all times. Minnie likes them.

‘It’s your BFF,’ Chris says, handing my phone to me.

‘Hey, Case,’ I answer as I put it to my ear. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Still hung-over from your farewell party last night, trying to pretend you’re not leaving as well as working out how long it’ll take us to save up enough money to fly to Australia on his crappy nurse’s and my PR’s wage.’ I hear her sniff. ‘I’m not sure who is crying more about you both going to Oz, me or Rob.’ I hear her pull away from the phone as a familiar voice chastises her, and I press speaker-phone so Chris can be privy to the conversation between our two friends.

‘I’m not crying! Do not let Chris think I’m crying . . . ’ Rob calls gruffly. Rob and Chris met at Southend Hospital and when Chris and I had been together a few months, we orchestrated a meeting between Casey and Rob by inviting her to a fundraising ball. Just as we’d predicted, they’d clicked and ended up getting married a month after us. Mia and I were bridesmaids. I think of the photo I have in my purse of that happy day and smile. He is a lovely bloke, a trainee nurse and a bit younger than us, well, eight years actually – but they are so happy. I mean, who says you can’t fall in love in your early twenties? Not me . . .

‘He so
is
crying,’ Casey mutters. ‘Listen Moll,’ she says tearfully, ‘I just wanted to say I love you, I miss you already, and I am
well jel
that Mia has stolen you away from me, and if you don’t come back when that little bubba is born so I can dress her up in lots of super blingtastic Essex-style baby clothes I will have to just do something drastic and . . . have a baby of my own!’ I laugh as her voice goes all muffled. ‘Of
course,
I’m joking! I’ve already got one baby to look after . . . ’

‘Whoops,’ she laughs when she comes back on the line, and I squeal as I hear Rob shout, ‘Can we start practising now, Case?’

Ahhh, young love
, I think fondly. Chris and I have moved on a bit further from that first flush of carefree passion. It’s just who we are together. We
are
more serious, more grown-up. And I like that. No, I
love
it.

‘Case, of course we will come back soon.
And
we can Skype all the time, remember?’

‘OK, but I don’t really get that Skype stuff, Rob will have to set it up,’ she sighs. I chuckle. So much for feminism. ‘Now just go will you, Molly? But don’t say goodbye or I’ll bawl, OK? Say . . . I know, say . . . see you tomorrow instead . . . too late, I’m bawling. Oh no, I’m going to look a right mess . . . ’

‘See you tomorrow, Casey,’ I say but she’s gone.

The sun is just starting to dip in the sky as I pull onto the motorway, tinting the clouds with a pale pastel-pink hue, the exact colour of the gorgeous little outfits that we’ve been given for our baby girl at our farewell party. True to form, my mum and dad gave us books. ‘For the journey that you’re about to embark on,’ Mum had smiled as she’d handed the present to me.

I’d furrowed my brow at this. ‘But we have lots of travel guides already, and Chris is Sydney born and bred so we don’t nee—’

‘These books aren’t for
that
journey, dear,’ she’d laughed as I ripped it open. In the precisely wrapped parcel was every baby-rearing manual you could imagine, downloaded onto a Kindle. ‘Easier to travel with,’ she’d explained proudly.

‘
Finally
, a bit of technology you approve of!’ I’d laughed, giving her and Dad a hug.

‘Well, these are for you to read until your dad and I arrive in Sydney.’

Her hand had fluttered up to her throat, and then hovered under her eyes where she’d dabbed them with a handkerchief. ‘We’ll be on that plane as soon as she’s born, and we will stay as long as you need us, won’t we John?’

Mum and Dad finally took the plunge a few years ago and retired.

Dad had nodded. ‘Ahhh . . . of course! Or at least, until we decide it’s time to continue our own journey!’ He’d popped his arm around Mum. ‘Patricia and I have already planned our trip to New Zealand after our extended holiday with you. And then we’re going to go to America. First to New York, and then your mother has agreed we’ll go to Connecticut and see the original Constable painting of Hadleigh Castle that’s on display in the Yale Center of British Art!’

‘It’s his way of bringing home with him on our travels,’ Mum had said, and had gone to give Dad an affectionate tap on the wrist, but then had kissed him gently on the lips instead.

I turn on the radio and smile as I put my foot down and cruise along the motorway towards Stansted airport. The sky stretches out in front of me and through my windscreen I distractedly watch two aeroplanes soaring up and across the sky. Chris has dropped off to sleep beside me and I feel a tingle down my spine as my current favourite song, ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay, comes on the radio. The first time I heard it I felt like it was written for me, well, written for the girl I once was. I
did
expect the world, I
did
dream of paradise, and life
did
get heavy. I listen to the song, swallowing back the tears as Chris Martin’s distinctive voice soars out of the speakers. And in my mind, so does another.

We did it then
, she says.
We found happiness, after all
. Against all the odds

We did
, I reply silently in my head, looking at Chris, and then looking up.

From now on, it’s about looking upwards and onwards, just like both the men in my life have taught me to do: Ryan is the love I grew up with, and Chris is the love I’ll grow old with. Up and on . . .

As that thought enters my head, I look up at the sky and watch the same two aeroplanes crossing paths, one ascending heavenward, the other cruising straight across, both leaving a white trail that crosses the other, like a kiss in the sky.

THE END. AND A NEW BEGINNING

Acknowledgements

Writing this book has taught me so much, not least to appreciate everyone in your life and to try and make every single kiss count. So here goes.

An eternally appreciative kiss to my fabulous friend of 18 years, Nick Smithers, who turned up one cold January morning when I was close to breaking point and stayed for the next three weeks to support me whilst I tore my hair (and my heart) out writing the final chapters of this book. He became my first reader, my early editor and my saviour. Nick, you know this book would not be what it is without your incredible input and your absolute certainty in me when my confidence was failing. Without you I’d never have seen the Light at the End of the Tunnel so thank you for being my . . . wait for it . . . ‘Starlight Express’! And thanks too, to your wonderful mum, Freda Smithers, for bringing her district nursing wisdom to my manuscript and for putting me in contact with Rupert Deveraux who gave me such great insight into his job as a Macmillan Nurse, as well as the plight of both cancer patient and carer.

Big thanks to Macmillan.org.uk for their invaluable help and to the WAY foundation (www.wayfoundation.org.uk) an organisation that supports young widowed men and women as they adjust to life after loss. A special thank you to the members of that foundation who so generously shared their stories of losing a partner with me. I’m in awe of your strength and spirit.

Enormously thankful kisses to my amazing family and friends for putting up with my stress and tears for a year. If you notice that I hug you all a little tighter these days, now you know why. A special mention too to my fellow author and new friend Paige Toon for the weekly playdates/writing pow wows that have become the highlight of my week since moving to Cambridge. Here’s to many more happy years of hanging out to come! Thanks too to Rachel Bishop for looking after my kids so wonderfully while I was writing this book and putting up with me coming downstairs all the time for essential tear-drenched cuddle fixes with them!

Big kisses to Juliet Sear for throwing open her home (not to mention her incredible cake shop, Fancy Nancy) in Leigh on Sea to me while I was researching and then writing the final chapters of the book, and for the brilliant and hilarious tour of the area you gave me with your sister and my great Uni chum, Nancy Maddocks. You guys helped make the book come alive in my head before I’d written a word.

Especially thankful kisses to my mind-blowingly incredible agent Lizzy Kremer and my amazing editor Maxine Hitchcock for believing I could write such a big story and then encouraging me to go even bigger. Oh, and then for extending my deadline when I realised, actually, I
couldn’t
write it in that particular timeframe (babies, moving house and writing books really don’t mix, do they?!) Your creative contributions were invaluable and I feel so blessed to work with you both, not to mention your wonderful teams at David Higham and Simon & Schuster.

And finally; endless kisses to my husband Ben and my beautiful children, Barnaby and Cecily, for never ceasing to inspire and encourage me and for making me laugh more and love more than I ever thought possible. You are my world.

Kiss Stories written by you

The Goodbye Kiss

We had shared many kisses.

The pecks on the cheek at the end of every walk home from school.

The raucously giggly drunken ones in the twilight of another girls’ night out.

The supportive kisses of condolence at the news of a break up.

The congratulatory kisses at the news of new jobs, babies, engagement and a wedding.

The untold thank-you kisses for birthday, Christmas and ‘no specific reason other than loving your best mate’ presents.

So many kisses over such a long period of time, you take them all for granted.

But then there was the goodbye kiss. At the hospital. The one and only kiss she couldn’t return.

It’s that kiss that I shall never forget.

– Dawn Burnett

December 18th 1999. I was sitting at a bar in Soho. It was our work Christmas do and a large, obnoxious media mogul was boring me senseless with talk of himself and his enormous wealth. My apathy was apparent so he said something hurtful. I picked up my bag and ran out of the bar. Halfway down the street I heard someone call my name. It was Toby. The new guy at work. He grabbed my shoulder, turned me around and, to my horror, saw me in floods of tears. I can’t remember what either of us said. Only the kiss. We were on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Greek Street and I swear everything stopped. That kiss was amazing. That kiss changed my life.

– Emily Hynd

He was my best friend. We were accustomed to lazing about, listening to music in one of our bedrooms, but we’d found ourselves in a student club – and we didn’t like it. We pushed our way through the crowd until we were free, ran a few paces further, and flopped down on the nearest seat, laughing. Without realising it, we had clasped hands in the foray. When we noticed, we looked at each other but we didn’t let go and I let the words I’d silently practised spill out.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss me?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

“Would you like to find out?”

“Yes.”

We kissed. And it was wonderful.

– Lorna Murphy

Back in 1997, on an afternoon following a trip to Paris where my wife accepted my marriage proposal (second time lucky, don’t think she believed I was serious the first time I popped the question), we went to the cinema in Oxford to see
Jerry Maguire
. There’s a scene about halfway through when Tom Cruise plants a touching kiss on the top of Renee Zellweger’s head at the breakfast table the morning after they’ve spent their first night together. Immediately before that scene happened I did the very same thing to my wife in the cinema (ie. planted a kiss on the top of her head – we didn’t bring a breakfast table or any cereal into the cinema with us.) so you can imagine my surprise when the same thing happened on screen. Not quite sure what the word for it is (serendipity, perhaps?) but it certainly felt like fate was smiling down on us that day.

Anyway, we’ve recently celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary and I always reflect on that moment each time I see the film and smile fondly to myself.

– Andrew White

In February 2011 I attended a festival outside of London, it’s a niche music event with a capacity of about 5,000. The event is held at Butlins in Minehead and attendees stay in the adjoining chalets. I was sharing a chalet with my best gal pal. Her boyfriend was arriving on the Saturday and was sharing a chalet with a stranger. That stranger turned out to be an incredible boy from Brooklyn and he and I hit it off immediately. We spent the entire weekend together and could barely stop kissing. Unfortunately Tuesday came around too soon and he had to fly back to New York. We stayed in contact via email until I met someone else in London and the contact fizzled out. In his last email he told me that the stars would realign someday and we would meet again.

Recently, I broke up with that person I had met in London. My friends persuaded me to book last minute tickets to a festival in Croatia. Against my better judgment I booked the trip. It was the first year of the festival, a 5000-capacity event set in Pula. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. On the first night the venue, an abandoned fort, was crowded with beautiful revellers. There were about 5 stages and people running everywhere. Early on the first night my friends and I began exploring the fort, and climbed down into the moat. As I stood there, looking around and taking everything in I turned back to find my friends and was face to face with my Brooklyn boy. Stunned, we embraced tightly, not wanting to let go. Pulling back to look at each other’s faces, neither of us speaking, we leaned in and kissed each other repeatedly, only stopping to laugh and gaze at each other in amazement.