kissed, he felt like the moon was inside him.’
‘That’s so romantic,’ gasps Tab.
She’s missing the point. ‘Tabby,’ I say, ‘the thing is, I felt like that when Laurent kissed me . Like the moon was shining inside me, sort of cold and bright and intense. I can remember thinking it in exactly those terms . It was a full moon both times – when Laurent kissed me, and when I kissed Jem. Don’t you think that’s a weird coincidence? Both of us describing – feeling – a kiss in that way?’
Tabby ponders this. ‘Maybe you read it somewhere?’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ I say. ‘Can we check for quotes online?’
We start scrolling through variants on ‘kiss’, ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘moon’ on Tabby’s phone. (‘Not that kind of moon,’ says Tab at one point. ‘Honestly, my eyes .’) A couple of academic websites pop up; so does the British Museum.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of gossip mags and New Scientist ,’ I say, feeling worried. ‘I don’t read this stuff.’
‘How about movies?’ says Tabby, scrolling on. ‘Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to have given Aphrodite’s Kiss to Richard Burton.’
I think back to a recent Grazia retrospective I read a while back, about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. ‘Not ringing bells,’ I say, a little uncertainly.
We suddenly hit gold. An Australian Classics professor has written an entire thesis on the subject of Aphrodite’s Kiss and uploaded the lot. There is silence as we both read what we can – me on Tabby’s laptop, Tab on her phone.
‘This weirdo’s tried tracing it,’ I say after a few moments’ rapt silence. How could a theoretically intelligent person be so gullible? ‘He says it went from Ancient Greece to Egypt – he’s quoted some source about Anthony and Cleopatra – to Rome . . .’
‘Italians!’ Tabby says with excitement. ‘It explains a lot about Italians.’
My best friend is supposed to be putting me off the idea that there’s something in this.
‘Tabby, it isn’t true,’ I insist.
‘The guy’s a professor ,’ Tab points out. There’s a look in her eye that I don’t like. ‘Professors don’t publish theories without evidence. All the other academics would laugh themselves sick. Where did it go next?’
I scroll on and on, knowing this whole weirdness to be a massive heap of dungballs and yet somehow unable to tear my eyes away . ‘Apparently it pops up in Venice in the eighteenth century— no way, Casanova ?’
‘See? Italians again!’ Tab is now hovering over me, still-undrunk tea in her hand.
I scroll faster and faster. Venice, London, Naples, Sicily, back to Rome. I reach a bit about Richard Burton and my skin goes clammy.
‘. . . in Burton’s own words, recorded shortly before his death in 1984: “When I kissed Elizabeth Taylor for the first time that day in Rome, it was as though a light had gone on inside me. As if the moon had poured through my skin and taken hold.”’
B y the time we finish reading Professor Aussie Crackpot’s thesis about the whole myth-made-flesh thing, my brain has been through the tumble-dryer and come out again the wrong shape for my skull.
‘The last known record of the Kiss was the South of France!’ Tab starts bouncing on the bed like a crazed kangaroo. ‘That’s how your Frenchman caught it! Delilah, you are a legend. An actual Greek legend! Actually, not you, you passed it on . . . Jem! Jem now has the Kiss! He—’ She stops bouncing abruptly. ‘Sweet mother of all marzipan, I know how to get Sam back.’
This has ‘wasp in your swimsuit’ written all over it.
‘Tabby . . .’ I start in warning.
Sliding off the bed, Tab grips my jumper, hauling me up from where I’ve been sitting at her desk. Red spots of colour have flared in her cheeks. ‘I have to get with Jem again. Then I’ll have the Kiss – oh my God, historic – and then I’ll waylay Sam at college and give the Kiss to him and
‘That’s so romantic,’ gasps Tab.
She’s missing the point. ‘Tabby,’ I say, ‘the thing is, I felt like that when Laurent kissed me . Like the moon was shining inside me, sort of cold and bright and intense. I can remember thinking it in exactly those terms . It was a full moon both times – when Laurent kissed me, and when I kissed Jem. Don’t you think that’s a weird coincidence? Both of us describing – feeling – a kiss in that way?’
Tabby ponders this. ‘Maybe you read it somewhere?’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ I say. ‘Can we check for quotes online?’
We start scrolling through variants on ‘kiss’, ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘moon’ on Tabby’s phone. (‘Not that kind of moon,’ says Tab at one point. ‘Honestly, my eyes .’) A couple of academic websites pop up; so does the British Museum.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of gossip mags and New Scientist ,’ I say, feeling worried. ‘I don’t read this stuff.’
‘How about movies?’ says Tabby, scrolling on. ‘Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to have given Aphrodite’s Kiss to Richard Burton.’
I think back to a recent Grazia retrospective I read a while back, about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. ‘Not ringing bells,’ I say, a little uncertainly.
We suddenly hit gold. An Australian Classics professor has written an entire thesis on the subject of Aphrodite’s Kiss and uploaded the lot. There is silence as we both read what we can – me on Tabby’s laptop, Tab on her phone.
‘This weirdo’s tried tracing it,’ I say after a few moments’ rapt silence. How could a theoretically intelligent person be so gullible? ‘He says it went from Ancient Greece to Egypt – he’s quoted some source about Anthony and Cleopatra – to Rome . . .’
‘Italians!’ Tabby says with excitement. ‘It explains a lot about Italians.’
My best friend is supposed to be putting me off the idea that there’s something in this.
‘Tabby, it isn’t true,’ I insist.
‘The guy’s a professor ,’ Tab points out. There’s a look in her eye that I don’t like. ‘Professors don’t publish theories without evidence. All the other academics would laugh themselves sick. Where did it go next?’
I scroll on and on, knowing this whole weirdness to be a massive heap of dungballs and yet somehow unable to tear my eyes away . ‘Apparently it pops up in Venice in the eighteenth century— no way, Casanova ?’
‘See? Italians again!’ Tab is now hovering over me, still-undrunk tea in her hand.
I scroll faster and faster. Venice, London, Naples, Sicily, back to Rome. I reach a bit about Richard Burton and my skin goes clammy.
‘. . . in Burton’s own words, recorded shortly before his death in 1984: “When I kissed Elizabeth Taylor for the first time that day in Rome, it was as though a light had gone on inside me. As if the moon had poured through my skin and taken hold.”’
B y the time we finish reading Professor Aussie Crackpot’s thesis about the whole myth-made-flesh thing, my brain has been through the tumble-dryer and come out again the wrong shape for my skull.
‘The last known record of the Kiss was the South of France!’ Tab starts bouncing on the bed like a crazed kangaroo. ‘That’s how your Frenchman caught it! Delilah, you are a legend. An actual Greek legend! Actually, not you, you passed it on . . . Jem! Jem now has the Kiss! He—’ She stops bouncing abruptly. ‘Sweet mother of all marzipan, I know how to get Sam back.’
This has ‘wasp in your swimsuit’ written all over it.
‘Tabby . . .’ I start in warning.
Sliding off the bed, Tab grips my jumper, hauling me up from where I’ve been sitting at her desk. Red spots of colour have flared in her cheeks. ‘I have to get with Jem again. Then I’ll have the Kiss – oh my God, historic – and then I’ll waylay Sam at college and give the Kiss to him and
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