the true value of kisses

The value of kisses
By Thomas Hocknell

I find the pavilion easily enough, not that much has changed. The chalets are now further from the beach moved by the tides over the years. Not having returned for over forty years I notice more changes than most. The saplings of my childhood are now grown, but the lazy afternoon sun striking their upper branches and my hands feels comfortably the same. The smell of the sea is unchanged, along with the sounds of families digging sand forts in preparation to be gleefully beaten by the evening high tide, though not without a fight, just as we once did. I recall my sister and I met a group of temporary friends, all digging with junior red spades bought at the beach shop. My father gamely pitched in with a garden spade. We would be eventually surrounded and peering over the walls like Chads. Toe-steps were cut into either side of the wall so we could run for a quick tea at our respective chalets, and re-garrison without damaging the defences in time for the tide's arrival.

I sit on the bench under the roof of the pavilion. The tennis courts are empty; I vaguely recollect they always were. My wife has gone for her own walk, while my memory is in the fast lane of reminiscence. I remember the first time. Don't we all? How old was I? I can't remember exactly. I concentrate. My first kiss must have been about forty-seven years ago. The memory is as clear today as it was that day, in other words fuzzy, heady and awash with too much perfume and a thousand emotions competing for space in a mind teetering between childhood and adolescence. Contrary to popular music it started with a letter.

It was my mother who found it, dropped through the chalet's seldom-used letterbox. It was a pink envelope and scented so strongly with cheap perfume that the smell upset our dogs. I can see my mother now, holding it aloft like a detective victoriously discovering the still-smoking pistol behind the dresser. She knew only too well how this would have mortified my fourteen-year old self and seized the moment with the enthusiasm of a nomad finding an oasis. Once I finally wrestled it from her grasp I escaped to my bed. Ignoring the family gossiping behind the thin partition, I opened the letter and my whole existence swelled. The writer had apparently seen me from 'afar', with my parents, sister and dogs. The writer thought I looked lovely in my red shirt. It was signed Joan, accompanied by kisses; the first kisses ever addressed to me that were not from family. I pulled back the net curtains and surveyed the yard in front of the chalet, past our car, half expecting a girl to be standing there. I struggled to grasp the adoring nature of the letter; that I was able to inspire such feelings in a stranger. I had only recently grown aware of the new effect girls had on me, causing me blushes, untimely erections and to be tongue-tied; in parlance of the day, a blithering idiot. The letter spent the night under my pillow.

The next letter arrived the following day, while we had been out visiting a country house/garden/scenic railway; expeditions with which my father liked to punctuate days playing on the beach. I reached the pink envelope first, in a moment of surprising agility in light of my distraction that had lasted all day, sighs and wistful looks that were already infuriating my younger sister. Of course I was too young to know that beginning to think about a girl is the easiest thing in the world, while stopping is the hardest. Never ride a tiger if you want to get off I believe the saying goes. I concealed the letter under my red shirt and closed the door behind me to the bedroom I shared with my sister. The bubble writing repeated admiration for me, and this time it suggested we meet. My heart raced. Did I feel ready to actually meet her? If the thought of it paralysed me then, it needed little stretch of the imagination to predict how I would react in the reality. I imagined needing to be stretchered away.

Of course I wore the red shirt, which was seeing more action than a whistle on match day. She had already arrived, sitting on one of the benches under the open front of the pavilion, where I was sitting now. Following an attempted swagger up to her I gratefully sat down. I guess we mumbled 'Hi'. I don't remember much else. I sat at the other end of the bench and she moved next to me. She said that she thought my family looked nice. I remember being at a loss of what to say and in hindsight followed a long history of male behaviour in such a predicament; I awkwardly put my arm around her, which failed to reach far behind her enormous coat, and kissed her. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, it was all teeth at first, but then slowly it became something else. Her mouth was so soft, so inviting, above all so accommodating; that was the over-riding emotion and it still is during a good kiss, that moment when all the barriers between people are suddenly negotiable. The sound between my ears was my mind exploding as I struggled to comprehend something so intimate and so enjoyable was actually allowed, and that it was happening to me. It was dream-like; the sort of thing that happened to other people, I felt suddenly part of a club I never thought would have me; that life was able to surprise me. I remember the shock when she did not stop me from searching out her breast, after clutching it for a few minutes she kindly moved my hand away from her upper ribcage and actually onto her soft budding mound. I could have exploded. Her perfume was overpowering, but I was not to know that at the time. It lingered unmistakably on my skin, my clothes, the wind and my memory for days following.

I shake my head back to the present and wonder how many other kisses this bench has witnessed, children testing the boundaries, losing their innocence on hot summer days, luminous with the magic of peerless events that will linger through lives, no matter how dark. Those unexpected times shining bright; Christmas presents surpassing expectation, fathers arriving home with puppies, and of course that first kiss. The value of kisses does not depreciate over time.

I'm confident Joan never imagines I kept the letters. I kept them all, in Dinky toy packaging, now yellowed and the sort of thing you see in museums. I'm happy growing old, I don't envy the children today, progress now accelerates so swiftly that while I'm sure they'll live longer, it may not necessarily feel like it. I hear a shout, my wife is returning from her walk. Her elegant gait remains the same, albeit more considered, she is ageing well, I made a good choice, or maybe she did. I wish I shared the confidence to know what I wanted the moment I saw it, like Joan had.