I learned that most men did not kiss like slobbering puppies, that a real kiss didn’t mean you had to wipe your face afterwards. And that it was the beginning—a kiss—rather than the end, and you had to hold their hands to keep them from wandering, unless that was what you wanted. My first proper kiss was with one of Jack’s friends after he took me to see a matinee one Sunday. I can’t even remember what we saw, because the pressure of his hand on my shoulder made everything else seem like a distraction. His knee touched mine and his body was narrow and tall, folded into the cushioned velvet seat. In the dark at the back of the cinema he leaned over and kissed me as the credits rolled, and his mouth was soft on mine, his lips as tender as a horse lifting the apple from your palm. His black curls brushed my cheek as he bent to kiss my neck, and his scalp smelled yeasty like bread. He had lashes like a girl’s and long thin fingers, high cheekbones. We went to the beach the following week—to Coogee—and walked the promenade while foamy waves crashed, the colour of the water muted by clouds. Afterwards he bought me a shandy and himself a beer in the Coogee Bay Hotel, and then he held my hand and told me he loved someone else. He died in the Pacific the following year. He wrote me a letter once, but I lost it. I can’t recall his name.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

I kiss Grandma goodnight on a cheek made slippery with face cream. I watch her lower herself into bed. She lifts her loose-skinned legs onto the mattress slowly, one by one, and pulls the sheet over them. I resist the urge to tuck her in. She has kissed men who have been dead more than seventy years. She has been around my entire life, holding my hand to cross the road when I was a girl, reading me stories in her low, melodious voice, then telling me to hop into bed, ‘quick sticks’, before she got in trouble for letting me stay up late. When my parents had parties I sat at the top of the stairs, watching her talk and drink cocktails with the other grownups. I could pick her perfume, the certain sound of her laugh. I’ve taken for granted that she will always be here. But she won’t. We might have five more years if I’m lucky, perhaps fewer.

She accepted me when no one else did, sat beside so many hospital beds, tried her best to understand.

I turn off the overhead light and slip between my own sheets.

I pull out my phone and open the calorie tracker I keep in a hidden folder. I list everything that has gone into my body today.

Breakfast

1 slice honeydew melon: 36 calories

2 tbsp scrambled eggs: 46 calories