Chapter 11
LYRA
On the Corner of Bridgerton and Alice in Wonderland
Last night, after the Naisbett wedding, I unpacked three boxes of my belongings – mainly books, cuttings from magazine articles that have inspired me, photo albums of pictures I’ve developed myself, old university files and pointless stationery.
Stuff I’ve never needed to keep and don’t really have space for in my little bungalow.
I also unpacked some parcels of kitchen and home bits I ordered that are, similarly, unnecessary, given I have so far used one bowl, one plate, one knife, fork and spoon, one cup and one glass, since I moved in.
Sitting in the middle of the lounge that looks distinctly unloved and uninhabited, I can truthfully say, this is not what I had in mind for my first home.
It was time to have my own space – that was well overdue – but I guess, I just thought that when I eventually had a place of my own, it would feel like a home, more than a cottage I’m squatting in until real life begins.
Whatever I mean by real life.
It’s my fault, really. Like Mandy keeps telling me, if I unpack and spread my things around the space, it will feel like home. As she’s pointed out, putting sheets on my bed and setting up my dark room doesn’t count as moving in.
I’m sure I can grow to love this place. Ultimately, it was within my budget and five minutes’ drive from both my parents and Mandy’s shop. Handily, seven minutes’ drive from Earl’s Castle.
Gosh, my life fits into a tiny radius.
I’m already dressed and waiting for my sister and Mum to pick me up, wearing a navy sundress covered in white daisies, which happens to be one of Mum’s favourites but mostly because my sister asked that I, and her other three bridesmaids, wear blue today for our wedding hair trials.
Ordinarily, I’d have plaited my long hair because it’s thick and gets in the way, especially when I’m trying to peer through a camera lens with my own loose tendrils acting as an unwanted frame.
Today, though, as instructed, my hair is uncommonly blow-dried into de-frizz mode, ready for the salon technician to work some magic on me, make me look befitting of my sister’s bridal party.
Deciding I still have half an hour, I head to my bedroom and pull out one more box of stuff to unpack.
As I open the lid on the brown box, the first thing I notice is the folded-up world map I had on my wall in halls at university.
Laying it out on my bed, I see each label I stuck on, every place I told Cami I wanted to travel to, to photograph, experience.
I had wanted to visit every continent. I remember us talking about South America.
She’s there now and I’m… staring at a map that a girl I knew once had been very excited about.
A version of myself that wanted to hire a car and drive across the USA, to backpack the Himalayas and drink tea from a yunomi in Japan.
Alongside a couple of miniskirts, my old leather jacket and the pair of lace-up boots that I used to love and haven’t seen since I boxed this stuff up seven years ago, there are four travel guides inside the box – South East Asia, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and Europe.
At the thought of that girl’s excitement, the me of now feels heavy.
The memory of Guy asking me if I’d ever visited continental Europe pops into my mind.
Once since That Night. To see him in Madrid on the band’s world tour.
He was incredible, the whole weekend was, but that brief break that Cami persuaded me to take was like smelling a cinnamon roll.
Seeing it. Reaching out to touch the sticky iced topping. Then being told you can’t eat it.
It wasn’t worth teasing myself, so I haven’t been out of the UK since.
My sister honks her horn outside, announcing her arrival and time to put my reverie to bed. I shall live vicariously through Cami’s updates. Which reminds me, I really ought to suck it up and reply to her voice note.
My sister decides not to come into my cottage, nor to comment, despite this being the first time she’s seeing it. I slip into the back seat of her car, behind Mum in the front passenger seat, who turns to hand me a drive-thru takeaway coffee, and tells me, ‘You look lovely, darling.’
Lovely. Nice. Pretty. Dull.
Though I smile and return the compliment, I stare out the window thinking, at what point did I stop looking hot or sexy? Does that die with age or am I old before my time?
Part of the reason, even though miniscule, for me taking the plunge on renting my own place, has been Mandy reminding me on a near daily basis that when it comes to my down there, use it or lose it.
I’m not crazy, I don’t actually think that a lack of romantic life can cause my orifices to seal shut or anything, but it has been a while. I look to the sky. Understatement.
The thing is, I’ve never truly been with anyone who excites me.
I’ve had boyfriends but I’ve had nothing close to the bond, the passion, or the orgasms Mandy talks about with her wife.
Frankly, my own wandering down there is better than dating another of Mum’s colleagues’ sons – usually a doctor, dentist, architect.
And, yes, they’ve been lovely, nice, handsome and… dull.
I’ve been on dates with a couple of guys from dating apps, even Henry who worked the residents’ bar at Earl’s Castle.
None of them stuck. Even if they had, imagine me having taken them home to Mum and Dad’s house, in my bedroom I’ve had since I was a girl, asking them to sit down to dinner and seek Mum’s seal of approval. How to make passion die.
So I guess it hasn’t mattered much whether I look pretty or sexy or hot before now. And, even though I don’t have the excuse of living with my folks any more, I’m not sure why it’s bothering me so much today.
Maybe unpacking my box and seeing that brief flirt with being my own person at university has got me riled.
I try to get over myself, making all the right noises to keep up the flow of conversation – or my sister’s monologuing – as we drive to our destination.
We’re in the salon in Durham City Centre, which is closed to ordinary business since it’s Sunday, and open especially for Livy, Mum, and my sister’s other three bridesmaids, Charlotte, Elsie and Janie.
Beyond the windows, it’s a beautiful sunny day and I resent not being able to be outdoors in the fresh air rather than in this stuffy, hot space.
Thankfully, the glasses of fizz we’re served are cool and I accept mine, briefly use it to toast my sister, and gulp it down as if it’s the best form of rehydration.
Certainly, it’s going to be medicinal for the next couple of hours.
I know this because the gossip amongst the bridesmaids has already begun, about one of their lawyer friends sleeping with one of their doctor friends, who is already married to one of their fund broker friends.
Mum dips in and out of the conversations, adding the ‘wiser lady’s perspective’ here and there.
At some point, she glances my way when I’m lost in thought, remembering nights Cami and I spent dreaming up an interrailing trip around Europe.
I quickly flash her a beam, not knowing how long she’s been watching me.
‘Are you okay, darling? You don’t seem yourself today,’ she says.
‘Mmm, yes, fine. Just a bit tired. It was a long day yesterday at the castle.’ I don’t tell her that actually I left early, my fingers entwined with Guy’s. ‘I’ve also been unpacking. I’m trying to sort the house.’
She purses her lips and I brace myself. ‘It’s a wonder you haven’t done that yet.
’ It’s an airy statement, rather than disapproving.
More conversational. But she doesn’t say much about my moving out from home.
I’d checked and checked and checked again that she’d be okay supporting Dad without me and each time, I received a response like, ‘We’ll be fine. ’ Fine.
‘I guess I’ve been busy,’ I tell her. Which is partly true. I have still managed to write my humorous – to me – tales of wedding guests to fit pictures I’ve taken. I’ve had time enough to set up my dark room and dig out old film that I haven’t yet developed.
Now, she asks, ‘How is the job?’
And I do genuinely smile now because I am amused. She has a habit of asking about my job then asking my sister about her career.
‘Great!’ I gush. Even if it wasn’t true, the same word would leave my mouth, but as it happens, ‘We’re really busy. Fully booked all wedding season and I have a load of family summer shoots midweek, too.’
‘That’s excellent,’ she says, as her focus shifts back to Livy. The overachiever. The wife-to-be. The good child, who never strayed or disappointed, never caused our family to be damaged irreparably by her choices.
Remarkably, I’m grateful when it’s my turn for hair and make-up because I’m relocated to another area in the salon, away from the tittering. Moreover, my glass of numbing liquid is topped up.
My hair is combed – detangling I hadn’t realised was necessary tugs painfully at the roots – then curled and partially pinned up. More make-up than I even know what to do with is applied to my face, until my cheeks feel sticky and my eyebrows spikey.
I like the woman working on me, though. Her name is Hannah and she’s thirty-one. She tells me about her kids. We laugh about trash TV. I mention that I work at Earl’s Castle and she asks if it’s true that Guy Walker is singing at weddings there now.
For some reason, my cheeks heat as I tell her how incredible he still is and even better listening to him close-up. I leave out that his moods swing more than orangutans and he refuses to play his own music.
She and I share a family-sized bag of chocolate. All-in-all, it’s a much more comfortable way to pass an hour than sitting talking with my family and supposed old friends.
My sister is finished first and whilst I’m still turned sideways to face Hannah, my chin held in her hand as she paints my lips, I see Livy stand from her padded seat.
‘What do you think, ladies?’ she asks.
She looks stunning, truly. Her hair is pinned into a loose chignon, with her natural, glossy blonde waves tumbling down, as if by perfect accident.
A gold vine has been threaded through her bridal do.
Whilst she has on more make-up than usual, every beautiful feature of my sister’s is enhanced, augmented, bedazzling.
I wait for something akin to jealousy to come and smack me in the face, proverbially. There’ve been so many times that I’ve thought, if I were just a little more Livy and a little less me, I don’t know… good things would happen.
I wait. I’m waiting.
Surprisingly, the pang doesn’t come and I realise, I’m happy for her to be happy but I’m not desperate to walk down the aisle, or to be exhausted from climbing a defined path in a highly respectable career, even knowing those things would please my parents endlessly.
My phone pings as everyone – including me – is gushing over Livy’s bridal look. I reach for it from my backpack.
Cami
You should come here. You’d love it!
And accompanying her words is a selfie of her, cleverly positioned to look like she’s being kissed on the cheek by an iguana.
I fire a quick reply:
I miss you! Can’t wait to meet the new guy. I’ll reply properly to your voice note. Currently getting a bridesmaid hair trial for Livy’s wedding.
Good luck! Miss you too!! PS you’d photograph the shit out of this place x
As I slip my phone back into my bag, the pang of want finally comes, and it isn’t anything to do with my sister’s wedding.
I’m not convinced it’s directly related to South America, either.
I think it’s for a version of myself that I can’t quite capture in mind any more.
One that felt free-spirited and empowered to make my own life choices.
Did she ever truly exist?
For some reason, I find myself tracing my lips, thinking about that kiss with Guy that was so spontaneous and outrageous and completely unlike me.
‘No, no, don’t touch your lipstick,’ Hannah says, tugging my hand away from my face. ‘I’m all done. Are you ready to see yourself?’
I inhale deeply. ‘Sure.’
She turns me in the rotating seat to face the mirror and my God…
I look…
Like a cross between a girl from Bridgerton and the Red Queen. My hair has been curled into tight ringlets and partially pinned. My eye shadow is blue – blue??? – and my lips are bright red.
I have nothing against Bridgerton or Alice in Wonderland but this is 2025, I am twenty-eight years old, and this look is hideous.
All I can say is… ‘Blue?’
Hannah smiles sweetly. ‘To match the dresses.’
My sister and mum don’t seem to register my horror. Probably because I’m trying to internalise it.
‘You look lovely, darling,’ Mum says.
‘Do you love it?’ Livy asks.
Notably, the other bridesmaids stay silent and I don’t dare glance in their direction. I look ridiculous. How did this girl end up kissing a rock star?
‘Do you like it?’ I ask my sister, rather than saying, I absolutely hate the way I look.
‘It’s great!’
‘That’s what matters. Is there a top-up of fizz?’
Whilst I’m waiting for more numbing liquid and the others get back to chatting around me, I take a selfie and send it to Cami. She replies in an instant:
Is the wedding fancy dress? X
Now, I really miss her.
I turn back to look at myself in the mirror and another thought occurs to me. Whilst I’m dressed like someone out of the Regency period who has been hit in the face with two heavy blue balls, Guy will be there at my sister’s September wedding at Earl’s Castle, singing my sister’s playlist.
It shouldn’t matter. He’s just a man. A really moody and dismissive one, too.
But it does matter.