Chapter 26
GUY
The Dornan Wedding
‘It feels too easy,’ I tell Dave and Trev as Dave finishes his last reps on the pectoral fly machine in the gym, Trev and I waiting to switch in. ‘When I’m with her, I can switch off everything else. Forget all the noise. She?—’
I want to say consumes me, takes me out of my head, but I’m not the kind of man who talks about fluffy stuff. That’s what music is for.
Trev climbs onto the machine as Dave comes to stand next to me.
‘When I’m not with her, I’m waiting for the punchline. I’m waiting for whatever it is that’s gonna come along and ruin it.’
It could be any number of things – her family, my family, my demons, my past, my addictions. I’m scared of stifling her because even with the knowledge that something bad will come of this eventually, I can’t stop the craving.
‘I’m way out of my depth. I’ve never had a…’
‘Girlfriend?’ Dave asks when I don’t say it myself. But I am thinking it. I feel it.
Trev finishes his set and rests his arms on his lap. ‘Not everything has to be hard, man,’ he tells me. ‘I know that’s news to ya but sometimes, something good comes along and ya should grab it with both hands.’
I’m too dumbfounded to respond, not because the concept is too difficult to comprehend, though it is quite for me. Because Trev and I, none of us in the band, ever mastered heart-to-hearts.
It hits me that we might just be older than the kids who started The Hand Me Downs. Maybe a tiny bit wiser than the boys who found fame and fortune too young.
I still don’t care for the fame, though. When Dave and Trev start rabbiting on about the media surrounding me and, irritatingly, Lyra and me, I shut it down, deciding to take a spin on a bike with my headphones plugged in.
When I hear my brother’s voice singing into my ears, I don’t turn it off. Not today.
As my brother belts out the lyrics to ‘Addicted,’ I shake my head at him in my mind, knowing he’s sitting on a cloud messing with my song selection on my phone because I could have written every word of that song now about Lyra. And the spirit in the sky knows it.
I’m clock-watching whilst Dave and Trev order a second coffee after our Saturday-morning post-gym brunch – another thing turning into habit.
When I leave the lads, I have hours until I have to be at the Dornan wedding.
But instead of wallowing about having time on my hands, alone with my own thoughts, like I would have done a couple of months ago, I’m excited to get home.
As soon as I’m showered, I settle onto my sofa, guitar in hand, notepad and pen on the coffee table.
The novel I’m reading for inspiration, a thesaurus and a dictionary are scattered around me.
I didn’t think I’d ever write music again.
I had no desire to. But in the last few weeks, something’s changed, a door’s been unlocked, and I’ve realised that the world won’t fall down around me again just because I pen a new record.
* * *
Fitting my Martin and its hard-shell case into my Barbie car is no easy feat. If it had been anything other than my best guitar, I’d have kicked it into the back seat and slammed the door shut on the thing. But not my Martin. We’ve only just reconnected.
As I pull into the staff car park at Earl’s Castle, I notice I have a voice message from my sister. Reluctantly, I listen.
‘Guy, ya can’t ignore me forever. It’s my birthday on Saturday and I really want ya to come. I really want to see ya. Dave and Kylie’ll be there and if ya want to, ya can bring yer new lass. Mam and Dad would be chuffed to see ya. Please come. Love ya.’
Tossing my phone onto the passenger seat, I drag my hand roughly across my chin.
So Dave and Kylie have been talking to my sister about Lyra.
Great. I feel as if nothing could kill the conflicting mix of guilt and anxiety I feel just weighing up being in a room with my sister, my mam and my stepdad, versus not going at all.
The one exception comes into my view just when I need her to.
I watch Lyra taking pictures of wedding guests who are mingling on the lawn, waiting for the marquee to be turned around for the evening.
Minutes pass and all I’m doing is watching her.
The way she works, her easy manner with others, the way her body moves in her white linen trousers and beneath her fitted tank top.
When she spots me, her smile grows wider and I feel ten feet tall.
I step out of the car, willing her to walk faster in my direction, eager to take her in my arms and kiss her.
‘Hi, you,’ she says.
Two words. Two simple words and every synapse in my body feels like it’s jump-started. I encourage her towards me, hooking a finger into the leather camera strap around her neck, and when our hips connect, my body is ready to drive zero to sixty in record time.
Her lips meet mine and I forget, or don’t care, that people in the distance are watching us, pretending as if their camera phones aren’t taking pictures that will surface on social media within the hour. Because the only thing I care about right now is her.
‘I saw you watching me from over here,’ she says mischievously as her fingertips run a teasing trail up my neck and into the base of my hairline.
‘Have I crossed into stalker territory?’ I ask her, thinking I could come dangerously close to being that obsessed with her.
‘You have seen the car you drive, right?’
I tug her to me, chuckling into her neck, unbelievably, given the voice message I just listened to. ‘You’re full of cheek.’
‘Is that your Martin in the back seat?’
We both move away from the car and stare at the guitar case that’s wedged in the tiny vehicle.
She doesn’t ask me if I intend to play it or what I intend to play on it if I do, but there’s something like excitement dancing in her eyes and it’s the final nudge over the line that I need.
The woman who’s reminded me that I love to play has also sold me on playing in public for the first time in three years.
‘How’s your day going?’ I ask.
‘There’ve been a few wedding glitches. Minutes after the ceremony and before even half the official photographs had been taken, the groom spilled an entire pint of Guinness down the bride’s dress.
The bride’s parents both chose to introduce each other to their respective new partners, which has resulted in them having to be separated for the foreseeable future.
Oh, and the page boy threw up down the flower girl.
Oh, oh… and during set up this morning, the top tier of the cake was dropped in the kitchen and irreparably wounded. ’
‘Sounds like the Dornans aren’t meant to be?’
Lyra shakes her head. ‘Look at them,’ she says, nodding in the direction of the bride and groom, who have their arms around each other, laughing and joking, despite the bride’s brown-stained dress. ‘I think it just shows that they can weather a few storms. They’re rolling with it.’
She’s an optimist. My polar opposite. But God knows I could use an optimist in my life and if it’s going to be anyone, let it be the woman I am falling absolutely head over heels for. Maybe. Definitely, maybe, this thing could have legs.
* * *
An hour or so later, I’ve sung through the bride and groom’s first dance – ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by Elvis Presley – and through Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’, amongst others. The lights in the marquee are dim and Dave has got me standing under a spotlight.
The dance floor is packed, as much about the lively playlist as the nature of the Irish, I think. I give Dave the nod to tell him, I’m going to do it.
Then into my microphone, I tell the wedding party, ‘When I was looking at the playlist for tonight, it was obvious that the bride and groom have great taste in music. In particular, they’re big fans of Oasis.’
Dave carries my guitar onto the stage and hangs it around my neck to the background noise of shocked guests and squeals from the sweaty bodies closest to me on the floor.
‘Now, I’m told there’s been a few wedding hiccups today.
’ I glance to Lyra, who’s made her way to the side of the stage and has hold of her personal camera, trained on me.
‘I’m also reliably informed by the same woman, who’s reminded me how good it feels to pick up a guitar again, that sometimes shit happens, and you’ve just got to…
’ I strum my opening chord, Dave kicks in the backing track, and I tell the crowd, ‘Roll With It’.
The marquee erupts as I begin to sing the Oasis song.
Ten covered tracks later, I congratulate the newlyweds one more time and leave the stage to the small but loud crowd shouting for more.
I hand my guitar to Dave and he tosses me a towel in exchange. As I mop sweat from my brow, he asks me, ‘Did that feel good?’
I glance back across my shoulder at everyone still singing and dancing, now singing out lyrics to The Hand Me Downs track that Dave has played first and I admit, ‘No, mate. It felt fucking incredible.’
Uncharacteristically, he yanks me into an embrace, thumping my back, not letting me go until I push him away and tell him, ‘Enough, man. Be cool. Did you get what I asked for?’
He hands it to me – the precisely cut metal small but heavy – and I slip it into my pocket.
Then I find the woman I’ve watched dancing and taking my picture for the last forty minutes.
And I see it in the way she looks at me – crooked smile, eyes shining – she’s seen a small glimpse of a man she’s resurrected. A man she saw rock a stage in Madrid.
She tugs the ends of the towel around my neck and tells me, ‘Welcome back,’ right before her mouth meets mine.
* * *
Half an hour later, right on schedule, Dave tells the guests to head outside to the lawn and I take hold of Lyra’s hand, leading her in the opposite direction.
She giggles as we wind through the castle’s corridors, past no entry signs for guests, and up a spiral staircase.
‘Where are we going?’
At the top of the staircase, we’re confronted by a hefty wood door and when she tells me that going up into the castle turret can’t be done, I pull the key Dave gave me from my pocket.
‘How did you get that?’
I hold up crossed fingers. ‘Pearl and I are like this since I saved her business.’
‘Oh, you saved it?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Your modesty is humbling.’
I chortle, leading her outside onto the castle turret, where we have the best view of the Earl’s estate, and a phenomenal spot to watch the Dornans’ fireworks.
‘Oh my gosh, they’re beautiful. It’s stunning up here,’ Lyra tells me as she leans on the old stone wall and I come to stand behind her, chest to her back, hips to her waist, arms wrapped over hers, our fingers entwined.
How could I stand here and not agree with her?
It’s isolated. It’s breathtaking. And she is truly exquisite.
My heart is racing, my body is more alive than when I’m standing in a football stadium playing to tens of thousands of fans, but only in the best way, because Lyra keeps every other part of me calm.
I can’t resist pressing my lips to her neck. She’s all I want. All I need. And if I have her by my side, I think I could cope with anything else.
So, in the understatement of my life, when the fireworks fall to just the sound of a fizzle going up into the black void of time and space, I whisper, ‘I really fucking like you, Lyra.’
She leans back into me and tells me, ‘I really fucking like you, too,’ right as literal and proverbial fireworks go off around me.