Chapter 29
LYRA
Two and a Half Weeks Until My Sister’s Wedding
Guy Walker Breaks Out of his Bublé
The catchy headline of yet another post in my social media feed.
I fight against the urge to read the thousands of comments on the online news post, but curiosity wins out. I skim over the posts that mention the mystery woman in the pink bikini and guesses about who she is, and try to ignore some of the hideous and unnecessarily nasty comments.
The overriding message is this: his fans want him back. They’re calling for The Hand Me Downs to make a comeback.
As much as I agree that would be amazing, I can’t imagine it will happen whilst Guy can’t stand the thought of seeing Jay again. And until he realises he can be a lead vocalist, entertain a crowd, I just don’t see him coming back without a band.
‘Would you like a glass of wine, darling?’ my mum asks, already heading to the kitchen to get herself and Livy a drink.
I’m sitting on the floor of my parents’ lounge, Dad in his usual chair chatting to us, Livy sitting next to me as we make small boxes and fill them with fancy foil-wrapped chocolates for her wedding favours.
‘Thank you for helping today,’ Livy says out of the blue.
‘I know you have work coming out of your ears at this time of year. I also know there are people you’d rather see.
’ She rocks her shoulder against mine in a way that makes me look in Dad’s direction but he’s pretending not to eavesdrop, which I can tell from the ghost of a smirk on his unique mouth.
‘I want to be here,’ I tell her honestly.
‘I should also say sorry. About cutting my hair. About being sharp with you recently. I’ve just been…
’ I shake my head, trying to articulate how I’ve been feeling since meeting Guy’s family and seeing how despicably he’s been treated all his life.
‘I’ve been figuring a few things out lately.
Thinking maybe it’s time I decide what I really want to do with my life.
But that’s about me and I might have been taking it out on you.
I mean, you have been a bridezilla in places… ’
She laughs.
‘But I love you.’
Mum comes back into the room and hands us each a glass of wine.
‘And Mum and Dad. We have a pretty decent family, don’t we?’
Mum rears, as if I’ve slapped her in the face, then glances to Dad, who shrugs. Whilst Livy and I lean our heads together for a moment, Mum takes her glass of wine to his chair and plonks herself on the arm, taking hold of his hand.
They’re not perfect but nor am I. As a family, we’re far from it. But they’ve always loved me. Guy is right, they may have been oppressive but it’s always been driven by them wanting what they think is best for me.
It’s been a weird few days since I last saw Guy.
When we woke up together the morning after his sister’s birthday party, there was a strange vibe.
Everything he did and said would have read like normal.
He kissed me the way he does, we drank coffee on his balcony, we hugged goodbye when I left his place late morning.
But there was something between us that hadn’t been there since we got together.
Something not dissimilar to how it felt being trapped in an elevator with him back in April.
As if he was holding back, his actions clouded.
He’s messaged me and I’ve been busy with wedding stuff and editing photographs for work.
I’ve even managed to get into my dark room and start developing my completed camera rolls – my most recent one and the one I found from university.
I’ve been writing before bed, my silly article snippets, some of them about Guy, as I’ve watched photographs of him develop one by one from this summer and from That Night, seven years ago.
Pictures I’d forgotten – or intentionally buried – and never developed because I haven’t felt ready for reminders of That Night before now.
Oddly, it’s made me feel more distant from him.
The photographs of who he was, the person and the band that fans are crying out to make a comeback.
I’d hate him not to. But I don’t feel like that version of Guy belongs to me at all.
Except in one photograph, in that moment he sang ‘You and Me’ That Night and it felt as if he was singing the lyrics to me, only me.
Crazy.
As I’m lost in thought, mindlessly crafting, a message comes through to my phone.
Come over tonight? I’ll cook? X
I don’t realise I’m grinning at my phone until my dad says, ‘That will be Guy.’
I roll my eyes at him but he chuckles in response. A sound we hear too rarely these days.
* * *
When Guy opens his door, he’s freshly showered, his hair still wet, his skin smelling of grapefruit and black pepper shower gel. There are a smattering of water droplets seeping through his white t-shirt and his jeans are not yet buttoned up.
The effect is… damaging for someone who has a complete hormone imbalance around this man.
He kisses me and I hand over a homemade trifle that’s going to take two people some real eating.
He takes the dessert from me to the kitchen as I look around his lounge in something of a daze.
There are a multitude of dirty coffee cups, tossed food wrappers, crumb-decorated plates.
Pieces of balled-up paper, scrawled paper, a dictionary and a thesaurus are scattered like a crop circle around his guitar that’s lying in the middle of his sofa.
‘Wh— Ah— Should I ask?’
‘Sorry, I meant to clear-up before you arrived but I lost track of time,’ he tells me, taking a puff-pastry-topped pie out of his oven, burning himself on the rim of the dish in the process.
‘You’ve been writing?’
He turns away from the food, sucking on his burnt finger, to assess the state of the place the way I’m seeing it. ‘Yeah, I guess I have.’
‘For how long?’ I laugh. ‘A decade?’
I cocks his head to one side. ‘Feels like it.’
Funnily enough, whilst I’m no songwriter, I think I understand the sentiment. ‘I use photography in the same way,’ I tell him.
To explore how I’m feeling. To get lost in someone else’s world. To process.
When he nods and that half-moon tugs on his cheek at one side of his mouth, I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.
‘That pie smells incredible.’ I’m suddenly starving after not feeling hungry for the last few days.
‘Steak and ale,’ he tells me with a grin. ‘It’s actually a reheat from Kylie, on Dave’s instruction because he’s got in his head about— Anyway, I promise it’s good home cooking and better than the beans on toast you’d have got if I’d cooked myself.’
Dave wants him to write. Of course he does. Him and half the world. Me included.
So why, as I take up a stool in Guy’s kitchen, do I have a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like I’m about to fall from Cloud Nine?
We’ve barely made a dent in what is, unequivocally, the best pie I’ve ever tasted, when there’s a rap on Guy’s door, followed by the sound of a key in the lock.
We look at each other, then he says, ‘Dave has a key.’
‘Not indecent are ya, lad?’ he calls through the door before opening it fully. As Guy gets up and heads his way, Dave says, ‘Sorry, Lyra. I didn’t know ya were here, flower.’
‘Clearly,’ I say, chuckling whilst trying to kick meat from between my teeth with my tongue. ‘Hi, Dave.’
It’s all jovial, until it’s not. Until Guy stills like he’s been cast in bronze, boring holes in someone on the other side of the open door. It’s an expression I haven’t seen on him before. It isn’t sad or angry, not shocked or afraid. It’s something else entirely. Crazed. Wild.
Before his fists clench at his sides, before I see red mist descend on him as if it’s a physical presence in the room, I think I know who he sees.
‘It’s about time you lads have it out,’ Dave says, his tone fatherly. Like a father who’s about to strap boxing gloves on his kids and throw them into their garden to fight to the death.
I want no part in whatever is about to happen but that doesn’t stop my legs from carrying me to Guy’s side, in time to see Trev, then another man, whose eyes widen, right before Guy all but snarls at him. ‘Outside.’
‘Guy,’ I say gently, putting a pointless hand on his arm in an attempt to placate him. I’m mute to him. Invisible. Because every single part of him is focused on the old drummer from The Hand Me Downs. Jay.
Guy lunges for him. Jay is thrust back against the wall, head banging against the surface so hard it makes me wince. And they fight like animals, tearing at each other’s clothes, until Dave and Trev somehow usher them into the open lift.
I hear them scrapping and run back inside to the balcony, from where I see them tackling each other onto the beach, drawing the eyes of passersby.