Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
LUCY
I’m strangely nervous when I knock on the door of the cottage. I don’t even know why. But my nerves soon dissipate into little more than a distant hum of anxiety as Peggy opens the door and sweeps me into a warm hug.
She looks amazing. She’s styled her scarlet hair into some kind of Elizabethan updo, with tendrils curling around her face, while the black of her dress is reflected in her expertly winged eyeliner.
The dress itself is like some kind of museum exhibit, with a corseted top that pulls her in at the waist before the fabric billows into a bustle at her hips.
She’d look like a Victorian gentlewoman in mourning if it weren’t for the patent platform boots she’s wearing, which are accented with enough metal to sink a ship.
‘You like?’ she asks as she catches me staring, and she backs off a little way so she can do a twirl, the gauzy fabric of her skirt floating upwards as she does.
I nod effusively. ‘I feel underdressed,’ I say. I’m suddenly self-conscious in my lilac denim pencil skirt and lime-green and white striped jumper, but Peggy waves me away.
‘You look like you,’ she says, her face aglow with her smile, ‘which means you look perfect.’
She whisks me through the kitchen to a room I haven’t been in before, where W?adek is sitting with two men around a glossy black dining table piled high with the most delicious-smelling food.
W?adek introduces the men as Nigel and Sean and tells me they’re staying at the cottage for the Goth Weekend.
They’re both dressed entirely in black, but while Nigel has gone for the same dark aesthetic as Peggy, Sean is dressed more simply in a band T-shirt and jeans.
W?adek has his vampire outfit on again, and at this stage I’m not even surprised.
The men welcome me as warmly as Peggy did, and Nigel jumps to his feet to pull out my chair.
‘Welcome to the family,’ he says, and I’m overcome with warmth – a strange happiness that begins in my chest and radiates outwards.
‘You’re family?’ I ask. I can’t stop smiling. I’m not even sure what this feeling is, but I know that I like it. This must be what it feels like to belong somewhere.
Peggy chuckles as she buzzes around the table, swiping cling film off dishes and setting a plate in front of each of us.
‘Not in a traditional sense,’ she chirps.
‘They just rented the annexe one time, and we hit it off.’ She smiles, her winged liner rippling with the creases. ‘Can’t get rid of them now.’
W?adek throws his head back in a cackle, and it’s only now that I realise it’s the first time I’ve heard him properly laugh.
It’s a perfect sound for him – like The Count from Sesame Street.
‘We have family to spare,’ he says, his mouth moving differently without his fangs in.
I wonder if he’ll put them in once we’ve eaten.
‘So many relatives you can’t fit them all under one roof.
But sometimes the closest bond is with those who aren’t really family at all. ’
Peggy finally slips into her chair, nodding softly to herself. ‘It means more if they’re here because they choose to be.’
Something slips through me at their words.
It’s bittersweet, like loss and hope coming together as one.
I felt out of place here at first, but with every day that passes I feel more at home than I ever have.
Mina told me this was her favourite place in the world, this little cottage by the sea, and I’m beginning to see why.
We tuck into the food, and it’s a delightful mixture of things: a handmade meat pie and heaped bowls of vegetables; a selection of Polish dishes, which W?adek tells me are old family recipes; a charcuterie board that Nigel takes full credit for, though from the look on Sean’s face when he says it I’m not sure that’s entirely the case; a small plate of strawberry tarts.
It’s the strangest yet most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten.
We eat till we can’t fit in another thing, and when I sit back, my heart almost as full as my belly, I’m suddenly accosted by questions from the table.
Ordinarily it would feel like too much, I think, but from them it reads as the slightly overbearing curiosity I’ve heard other people describe in their extended family, and I revel in it.
They want to know about my life. They’re interested in my job.
They even ask, after a series of furtive glances around the table, if I’m single, and whether my tastes might lean towards tall, tattooed bartenders.
I can’t help but laugh, but there’s a sting with it too. I can’t remember the last time my mother interrogated me about my life. She’s always too busy telling me about hers.
Maybe I should be used to it by now.
They get to talking about the gig, a generalised buzz of excitement rippling around the table.
Peggy tells me how the members of the cover band are all local lads, her face beaming with pride the whole time.
W?adek asks Sean if he plans to change beforehand, which is met with a look of mock offence, and then their eyes turn to me.
‘Maybe you could borrow something of Peggy’s,’ Nigel says to me, in a tone that’s clearly trying to be helpful, but which makes every other person at the table gasp in horror.
‘You know, goth it up a bit?’ He’s defensive now, but he barrels on regardless.
‘For Bram?’ he squeaks, narrow shoulders pulling into a shrug.
Peggy looks as if she’s planning which method to use to murder him. ‘You know as well as I do,’ she starts slowly, ‘that that boy has always rather valued being different.’
Sean, clearly enjoying his partner being put on the spot – perhaps in retaliation for the charcuterie incident – leans back in his chair, his hands resting on his belly.
‘He’s been the only goth in the village enough times to know that what is important is being yourself,’ he says, doing a terrible job of hiding his smirk.
Nigel throws his hands up. ‘I’m just saying that if she was looking for a grand romantic gesture, this could be it.’
Sean snorts. ‘Nothing’s romantic about changing yourself just to please someone, Nigel.’
I’m not sure whether they’re serious or not at this point, and I’m afraid to ask. It feels like they’re both entirely joking and completely serious at the same time.
‘I don’t need a grand romantic gesture,’ I say, trying not to laugh. ‘But thank you.’
‘And if she did,’ Peggy bites out, ‘it certainly wouldn’t be compromising her identity.’
Nigel scoffs at that, a twinkle in his eye. It’s suddenly obvious that he’s on the wind-up, and it’s absolutely working. ‘You think putting on a latex corset once or twice is going to change the bones of her?’
I can’t stop my laugh at that. ‘I’m right here.’
‘She’s perfect just how she is,’ W?adek interjects, his smile creasing lines in his face paint. ‘Opposites are good for each other … or whatever the saying is.’ He shrugs. ‘Could be like a Lady and the Tramp situation.’
‘I’m hoping I’m the Lady in this scenario,’ I say, and he cackles again.
I can’t wait to tell Bram that he’s the Tramp.
By the time we arrive at the bar, I’m so excited I can barely keep still.
This hodgepodge group has a lot of differing opinions, to put it mildly, but the one thing they’re united on is how much I’m going to enjoy this gig, and that I should definitely take a chance on Bram.
Their excitement – their pride – is contagious, and if I hadn’t already been taken in by everything I’ve seen of him this weekend, I think spending these couple of hours with the founding members of the Liam Bramwell Fan Club might have tipped me over the edge.
I’m so hyped up that I don’t notice Jon at first, and when I finally do see him, I’m not sure how that was possible.
In his taupe shirt and blue jeans, he sticks right out, just like I do, but unlike me, he isn’t shielded by his own personal goth protection racket.
I duck behind Peggy’s enormous dress as we pass, and she reaches an arm out and tucks me close into her side.
‘I don’t know who you’re hiding from,’ she mutters, ‘but I’m on it.’
And I think that’s the exact moment I fall irrevocably in love with this crazy family.
‘That man in the smart shirt and jeans,’ I say, once we’re a safe distance away, and that makes her pull away a little, her hands going to her hips as her brow creases in a frown and she scans for the man in the smart shirt and jeans.
‘Is he a problem?’ she asks, deadly serious.
‘Because just say the word and I’ll unleash Sean on him. ’
I look at Sean – lovely, mild-mannered Sean in his Megadeth T-shirt and tapered jeans. He doesn’t look like he could fight a plastic bag, and the confusion must be evident on my face, because the lines of Peggy’s face soften, and she chuckles, lace-covered hands squeezing my arm lightly.
‘He’s a lawyer. Criminal prosecution. He can be very threatening when he needs to be.’
I have to laugh. ‘It’s not like that, but thank you. He’s actually my boss, so I have to at least fake being nice to him.’
‘Just say the word,’ Peggy says with a wink, and then she hurries me along the corridor, behind the others.
When I chance a look back, Jon is scanning the crowds walking in. He’s waiting for someone, and I assume that someone is me. But then, given his form in the last couple of days, it could be Amy too, or Lord knows who else.
Thank God I saw that kiss in the bandstand.
Peggy takes my hand and guides me into the main room of the bar, a stage set up at the far end and a vague hum of electricity in the air.
Our group finds a space close to the stage, just off to the right.
Bram catches my eye from behind the bar and his wink has me biting my lips, cheeks flushing like a teenager.
‘This is our spot,’ W?adek tells me, his newly inserted fangs lisping his speech slightly.