‘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 Wladek is sitting with two men around a glossy black dining table piled high with the most delicious-smelling food.
Wladek 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. Wladek 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.’
Wladek 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 fromSesame 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 Wladek 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 init. 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. Wladek asks Sean if he plans tochange 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’mright here.’
‘She’s perfect just how she is,’ Wladek 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 aLady and the Trampsituation.’
‘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.