“I am not ranking anybody. I’m just saying, you should not have to feel bad because you do not like to watch men in dresses telling blue jokes. I mean, I enjoy it, but I am French.”

“Yeah,” I said, “very important part of French culture that. Along with Edith Piaf, Cézanne, and the Eiffel Tower.”

“Eh, have you seen what our kings used to wear? Their faces were beat for the gods and their heels were sickening.”

Oliver laughed. “Thank you. I think.”

“It is true. You should never let anyone tell you it is wrong to be how you are.” Mum was watching him with an expression I recognised from every childhood setback I’d ever had. “It is like the special curry. Luc has been telling me for years that it has too much spice, that I should not put sausage meat in it, and that I should never make it for guests.”

“Where are you going with this story?” I asked. “Because all those things are true and your curry is terrible.”

“Where I am going with this, mon caneton, is that I don’t give a shit. It is my curry, and I will make it the way I fucking well want to. And that is the way Oliver should live his life. Because the people who matter will love you anyway.”

“I…” For the first time since I’d known him, Oliver seemed genuinely speechless.

“Come along.” Mum reached for the remote. “Let us watch episode three. The queens are going to be in a horror movie.”

Apparently deciding that bzns had become srs, Judy got up and dimmed the lights. As we all settled in for what was probably going to become a Drag Race marathon, I really wasn’t sure how I felt or was meant to be feeling. Life with Mum and Judy had been this bubble I’d kept other people away from, partly because I was worried they wouldn’t understand, but also because, I guess, in some odd way, I wanted it to stay mine. This private space where Mum would always be cooking—or saying—something awful, and she and Judy would always be far too into whatever hobby or book or TV show had caught their attention this week, and I would always be welcome and safe and loved.

I’d brought Miles to visit, of course, but I’d never tried to make him part of our world. We’d usually gone down to the village pub and had scampi and chips on our best behaviour. But here I was with Oliver, and while it was a little exposing and a little unnerving, it was also… What’s the word? Nice. And he hadn’t run away yet, despite Mum and Judy being at pretty much peak Mum and Judy.

I let my head rest against his knee, and, somewhere between the mini-challenge and the runway, Oliver’s hand began stroking softly through my hair.

Chapter 27

Oliver was still busy with his case (which he couldn’t talk about, but refused to let me pretend was a murder) for the next few days. And I, of course, had a weekend with my dad looming and, as a fabulous aperitif for that three-course shit banquet, I also had to meet Adam and Tamara Clarke. Hopefully at an excitingly trendy pop-up vegan dining experience, rather than something Rhys Jones Bowen had just made up in his head.

I got there well ahead of time so that I could scope the place out and, in an absolute emergency, come up with a flimsy excuse to cancel. Thankfully, it seemed to be legit. Yes, from the outside the venue was your typical, generic pop-up space—a white-painted shop front with a sign over the awning reading “By Bronwyn”—but inside it was full of hanging baskets and repurposed furniture that hopefully the Clarkes would find ethical and carbon neutral and stuff.

When I’d given my name to the teenage hippie running front of house, I was ushered into a cosy corner and given a complimentary bowl of, um, seeds? Which was kind of the worst, because I didn’t particularly want to eat them, but they were there so I was definitely going to, and I’d probably have finished them before my intended schmoozees had arrived. I was trying, and failing, to stop picking at the seeds—they were actually quite well seasoned, insofar as you could season something that was itself basically seasoning—when a large woman in chef’s whites, her abundant chestnut hair stuffed into a hairnet, came over to greet me.

“You must be Luc,” she said. “I’m Bronwyn. Rhys told me all about you.”

“Look. Whatever he said, I’m not actually racist against Welsh people.”

“Oh, you probably are. You English are all the same.”

“And how,” I asked, “is that okay?”

“I think you’ll find it’s a complex question of intersectionality. But basically my people never invaded your country and tried to eradicate your language.”

I slumped lower on the upcycled whisky barrel I was sitting on. “Okay. Good point. Thanks for taking the booking.”

“That’s okay. Rhys said you were a hopeless berk and you’d be fired if this didn’t go perfectly.”

“Nice to know you’re both on my side. So what’s good?”

“It’s all good.” She grinned. “I’m amazing at my job.”

“Let me rephrase. Suppose I was a committed meat-eater trying to impress two potential donors who run a chain of vegan cafés. What can I order that will make it look like I know what the fuck I’m doing?”

“Well, if you want something relatively predictable, then you could go for the sunflower seed and cashew burger, but that might make you look like you’re really wishing you could have a steak.”

“No offence, but I probably really will be wishing I could have a steak.”

“Yes, that is a little bit offensive considering you’re in my restaurant. If you want to pretend you actually know what a vegetable is, you could go for the jackfruit Caesar or the tomato lasagne. And if you’re feeling adventurous, you could try the sesame-rolled tofu.”

“Thanks. I do have some self-loathing issues, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for bean curd.”

“Little bit of advice if I may, Luc. Stop talking like this when your guests are here. They won’t like it.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just trying to get it out my system before I have to be polite to the Clarkes.”

Her face contorted. “What, you mean the Gaia people?”

“Not a fan? Are they like the Starbucks of veganism?”

“It’s not so much that. But they’re very… Well, let’s say I do this because I think eating animal products is unnecessarily cruel and an avoidable environmental catastrophe. I don’t do it because I want to bathe the world in healing goddess energy and flog yoga mats.”

I gave her a faintly alarmed look. “You’re not going to say that to them, right?”

“Of the two of us, which was the one dissing tofu in front of a vegan chef?”