Christmas at the Cornish Café. Phillipa Ashley
much notice of the lights. My main aim last year was finding a warm place for Mitch and me to stay. I’d just lost my job in Truro and was sofa surfing around friends and friends of friends. On the night of the lights, I was between sofas and hanging about until the people had left and the lights had been turned off until sundown the next day.
He winces. ‘I had no idea.’
‘I remember how I felt after the lights went off and everyone had gone home. The place seemed twice as dead as it had before the switch-on. Mitch and I bunked down in an alley not far from Tamsin’s Spa.’ I also remember the smells of hot food, buttered rum punch, stollen, saffron cake, spicy mulled apple cider, rich hot chocolate, and the way they curled around me and drove me insane. Plus the feeling that I’d never been so lonely or such an outsider. Cal gathers me into his arms. Perhaps I didn’t hide the shiver as well as I thought I had.
‘I’m sorry. It must have been tough.’
Tears sting my eyes and make me wish I’d never mentioned last November. I genuinely don’t want Cal’s sympathy – so why did I have to say so much? ‘Some of the poor people I saw had so many problems, I could have cried for them. Some will never get off the streets. I’m the lucky one. Look at me now: hosting an event for the village bigwigs. Who’d have thought it?’
He smiles briefly. ‘Even so … Feel free to hit me, but have you given any more thought to contacting your family? Your father? Your brother? Sorry, I don’t even know his name.’
‘It’s Kyle. My dad’s called Gary.’
‘OK …’
‘And you’re right, I have given it some more thought and I still don’t want to speak to them. I don’t know exactly what Kyle’s doing now or even where he is and I refuse to ask my dad.’
‘But you know where your dad and his partner live?’
‘Near Redruth, as far as I know, that’s where they were living when I last spoke to him. Last I heard, Kyle joined the army. He left home before I did and went to share a flat with a mate in Truro, but I’m not sure that worked out, so he signed up. We weren’t close and he used to spend as much time as he could out of the house at his mates.’
‘Your dad must have been on his own a lot after your mum died.’
‘I suppose so. I was in the house though; he could have spoken to me if he’d wanted to. He just used to sit in his chair and drink cans and channel surf. I may as well have not existed, but he’s got her now. Rachel.’ I slap on a smile, feeling I’ve already raked over far too many old memories. ‘I thought you were in the army, remember, when I first saw you with the combats and bag?’
Cal rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, I do, but I wasn’t.’
‘Do you remember where you were this time last year? During the Christmas lights?’
He glances out of the window into the darkness. ‘I wasn’t exactly having a fun time, either.’
His phone buzzes from the table, the sound magnified by the table top and the high ceiling of the empty cafe. He grimaces, then glances at the screen.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’
He turns back to me, a grin on his face. Goosebumps prick my skin: I know what that look means.
‘No. I was thinking we might have time for a quick bite before the committee arrive. A hot vampire bite.’ He bares his teeth and while I pull a face at him, warm feelings stir at the jokey reminder of the nickname I had for him when we first met. He grazes the skin at the side of my neck with his teeth and it tingles. His breath is warm and I close my eyes in pleasure, trying to blot out the insistent throb of the mobile phone.
‘There’s no time,’ I murmur. ‘The committee will be here in twenty minutes.’
‘So? I like living dangerously. You told me to do it.’ His phone stops buzzing. ‘I told you, they can wait.’
He kisses me, it’s deep and hot and it sparks a swirling sensation low in my stomach. I’m shaky with lust. He tangles his hands in my hair, tugging at the roots without realising, but so gently that the tension just drives me even more crazy.
‘Come on. Into the staff room.’ His voice is husky with desire as he leads me through the kitchen and into the store-cupboard-sized room that serves as our staff room. It’s warm in there, and the air smells of the pine disinfectant we keep in the cupboard. He backs me against the lockers and they rattle loudly.
‘What if they’re early?’
‘They can wait.’
He shuts the door behind us while I pull off my Demelza’s sweatshirt and T-shirt. Cal unzips his jeans and slips them down, along with his boxers. Still standing, with me braced against the lockers, Cal lifts me onto him. We’re face to face and then he’s inside me. I melt like butter on a hot scone under his touch and close my eyes to everything around me. The cafe, the lights, the dark night, the world, all are gone in those few intense, nerve-jangling seconds. There’s only me and Cal, one person, for a brief, dark, hot moment. I wish it could go on and on.
‘Whew.’
My face rests on his shoulder, my cheek skimming the soft wool cotton of his sweater. His fingers rest lightly on my back, beneath my shoulder blades and he whispers to me as I come back to awareness, like a swimmer surfacing in the cove to the sky.
‘Demi, I’ve been thinking.’ His voice is tender, serious and I’m not used to that.
‘Always dangerous,’ I breathe, still half-drowsy after the intensity.
‘That maybe, we should think about, if you don’t mind, well …’
My eyes are open. His phone buzzes again. It’s closer now. I hadn’t realised he’d even picked it up or brought it with him.
‘Damn it.’ Almost falling over, tangled by the jeans still around his ankles, he pulls up his jeans and delves in the pocket. ‘Bloody thing.’
Leave it, I say silently. Leave it and say what’s on your mind.
He glares at his phone, and he mouths at me, ‘Sorry,’ then: ‘Hello, Isla, no, I’m not busy. How are you?’
I don’t think he’s realised that he’s turned his back on me as if he doesn’t want me to hear his conversation. While he’s talking to her, his jeans slip down his hips again, leaving his pants halfway up his muscular bottom. I struggle back into my top and sweatshirt and slip past him into the tiny washroom. I close the door but can hear him, ‘hmm-ing’ and ‘OK-ing’ and the odd ‘fine’ and the final ‘OK, take care, see you soon’.
He comes out into the cafe while I scoop coffee into the filter machine. There’s no time to make cappuccinos and lattes tonight.
‘Sorry for that,’ he says. ‘It was Isla, making arrangements to come down for the shoot in a few weeks’ time. It means opening the cafe especially, because she asked if you’d cater for the cast and crew for the day. It’s extra work, but they have a decent budget and she thought we might as well have the business rather than handing it over to the outside caterers. Will that be OK?’
‘That’s awesome.’ I try to sound cheerful, because we do need the business and the publicity during and after the shoot and when the series – a historical drama about a highwayman and his aristocratic mistress – is aired will be priceless. Isla’s going to be here anyway so we may as well profit from it. It is good of her to help us – Cal – out.
‘It’s only for a day, possibly a day and a half, depending on the weather.’
‘Great. Did you know your flies are still undone?’
‘Hell. No.’ He glances down and then up at me, a wicked grin on his face. ‘That would have shocked the vicar. She’s on the committee.’
‘I’m