Confetti at the Cornish Café. Phillipa Ashley
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these actors.’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Any idea where Cal’s got to?’
Polly drills me with one of her ‘looks’. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since last night. You should know his whereabouts more than I do, anyway …’
I should say now that Polly doesn’t entirely approve of Cal and me living together. Not, I think, because he’s my boss and the owner of Kilhallon. Not for any moral reasons either – Polly’s no churchgoer – but she seems to have some nutty idea that ‘it’ – i.e. us – will end in tears one day. She’s also taken it upon herself to act as Cal’s mum since his own mother passed away years ago. And, in a roundabout way, she’s become a bit of a surrogate mother figure to me as well, though I never asked her to. My mum passed away and I was cut adrift from the rest of my family for a while. I know she’s only being kind and she does have a heart of gold but …
Maybe it will end in tears, and maybe it won’t. Cal and I don’t discuss the long term. We’ve both had things happen in our lives that have taught us to be wary of planning too far ahead and making promises we can’t keep.
And for now, everything’s going fine.
Or will be, if I can track him down.
‘I haven’t seen him since he went off to the waste site after breakfast. He promised he’d be back at Kilhallon to meet Bonnie and Clyde – gah, I mean Lily and Ben, you’ve got me at it now.’
Polly smirks in satisfaction at my slip-up.
‘Do you mind making sure Mitch stays in the farmhouse while I meet Lily and Ben?’ I say, feeling annoyed with myself and with Cal. ‘He’s had his walk and breakfast so he should be happy to stay in the warm until they’ve gone.’
Not everyone likes dogs and I don’t want Mitch greeting our guests too ‘enthusiastically’ or going AWOL like he did in a fog last autumn. That was terrifying and both Mitch and I ended up falling down one of the old mine working holes on the cliffs. Luckily, we both escaped with nothing more than sore legs, although it could have been much worse.
‘I suppose I could keep an eye on the hound alongside my other jobs,’ Polly grumbles.
‘Thanks!’
Leaving Polly muttering about ‘pampered pooches and celebrities’, I skip downstairs and grab an old waxed jacket from the vestibule. I whizz out to the car park via the reception area at the front of Kilhallon House, ready to greet the VIPs. The wind whistles around the farmhouse and cuts through me. Tiny pools of slush lie in hollows in the gravel and hailstones pile up against the former farm buildings that we now use for storage. I wouldn’t be surprised if Polly’s chickens are wearing thermal undies. Lily and Ben could hardly have picked a worse time to visit. I only hope they have good imaginations.
While I wait for them to roll into the car park, I have a quick glance around the yard outside our reception. Cal must be around somewhere because his battered old Land Rover is parked in its usual place in front of the barn that serves as our storage and maintenance shed. Then again, I suspect he might be trying to avoid this meeting. Celebrities and their lives hold about as much interest for him as a tractor engine does for me. I mean, can you believe he hadn’t even heard of Lily Craig and Ben Trevone?
Then again, Cal hasn’t seen a lot of TV or films over the past few years. He was involved in his own real-life drama in Syria, one that had a tragic ending for his friend Soraya and her daughter, Esme. At Christmas, Cal finally opened up to me about the terrible events that led to Soraya’s death and the disappearance of Esme in the conflict. I was shocked but I think sharing the burden has brought us closer.
In fact, everyone at Kilhallon and in the local area had to pull together over the Christmas and New Year period after a tidal surge destroyed many homes in the nearby village of St Trenyan. We provided temporary accommodation for some of the homeless families, including my dad, his partner, Rachel, and their brand-new baby, Freya. They’re living in a rented flat in St Trenyan at the moment while their own home is repaired after the floods.
That disaster was such an awful business but the silver lining was that it put me back in contact with my estranged father. Freya has given us all the chance to meet up since then and rebuild some bridges. She’s just adorable and it’s strange – in a good way – to see my dad so besotted with her. I keep wondering if he was like that with me once, before everything went downhill for us all. I’ve also made contact again with my older brother, Kyle. He’s in the army and I hadn’t seen him for ages, but we’ve now exchanged emails so the ice is broken.
We’ve moved on in other ways over the winter. Cal has completed the renovation of our final set of cottages so now we have eight in total, plus eight yurts which we’ll pitch again in our glamping field ready for Easter. Our main camping field has another thirty pitches and will also open again at Easter. It’s strange to see the cottage I used to live in redecorated in a simple but contemporary style. The flowery 1970s decor has been painted over with neutral tones and the creaking furniture replaced with inky blue sofas and functional wood. Cal’s done a great job on a budget but I can’t help feeling he’s removed a little too much of the quirky personality of what was my first real home for years. Moving out of it and into the farmhouse with Cal was a big step for me as it meant losing some of my hard-won independence.
The BMW rolls into the car park and there’s still no sign of Cal and no answers to my frantic texts. Luckily, I know that Nina, one of my staff, has arrived early at the cafe to help with the refreshments so Cal and I can focus on looking after Ben and Lily. I’ve texted her to warn her they’re early so at least we’ll have a cosy welcome ready for them in Demelza’s.
There’s still not a whiff of Cal so it looks like I’m on my own – again. Breathe.
The gleaming BMW comes to a halt next to Cal’s dilapidated Defender. Fixing on my cheeriest, sunniest smile, I march over as a man mountain with a shaved head eases out of the driver’s seat.
He opens the rear passenger door wide and stands back.
Two long, slim legs encased in black skinny jeans emerge from the door and a guy a few years older than me drops neatly down to the gravel. He wears a black leather jacket over a black sweater, with Stan Smiths on his feet that are almost as white as his teeth. He glances around him. I can’t see his eyes because of his Aviators but I can see myself reflected in them: my hair’s a wild tangle, my face as pale as the moon framed by the furry trim of my hood.
Pushing the hood off my hair, I come face to face with Ben Trevone, the ludicrously handsome action-hero lead of Knife Edge, heart-throb star of Desperate Poets and voice of a heroic sea otter in the Oscar-nominated animation Ocean Furries. Unlike Cal, I do go to the cinema with my mates, although I admit I borrowed Ocean Furries from one of the kids who was evacuated here after the Christmas floods so I could swot up on Ben Trevone’s latest film.
With a smile that makes my jaw ache, I hold out my hand. ‘Welcome to Kilhallon!’
Ignoring my hand, Ben looks around him. His dazzling teeth gleam against a tan he definitely didn’t get on a Cornish beach. He is very handsome in a smooth, ‘boy band’ way, though not as hunky as he looked in Knife Edge. On the other hand, I’m glad he isn’t armed to the teeth with an AK-47 and a selection of knives.
‘So this is, like, it?’ he asks in an accent that’s a mix of his native Cornish and an American twang – which you don’t hear every day, especially not in St Trenyan.
Panicking inside, I shove my hands in my pockets. ‘Well, er … like, yes.’
He switches his focus from me to the farmhouse and the barn and Cal’s Land Rover. We’ve done a lot of work on Kilhallon but suddenly every slightly wonky plank, moss-covered roof and rusty bumper pops out at me.
‘Uh huh,’ he says.
‘Are we there yet, Ben?’ a thin, small voice pipes up from the far rear passenger seat. Oh, so maybe Lily Craig isn’t