Chapter Five
Kieran
It’s blowing a gale outside the coffee hut and December is doing its darnedest to sneak into our planning meeting through tiny gaps in the old weatherboards. The tea-lights on the tables flicker and I see my friends wrapping themselves a little tighter into their coats. The heaters Aggie plugged in are doing their best to combat the draughts but the storm buffeting this lovely old hut head-on is putting up a fierce battle. If we had more bodies, it might tip the balance. But while we may be few in number, we have hot coffee, spiced apple and mincemeat pie straight from the oven and the scent of cinnamon from the candles to warm us this evening.
We also have Lou Helmsworth, who is quite possibly the most entertaining bloke in the whole of Cornwall.
‘Bigger and better this year,’ he says, tapping the pad clipped to his favourite clipboard with his shiny ballpoint pen. If there’s one thing Lou loves, it’s an agenda. ‘Bolder and brighter . . .’
‘And lots of other things beginning with B!’ I say, raising my coffee mug aloft like a pirate offering a toast. My friends around the table cheer, but Lou doesn’t join them. This is too easy.
‘Unless you have anythin’ sensible to add, Kieran Macklin, I’ll thank you to shush till we open the meetin’ for comments.’
‘I was going to say baubles,’ I grin back, wincing as a sharp kick from Seren finds my shin under the weathered wood table. She gives me a reproachful shake of her head, but she can’t hide her smile.
Lou knows I love him really. Possibly. Anyway, our banter has been a regular feature of every Christmas planning meeting for as long as any of us can remember. He’d miss it if I stopped now.
‘The Christmas Window competition is already in full swing. Excellent work from most of the businesses in town.’ I see him raise an accusing eyebrow at Seren, who holds up her hand.
‘We’re working on it, Lou. Dad sends his apologies.’
Lou seems to lose a little of his bluster and I see his face redden. ‘Yes, well, good. I’ll – um – write that down, afore I forget . . .’
It’s an odd slip in his usual swagger as he drops his gaze to his notepad and makes a grand show of writing a single sentence. I catch Aggie’s eye across the table; she’s thinking the same as me. It isn’t like Lou to let anyone off from his annual Christmas chivvying, even his best friend. Does he know something about Mark MacArthur that we don’t? Still, it isn’t enough to call a halt to business as usual – I’m biding my time until the next onslaught on our esteemed leader.
He clears his throat and looks up at us again. ‘Now, lantern parade. The team are already hard at work designin’ the lanterns but we’ll all be called upon to help finish them in time. Turns out some of the festive shapes chosen for the lanterns this year are tricky to say the least and it’s taken longer than expected to cut frames and coverings to fit them. Now, it’s a challenge, but as I said to John Matterson – the leader of the lantern committee – last week, St Ives folks are more than up to the task. What our lot can achieve with papier mâché and parachute silk the rest of the county can only dream of . . .’
He’s on form tonight. It hurts already. My laughter barely stays within my chest. Any more Lou Helmsworth gems and I might well pull a muscle.
‘I’ve been talkin’ with the council and local police and we’ve finally managed to secure a longer route than last year. Fore Street is good, but we need to make it bigger. Bolder and . . .’
‘Brighter?’
Lou gives a sigh weary of several worlds but refuses to look at me.
‘Better. I want us to get more visitors than Penzance did last year. I reckon we can do it too. Now, I hear what you’re all thinkin’ – that lot around the coast have done it for years, well, so they have. But we can do it different. Brillianter and – Kieran, I swear if you say another word I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
I try to stuff my amusement over Lou’s new word into my festive latte. ‘Sorry, Lou.’
Aggie is shaking her head at me now. It’s time to pull back. I grin at her then catch myself admiring the grey of her eyes. In the candlelight they look enormous, like winter sea-pools or the ancient stones in the wilds of Dartmoor . . .
Hang on. What am I thinking?
My urge to laugh vanishes in an instant and I sit back against my chair as Lou’s voice continues to drone on. The peppermint-laced coffee begins to churn in my stomach. This isn’t the first time Aggie’s occupied my mind. It’s been happening more and more since Halloween. I thought it was the drink talking when Aggie danced with me and the thoughts appeared. But I’m stone cold sober now and it’s still going on.
I can’t be falling for Aggie Keats.
I just can’t.
I mean, we’ve been mates forever. From the last year of school when I started hanging around with her and Seren, drinking beer on the hill overlooking St Ives Bay when we should have been studying for our GCSEs. We’re close – really close – but I always thought of her as a pal to prat around with. Me, Seren and Ag: three peas in a pod; the Three Amigos of St Ives. We’ve seen it all together: hook-ups, break-ups, jobs won and lost. Life. But always as best friends. Never as anything more.
So why can’t I stop thinking about her?
I don’t think I’m lonely. It’s been a year since anyone serious but I’ve had a few dates since then. A couple of them lasted a month or so. Nice girls, just . . . not long-term prospects. To be fair to them, I wasn’t settling-down material either. Just fun. I’m still young, the photography work keeps me away quite a bit – all excuses, according to Seren – but I love my career and right now that comes first. I like being able to hike off on assignment whenever one arrives. I’m not looking for something to tether me here, even though this is the best place in the world.
And that’s the problem: because if I fell for Aggie, it couldn’t just be a fun thing. We’ve too much history binding us, too many shared years between us for it to be anything less than serious.
‘What you’ve got to ask yourselves is, what do you want?’
Suddenly I’m back in the room, Lou’s question scarily portentous. Could funny old Lou Helmsworth be a closet mind reader too? ‘Sorry, what?’ I say before I can stop myself.
Lou reddens and Aggie shakes her head at me again. ‘I knew you weren’t listenin’, Kieran Macklin. What do you want? A half-baked attempt folks’ll forget by the mornin’, or the biggest, grandest spectacle south-west Cornwall has ever seen?’
‘Definitely the latter,’ I say, hoping Lou will see my sudden outburst as a wind-up attempt and not because I felt found out.
‘Exactly. So, let’s all focus on our jobs . . .’ He pulls a stack of sheets from his clipboard and deals them out around the table with all the dexterity of a casino croupier. ‘Now, I’ve personally annotated responsibilities for each of you on this schedule. You’ll notice you all have your own highlighter colour . . . And, when I initiate the control centre whiteboard next week at my wife’s shop, you will find corresponding colour-coded dry markers and Post-It notes too.’
Now that is funny. I can’t help myself, my laughter ringing around Aggie’s coffee hut, and even another one of Seren’s kicks and the return of Aggie’s sternness can’t stop it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I gasp, clutching my sides. It feels so good to laugh after the past week worrying about Aggie, even if it’s the most inadvisable and inappropriate time for it to happen.
Lou playfully cuffs my ear as we’re leaving Aggie’s, but follows it with a hearty backslap, so I know all’s forgiven. But later, when I’m home and the lights of St Ives are twinkling far below, I walk out on my balcony with a beer and let a cloud of vape smoke curl up into the bitterly cold night, taking my sigh with it. I was an idiot this evening. I may play the fool when I’m with my friends, but I’m always in control of it. I let things slip this time: I can’t let that happen again. Tonight, my friends dismissed my odd behaviour as my attempt at a joke; next time they might demand answers. And the truth is, I don’t have any yet . . .