Christmas at the Cornish Café

by Phillipa Ashley

  It will be dark in a couple of hours – especially for Kit as he heads east to London – but here at Kilhallon we get the last few rays of the sun. Sometimes in spring, the light seems to last all night. My God, how I missed these skies last Christmas; the crisp air, the gales, the tang of ozone, salt spray on my face. That’s when I vowed that the moment I touched Kilhallon soil I’d tell Isla how much I felt for her. Now, here I am, knowing that I should tell someone the truth: how I feel, what happened to me. Not Isla, but Demi. But when? And how?

  The wind nips my face. The temperature has plunged but we still won’t have a white Christmas at Kilhallon; we never have had. I haven’t seen snow settle either, not since the winter that Mum passed away. There were deep drifts that cut us off for a few days. Dad took me sledging for the first time ever. It was almost Easter. After the snow melted, she left us.

  ‘Boys don’t cry.’ Dad told me that from the moment I was out of nappies, although he didn’t say it after Mum slipped away in our arms.

  Grown men don’t cry? They do, far more often than you’d ever believe. I’ve seen them. I’ve been one of them in my darkest moments.

  That bloody wind, it cuts into me, making my eyes water. Good job it’s raining again too. Hailing, in fact, from the dirtiest dark clouds you’ve ever seen, clumping over the ocean in the direction of Kilhallon. Great. Just what we need, a storm and leaking roofs, and I still haven’t got round to painting Demi’s ceiling despite promising to do it months ago.

  By the time I reach the community centre again, the streets of St Trenyan are quiet and my eyes are dry. The fire service, RNLI and police are still around. Some people are still clearing up, poor sods. I don’t think I can take any more weight on my shoulders today. I need Demi, because it’s Christmas, almost, and I need a Christmas in my own home, with the people I love around me. It’s been a long time since I had that. Perhaps a very, very long time …

  I dig in my pocket and pull out a rain-soaked handkerchief. Oh shit, I can’t go into the centre yet. I just need a few more minutes …

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Demi

  ‘Really? You’ll take the two families and the two young women? I’m so relieved, I can tell you.’ Rev Bev has popped back in between her Christmas Eve duties and hugs me in the kitchen of the community centre. I don’t like to tell her that she has baby food on her dog collar after the children’s service she’s just conducted.

  ‘Well, the old staff cottages aren’t luxurious, but they’re warm and watertight. They’ll do for a couple of nights. I hope the families aren’t going to be disappointed. It must be so horrible having to leave your own place and rely on strangers.’

  ‘I think they’re so tired and fed up of sleeping in here that any roof of their own while they try and celebrate Christmas will be a relief to them. I’ll go and tell them, shall I?’ Bev says. ‘They’re all in the meeting room.’

  ‘Do they have transport?’

  ‘One of their cars was flooded out and the other one’s given up the ghost, but the Rotary Club can give them a lift in their minibus and they said they’d supply the bedding and some food too. They managed to salvage some of the presents for the kids and we’ve had donations from local businesses too. Tamsin has been fantastic, helping out and offering some spa packs for the mums.’

  I smile at hearing about my friend’s generosity. ‘Tamsin’s lovely.’

  Bev mouths an apology as her mobile goes off. A minute later she speaks to me again.

  ‘Blast. I forgot to mention the other couple who turned up while you were collecting the supplies. Apparently, they only moved into the area a few weeks ago. They’d just bought that little fisherman’s cottage round the next cove and I’m afraid the tidal surge completely washed them out. Her relatives all live in Spain and there are no flights out there, even if she wasn’t eight months pregnant.’

  ‘I don’t think we can take any more people unless they want to sleep in the cafe, which is possible, I suppose. We could set up beds in there.’

  Bev’s face falls. ‘Oh dear. Someone told them that we might be able to help them find a place and they came in here this morning. I said I couldn’t be sure but to come back. The man’s trying to phone a hotel in Truro and the woman’s popped out to the pharmacy before it shuts. Oh, there they are.’

  Rachel walks in, or should I say waddles in, closely followed by my dad. Bev rushes over to greet them.

  My hands shake. It can’t be them. Not here. Not now.

  Bev shows Rachel to a chair. Dad glances at me, obviously as gobsmacked as me that we’re in the same room again.

  ‘Hello, how are you? Any luck with finding anywhere to stay?’ Bev asks them.

  My dad shakes his head. ‘Not yet.’

  Rachel is close to tears, then spots me. I curl my hands into fists, willing my fingers to stop trembling.

  ‘If all else fails, Demi here has offered you a roof over your head in her cafe,’ Bev is telling them. The tidal surge has picked me up and dumped me in a situation I never planned or wanted and I’m floundering. I never asked for this …

  ‘It’s OK. We can do better than that.’ Cal’s hand is at my back. I didn’t even notice him walk in. ‘Can’t we, Demi?’

  ‘I don’t want to put anybody out,’ my dad grunts. ‘We’ll find somewhere, won’t we, Rachel? We can go out of the area. There’ll be a hotel or a caravan.’ He takes her hand as if he’s going to make her get up and leave.

  ‘No. Wait. Dad!’

  Finally I move. ‘Cal’s right. You can stay with us in the farmhouse. There’s a spare room. Please don’t go.’

  ‘You won’t want us ruining your Christmas, Demi, and I refuse to be a burden.’

  ‘You won’t be,’ I say as if another girl has taken control of my thoughts.

  ‘You won’t be, Mr Jones.’ Cal says firmly. He captures my hand tightly in his.

  ‘Is it your place?’ Dad asks Cal. He looks unsure and Rachel seems ready to cry. She looks so scared and tired. I feel sorry for her.

  ‘I own it but we run it together. Don’t we, Demi?’ He squeezes my hand. ‘There’s a spare room in the main farmhouse. Nothing special but you’d be warm and comfortable,’ he tells Rachel and my dad.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Dad looks directly at me. Cal squeezes my hand again, not as if he’s putting pressure on me, but for support. I feel sick, confused, but I made the choice. Cal didn’t make me, Bev hasn’t made me.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure.’

  Bev says nothing, but looks at me hard. She seems to have worked out – in a few seconds – what’s happening here.

  ‘Shall I leave you to discuss it and work out any arrangements?’ she says with a smile. ‘Let me know what’s decided and, Mr Jones, you and your partner are welcome at the vicarage if not. We’ll manage somehow.’

  ‘It’s fine. They can stay with us,’ I say.

  Bev nods. ‘Talk to you later. I have to go now,’

  My dad takes me aside while Cal helps Rachel gather up her things. ‘You don’t have to do this, Demi.’

  ‘I know I don’t.’

  ‘Don’t feel obliged because of that vicar woman or your boss.’

  ‘I don’t feel obliged. I know what it’s like to be stuck without somewhere to go.’

  ‘I never turned you out,’ he says quietly.

  ‘No, but you never made me feel like you really wanted me to stay.’

  ‘I was wrong and I’ve felt guilty about that ever since. I’ve not been the ideal dad, Demi, and after your mum passed away I was even less than ideal, but I was feeling guilty about your mum and grieving. You didn’t seem to need me.’

  ‘I did need you. I needed you more than ever.’

  Two of the families gathering their stuff glance up. My face is wet with tears. This is exactly what I didn’t want: a public rant.

  ‘Let’s not do this here. Or ever, if you don’t want to,’ he says. ‘And you can still back out. No one will know that we haven’t stay
ed.’

  ‘I’ll know. Cal will never agree to you leaving now.’

  ‘It’s none of his business. You don’t do as he says all the time, do you?’

  ‘Almost never!’

  My dad raises his eyebrows. ‘Bloody hell. I bet you’re a handful to him.’

  ‘No, I’m not! He’s the handful, not me.’

  Then I realise my dad has a smile on his face and I want to hit him. How dare he side with Cal? How dare he smile at me? How dare he make me feel as if I care about a single thing he thinks. How can I ever get through Christmas if he stays with us?

  How can I ever get through Christmas if he doesn’t?

  ‘Demi? Are you ready to go home?’

  Cal’s in the doorway, weighed down with bags. Rachel stands by, watching us. She looks at me and she gives me a little sympathetic smile. I think she knows how hard this is. For me, for Dad and for her, but it’s too late now. We’re going to spend Christmas together and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Christmas Eve, mid-afternoon

  Cal and I carry the bags through the reception area of Kilhallon House while my dad helps Rachel out of the Land Rover. Although the chilly rain shower has passed over, it will be growing dark soon and the wind is biting so the warm air of the reception area is very welcome. Polly has placed a Christmas lantern with a festive candle in it on the desk and its golden glow and spicy smell adds to the cosy atmosphere. We push open the door to the farmhouse itself and Polly’s voice drifts through from the sitting room, singing along to carols from King’s on the radio. She’s also lit a fire, which crackles in the hearth and lends the air a tang of woodsmoke.

  I hear footsteps and voices outside, which must be my father, Rachel and the other ‘evacucees’.

  ‘I’d better go and help everyone settle in,’ Cal says, leaving the bags in the sitting room. ‘If you don’t mind looking after your dad and Rachel?’

  ‘OK …’ I say, knowing that I’m going to have to face Dad on my own some time. Funny how I find it easier to welcome strangers than my own family. My nerves make my stomach flutter, but I guess it’s time to start building bridges. ‘Cal, what have I done?’

  He smiles. ‘Invited half the town to spend Christmas with us.’

  ‘I didn’t notice you trying to stop me. In fact, you encouraged it so what choice did I have?’ I ask.

  Cal kisses me tenderly, and his fingers linger on my cheek. ‘We always have a choice,’ he says and then walks outside.

  ‘Wow. This is beautiful!’ says Rachel when I show her the guest room in the farmhouse.

  ‘It’s not luxury, but it’s clean and comfy, I hope,’ I say.

  My dad and Rachel follow me inside the room. It’s not been used by anyone since Cal had to temporarily move in while the main bedroom roof was repaired after a storm. Polly’s aired it and put some fresh linen on the bed while we transported everyone from the village.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ says Rachel. ‘Older than our cottage.’ Her bottom lip trembles. ‘I don’t know when we’ll be able to get back in there. The insurance people can’t even come out until the day after Boxing Day.’

  ‘You can stay here as long as you need to,’ I say, knowing instinctively that’s what Cal would want, even if the situation is awkward between us.

  ‘We’ll be out of your hair soon. Rachel’s cousin says we can have her holiday flat in Porthleven for a few weeks once her Christmas guests have left. It’ll be all right.’ Dad hugs her. She isn’t as young as me, but she looks tired and thin, despite the huge bump.

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’ Dad frowns.

  ‘The baby.’

  ‘A little girl,’ he says and Rachel pats her stomach.

  ‘She keeps kicking. She must know that something dramatic has happened.’ Rachel crosses to the window and looks out over the dark moorland to the rear of the house.

  ‘Rachel looks knackered. I hope she’s not going to have the baby here,’ I whisper to my dad.

  He smiles. ‘It’s not due until the middle of January. You can stop worrying.’

  ‘Do you want to go back downstairs and warm yourselves by the fire for a while? You can help yourself to drinks and mince pies from the kitchen. Polly’s in there and I’m sure she’ll take care of you both,’ I say, switching briskly to professional hostess mode before I start thinking too hard about the prospect of having a little sister. ‘I need to go and help Cal settle in the other families.’

  Closing the door, I run downstairs, trying to put out of my mind the fact that the man I refused to even acknowledge a few weeks ago is now staying in Cal’s house with me. There’s too much to do to dwell on it, and even if there wasn’t, I’d find some way of blocking out the momentous thought.

  Polly is actually outside, waving off the Rotary Club’s minibus, which dropped off our final batch of unexpected guests. They’re shattered but seem grateful for a dry roof over their heads, not that they have to be. Polly has her arm around one man who’s been overcome by worry and is in a right state. She offers to make him a cup of tea.

  ‘Where’s Cal? I ask her.

  ‘Showing the kids the chickens while their parents sort themselves out.’

  I jog up to the chicken house. Cal and four children, aged from about five to ten, peer through the wire fence at Polly’s precious flock. The sky is darkening now and the wind is chilly, but the kids are well wrapped up and don’t seem to mind. Spending Christmas at Kilhallon must seem like another adventure to them after what they’ve been through.

  ‘They aren’t the turkeys for our dinner, are they?’ a little boy asks Cal.

  ‘No. Turkeys are much bigger and we don’t eat these chickens. We keep them to lay eggs for breakfast and cakes.’

  ‘I can make cakes,’ a little girl pipes up. ‘But I don’t need eggs. I only need Rice Krispies and chocolate.’

  ‘Do you have to wring their necks?’ the oldest boy demands, teasing the wire fence as if he’d like to break in. He’s definitely trouble.

  Cal frowns at him. ‘Not if I can help it. We don’t breed them so we don’t have any cockerels to get rid of.’

  ‘What’s a cockellerel?’ the little boy asks.

  ‘And why do you put a ring on its neck?’ adds an older girl.

  ‘He means they strangle …’ Trouble begins with glee.

  ‘I think it’s cold out here and your mums and dads will wonder where you are,’ I cut in.

  Cal shoots a grateful glance at me. The little boy catches my hand and gazes up at me with big blue eyes. ‘What does he mean, Demi, “wrangle the cockleshells”?’

  ‘We don’t wrangle any of the hens. They live here having a happy time making eggs for us.’

  ‘How do the eggs get out of the hens?’ he asks.

  Oh shit. Cal winks at me. ‘Yes, how do the eggs get out, Demi?’

  The older girl pulls a face and Trouble rolls his eyes.

  ‘Does the cockerel have a name?’ the little girl asks, saving me from an awkward answer.

  ‘Yes. Chicken McChickenface,’ says Cal.

  ‘No, it is not,’ Trouble says with a snort.

  ‘Wanna bet?’ Cal smiles.

  The boy’s face crumples. He’s really not sure …

  ‘Let’s go back to the cottages. It’s getting cold.’ I pull a face at Cal and take the little girl and boy by the hand while Trouble picks up a stick and swishes at the grass.

  ‘Are we having eggs for Christmas dinner?’ the little girl asks as we walk down to the cottages.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Mum says it will have to be beans on toast,’ Trouble mutters.

  ‘That doesn’t sound very festive.’

  ‘No, but Mum says we’re lucky to have a roof over our heads, even if it does smell of dog.’

  I manage a smile. His family are staying in my cottage. Oh well, not everyone appreciates Mitch’s hospitality.

  ‘I li
ke my room. You can hear the sea when Max stops moaning,’ says his sister, obviously referring to Trouble.

  ‘I don’t moan!’

  ‘Now, now,’ I say, desperate to avoid breaking up any more fights. ‘Let’s take you home.’ An idea forms in my mind. Is it a good one or the daftest I’ve ever had? Is it impossible? I wonder what Cal would say …

  Max’s mum answers the door of ‘my’ cottage. It is very strange having to knock on the door of my own place – or what was my own place. I’m not sure if it is my cottage now if I decide to move in with Cal.

  Her face is as pale as flour. ‘Thanks for taking them. We needed a break.’

  ‘I told her about the dog smell, Mum.’

  ‘Oh God, no. Don’t be so rude, Max! Sorry, love, it’s very good of you to have us.’ She glares at him but Max shrugs and wanders off.

  ‘It’s fine. It’s not your own house, is it? I can understand that must be horrible and I’m sorry for the doggy smell.’

  ‘Don’t be! Max can be a right little devil. I’d rather have your dog than him sometimes. Thanks for having us.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure.’

  Cal and I meet at the farmhouse after he’s delivered the other two little angels to their parents. Clutching hot chocolates, we both collapse around the kitchen table and don’t speak for a few minutes.

  ‘Cal?’

  He glances up from his drink. ‘Mmm. Do I feel an idea about to erupt?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m not sure whether you’re going to like it or think it’s possible.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘All the people, they’re safe and dry, but it’s not going to be much of a Christmas Day, eating baked beans and crisps, is it? So I wondered if we should, you know, maybe invite them to Christmas lunch with us.’

  ‘What? Here in the farmhouse?’ He sounds horrified.

  ‘No. We could use Demelza’s. I mean, I was already going to ask Dad and Rachel, so why not extend the invitation to everyone who wants to come?’

  Polly bustles in. ‘I hope those kids haven’t terrified my chickens into stopping laying. They’re very sensitive, you know, and I’ve already spotted one of the little horrors making gun signs at them. I’ll be keeping an eye on him.’