“If that was true, it would only be because you lot don’t take him seriously. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a dad who cares beyond the fact that you’re still breathing.”
Kim spoke with humour, but his words hit home. I’d only met his father once, and the contrast with my own had been like night and day. Billy Penrose was a gruff seaman, grey and weathered, and though his love for his only son had been obvious, it had been hard to see how a man as vibrant as Kim had come from someone who had so little time for him.
I’d never met his mother, but then, he hadn’t met mine, and I couldn’t see that changing.
Kim left, and after gathering my laptop and laundry together, I followed suit and went home—to my rented flat—and kicked about until it felt like a reasonable hour to test a newfound friendship I’d come to rely on.
Calum met me at the Sea Bell, and we sat outside nursing pints of local ale while we shared the trials and tribulations of being hopelessly in love with our complex Porthkennack boys, ’cause I reckoned Calum was the only soul on earth who loved someone as much as I loved Kim.
“How are the meetings going?” Calum asked over our second round.
It felt a little odd to be discussing AA meetings with a pint of Doom Bar in hand, but I shrugged anyway. “Good, I think. He’s still trying, so I guess it’s working for him.”
“No wobbles?”
“I don’t think so.” Andthinkwas the operative word, because I’d been blissfully oblivious the last time Kim’s demons had overwhelmed him until most of the storm had passed. “The counselling is helping with that, though. And the painting.”
Calum grinned and raised his drink. Kim and Brix’s painting sessions had become our cue to decamp to the pub, and had spurred our blossoming friendship. And I was pretty sure Calum got as much from Brix’s paint-splattered hands as I did from Kim’s.
Art was like that, or at least, I was beginning to learn it might be. Until Kim, I’d always considered my own work a solitary occupation, even when I was squeezing my way around a packed gig, or enduring a happy-clappy wedding. Shooting, processing, editing—I’d done it all on my own until Kim and his merry band of über-creative friends had encouraged me to try it a different way.
Which led me nicely to the other reason I’d asked Calum to meet me. I opened my laptop on the table and pulled up the folder of images I’d shot of him the previous week. Kim was a beautiful man, Brix too, but there was something about Calum that I found utterly fascinating. Kim called him an angel in a bear suit, and when I’d reviewed the photos last night, I’d finally understood why. Because beneath the dark beard, broad shoulders, and brooding gaze, Calum was the sweetest motherfucker I’d ever met, and somehow, the images I’d shot over a couple of pints and weathered exterior wall of the Sea Bell, had managed to capture it.
Not that Calum seemed impressed. He winced and pushed the laptop away. “What the fuck are you showing me those for?”
“Because Kim wants to paint them, well . . . paint you, as it happens, so I said I’d ask you first.”
“Paint them?”
“Yeah, for the new workshop. We thought of a name.”
Calum rolled his eyes. “Go on.”
“So you know what the commune is called, right?”
“Right . . .” Suspicion laced Calum’s gaze, and I didn’t blame him. Kim and Brix had worked on the much-needed expansion of Kim’s workshop together, and we’d learned fast that their combined humour was about as juvenile as it came. “Let me guess: they want to paint my face as a pirate and call the place Blackbeard’s Junkyard?”
“Not quite. Blackheart’s Drunk Beard, actually.”
“Seriously?”
I laughed. “I hope not, but they do want to use your face as a template.”
Calum sighed. “Brix kept that quiet.”
I sympathised with him, I really did, but Kim and Brix’s vision for the new workshop was epic, and would be all the more so with Calum’s painted face on the front, so I held my tongue, hoping my silence would at least convince Calum to think about it.
And it worked. After a moment of mutiny, Calum drew the laptop closer. “Okay . . . hit me. How do they want to do this?”
Later that day, I met Kim at the gates to Belly Acre Farm. He appeared as pleased with himself as my father had earlier. “What are you up to?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” I punctuated my words with a kiss. “You look like you’ve put a bramble bush on my dinner chair.”
“Don’t judge me by your brother’s standards. I’ve just had a good day, mate. That’s all.”
I felt bad then, and made up for it by groping him. As you do . . . as we did, frequently. But, alas, our time together hadn’t yet come, and so I tore myself away and preceded him inside. Laura was waiting for us and promptly dispatched Kim to help my dad bring in the first of the spring greens.
