‘I’d offer you a seat but I can’t,’ I told him cheerily. ‘You might burn yourself too and the people who insure us would go into meltdown at two burns in the one tent on one day. But there are seats further in, in the centre of the festival area. They’re set up for the bigger demos.’
He took off his sunglasses and he looked fine, if a bitred-eyed.
‘I don’t need a seat,’ he said.
‘You looked like you did,’ I pointed out. ‘I thought I detected a bit of a sway there and I was afraid I’d be onto the First Aid tent again when youface-planted in front of my stand.’
‘I’m light sensitive,’ he said.
‘Right.’ I began tidying up.
I knew a lot of people who were light sensitive after bank holiday barbecues, weddings and other festive events where booze was involved.
‘You’re very good at this,’ he said suddenly.
I whirled around.
‘Cooking? I’d want to be,’ I said with a wry laugh.
‘No, I meant cooking and explaining it to people in a way they grasp. You don’t talk down to the audience, either, which is vital. You take them along with you. It’s a hard trick to learn but you have it instinctively.’
‘Thank you,’ I said in my fakeI-am-being-charming voice. ‘Now you have to go. Watch someone else cook. Shoo.’
He roared laughing. ‘Shoo. I love it. Have you done any television work before?’
He was beginning to weird me out.
‘Only on CCTV footage on the bank robbery jobs, but I keep the mask over my face at all times.’
He laughed again, as if I was the funniest thing ever.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Rhianna,’ I said, beaming. ‘Now, go away.’
I hissed this last bit because I felt sure that trying to get rid of customers at food festivals wasn’t part of the deal but still. Who was this guy?
‘James Kirk,’ he said, holding out a hand.
‘As in Captain Kirk?’ I asked drily. ‘You missed out the T. James T. Kirk, the T stands for Tiberius.’
‘It really is my name,’ he said sadly, as if he was entirely fed up with explaining this.
‘My father’s Scottish, which is where the Kirk comes from and the James – well, they’re total Trekkies, my parents.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Are you Freya or Jocelyn?’ he asked.
I gave him the sort of stare I reserved for Kieran in work when he asked me to stay late.
The words ‘what’s it to you?’ hovered in my mind.
‘I’m a TV producer for Slate Productions,’ he said, suddenly moving forward with his hand held out. ‘We film, among other things, cookery shows. I think you’ve got real promise in terms of television work. Real promise.’
He proffered a card and there it was on a misty grey background:
James Kirk
