And that includes drinking until you pass out on the beach?!
We’re fishermen, smugglers or miners, so um… yup, pretty much. But at least we’ve cut it down to once or twice a year instead of every payday.
You forget I’ve been inside The Smuggler’s Curse.
Okay, fair point. Some still do it every payday. But even better, you haven’t been to The Rats Arse yet.
There is not a pub called that! I thought Smuggler’s Curse was bad.
Haha that’s nothing, you know Davinia we met this evening?
Oh, I don’t think I’m going to forget that in a hurry.
Well, only a couple of years ago she rocked up to the Rats Arse fete. They’re having a fallow year this year so you won’t see it… I’m using the dots to drag out the brilliance of this story.
What, like Glastonbury? Isn’t that a bit over the top for a village pub?
Normally I’d say yes, but if you get Sarah’s job then you’ll see why. Anyway, Davinia rocked up one year astride her horse, long wig on and naked, bar some electrical tape in a cross over her nipples and some edible panties. She said she was the modern-day Lady Godiva. Fathers suddenly started enrolling their children in pony club quicker than anything.
What was she protesting?
Eh?
Lady Godiva was making a protest. What was Davinia’s?
From what I can gather, that she was usually expected to dress in clothes when she goes out. That was it. She had been talking about setting up a naturist commune at the stables. I think this was her first foray.
Aha, hence the rising admissions.
Yep, fathers far and wide were suddenly very happy to take Juliana, Persephone and Abigail riding on a Saturday morning.
We don’t have a Persephone at Penmenna do we?
No, but you can guarantee that Davinia will have. And I reckon Sylvie will have a couple soon as well. Look, I’m bored of this texting now. Do you mind if we stop?
Kam looked at the phone in his hand as he lay in bed. He kind of did mind. He wasn’t sure how it had evolved but he liked his daily catch up with Pippa; it was intimate, a way of further sharing and without half the school watching and gossiping. But if she was bored, then there wasn’t much he could do. He started to type back ‘of course not, night night’when his ringtone blared out.
‘Brilliant, hello! I thought my fingers were going to fall off if I carried on texting at that rate. So, where were we? Oh yeah, Davinia’s clothing. I think she’s accepted that the neighbourhood would really prefer her fully clothed, although she does apparently still wander about her house and garden with not much on. I’ve always wondered about the electrical tape. Do you reckon that would hurt like hell when she had to pull it off? I remember coming back from a festival once…’
And as Pippa carried on talking ten to the dozen, Kam laid back in his bed and smiled. This was perfect.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The Saturday morning dawn streamed bright through Kam’s window. Normally he would have a bit of a lie-in, maybe read whilst working his way through a pint of coffee, alternatively he would have risen half an hour ago and headed to the beach. Sitting on your board, watching the sun break over the dunes was one of his favourite ways to spend time. However, today none of these was an option. Today, he was giving his mum and his sisters a whistle-stop tour of the county. Ordinarily he would been groaning about this; he loved his mother and each of his siblings, would lay his life down for any of them without a second thought but collectively – oh my word. They were so loud!
Today though he would not be dealing with them on his own. Last night, as he and Pippa had chatted into the wee hours, she had become ever so excited and offered herself up as tour guide. She had said she had to spend the Sunday with her family and deal with the James situation – although she still hadn’t been hundred percent clear what that was precisely – and on Monday she had a vintage clothes thing on in a local hotel, but would love, love, love to show him and his family around tomorrow. Relaxing and doing nothing didn’t appear to ever feature on her schedule.
Kam stretched as he considered Pippa a little more. He was used to having crushes and occasionally they would be reciprocated, he would conquer his shyness and all would proceed well. But he was increasingly aware that the way he felt about Pippa was way past crush, hurtling beyond infatuation and nudging into obsession. He just could not stop thinking about her. She was constantly on his mind. The way her hair was just the right length to curve into her neck, the way she found joy in everything, the way it was impossible to predict whether she would turn up as prom queen, athlete or flapper. Then there was the way she always made time for others, and made them smile whilst she was at it, the way her curves curved into curves and into more curves.
He heard himself sigh.
He was also aware that whilst Rosy’s warning about relationships in the workplace had been gentle, it had still happened. The last thing he wanted to do was put Pippa in an awkward position and he definitely couldn’t afford to mess up his chances for a permanent job at Penmenna. He had had a couple of offers of interviews in other schools, which were scheduled for after the half term break, but he loved working in Penmenna so much. If he just handled his crush in as professional a way as possible, kept the boundaries firm and made no attempt whatsoever to treat Pippa as anything other than a respected colleague then he should be fine. After all he was hardly going to grab her into an embrace and declare unquenchable love for her today. Especially not in front of his sisters. Today should be fine. He’d make sure it was.
Now that he knew that she was also being pushed by her mother into finding someone and settling down, he was sure that the last thing she needed was for her life to be made messier by him throwing his feelings into the pot. Besides nothing had changed on a rational level: he still stood true to his belief that, at this point in his life, he needed to prioritise his career. He just needed to box his emotions and carry on with his life plan.
He realised that, for whatever reason, his mother hadn’t been barking at him at roughly the same time as the seagulls awoke, so he took advantage of the quiet and jumped into the shower, glad to get in before the girls took over with their hour-long stints in the bathroom, a whirl of powders and pastes being splodged all over the place along with wet towels, abandoned pyjamas and shrieking.
As he stood under the torrent of water he accepted that he was fooling himself. Talking all night over the phone with your teaching assistant, giggling, sharing memories and future dreams was not keeping boundaries firm. The right thing to do would be to ring her as soon as he was dry and dressed, and thank her for her kind offer to show his family around but explain that it wasn’t necessary.
