Kam ended the day on a high, Sports Day had been fun and he hadn’t been able to stop grinning all afternoon. He had been given the job of his dreams, the girl he adored was talking to him again and when Rosy had announced his appointment a huge cheer had gone up from all the assembled parents, children and staff. This had to be the best day ever in the history of his world.
He was walking back to his car, after giving Pippa a goodbye hug while managing to keep all his emotions nicely pent-up as he did so. He felt content and, although he knew he had to accept that Pippa didn’t feel the way he did, the fact they were back on good terms was enough for him right now. Most of the love songs and stories in the world dealt with unrequited love. There was nothing special about him. He was just experiencing one of those things that made humans human.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He hadn’t told anyone outside of the school his news, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised if his mother had some kind of minicam installed in the top pocket of his suit and was ringing to shriek at him. He stopped as he reached his car and pulled out the phone to see what she had to say.
Only it wasn’t his mother texting, it was Pippa’s. How had she got hold of his number?
Hello! Good news travels fast. Congratulations! I thought I’d get in touch to see if you wanted to join our family for the sea shanty singing in The Smuggler’s Curse on Monday night, it will be great fun and you’d be more than welcome. We’ll be there from half six on. Jan.
The phone beeped again.
That’s Jan, Pippa’s mum, by the way. Hope to see you Monday!
Chapter Forty-three
Feast Week had arrived which meant that Penmenna was filled with fluttering bunting and very high spirits. The bunting was a mish mash and there was so much of it that it was wound around some unusual places as well as flying high in the air, fluttering from lamppost to lamppost. A lot of it had been made by the children at school a few years ago, and in addition there had been some guerrilla knitters in action, creating seaside scenes and yarn bombing the village. Pippa’s money was on Ethel and her friends. Street names (not that there were many) had been framed with knitted seashells and the outside of The Smuggler’s Curse had been prettied up with woollen sea monsters and beach scenes in keeping with the carnival theme.
Yesterday had seen the raft races down on the beach where families had to construct their own rafts out of any material they pleased, launch them in Treporth Bay and then try to sail them the length of the coast to Penmenna. Everyone who stayed afloat won a medal, although you could guarantee only three or four would complete it. This year Pete and Jim had made a contraption that managed to meet all the conditions of the race and was built largely out of empty plastic bottles that Jan had collected all year long. It had been great fun as Pippa, Pete and their dad had optimistically climbed aboard it in Treporth Bay, only to have it sink halfway around, just past the huge rock that protruded out of the sea and that teenagers liked to clamber upon. They had waded around to Penmenna beach, soaked to the skin and roaring with laughter as Jan met them on the other side with towels and a thermos of tea. This was what raft race day was about. This year the summer sun was beating down from the sky, making the capsizing a pleasurable relief rather than an unpleasant soaking. Feast Weeks were not guaranteed to be sunny, so it had been lovely to be splayed out on the beach, munching crisps and gulping water, surrounded by the majority of the village and wider community, with the sun drying them out and warming them through.
Now, though, it was Monday evening and Pippa was sat inside The Smuggler’s Curse with her family and a whole host of regulars, giggling with the choir before they started their performance properly. This was one of Pippa’s favourite nights of Feast Week, steeped in history, tradition and Roger’s hooch. She steered clear of the latter, experience having taught her that this week was a marathon not a sprint, and as always it would culminate in an It’s-a-Knockout tournament that took place on the school field followed by spectacular fireworks over the cliffs.
She sat there happily, chatting away to Ethel as her mum and dad nattered together. Ethel was telling Pippa the story of when she had driven through Paris in a white, open-topped sports car in the Sixties with two strangers she had met in a bar, when the door opened and, as per usual, everyone turned around to see who had entered. The general feel was a little friendlier today. During Feast Week strangers were almost welcome into The Smuggler’s Curse as long as they showed the correct deference, i.e. let anyone local get served before them without kicking up a fuss.
Pippa was slow to turn with everyone else, her mind still busy whizzing past the Eiffel tower, hair streaming, and Ethel shrieking with laughter in an Aston Martin, so it took her a second or two to process that it was Kam who had just walked through the door.
He stood, as if unsure, looking around the inside of the pub to see someone he recognised. Pippa waved, her mind immediately a-boggle as she realised that now, formally and officially, they didn’t work in the same classroom any more. That changed the whole dynamic of their relationship, surely?
With him getting the job in Sarah’s class, they would still be colleagues but not in such a strict sense. It also meant that his five-year plan was not only on track but going faster than he had expected, which would have boded well for her, had he stuck to the romantic plans they had made that fateful weekend. If the reason their relationship had fallen to pieces was because he was concerned about protecting their professional reputation, now it was the summer holidays and they were a lot freer than they had been this time last week. She shot a grin at him but he had already been enveloped into a giant bear hug by her dad, her mother having nipped off somewhere. Pippa decided she had better rescue him before he was subjected to the topic of how he should have replaced his car by now with something Japanese and reliable.
‘Ah Pippa, now Iknowyou know this young man.’
‘Yes, Kam’s my colleague.’ There was a split-second silence where both she and Kam realised what she had said. Not friend. Colleague. Ouch. Pippa wished for all her life that she could take it back as she saw the hurt flash in Kam’s eyes. Jim steamrollered on, unaware of any undercurrent.
‘Not if your mother has her way.’ Her father smirked at the two of them, both so embarrassed by this point that they looked at everything but each other. Kam seemed suddenly interested in the beer taps and Pippa studied her toes with the intensity of a podiatry PhD student.
‘Who’s taking my name in vain?’ Jan rejoined them but not quickly enough to prevent Jim’s initial embarrassing statement. Or to stop him compounding it.
‘I was just telling Pips and Kam that you had high hopes for them romantically’. Pippa heard someone groan, loudly and with feeling and then realised it was her.
‘Oh no! You’re mistaken. You know that I’ve promised Pippa I’ll no longer interfere in her love life. She’s a big girl. I’m sure she can sort it out on her own.’
‘But you said that you and Kam’s mum had been talk—’
‘Who wants a drink then?’ Jan’s tone was loud, and smacked of forced cheerfulness and Jim let out a yelp before leaning over to rub his foot. Pippa fixed her mum with her fiercest what-on-earth-are-you-up-to-now glare, which bounced off her like lambs in springtime.
‘Ooh, and look the choir is about to start.’
At this point Kam stopped looking as if the Carlsberg and Korev pumps were the secret of all knowledge and smiled wanly at Pippa. She smiled tentatively back. If nothing else she knew Kam understood what it was like to have a mother who was sure she knew best and constantly interfered.
The singing began and the rousing sound ofTrelawneyrang through the pub. As the drums began to swell so did every Cornish heart, and most of those sitting stood to their feet. The song roused such a strength of feeling one would have been hard pressed to find a Cornishman or woman not stirred into action or emotion by this song. Pippa stood facing the choir and knew that the love she felt for her county was beaming from her face, as it was from the faces of the majority of those in the room as they all joined in with the chorus ‘here’s twenty thousand Cornish men shall know the reason why.’
It was a song that they grew up with, and one that took pride of place in all Cornish choirs. It told the story of the imprisonment of a Cornish bishop. Pippa knew that the men did not actually march upon parliament as the song suggested, but she also knew no one in the pub gave a sod about historical accuracy in this case. It was all about the feeling.
The choir moved seamlessly ontoRobbers Retreat, another Smuggler’s Curse favourite, and Pippa looked over at Kam gripping one of those little pamphlets that the choir had put on the bar, with all the lyrics written down for those who may not know them but wanted to sing along with the locals.
She stood watching him for far longer than was polite as he tried as hard as he could not to spend too much time looking at the words, fixing his eyes on the choir and singing loudly, trying to gauge the tune and what was coming next.
It made Pippa sigh; he was so beautiful, inside and out.
