and he pushes his eye patch over his forehead. ‘They’re not little sods. They’re playing at pirates.’
Ben snorts. ‘Pirates? They could have broken my neck. And look at my jeans. These were made specially for me by the designer. They’re unique.’
‘Well, they definitely are now, mate.’ Cal frowns at the mud-spattered denim while I die a little inside. ‘And they’re not my children but I’ll pass on your parenting advice to their mums and dads. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.’
‘Cal!’ I cut in, cringing at the naked menace in his voice while wanting to sink through the ground. ‘This is Ben Trevone and Lily Craig. Our VIP guests.’
Cal glances from Ben to Lily then sucks in a breath before thrusting out his muddy hand. ‘Oh, right. Well, good to meet you both. Sorry the kids were a bit over enthusiastic with their pirate raiding.’
Ignoring Cal’s hand, Ben snorts. ‘Over enthusiastic? They’ve ruined my jeans, not that I care, of course, or about being dumped on my arse in the mud, but Lily was almost knocked flying.’
‘No, I wasn’t. I’m fine and so are you. Ben’s jeans will recover. I never liked them anyway,’ Lily trills. ‘You must be Cal. Why are you dressed as a pirate?’ Lily asks him, clearly intrigued.
‘I promised the children they could come to Kilhallon to play pirates. I just didn’t realise they’d turn up today.’
Ben is speechless, which is a relief, but Cal gives Lily one of his bone-melting smiles. ‘Apologies for my lateness. The children turned up for a half-term visit and I totally lost track of the time. They’re a bit wild, but they’ve had a shitty time recently – their families were flooded out of their homes over Christmas by a tidal surge.’
Lily wrinkles her nose. ‘Oh my God. How horrible for them. We did hear about it. Ben went to school in Penzance, you know.’
‘Yes, I do,’ I say. ‘So I’m sure he can understand how terrible the storm was for the area.’
‘We saw it on the news, didn’t we, Ben? My cousins had to leave their house and Ben paid for them to go to a hotel for a few weeks. He’s very thoughtful like that, aren’t you, Ben?’
Ben manages a smile and puts his arm around Lily’s shoulders. ‘Anything to make you happy.’
‘I bet Polly would wash your jeans, mate, and you can borrow an old pair of mine in the meantime,’ Cal says.
Ben curls his lip. ‘Thanks, but don’t bother.’
‘We’ve got a change of clothes in the car,’ Lily says. ‘We’re visiting Ben’s mum in Penzance after we’ve left here. That’s one of the reasons we wanted the ceremony at Kilhallon, because Ben’s family live locally and mine are scattered over the South West so it’s not so very far for them to come.’
She kisses Ben and he grunts.
‘Would you like to come up to the house to change your clothes?’ I ask him.
‘No. I’d rather keep them on until we’ve finished yomping around this field … in case anyone else wants to knock me over,’ he says.
‘Probably a wise decision,’ says Cal. ‘Do you want me to fetch you some wellies?’ he directs this to both of them.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Lily says with a smile that would melt the hardest heart and I think has even melted Cal’s. Her black leather pixie boots should be OK despite the wet conditions.
‘I’ll stay as I am,’ says Ben, who I think would rather jump off a cliff than be seen in wellies.
Lily slips her arm through his and kisses him. ‘I rather like you all muddy and wet.’
Finally, Ben smiles.
‘Your eye patch has slipped,’ I whisper to Cal while Ben helps Lily down the slope towards the ‘events space’.
Cal lifts off the tricorn and pulls the eye patch over his head before pecking me on the cheek. ‘Sorry I’m late. I bet you’ve been climbing the walls having to look after those two on your own.’
‘I didn’t even notice you weren’t around.’
Cal sucks in a breath. ‘That bad, eh? I didn’t know the kids would be here today but their parents turned up with them. They came to say thanks and I didn’t want to turn them away. Then I kind of got involved in a pirate raid and lost all track of time.’
‘A pirate raid? Great. At least you have your priorities right.’
He grins. ‘You’re not too pissed off, are you?’
While I shake my head at him, I can’t help but smile. Cal likes kids, probably because he’s still about twelve inside. He also spent a lot of time helping them during his time in Syria as an aid worker. He grew especially close to Esme and her mother, Soraya. Soraya’s death in an attack on the city caused Cal a lot of pain, and I know he feels partly responsible. Although he told me about it over Christmas, we’ve not spoken about it since, but I know he thinks about Esme constantly and wonders whether she survived.
We rejoin Lily and Ben and pause halfway down the gentle slope that leads to a circular patch of grass at the bottom of a hollow. To the left is the far edge of the little copse where the yurts are pitched during our camping season. Below us the young pirates are now sitting on one of the log seats we’ve placed in our ‘wedding glade’. The area is available for use by the yurt guests and campers when it’s not booked for a wedding or party.
‘This is the space where you’ll be holding your … um … handfasting ceremony.’ Cal puts his hand to his ear. ‘Shh. Listen.’
The wind has dropped enough for us to hear the faint roar of the sea breaking on the rocks below the cliffs. Gulls wheel above us, gliding on the breeze, crying against the spring sky.
‘Imagine it on a glorious summer’s day – that hollow down there is where we would hold the ceremony,’ I say, relieved that Kilhallon is finally hinting at how beautiful it can be. ‘We’re thinking of having a luxury events tipi for the reception in case the weather turns slightly cooler,’ I say, recalling the storm we had last June. ‘You can have drinks outside in the sun, and in the evening we can light braziers or campfires and decorate the tipi and wedding area however you like … Chinese lanterns, a fairy grotto, Moroccan themed …’
‘Sounds amazing,’ says Lily with a sigh.
‘Let’s take a closer look,’ says Cal, subtly leading her down to the centre of the hollow. Even I’m impressed by what we can do at Kilhallon and I know the yurts looked amazing on our launch day last September. Now the sun’s out and Cal’s here, I feel more confident that we could put on a show that might even please Ben. Fingers crossed that soon we’ll have found a wedding planner to help us so I can concentrate on the catering. The kids run into the woods, whooping, as we approach, which is probably a good thing for all of us.
Ben and I join Cal and Lily in the hollow. Cal sits on a log seat with Lily and they start to chat about a production she worked on with Isla.
‘Have you got any ideas for themes yet?’ I ask Ben, who keeps glancing at his phone.
‘I dunno. I leave that sort of thing up to Lily.’
He pulls a face as he sidesteps a puddle.
‘That’s OK. We can talk more about it when we go back to the cafe. I think we should put some plans in place because the wedding date is the last Saturday in May – that isn’t very far away.’ I’m already crossing my fingers that they don’t want anything unusual that has to be booked years in advance.
‘Harry will need to talk about security,’ Ben says airily.
‘Oh, right. Of course,’ I say, realising I hadn’t thought about that side of things. Luckily we’ve blocked off the entire weekend for Lily and Ben’s