Page 42 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Ben laughed. ‘If you made lasagne and invited me, then I’d gladly accept, and I wouldn’t be worried about poisoning. At least,’ he hesitated, ‘I wouldn’t bethatworried. I might casually ask for a rundown of the ingredients, just to check there was no arsenic or cyanide, that sort of thing.’
Thea nodded, feigning seriousness. ‘Idosometimes getHealthy, Hearty FoodandThe Poisoner’s Handbookconfused at work. But I think, on the whole, it’s a great idea. Me, cooking: you, eating.’
‘It’s a date, then.’ His eyebrows rose, as if his own words had surprised him, and he quickly added, ‘Not adate, date, or anything. Just that …’
‘A repayment, of sorts,’ Thea said, rescuing him. ‘You made me breakfast, and I’d like to make you dinner in return.’
Ben nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He was embarrassed, she thought, and for once in her life she wasn’t, though she didn’t quite understand why not. ‘Thanks,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d better walk Scooter, or he’ll pull off the lead and find some furrow to hole up in, and I won’t find him for hours.’
Scooter was gazing up at Thea while she stroked his nose, looking as if the last thing on his mind was hiding somewhere on the wild Cornish clifftops. Still, she said, ‘Of course. See you tomorrow, then.’
‘Yeah. Looking forward to it.’
She watched them stroll towards the road in the soft evening light, Scooter’s fur hauntingly pale. The air was cool and pleasant, and she could just make out the distant shapes of fishing boats on the blue water. As dusk slunk over the land and sea, she knew those smudges would become glimmering lights in the gloom.
She wished, now, that she’d gone with them, exploring the countryside in the setting sun. She would feel safe with Ben and Scooter. But she didn’t want to use him as a sounding board for her worries when he’d already done so much for her, and it was clear he was embarrassed about the date slip-up.
Thea went inside and got her pre-made lasagne out of the fridge, scanning the ingredients on the back. She would need to look up a proper recipe, get everything in beforehand. Maybe there was a deli somewhere nearby where she could buy proper Italian pasta and cheese. If there was, then it would be another reason why Port Karadow was the perfection location for her: she was finding more of those every day.
‘If we make the sand a bit wetter here, then we could fix that part of it.’
‘You mean the bit that’s supposed to be the cliff, but now looks like a terrible landslide has occurred?’ Meredith gazed up at Finn, who was standing, hands on hips, looking down at their sculpture.
‘We just need to shore it up,’ Finn said. ‘The good thing about a sand sculpture is that it’s easily fixable.’
‘Because it’s so soft,’ Meredith replied. ‘So it collapsesconstantly, but that’s fine because we can just repair it for the fiftieth time? If this was stone, we’d be laughing.’
‘If it was stone, then this wouldn’t be a sand sculpture competition, would it? And stone takes years to carve. Just think of Michelangelo,’ he said, and Meredith’s face softened, something passing between them that Thea couldn’t interpret. She turned away, fixing her focus on the other competitors, trying to work out how they were getting on.
They were back on the beautiful beach, though this competition was taking up a much bigger portion than the cook-off, each team needing a large space to work with. On one side of them, there was a group of intense-looking teenagers, making what looked like a secret garden. Thea could identify a tree and a bench, and was trying not to be too impressed because it was still early days. On the other side, there were four people who looked around the same age as their team – late twenties or early thirties. Meredith had been chatting to a tall, red-haired woman when she and Ben had arrived, and there was something familiar about the handsome man with dark blond hair, who seemed more focused than the other three. The other man on their team looked like he’d given up already, andwas scanning the area where the food trucks were, his arms crossed.
‘Daniel, are you even paying attention?’ A slight, dark-haired woman asked him.
‘Not really,’ the man – who must be called Daniel – replied. ‘Is Marcus Belrose’s food truck here?’
‘Worried about the competition?’ the redhead said, giving him an affectionate smile. ‘Don’t be, honestly. I’m the one with the portable beach café. What if everyone wants barbecue food instead of a cream tea?’
‘Most people probably want both,’ Thea called, because she couldn’t help it. ‘I know I do.’
Their whole team turned to look at her, and she dipped her head, embarrassed.
‘That’s good to know,’ the redhead said, smiling. ‘We’re serving cream teas all afternoon.’
‘You are?’
Meredith knelt beside Thea. ‘This is Charlie,’ she said. ‘She runs the Cornish Cream Tea Bus, the big glossy double-decker up there. I can confirm that her scones, hereverything, are delicious.’
Thea looked at the gleaming red bus parked between a burrito stall and a retro Citroën van selling coffee. The tables outside it were busy, a queue snaking out of the doorway.
‘Our friends Hannah and Noah are running it while we’re doing this,’ the dark-haired woman chipped in. ‘I’m beginning to understand why they were so eager to volunteer.’ She sat back and held up her sand-caked hands. ‘I am never, evergoing to be free of this stuff. I’m going to be finding it in my underwear forweeksafter this!’
‘A hazard of living in Cornwall,’ Finn called over. He was crouched next to his bit of their less than impressive sculpture. ‘Maybe the eight of us should join forces? We could produce something a lot more impressive with double the troops.’
‘Not sure that’s allowed,’ Ben murmured. ‘But even if it is, you think we’ll actually be able to make something that looks like what we intend it to?’
‘Nope,’ Daniel said. ‘Not a chance. I say we quit while we’re nowhere close to ahead.’
‘Not yet,’ Finn replied. ‘I’m not giving up yet.’
