His fingers dance over the keys as he plays the plinky plonky opening of “Someone Like You.” Goosebumps erupt all over my skin.
“Oh my god. Amazing,” Jody says, looking as though she’s about to weep. She sings the first few lines.
By the time Pi reaches the chorus, we’re all singing along, and Logan is in my lap with his arms around my shoulders.
“When did you learn to do that?” I say.
He shrugs. “Did piano lessons at school, and then when I was older I taught myself to play keyboard.” His face gets serious at the end, and I know there’s a story he’s stopping himself from sharing. Possibly because my child is here, or my ex, or maybe it’s just something he’ll never feel comfortable sharing with me.
The thought leaves a peculiar, hollow ache in my chest.
“Okay, this one’s for Eggo,” he says, interrupting the sudden weird vibe. “I mean, Finn. I mean, Dad?” Pi shrugs and thenfaces the keyboard again and begins playing the dee-dee-lee dee-dee-lee-dee opening of “Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton.
I jump to my feet, practically shoving Logan onto the carpet. “Fruit of my loins, fetch me my microphone immediately!”
Logan runs off into his bedroom and returns a second later with a shitty lightsaber that he won from collecting arcade tokens one year at a caravan park in Devon. Pi spots the toy and his eyes light up, but he keeps playing, and Jody and I belt our entire hearts out.
You won’t get a better Cornish pasty than from my stepdad Stu’s bakery on Newquay high street, so I take Pi and Logan there for lunch. I get traditional, while both Pi and Logan opt for cheese and onion. I also pick up some Chelsea buns for pudding.
“We call them scrolls,” my Australian friend says, pointing to the Chelsea buns.
An old guy in the pasty shop dressed in a Cornwall rugby top overhears Pi’s accent and recognises him straight away. It takes him only three seconds longer to recognise me. We chat about the rugby season and his old boys’ club while the bloke behind the counter—not my stepdad but I do vaguely recollect his face—bags up our scran. Thankfully, old boy doesn’t ask for a selfie. Pi and I could do without the wider world knowing we’re “on holiday” together in my hometown.
We park in the hotel and take our lunch down to the beach, eating straight from the paper bags as we walk along the winter-damp sand. It’s December, so naturally the only folk out here are dog walkers and a handful of absolute nutters surfing the Fistral waves.
I watch Pi closely for his reaction. This, of course, is the food of my people, and there’s an unfamiliar sense of dread lurking in the pit of my stomach. If he doesn’t like it, I think it might extinguish a tiny light inside me. And with Pi being Pi, there’s an overwhelming chance he won’t.
He takes a tentative bite, but gets mainly crimp crust, and I want to correct him, show him how they were designed to be held by the edge so that the miners wouldn’t get crud all over their food, but I stop myself. His next few bites are of the fleshy centre.
He turns to look at me, swallowing and smiling. “Bloody ripper.”
I hide my smile and push down a few other strange feelings that have bubbled up in my chest.
“I want to dip my toes in the sea,” Pi says, after we’ve finished our Chelsea buns and tucked the empty paper bags into my jacket pocket.
“Listen, I’m usually the first idiot to jump at the chance of doing something so astronomically stupid, but it’s two degrees, and that’s the Atlantic ocean, pard. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t voluntarily offer up your appendages to frostbite, it’s not as though you need your feet intact and unfrostbitten for your career or anything, but as the oldest person here, I feel like I should warn you at the very least . . . that water is gonna be fucking freezing.”
Logan gasps and stares at me with his mouth open. “You said the F word.”
“My apologies, young tacker, but such is the severity of the situation, these things cannot be avoided.” I ruffle his hair.
“I don’t care, I’m doing it,” Pi says, running towards the tide line. He pulls off his trainers and socks and rolls up the hems of his jeans. His hairy ankles and feet poke out the bottom. He’s still tanned, even in the bleak British mid-winter.
“I want to do it too,” Logan says, plonking his butt on the sand to remove his boots.
“Fine, whatever.” I help him up before the damp soaks through to his underpants. “Do not tell Mum about this, okay?”
We place our shoes and socks on some nearby rocks as Trekkie pelts headfirst into the ocean and comes tearing out again, spraying us with cold salty droplets. The bitter chill of late December is already biting at my soles, but we waddle over to the shore.
Logan Naruto runs in and out of the tide line, but Pi stands resolutely still as the water washes over his feet, rushing around his heels.
“F—” He sucks in a huge breath and stops himself from screaming out obscenities.
I deftly sidestep the swell and keep most of the freezing water from touching my poor, vealy flesh.
“Holy shit, you weren’t wrong,” he says, bursting into laughter.
“Uncle Aiden, you just said the S word.” Logan’s feet are obviously getting used to the ice water. Either that or they’ve gone numb, as he stomps around in the swell, kicking the sea towards the horizon.
