It didn’t matter that he lacked a cape. Connell had barely put down his bags and given Lucy a hug before he was being hailed as a Halloween hero by the assorted women clustered around him in her kitchen.
‘So good to see you,’ he said warmly. ‘You’re just the same!’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, laughing, ‘but thank you.’
There was no time for more pleasantries as Roseanne – who was dressed as a particularly slinky Morticia Addams – strode over to him and announced, ‘We need your help.’ Roseanne won the mums’ race at every sports day and her smart, modern home was crammed with her sons’ sporting trophies. Used to getting others to do as she asked, she thrust the handle of a serrated knife towards Connell, plus the enormous, unyielding vegetable, which Lucy had started to hack at.
‘Oh! Right, okay.’ He looked bemused as he glanced at Lucy, then registered the makeshift bandage on her finger. ‘Have you cut yourself?’
‘Just a tiny bit,’ she said quickly, ‘but it’s okay now.’ Even the children had quietened down when this new face had arrived, but before long everyone had revved up again as they strained to bite at the doughnuts that were strung across the kitchen.
‘Please don’t feel obliged to do this,’ Lucy said quickly, aware of the women watching with rapt attention as Connell, stationed at the kitchen table now, deftly sliced the top off the pumpkin.
‘Ooh,’ breathed Roseanne admiringly.
‘It’s no problem,’ Connell said, face set in intense concentration as he continued to carve. Roseanne handed him a spoon, which he accepted with a charming smile, then proceeded to scoop out the inner flesh.
‘Gosh, you do know what you’re doing,’ breathed Carys – who knew she had the flirting gene? – as he set about carving an impressively sinister-looking eye.
‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Connell glanced around and smiled at Lucy. ‘So sorry about the mix-up tonight.’
‘That’s no problem,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m just glad you could fit me in.’
Lucy caught Roseanne trying to quell a smirk as she looked at Carys, who raised a brow suggestively. Christ, Lucy thought, struggling to keep a straight face herself: they were acting like teenagers recently released from a girls-only boarding school, where the only male they’d seen with any regularity had been the ageing janitor. And Connell was attractive, she conceded; his eyes were a striking pale blue, like those old-fashioned air mail envelopes, and he wore his light brown hair cropped short. Although he’d been clearly a little taken aback to walk into a kitchen full of women and children, he had gathered himself together with admirable speed. Lucy was intrigued to find out what had happened in his life since she’d last seen him eighteen years ago.
‘That’s very good,’ Roseanne observed as Connell completed the second eye.
He chuckled. ‘I’m just winging it here. I really don’t have a clue.’
‘False modesty,’ Carys chuckled.
‘Don’t let us put you off,’ Roseanne added, having bagged the chair next to him now. If she edged any closer, Lucy thought, she’d be on his lap.
‘Well, you look like you’ve done this before,’ remarked Carys.
‘Not since I was a student,’ he replied.
‘So, you two know each other from college?’ asked Jodie, another of the school mums who’d just arrived, having perhaps been alerted that a handsome stranger had shown up at Lucy’s tonight.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Unlike everyone else’s costumes, there was nothing scary about Jodie’s white leotard, frothy pink tutu and lilac wings; on the contrary, it showed off her enviably lithe body. However, Lucy feared that it wasn’t suitable for the cold, wet night – the ballet slippers especially – and hoped she had brought a warm jacket.
‘So, where are you from, Connell?’ she wanted to know.
‘Nottingham,’ Connell replied, ‘but I studied in Leeds. That’s where Lucy and I met …’
‘And what brings you up here?’
‘I’m an artist,’ he replied. ‘These days, I work mainly in stained glass—’
‘Ooh,’ Roseanne exclaimed. ‘That’s … amazing.’ If Connell’s pumpkin-carving skills were impressing the assembled audience, with this new factlet they were agog.
‘So it’s a working trip, really,’ he continued, getting up to wash his hands at the sink, and gratefully accepting a mug of tea from Lucy. ‘I’m here to do a project with the primary school.’
‘We’re getting stained glass at the school?’ Roseanne beamed at him, seemingly oblivious to her own children’s altercation over who got to bite the chocolate-covered doughnut off the string.
‘Yes – there’s been funding awarded,’ Connell explained. ‘The idea is that we involve the kids right from the start. So they’ll come up with ideas in art sessions, and then we’ll work together to translate these into glass.’
‘How will you do that?’ Lucy asked, handing out mugs of tea – although she could be offering absinthe for all the attention her guests were paying her.
‘Some pieces will be made from simple leaded glass,’ he explained, ‘just like you’d see in a typical church window.’
Jodie was gazing at him, nodding, as if she was about to slither off the chair and dissolve into a pool of joy.
‘And with others we’ll actually fuse the colours,’ he continued, putting the finishing touches to the pumpkin now – carving out eyebrows, for goodness’ sake, ‘so they merge together. The effect’s like melted jelly sweets.’
Roseanne looked orgasmic now, and Lucy considered dampening a tea towel with which to dab at her brow. Connell stopped. ‘I don’t want to bore you all with this. You look like you have a busy night ahead.’
‘Oh no, not at all. It’s fascinating!’ Jodie exclaimed. With all this talk of fusion and things melting, Jodie, too, was looking quite flushed. And now Roseanne was praising the finished pumpkin – ‘It’s a show-stopper!’ – as if Connell had carved St Paul’s Cathedral out of ice.
‘Look, everyone!’ Jodie called out to the children. ‘Isn’t this the best pumpkin you’ve ever seen?’ But they were too thrilled by the doughnuts to care about a frankly inedible vegetable, and soon they all started demanding to set off into the cold, damp night.
‘Let me show you to your room,’ Lucy said to Connell, surprised that none of the other women had offered to do it for her.
‘Oh, you’re too busy for that,’ he said. ‘Just point me in the right direction and I can sort myself out.’
She frowned. ‘Are you sure? I’m sorry you’ve arrived to such chaos.’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said firmly. ‘And, look – please, don’t worry about entertaining me.’ Cue another quick look between Lucy’s friends. ‘It’s just lovely to see you,’ Connell added warmly, ‘and I’m really looking forward to catching up.’
Despite the wind and the rain, Connell’s arrival seemed to have sprinkled no small amount of joyfulness on the proceedings as the women herded their children outside, and they made their way towards the village hall.
‘I wouldn’t mind helping him with his project,’ Jodie said with a grin.
‘What d’you know about stained glass?’ Lucy teased her.
‘Nothing, but I could learn,’ she chuckled. ‘There are courses, night classes. Sounds like you just fuse a few things together. How difficult can it be?’ There were gales of laughter and several suggestions of how Connell might be ‘entertained’ during his brief stay. So buoyant was the mood that no one really cared when, naturally, Josh’s dragon costume scooped first prize, while his mother fluttered about, saying, ‘I don’t know how he won. It was all thrown together at the last minute.’ Because naturally, it was uncool to admit that one had been hand-stitching individual dragon’s scales over the preceding weeks.
By the time trick or treating was finished, and the children were laden with goodie bags, Lucy had to concede that Halloween had been pretty successful. Her finger had finally stopped bleeding and, as she and her children approached Rosemary Cottage, she saw that Connell must have found tea lights somewhere as the pumpkin was flickering in the porch window now, as if to welcome them home. And when she stepped inside, she saw that the party devastation had all been cleared away in the kitchen, with order almost restored. Connell was beaming at her from the sink, wearing a slightly crumpled wizard hat that someone must have left behind.
‘Wow!’ She looked around in wonder. ‘You shouldn’t have. You’re supposed to be a guest here. I could have done it.’
‘After schlepping around out there all night?’ He laughed and dropped a stray paper plate into the bin bag, then knotted it up.
‘Look,’ she said to Marnie and Sam, ‘Connell’s cleared up all the mess!’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Marnie said, more concerned with delving into her goodie bag. Although Lucy had already introduced them, the children were accustomed to new people around the place, and so what, if a guest happened to have cleared up?
Lucy smiled. ‘Well, I’m very grateful. That was so thoughtful of you. I’ll just get these two ready for bed and scrub off this face paint.’
‘I was going to say it suits you,’ he teased, and she laughed.
‘And while I’m doing that,’ she added, ‘maybe you could do one more thing and pour us a glass of wine?’