Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  Or at least I did, until now. Because now, I am wearing a nice strappy green sundress that shows a bit of cleavage, and I have applied make-up, and I have product on my hair and I have sprayed my neck and shoulders with perfume. I am going out with what, on the surface, is simply a group of my new friends, but is now starting to feel worryingly like some kind of double date.

  Perhaps, if I was going out with Frank and Cherie and one of the other men we know, it wouldn’t feel like that.

  But we are going out with Matt, and Matt makes me feel confused. We have become friendly, over the last two weeks, in a wary and cautious way. Viewing it from the outside, I suspect we look like two slightly wounded animals circling each other, trying to find safe footing.

  He may be big and brawny on the outside, but he treats me with a kind of gentle, reserved kindness that makes me feel appreciated and respected and also a bit befuddled. I am new to having close male friends – close friends at all, if I’m honest – and I’m not at all sure what the rules are.

  I have helped him with the gardening, simply because I enjoy the feel of being outside in the sun, working in nature. He has helped me by keeping an eye on the kids and giving them a lift into the village in the mornings. Nate is learning to play the guitar with him and has mastered the opening chords to ‘Yellow Submarine’.

  We have shared some pleasant and completely non-committal chats. He’s given Jimbo a new lease of life and he’s displayed some pretty awesome footballing skills in impromptu kickabouts with Nate and the other kids down at the beach. I’ve found myself making an extra portion of dinner and sending it over to him on a foil-covered plate, and he’s always returned the said plate, washed and dried.

  We have made small steps into each other’s lives, and though I spend more time with Cherie, and have more lengthy conversations with Frank, Matt has still somehow become a big part of my Dorset life.

  Becca, when I talk to her, is now careful to not push too hard – I think she suspects there is something there, something delicate that is trying to grow and bud, and that her usual heavy-handed approach might destroy it before it has a chance to blossom.

  I have no idea if she is right. Or if I even want her to be right. I do know that when I am with Matt, I feel both comfortable and nervous – but nervous in a thrilling, tingling, kind of delicious way.

  When I catch a glimpse of him – at the café, around the Rockery, in the village – my breath stutters and I blush a little, and I find that I automatically hold my tummy in a bit. And if I happen to see him walking past the window on his way to or from the swimming pool, I lie down on the floor and hide – because I would simply find it very embarrassing to talk to him with so few clothes on.

  I suspect I am acting like a sixteen-year-old virgin and don’t know quite what to do about it. I suppose, though, that I don’t actually need to do anything about it. In a few more weeks, we will be packing up and driving away from this place, back to Manchester and back to our real lives. I’ll probably have to get him to help me with the roofbox, and after that it’ll all be over.

  I feel a slump in my mood coming on at that thought, so I snap out of it and do a final face-check in the hallway mirror. I try and smooth my hair down, but that is impossible. I add a slick of lipgloss, touch up my mascara and blow myself a kiss in an attempt to lighten my spirits.

  ‘Bye! Love you, kids!’ I shout as I leave. I am completely ignored, which is probably a good sign. Willow is the only one who responds. She waves one blue-fingernailed hand at me and replies, ‘Love you too!’

  I smile as I close the door behind me and crunch my way along the gravel path to meet Matt. I feel a little like a child who is going to call for a friend, but a child who is pretending to be an adult, dressing up in her mum’s wedge-heeled sandals.

  By the time I arrive at Black Rose, I have several chunks of gravel stuck under my sole of my feet, and have to lean on his wall and shake them out before I knock on the door.

  He pre-empts me and the door opens just as I am balancing on one leg waving my sandal around in the air. He looks at me, looks at the sandal and grins.

  ‘Gravel foot?’ he asks, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, elegantly hopping around before I manage to get it back on again. ‘I imagine that’s a common Dorset condition.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he replies, ‘closely related to pebble toe, which you can catch down at the beach. Are you ready?’

  ‘Why, don’t I look ready?’

  He meets my eyes and I feel the dreaded blush beginning. I realise, as the words leave my mouth, that it sounds like I’m fishing for compliments. And maybe, I ponder, I am. It’s been a long time.

  Matt himself is wearing dark jeans and a pale-blue shirt that is moulded to his shoulders and biceps, a few buttons undone at the collar and golden skin peeking out. His chestnut hair is still very slightly damp from the shower, and his eyes … well, his eyes are carrying out exactly the same kind of assessment of me that I’ve just made of him.

  His gaze flickers up from my high heels, past my bare legs, pausing slightly as he journeys past the not-usually-on-display cleavage, and to my now-surely-beetroot face. It’s the first time a man has looked at me like that in years and I feel like I am actually having sex, or at least some pretty good foreplay.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he says simply. ‘I hope Lizzie took a photo.’

  ‘Of course she did,’ I answer, grateful to talk about something else. ‘She takes a photo of everything. Should we wait out on the road for Frank or will he drive into the car park?’

  ‘Ah,’ Matt replies, a small frown developing.

  ‘’Ah’ what? What does ‘ah’ mean?’ I ask, frowning back.

  ‘Frank’s not coming. He texted me earlier to say he had a migraine. And Cherie called ten minutes after that to say her stomach was off. I thought they’d let you know as well …’

  I feel my eyes widen and my mouth open in shock. The absolute bastards. I know exactly what they’re doing and I don’t appreciate it. Cherie’s made a few comments about Matt before now and I’ve always deflected them – I have no idea what I even think about Matt and my non-existent love life myself and I certainly don’t want anybody else interfering.

  ‘You know what’s going on, don’t you?’ I say, hands on hips, feeling a bit belligerent at being manipulated.

  ‘Well,’ Matt replies, doing the looking-over-my-shoulder thing again. ‘I think I’d have to be brain dead not to. And honestly? I don’t mind. Let them have their fun. They’re probably down the Horse and Rider having a pint together and congratulating themselves on being such good matchmakers. Cherie’s tried getting me out on dates with pretty much every single woman within a fifty mile radius before now, and the only thing that surprises me about this scenario is how long it’s taken.’

  I feel slightly deflated at the thought of being the latest in a long line of ladies that Cherie has essentially pimped out to Matt. I don’t know why – seconds ago I was angry about being pimped out at all. Now I’m upset I’m not special. FFS, as Becca might say. It’s all very confusing. I’m thinking that if I go home now, there might still be some Ben and Jerry’s left.

  ‘The difference is,’ Matt adds, bringing his gaze back to mine and looking at me very directly, ‘that I didn’t actually go on any of those dates.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, lamely. It’s hard to think straight with him looking like he does, and with his hazel eyes meeting mine, and with the smell of some very luscious aftershave reaching my nostrils, and with the fact that every time he moves, the cotton of his shirt clings a little tighter to his torso. It’s like being in some kind of sensory fun house.

  ‘None of them?’ I add.

  ‘None of them. I always preferred staying at home, playing my guitar and being mysterious and moody. But I’d quite like to go on this one. Assuming you’re not about to run back to Hyacinth as fast as those heels will take you.’

  There’s a little half-smile
on his face now, a slight sideways tilt of his lips, as though he knows exactly what I’m thinking. If he’s as nervous as I am, he’s not showing it, which in its own way helps to calm me down as well.

  I mean, what am I getting all breathless about anyway? I can say no. Or I could go and have a meal with a friend. It’s no big deal, I tell myself, unless I turn it into one – no need for drama at all.

  I turn my face up to his, and smile back.

  ‘All right,’ I say. ‘I’ll come, even if it’s just to avoid another brush with gravel foot.’

  Chapter 17

  I was going to say that it’s hard to explain exactly how I found myself in this position, but it’s actually not. It can all be explained with one little word: alcohol.

  I am lying on my back in a field of wheat. Stalks of the stuff are gently swaying around me and I am staring up at the most incredible night sky I’ve ever seen. There are no streetlights around here and the stars are crisp and clear and crystalline, glittering jewels embedded in a purple blanket.

  I hear the occasional hoot of an owl, the distant moo of a cow and every now and then a rustling sound in the undergrowth. I don’t feel jumpy, though, not like I did that first night we arrived. I’m much more experienced these days – practically a country bumpkin myself. Plus, I’m really very drunk and would most likely laugh in the face of a zombie scarecrow apocalypse right now.

  The fact that Matt is lying beside me, and that our fingers are loosely twined together between us, is probably also helping.

  ‘I feel completely emasculated,’ he says, sounding horrified. ‘That was one of the most humiliating experiences of my entire life.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reply, reassuringly. ‘These things happen. I’m impressed you lasted as long as you did.’

  ‘But I’m supposed to be a man! And nothing like that has ever happened to me before!’

  ‘Look,’ I reply, between giggles, ‘it’s no big deal. I told you you wouldn’t be able to give me a piggy back all the way home. I think you managed about half a mile, though, which is bloody good. I’m not exactly a featherweight. And it’s my fault for wearing the stupid sandals anyway.’

  ‘That’s true. They did look nice, though. Shame we’ve lost one.’

  ‘I know. I may bring the kids here tomorrow and send out a search party.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he replies, thinking it over. ‘But then you’d have to explain why you were lying in a wheat field with no shoes on. I’m no expert, but I’m thinking that’s not a normal mum-thing to do.’

  Damn him, I think. He may have a point. I mean, it’s not as though I’ve done anything wrong. But I know how I’d react if Lizzie came home plastered, covered in grass and minus one shoe. I’m fairly sure that will occur at some time in the not-so-distant future and I can only hope that I’m kind to her when it does and remember how easy it is for these things to happen.

  Matt and I had decided not to go to dinner in Lyme Regis after all. We didn’t see the point in trekking all that way when neither of us was even that hungry. And in my case, I suppose I was wanting to stay closer to home.

  So we cancelled the reservation – which, funnily enough, we discovered had only been made for two anyway – and did the sensible thing. We went to the pub.

  We drove to a village about three miles inland, called Battercombe, and found a cosy corner in the beer garden. To start with, we were going to just have a couple, get some bar food and leave. I had it in my slightly panicked brain that I could still be tucked up in bed by 10pm.

  But somehow, it just didn’t work out like that. Matt came back from the bar with a pint of the dreaded Guinness for him and a lager for me, with two bags of crisps clenched between his teeth.

  ‘They stopped serving food half an hour ago,’ he said, after he’d dropped the packets down on the table. ‘This is the best I could do.’

  To be fair, they were posh crisps – the kind that has sea salt on them instead of the normal salt – but I don’t suppose they did much of a job of lining our stomachs. I, for sure, was a bit nervous, and probably drank quicker than I normally would. In fact, I’d finished my pint before Matt, who raised his eyebrows at me and asked if I wanted another.

  ‘Just the one,’ I’d replied, convinced that I would stop there, that Matt was driving and I wouldn’t become the embarrassing drunk person who repeats their stories over and over again to the bored and resentful sober person.

  When I finished the second one, also in record time, Matt asked, again, if I’d like another.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said, ‘you’re driving.’

  ‘Umm … yes. But you’re not. Being drunk isn’t a contagious disease. I’ll be okay.’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I don’t want to carry on drinking if you’re not.’

  ‘Scared of what you might let slip?’ he said, giving me that little half-smile that always made me feel a bit funny inside.

  ‘Exactly,’ I replied. ‘I wouldn’t want you to find out about my secret life as an undercover inspector for the British Vets’ Association.’

  He threw his head back and laughed and his face was half in shade, half in the dying sunlight, and all I wanted to do was reach out and touch his hair and see if it felt as soft as it looked.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, draining his Guinness with one more gulp. ‘I know this isn’t what you planned for tonight. I know you probably feel as resistant to Cherie’s evil plots as I do. But I’m enjoying myself and I think you are.

  ‘Neither of us is exactly the type to be at the centre of the social whirl, and I’m sure we both have good reason for that. Still, this is … nice. If you like, I could join you for another drink. I’ll leave the car here and we could try and get a taxi back. Though I warn you that might not be easy – there only seems to be one cab driver in the whole area. So we could end up walking home.’

  ‘I don’t think I could in these heels,’ I said, ‘especially if I have much more to drink.’

  Part of me wanted to go home now and settle in for the night. The other part of me – the part that had drunk two pints and put make-up on and felt a bit feisty – wanted to stay out to play. I was willing to use the heels as an excuse if Matt was.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he replied, grinning, ‘I can always give you a piggy back.’

  From that point on, we drank and talked and drank and talked and drank some more. We ate several bags of posh crisps and mixed it up with some dry roasted peanuts, but it probably wasn’t enough.

  We were both careful to avoid any subjects that could fall under the heading of Big, Serious or Important, and instead focused on things we were comfortable with. Cherie and Frank and whether we should pay them back by fixing them up on a date; the best places to take the kids fossil-hunting; what Budbury was like in the winter; his home town in Shropshire; my sister in Manchester; his time at uni in Liverpool; my time on hen nights in Liverpool; dogs, dogs and dogs.

  Eventually – I’d say about five pints in – I realised that a, I was sloshed and b, I was well and truly relaxed in Matt’s company. I’m usually more of a listener than a talker and I suspect he is too, but somehow we made it work. There was never a gap in the conversation, never an awkward silence, and never a point where I found myself wishing I was back at the cottage.

  In fact, for the first time in what felt like forever, I was enjoying myself as a grown-up woman in the company of an attractive grown-up man. Willow had texted me earlier to say everything was fine and that Hansel was so hot right now, so I wasn’t even stressing about the kids for once.

  Sadly, all good things come to an end – and all good pubs ring their bells for last orders. Truth be told, it was probably an excellent thing that they did. Matt wasn’t quite as hammered as me – I’m guessing he’s used to drinking pints more than I am, plus is at least a foot taller – but neither of us was up to spelling Mississippi or walking in an especially straight line.

  We had no luck getting a taxi and the one person left in the pub
who offered us a lift seemed even more drunk than us, so we politely refused. That left a long walk home, luckily most of it downhill.

  I started well and made good initial progress following a tip that Becca had once given me – when inebriated and facing a long walk, sing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ in your head and it makes you march faster.

  It completely works and I eventually shared my secret by singing it out loud instead. Matt joined in and we positively flew for the first part of the journey.

  ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’, though – and probably his ten thousand men as well – never attempted to march while wearing four-inch wedges, I’m guessing. I don’t think they’d have been winning many battles that way, because marching in heels bloody well hurts.

  After a while, I took the sandals off and walked barefoot, carrying them instead. That kind of thing always seems like a good idea when you’ve had a few, doesn’t it? The roads were quiet and if there was a car heading towards us, you could see its lights ages in advance, so there was no danger there.

  The roads were, however, not the smooth, even pavements of the city. They were rough and bumpy and strewn with all kinds of natural litter – seeds and berries and twigs and even some piles of horse poo, which I luckily spotted before the evening took a very dark turn.

  After that near miss, Matt decided that it would be a good plan if he had his go at walking barefoot, while I wore his shoes. That was a bit of a non-starter, though, as I’m a five and his Timberlands were a size twelve. I just stood in them, unable to actually move as I was laughing so much.

  The piggy-back came next and it’s a testament to how tipsy I’d become that I ever agreed to such a thing. Like most women of my age who’ve popped out a couple of sproglets, I’m a bit conscious of my weight. The scales tell me I’m still within normal limits for my height – just about – but I am far from toned.