Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  After a few more minutes, once my hearing has cleared, I risk standing up and walk to the hand basin to splash my face with water. I look in the mirror and see that I am pale and clammy and that I have curls of hair stuck to the side of my face. My eyes still look a little wild, as though I am coming down from an especially powerful trip.

  I use a paper towel to pat myself dry and sit on the loo and take a few more calming breaths before I am ready to face the world again.

  By the time I walk into Cherie’s room I am feeling, and hopefully looking, a lot better.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she says straight away, which completely blows that theory. ‘Worse than me. What’s happened?’

  Cherie is propped up on a pile of pillows, looking uncomfortable but not in agony any more. She is going in for surgery on her hip later today.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘I just don’t have as many good drugs in my system as you obviously do.’

  I pull up a chair and sit next to her. She is looking at me with concern, which isn’t the way it should be at all.

  ‘No, seriously, Laura, what’s wrong? I can tell you’re not right and I’ll only fret that some disaster has occurred if you don’t tell me!’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I say, smiling at her in what I hope is a reassuring manner. ‘It’s just … hospitals. And me. We don’t mix well. I know nobody likes them, but since David … well, they seem to set me off even worse. I get these little … episodes. But it’s all under control and it’s nothing at all for you to worry about. You need to concentrate on getting better.’

  Cherie reaches out and takes my hand in hers and, despite her own problems, gives my fingers a sympathetic squeeze. I blink my eyes very quickly, getting rid of the stray moisture that suddenly springs up.

  ‘Now,’ I say, keeping my tone of voice brisk, ‘is there anybody you want me to contact for you? Any friends or family? I know you’re going to be absolutely fine, but this is a big operation. Is there anyone you need?’

  ‘No,’ she says, shaking her head so her loose hair shimmies in a silver-grey sheen over her shoulders. ‘My family is Frank and Joe and Edie and you and everyone else at the café. Frank’s down as my emergency contact and I’m happy with that.’

  ‘Okay … but what about real family? The kind you’re related to by blood or marriage?’

  I have never pushed Cherie about her background before, but feel like I need to now. It’s all well and good saying her friends are her family and I completely understand what she means. But I also know from very bitter personal experience that sometimes – though hopefully not this time – someone has to make difficult decisions about medical care.

  Nobody lives forever and we all need to face a little bit of reality sometimes. She obviously wants to keep her secrets – but as the old song goes, we can’t always get what we want.

  She stares at me, as though she is deeply offended, and crosses her arms across her breasts defiantly. It would perhaps look more intimidating if not for the fact that she is wearing one of those washed-out sickly green hospital gowns.

  ‘Cherie, listen to me,’ I say, meeting her eyes. ‘I am not asking because I’m nosy. I’m asking because you’re in hospital. You’re about to have major surgery. Even if you don’t need support from your family, you need to think about involving them, or at least think about the consequences of not involving them. Now, is there anybody you want me to call for you?’

  She turns her head away from me and looks at the window instead. I suspect she is fighting back tears and I feel like a horrible bully.

  ‘There’s nobody left to call, my love,’ she says quietly. ‘Not any more. My hubbie’s long gone, God rest his soul, and there never were any kiddies. I had a sister … well, I probably do still have a sister. She’s a few years older than me, so she’ll be in her mid seventies now. We lost touch a good many years ago.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask softly – because she is visibly still very upset. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Silliness, that’s what happened,’ she says, viciously swiping tears from her eyes, angry with her own weakness.

  ‘It was all so long ago. I was a kiddie myself, really. Took me a long time to grow up, it did. Our mum died when we were younger and my dad brought us up. When he passed away, I was just turned twenty, and wild. Oh, lord, was I wild!’

  ‘I’ve heard the rumours,’ I reply. ‘And we did wonder about the cottage names.’

  She laughs at that, which is a blessed sound.

  ‘Oh, I know, everyone thinks I was married to someone rich and famous, don’t they? Jimi Hendrix’s secret lover? I let ‘em think it! It’s good for a laugh. And I was wild. I followed bands around, bit of a groupie … it was the sixties, mind, so it was all allowed. My whole life was one big gig, truth be told. I was Cheryl Whitcomb to start off with – and I ended up as a Cherie Moon. The Moon came from my husband and was very gratefully received, but the Cherie was all my own work … never thought anything was good enough, see?’

  ‘And your sister?’ I ask. ‘Was she like you, back then?’

  ‘Lordy no! Brenda was much more sensible than me, which wouldn’t have taken much, really. She stayed at home with our dad while I went to festivals. She nursed him through the end stages of his emphysema, while I hitched rides on tour buses and drank mushroom tea. And when he died, and I finally came back, I told her I wanted to sell the house.’

  Cherie’s face clouds over as she reaches this part of the story, and I can see that she is still deeply ashamed of her behaviour. I understand why she doesn’t share this part of her life with anyone – it still has the power to hurt her, in the way that only guilt and regret can.

  ‘Ah. And I take it she didn’t?’ I ask.

  ‘No, she didn’t. I had this crazy idea that she’d want to. That she’d feel the same as me – that she’d want to take the money and run. But I forgot, see, that she was basically a lot more content than I ever was. She loved that house and I made her sell it. It was left to both of us in the will and she didn’t have the money to buy my half, so it got sold. All so’s I could have a few more bob in my pocket, travel the world, see more bands in more places …’

  ‘You were only young,’ I say, trying to soothe her.

  ‘I know that,’ she replies. ‘I was young enough to be an idiot. It’s only when I met my Wally and calmed down a bit that I realised how selfish I’d been, making her leave the house she grew up in. The only place she’d ever known our mother.

  ‘I’d like to blame the booze and the drugs, but I think it was just my personality. I was lucky Wally saw through it and found something better in me, to be honest.’

  ‘And how did you two meet?’ I ask, wanting to keep her talking but worried that the sister angle is upsetting her too much. She’s probably on morphine, and exhausted, and anxious, and it might be better if we explore what seem to be happier memories.

  ‘He gave me a lift from the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. That was the big one – Hendrix, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, The Who – the British Woodstock. In reality, I don’t remember much about it. I got separated from the people I was there with and ended up trying to hitch back to the mainland. Wally stopped, in his shiny new Mini, and the rest is history …’

  ‘Was he in a band?’ I say, ‘or just a music fan?’

  ‘In truth, neither. He was an accountant for quite a few of the big record labels, as well as some of the bands. He lived in their world, but he was the money man. They accepted him because he had the long hair and wore the right clothes, but underneath all of that, he was very sensible. That’s why I ended up so comfortable, because of his investments. I think the only wild thing Wally ever did in his life was marry me, and I’m sure I made him regret it on many an occasion! He’s the one who made me try and find Brenda again, but … well, she’d gone.

  ‘I think, with a bit of clear hindsight, that I felt so bad about making her sell the house that I kept moving forward and never looked back. Couldn�
�t handle the guilt, you see. Years went by and she must have moved on too. I’ve never spoken to her since.’

  It would seem odd to a child of Lizzie and Nate’s generation, this tale of disappearing sisters. They live in an era where the whole world is on Facebook, and existence is mapped out online and publically shared.

  I’m old enough to remember a time before – a time of letters and phone calls and visits – and Cherie, of course, is older still. From the era where you could so much more easily disappear and lose touch with people. I think of Becca and how devastated I would be if she wasn’t in my life.

  ‘Would you want to see her again?’ I ask. ‘Have you tried to find her recently?’

  ‘I heard via someone who knew us – back in the day – that she’d got married and moved to Scotland. I suppose I could have tracked her down, or hired someone to do it, but … well, the years seemed to pass so quickly. And she never got in touch with me, either, so I had to assume she didn’t want me in her life.’

  ‘But you can’t assume that! She could have tried – and it was all so long ago! I’m sure she’ll have forgiven you …’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ replies Cherie, firmly. ‘But let’s leave it alone now. All this traipsing down memory lane is quite tiring me out. Let’s talk about something else. I’m going to be out of commission for a while with this bloody hip of mine and I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do about the café. It’d break my heart to see it close, but I’m not sure what else we can do.’

  I sit back in my chair and realise that it would break my heart to see it close as well. I opened up this morning, as usual, and managed to cope on my own until Willow arrived at eleven. Lunch was a bit of a nightmare and in some ways we were lucky that a rainy spell kept a lot of tourists away.

  It took us both ages to do all the clearing, sort the till, do the banking and get as much as we could ready for tomorrow. I hadn’t quite appreciated how many extra jobs Cherie did until she wasn’t there.

  We’d coped for one day, but it hadn’t felt right without her. It would also be completely exhausting trying to maintain the whole place on our own, especially bearing in mind the fact that I had the kids and Willow had her mum. Cherie had been the backbone, the one who kept everything running smoothly – and I wasn’t at all convinced that Willow and I were up to the job of replacing her.

  I didn’t want to tell Cherie any of this, though – I wanted her to go into the operating theatre thinking all was well, and that everything was going to be fine. And I owed it to her, and the other customers at the Comfort Food Café, to at least try and make that true.

  ‘Don’t you worry about it,’ I say, patting her hand. ‘Just get better. Me and Willow were fine without you today. To be honest, it was easier without you wafting around, bossing us all about …’

  She slaps my hand and cracks a wide smile at my joke. That, I think, is definitely better than tears or bittersweet nostalgia.

  ‘Seriously, Cherie, it’ll be fine. You can leave it to us. We’ll make it work somehow.’

  She is looking at me quite intently and I get the feeling she is somehow trying to read my mind, probing for lies and other signs of duplicity. I school my face into the very picture of confidence and hope it fools her.

  ‘You think you’ll be able to manage? I mean, the cottages are let out by an agency and Willow usually deals with changeover day for me anyway … but the café, that’s a lot of work …’

  ‘“Manage” is my middle name,’ I reply, sounding as confident as I can.

  ‘I thought your middle name was “flexible”?’

  ‘I had it changed by deed poll. I’m flexible like that. Look, don’t worry, please. The café will be fine. It’ll still be standing when you get out and I promise not to poison anyone or run it so badly you get slated on Trip Advisor … it’ll be great. I’ll even carry on with the arrangements for Frank’s party. Hopefully you’ll be up and about by then, or at least well enough to boss us around from a wheelchair. Honestly, it’s the least I can do.’

  ‘There is money,’ she says, gazing off into space, obviously letting her mind race ahead now.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I reply. ‘That always helps.’

  ‘No, I mean, there’s plenty of money … like I said, my Wally didn’t leave me short. The cottages are more of a hobby than anything, and the café … well, that’s a way of life, not a way of making a living. So there’s money – if you need to hire someone else, or if you want to pay for Willow’s carer to do extra shifts or – ‘

  ‘I get it,’ I say, interrupting her with a smile. ‘And I don’t want you to worry. The Comfort Food Café is in safe hands.’

  Chapter 24

  By the following day, I am starting to regret that statement.

  The weather has picked up and the bay is back to its busy, beautiful self. The coastal path is lined with walkers looking like hungry little ants as they crawl along the track towards us, and our first tourists start to arrive just after 9am. The garden is soon busy and I can hear the screeching of gulls swooping overhead looking for freebies.

  Willow can’t get in until later, but I have persuaded Lizzie and Nate to help out. When I say ‘persuaded’, I obviously mean ‘bribed’. I am not in favour of child labour on the whole, but I am not currently in a position to make decisions based on ethical niceties.

  Anyway, they’ve been worried about Cherie too, and this is their way of showing it. That and their way of ensuring they do, in fact, get the cash I’ve promised them.

  Lizzie is surprisingly excellent at customer service and charms everyone so much that they don’t even object when she gets things wrong or drops their bacon butties, or forgets to put their order through at all. She is so smiley and young and pleasant that they simply let her off the hook and often, I notice, leave her a tip as well.

  Nate is a general dogsbody for the day, which he doesn’t seem to mind. I have him collecting plates and clearing tables, and have taught him how to load the dishwasher.

  As the day wears on, he also gets one of my least-favourite jobs – heading out to the doggie daycare field with a shovel and a bin bag. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. As our own dog is out there contributing his additional deposits, he can’t complain. He does it with a clothes peg on his nose for comedic effect, which seems to cheer him up no end.

  By the time Willow arrives at eleven, the place is absolutely packed, inside and out. I have forgotten to put the jacket spuds in, we have already sold out of scones and muffins and the world and his wife seem to want a chocolate-bar ice-cream milkshake. The damn things take forever to make when you don’t have a spare pair of hands.

  On top of all this, we’re running out of pound coins, the card machine is playing up and someone has broken the baby-changing unit in the ladies’ loo. Willow is running backwards and forwards with orders and trays, Lizzie is trying to keep up with the till and Nate is scurrying around trying not to spritz customers in the eye with cleaning fluid when he wipes the tables down.

  I am intermittently doing all of the above, while also keeping on top of hot-food orders, making up more rolls and paninis, and wishing I could throw the bloody blender down the cliff.

  All things considered, it is turning into a shit of a day, and I feel on the edge of a nervous breakdown for much of it. I am quite tempted to take all of the cans of Coke and lemonade and orange fizz out of the giant fridge and stand myself in it instead. That’d give people a fright when they opened the door.

  Frank calls in at about half-one, just before heading to the hospital to see Cherie. He takes in my frazzled halo of hair and bright-red face and looks around the crowded room.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ he asks straight away. I fight the urge to climb right over the counter and into his arms and instead blow out a sigh of relief.

  ‘You can keep an eye on the counter for literally thirty seconds,’ I say, draping a tea towel around his neck and giving him a quick peck on the cheek.


  I don’t give him time to ask any more and instead dash off to the loo, which I have been fantasising about for what feels like hours now.

  When I get back, in a much better state of mind now I’m not in imminent danger of peeing myself, Frank has rebooted the card machine, sliced and plated up a whole chilled lemon meringue and cleared up the mess I made when I forgot to put the raspberry ice-cream back in the freezer after making a sundae.

  Either I have been gone for more than thirty seconds or Frank is some kind of superhero who can slow down time.

  Willow dashes through from the garden, order pad in hand, and slaps a torn-out sheet down in front of me.

  ‘Aaaaaagh!’ she says, before going straight back out again. I look at the paper. Two bowls of pea-and-mint soup and, predictably enough, two ice-cream milkshakes. One Kit Kat, one Maltesers. I pull a face and Frank peers over my shoulder.

  ‘You do the milkshakes,’ he says. ‘And I’ll do the soup. Even an undomesticated old goat like me can’t get that one wrong.’

  I smile, too grateful for words, and start to smash up a Kit Kat with far more force than is really necessary.

  Bit by bit, minute by minute, order by order, we get through it all. We feed the hungry masses, we provide shelter to the weary and we rehydrate the thirsty mob. We may all collapse from heat exhaustion as a result, but we’ve done it.

  We finally turn our open sign to ‘closed’ and there is what seems like a mass exhalation of relief as we all gather in the now extremely untidy café. There are dirty plates and empty mugs and screwed-up napkins and half-eaten jars of baby food on the tables, and blobs of lemon meringue on the floor, and stray cutlery pretty much everywhere.

  We often get knocks on the door, even when we’re closed, from people desperate for a cold drink. Usually we can oblige, but not today.

  Instead, Lizzie has sold us on the idea of leaving an ‘honesty box’ outside, and she and Nate have lugged out a cooler full of cans of pop and bottles of water. She’s made a sign with prices, adding that any extra will be donated to charity, and found a little metal lockbox that people can leave their cash in.