Chapter 30
‘It’s … lovely!’ says my mother, wrapping a strand of my curly pink hair around her finger and staring at it with a smile as fake as Katie Price’s boobs.
Like mothers throughout the ages – myself included – she has no sense of personal boundaries when it comes to her offspring. I count myself lucky that she’s not whipped out the nail scissors she always carries in her handbag and snipped my pink streak off, before patting my head and saying ‘there, that’s better, isn’t it, love?’
I resist the urge to slap her hand away, because that would be juvenile, and the kind of thing I would have done when I was fifteen. I am at least a tiny bit more mature these days and understand that she is at least trying.
I don’t think for a minute that she actually thinks my radical new hairstyle is lovely. In all honesty, neither do I. It was a drunken accident, but I suspect that telling her that might actually make her worry about me even more, so I keep quiet. Perhaps she will just assume that it is a small act of mid-life crisis rebellion. Much like moving to Dorset for the summer.
My parents have arrived and I feel like my worlds are colliding. While I managed to keep them separate everything was fine. Now they are melding and I feel like I am stuck in some kind of science-fiction movie, where I might slip through a crack in the space-time continuum.
Not, I think, as I glance over at my dad, that I would mind that right now.
He is sitting at one of the window seats at the café, with Frank and Matt. Matt, the man who has come close to defiling his daughter on several occasions. Matt, who she is secretly planning to spend the night with as soon as they have left. Matt, who keeps giving me furtive glances over my father’s shoulder and small smiles that I am sure are meant to reassure me.
The three men look absolutely fine together and I suspect that Frank is regaling them with tales of his brief but obviously memorable time at RAF Wilmslow. My dad worked as an engineer in Wilmslow for years and can talk endlessly about it as well. Matt, as far as I know, has never even been there, so it must be a really interesting conversation for him.
I’d go and rescue him, but I’m too busy trying to convince my mother that I am actually, honestly, well and truly, fine.
They arrived about an hour ago and came straight to the café as I’d suggested. I have brought the kids’ bags with me and, as I expected, they arrived before lunch. My parents are also fans of the Early Start for long journeys – this may be where I have inherited it from – and Dad is immensely proud of making it all the way from Manchester in just under four hours.
Their plan is to take Lizzie and Nate to a holiday park in Weymouth for a night, then bring them back here before they drive through to Cornwall. They’re spending a few days there and then heading back up North around the same time I am.
They assure me that Becca has been tasked with looking after my garden, which immediately makes me worry that I will go home to parched grass, withered bedding plants and shrivelled-up hanging baskets. Possibly some graffiti art on the patio as well.
I have kept both Lizzie and Nate close at hand, allowing them only as far as the beach, knowing that Mum and Dad were likely to get here earlier than they’d said. I have already texted them to effectively say ‘get your arses up here now’, and am hoping they arrive soon.
Now the lunchtime crowd has cleared enough for Willow and Sophie Wellkettle to cope without me, I have no choice but to interact with my mum.
I feel mean saying this, or even thinking it, but she doesn’t make things easy. She has always been on the over-protective side and since David’s death who can blame her? She watched me go through the mill emotionally, saw me through several crises, stepped in to take up the slack with the kids and the housework and did absolutely everything that a good mother would do in such a situation.
The only problem is that she doesn’t seem to know how to stop. I understand that and as a parent, I sympathise. I’m sure I’d be just the same if it was Lizzie, heaven forbid – yet it’s not that easy to take when you’re on the receiving end. Logically, I get it, and I appreciate it. I know it’s done through love. But part of me, if I’m honest, resents it. That probably makes me a horrible person, but it’s the truth.
As soon as she arrives, I start to feel like I need to prove myself. Like I need to reassure her and show her that I am fine. That we are all fine and that she needn’t worry. Sadly, the hair isn’t doing much to help that – nor is the fact that the children are down on the bay rather than here with me, literally tied to my apron strings.
‘Are you sure they’re safe?’ she asks, for the fifth time since she walked through the door.
‘Yes, completely,’ I reply, reminding myself to be patient. ‘The sea is very shallow here. It’s a very safe spot. Plus they have friends there with them and we can actually see them from the terrace. They’ll be on their way up, there’s no need to worry.’
She has already managed to quiz me about everybody’s health; about whether I am sure I am coping with the extra burden of running the café; about Matt, Sam and every other male of mating age she has seen, and about Lizzie’s friendship with Josh. Or, as she puts it, ‘that sixteen-year-old’.
I realise that in her eyes, a sixteen-year-old boy is only interested in ‘one thing’, and that she is worried about her grand-daughter. And I must confess that over the course of our weeks here, I have had some concerns on that front myself.
While I am perhaps slightly more aware than my mother that in this day and age, boys and girls mix a lot more socially in a non-romantic way, I am also not stupid. Lizzie likes Josh and Lizzie is a pretty girl. So far, nothing much seems to have happened between them – and I have to trust my own daughter enough not to automatically assume the worst.
Josh, I tell her, is a nice boy. Which is true. Three days after Lizzie started her Honesty Box, I called into the café late to make some phone calls and I found him lurking outside. As soon as he saw me, he blushed all the way from his peach-fuzz moustache to his beanie cap.
Turned out he’d been coming here every evening, checking on the stock and making sure everyone had paid for what they’d taken. If there was any shortfall, he put it in the box from his own pocket, just so that Lizzie wouldn’t be disappointed the next day. This had struck me as an almost unimaginably sweet thing to do, and it convinced me that I really didn’t need to worry about him using and abusing her in any way.
I glance at my phone, looking for any kind of distress beacon from the kids, as it seems to be taking them a while to make it up from the beach. I suspect it is purely down to reluctance on their part. When they were little they used to love going to my parents’ house, but since they’ve got that bit older, they’ve lost some enthusiasm.
Mum and Dad are lovely people, they really are. They’re kind and pleasant and solid and reliable, and unfortunately for them, their favourite activities involve bingo, watching history documentaries on television, touring garden centres and eating cake in National Trust tea shops.
Personally, I can see the attraction of all these things, but Lizzie and Nate don’t entirely agree. Weymouth is, by local standards, a throbbing metropolis. There’s a fairground and amusements and a huge beach and live entertainment and bars and a Sea Life. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah compared to Budbury – but Lizzie is convinced that they’ll only be allowed to walk along the prom and go bird-spotting.
I feel marginally guilty – I am, after all, planning a far more exciting evening for myself – but, well, not guilty enough to object to their trip. They’re lucky they have both sets of grand-parents still around, even if one half is currently on a world cruise. And I, I remind myself, should be more grateful too – they’re both in their early sixties, but as fit and healthy as they could possibly be.
Just as my mum starts to suggest we send out a search party, peeking over her glasses in that way she does when she’s worried, Lizzie and Nate breeze through the café door. They are immediately engulfed in hu
ge grandmotherly hugs that they endure valiantly, with a minimum of face-pulling.
Nate, bless him, only tugs away when she starts patting his rosy cheeks and kissing him. His rosy cheeks get even rosier, and I know that although he is still young enough to like a good cuddle in private, doing it in public dents his inner sense of teenybopper machismo.
My dad gets up and walks towards all, giving Lizzie a quick hug but settling for a high-five with Nate. It always looks funny seeing older people doing high-fives, I think. My dad in particular always looks slightly uncomfortable with it, like it’s some kind of Masonic handshake he’s not quite mastered.
‘Right!’ I say, with perhaps slightly too much enthusiasm, ‘is everyone fed and watered?’
I know they are, as I served Mum and Dad myself, and Lizzie and Nate brown-bagged it down at the beach. There is a chorus of yesses and the obligatory pause while Lizzie captures the moment for posterity on her phone. Honestly, if she doesn’t take a snap of it, it’s basically not happened – it’s the modern-day equivalent of the tree falling in the woods.
I get their bags from round the back and force them both into another hug, even if Nate is still reeling from the last one. I find myself hanging on to them a little too tightly and feel an unexpected sting of tears behind my eyelids.
I suddenly feel sad and weepy and reluctant to let them go. Never mind Weymouth, I don’t even want to let them out of my arms. I only release my death grip when Nate squirms so hard he accidentally elbows me in the gut, and even then I still hold on to his hand.
I have been looking forward to my night with Matt and now it is taking one step closer to becoming a reality I feel swamped with guilt – as though I am getting rid of my precious babies purely for a quick bonk. Obviously, that’s not true – my parents were the ones who suggested this, not me. And hopefully it won’t be a quick bonk, either.
I blink rapidly so the tears don’t fall and try and put a brave face on it. I turn to my mum and she wraps her arms around me and squeezes me even harder than I squeezed Nate and Lizzie.
‘I love you,’ she whispers into my hair, ‘you know that, don’t you?’
I nod and hug her back and feel terrible for getting annoyed with her earlier. She’s just a mum – and I’m her precious baby.
‘Now,’ we both say at precisely the same time, ‘does anybody need a wee?’
Chapter 31
I am lying in the bath at Hyacinth, soaking up to my neck in lavender-infused bubble bath that I bought from the gift shop down by the beach.
I’ve done the clean-up, and tomorrow the café is closed, so for once I don’t have to worry about getting up early, dragging the kids out of bed, or being careful I don’t drink too much in case I’m over the limit the morning after.
In fact, I am free to get horrendously drunk, sleep in for most of the day and not worry about the children at all – or at least not worry about them now, as Mum has called to say they arrived safely.
Lizzie has also sent me a photo of them all standing by the sign for an RSPB Bird Reserve. The look on her face is absolutely priceless. ‘Party on, princess!’ I reply, adding a few jaunty emojis just for fun.
Now, after doing a bit of housework and sticking in a load of washing, I am rewarding myself with a long soak. I have the radio playing and the small window open so I can hear the birdsong from outside, and a paperback held aloft in my hands. It is an original 1980s copy of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, which I found on the bookshelves in the café, and it is still a racy good read.
I am very much enjoying getting reacquainted with Rupert Campbell-Black, and imagining what Matt might look like in jodhpurs. I have seen him in shorts and swimming trunks and tiny white towels, so his legs are not a mystery to me and I reckon he might look pretty good.
We have agreed that we will meet up later on, at about six, and possibly go out for dinner. Part of me simply wants to stay in and get on with the schedule, but part of me is very nervous and realises that having a drink first might help.
The trick, I think, will be hitting that sweet spot – the spot where you have had enough to drink to make you relax, but not so much that you start telling strangers they have beautiful eyes. I’m thinking that for me, that is probably at the three glasses of wine mark. Too much more and I might want to sing karaoke or wrestle a scarecrow or bring a traffic cone home, all of which would be fun but not exactly what I have in mind for this evening.
I notice that I am starting to wrinkle up like a prune and fold over the page in my book. I lay it down, unplug the bath and stand up. I have shown remarkable foresight and draped a towel over the mirror that is on the opposite wall. The last thing I need is to end up posing, looking at my naked body from various angles, sucking my tummy in and marvelling at the size of my arse. None of these things are confidence boosters.
All of this, of course, is very new to me. David and I were together from being children. Of course, I was nervous – we both were – once our relationship became more physical, but it was all part of the adventure. The next logical step for two people who loved each other so much – and two people who trusted each other so much.
I think that’s what made it work so well. The trust. I know that Becca thinks I’m mad, only ever having slept with one man, but she doesn’t get it. I suspect she thinks I have no idea about physical pleasures, and that because I’ve not experimented with other partners I couldn’t possibly have been fulfilled.
In reality, our sex life was brilliant. We went through dips and hollows, like all couples, especially after the kids came into the picture, but we were as compatible in that department as we were in all the others.
I always fancied David and he always felt the same about me. I rarely felt bad about my body because I’d never had reason to. It was good enough for David and that was good enough for me.
So now, here, preparing to meet up with only the second man who is likely to see me naked (unless I blindfold him and pretend it’s a kinky game), I really don’t need to be confronted with my own flaws.
I shaved my legs and trimmed other relevant areas earlier in the shower and now I amble into the bedroom and lash on some fancy moisturising cream that I was bought for Christmas and never had the need to use.
Once I am smooth and buffed and fragrant, I snuggle under the duvet, my hair still wrapped up in a towel turban.
It is strange being here without the kids. Slightly too quiet, but also a tiny bit delicious – like I am indulging in a forbidden luxury, spending time completely on my own.
I roll over onto my side and look at the photo on my bedside cabinet. The one where we all look so happy. So together.
‘Hello, you,’ I say, smiling at David in his scuba-diving mask. Obviously, he doesn’t reply – but this time I don’t expect him to. There have been moments, admittedly low points for my mental health, where I have genuinely imagined that he would.
‘I don’t know what you’d think about all this,’ I continue, safe in the knowledge that nobody can overhear me.
‘Obviously, if you were still around, you’d be furious and probably go over to Black Rose and punch Matt’s lights out. But if you were still around, my love, this wouldn’t be happening, would it? I never looked at another man and don’t think I ever would have done. Apart from Daniel Craig, of course, but you always said you were okay with that … anyway.
‘You’re not here. I wish you were, for all kinds of reasons, but you’re not – and I think this is something I want to do. Need to do, maybe.
‘Much as I love you, I can’t live the rest of my life waiting to die, can I? And I don’t think you’d want that, either. Remember that time we talked about it, after you got food poisoning in Italy and thought you were on your way out?
‘We both said we’d want each other to find someone else – although I think I probably wasn’t as gracious as you, because I wasn’t going through a near-death experience at the time … what was it I said? I think, if I remember right, I said that I
’d be okay with you meeting someone new, as long as she looked like Camilla Parker-Bowles. Bit mean, that.
‘But … well. Here I am. The kids are doing great and I’m feeling better. I’ve no idea if you’re sitting up there in heaven laughing at me right now or wishing me all the best, or screaming at me. Or if there’s a heaven at all.
‘I suppose if I knew that, I’d have more job offers than temporary café manager, wouldn’t I? Or permanent, if Cherie had her way … well. Wherever you are, David, I love you. Nothing will ever change that. And if you are perched on a fluffy white cloud looking down at us all? I’d suggest it might be an idea to close your eyes for a bit …’
I place a kiss on two of my fingertips and reach out to place them on David’s photo-face.
After a few more moments of chilling out, I get up and get my clothes on. I wear my strappy green sundress because it matches my eyes and because it’s the only going-out frock I have with me, which narrows down the choice. I settle for flat sandals, as again, I don’t have huge amounts of choice – my missing high-heel wedge was never recovered from the Field of Shame.
I have put on my best matching underwear and hope that it’s not a set that Matt has previously seen spraying out of a busted bin bag or hanging from a car aerial. I dry my hair with some gunk so it is long and curly and wild rather than insane and frizzy and frightening, and apply a little make-up.
I look, I think, not at all bad. My tummy is tingling and my heart feels a bit fluttery, and I am both nervous and excited. I remind myself that I am a thirty-five-year-old mother-of-two and although my life has been different from most people’s, I am not inexperienced, and I have no reason to doubt myself.
Matt, like David, has never shown me anything other than kindness and compliments and has certainly never given me cause to feel insecure about my looks. Or, in fact, anything at all. We have had fun together and enjoyed all of our illicit sneaking around probably a tiny bit too much for alleged grown-ups, and we are clearly very attracted to each other. This needn’t be complicated. I have enough other things in my life that are complicated – I want this to be simple.
Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe Page 23