Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  Part of me knows, as I skip down the stairs, that I am fooling myself. That I am in fact over-simplifying. That this is possibly, in fact, one of the most complicated situations I have ever had to navigate. That – most anxiety-making of all – I have absolutely no idea how I will feel afterwards.

  That not-knowing part suddenly fills me with dread and fear. I am not used to this sensation. Grief, pain, loneliness – yes to all of them, with knobs on. But not knowing how I feel about a man I am intending to have sex with? This is completely and hideously uncharted territory.

  I sit on the bottom step and quickly call Becca. She may be the younger sister, but right now she’s probably the one with all the wisdom.

  ‘I’m terrified,’ I say, as soon as she answers. And I realise, as the words spill out, that this is true – despite my careful preparations and my one-sided chat with David, and my insistence on keeping everything between me and Matt as simple as I can, I am terrified.

  ‘Of what?’ she asks. I can hear traffic roaring behind her and guess that she is out in town. I can hear car horns honking and people shouting and music blaring and the background beep-beep-beep of the green man flashing. All of these once-familiar sounds now feel slightly alien to me.

  ‘Everything. I’m terrified it’ll be crap and I’ll have forgotten what goes where. I’m terrified I’ll be rubbish or freeze up, or burst into tears halfway through. I’m terrified I’ll call him David in the heat of passion and totally freak him out.’

  ‘None of those things are going to happen, and if they do, from what you’ve told me about Matt, he will be understanding. But Laura – it might also be brilliant.’

  ‘I know,’ I reply, blowing out a long, anxious breath, ‘and I’m terrified of that most of all. What if you’re right, Becs? What if this does all mean more to me than I’m letting myself think? What if you were right to warn me to be careful?’

  ‘You know better than to listen to me!’ she says, sounding exasperated. ‘I’m usually drunk! And, seriously, I regret even saying anything – I know it gave your confidence a knock just when it needed a boost and I’m sorry. I was just being daft and cautious and over-protective, you know? A bit like – ‘

  ‘Mum,’ I supply, knowing exactly where that sentence was going.

  ‘Yes, which has just made my pancreas shrivel up with horror. Look, you of all people deserve a little bit of fun. Have a glass of wine, chill out and see how it goes. And just because you sample a starter, don’t feel obliged to go on to the main course – if it’s not rocking your boat, for any reason at all, you call a halt to the proceedings and leave. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself, and on him. Don’t forget he’ll be nervous as well.’

  She has a point. From what Matt has told me, he hasn’t been with anybody else since Legs, either, and he knows my history. From his perspective that’s a lot of responsibility – and the last thing he needs is me having a nervous breakdown. This is, I remind myself, supposed to be fun – not some awful task you have to complete on a Japanese game show.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, already feeling a tiny bit better. ‘I knew you’d help, oh wise one.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I am the Mrs Miyagi of Sex. Wax on, wax off, all right? You’ll be fine. Now, I’m going to go – I have three sailor boys chained to the wall of my torture dungeon and I need to get back to them. But call me tomorrow, okay? Or tonight. Even if it’s three in the morning – call me if you need me.’

  ‘Okay. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too – now scoot!’

  I put the phone down, but stay on the step for a few more seconds.

  She’s right. Of course she is. I need to relax. Chill. Step out of the pressure cooker and let things take their natural course instead of trying to force something or predict the unpredictable.

  I amble through to the kitchen and get a bottle of prosecco out of the fridge. It’s been sitting in there for a couple of days and the spoon I shoved in the top of the bottle hasn’t exactly kept it fizzing, but I pour myself a glass anyway.

  I take a sip and it is icy cold and alcoholic and I immediately feel better. I even manage to laugh at myself a little for whipping up such a high-maintenance cocktail of panic and over-analysis.

  I am, after all, going to be spending the evening with a drop-dead gorgeous man – one who resembles a young Han Solo, for goodness’ sake! I should be celebrating, not thinking it to death.

  Cheered by Becca’s chat, my own thought processes, the image of Han Solo and possibly the prosecco, I glance at my watch and see it is almost six.

  I grab Jimbo’s lead from the back of the door and pick up our mutual overnight backpack – we have agreed to have our sleepover at Matt’s, as it is bigger and kids don’t live there and there isn’t a photo of my dead husband by the bed (though I didn’t mention that part as it seemed weird).

  I have spare pants and my make-up bag and my toothbrush and some perfume, plus Jimbo’s special low-fat dog food. He, I know, will be more than happy to spend the night at Matt’s, though we’ll have to be careful where he sticks his snout, as usual.

  I walk towards his red tartan bed, which I’m planning to take with me and shake his lead over his head.

  ‘Walkies!’ I say, in a high-pitched crazy-lady voice. He’s been more and more difficult to mobilise recently and I may need to hold a piece of bacon in front of his nose for the entire journey to Black Rose.

  Typically, of course, there is no response.

  ‘Come on lazybones! Time to go see Matt!’ I add, kneeling down to hook the lead onto his collar.

  As I do, I realise that he isn’t moving. At all. His tail isn’t thumping, even a tiny bit, and he isn’t looking at me with one sleepy eyelid half-raised, like he usually does. He isn’t snoring, or snuffling, or making any sounds at all.

  He’s not, I am forced to acknowledge, as I collapse back onto my bottom and sprawl on the wooden floorboards, even breathing.

  Chapter 32

  I wake up fully clothed, wrapped in a blanket, on top of Matt’s bed. He is there with me, one arm thrown across me protectively, his breath warm on my neck.

  For a second I feel fine. More than fine. I feel elated to be here in his arms, safe and secure and happy.

  Then it all comes crashing down on me and I remember why my eyes feel glued together and my throat is dry and my hair is tangled and plastered messily to my face.

  I remember that Jimbo is dead and David is dead, and the part of me that was starting to come alive again now feels crushed beneath the grief. That I am so miserable that I wish I was dead too.

  Silently, the tears start to flow again, oozing out from between crusted lashes, pooling into an already damp patch on the burgundy pillowcase. I look up, instinctively, seeking the picture of David on the bedside table, before my sleep-deprived brain puts all the pieces together.

  I am at Black Rose, with Matt. From the watery sunlight creeping in through the curtains, it is early morning. I have slept fitfully and restlessly and probably been an absolute nightmare to share a bed with.

  I called Matt as soon as I realised what had happened with Jimbo and he arrived what felt like seconds later, running at full speed through the door, clutching the vet’s equivalent of his medicine bag.

  He knelt down beside him with his stethoscope and checked his heartbeat. He checked his breathing. He lifted his eyelids. And finally, sadly, reluctantly, he gave Jimbo’s greying muzzle one last stroke and his velvety soft ears one last tickle.

  He stood up to face me and gave me a sweet smile.

  ‘I know,’ I’d said, feeling my lips tremble and the tears begin to fall. ‘I already know … it’s just … he was still warm …’

  ‘He’s not been gone long,’ replied Matt, reaching out to hold my hand, his eyes scanning my face, his fingers stroking mine. ‘And it was peaceful. Looks like that old heart of his just couldn’t keep going any more.’

  I felt the tears sliding down my face and I slid with them – all
the way to the floor. I held Jimbo’s head on my lap and I kissed him and cuddled him and petted him and drenched him in tears. I told him what a good dog he was and how much we’d miss him, and how much I loved him.

  I know he’s just a dog, but in that moment I would have given literally anything for him to open his eyes, let out that snuffling noise that made him sound like a pig and lick my face.

  Matt sat down on the floor beside me, his arm around my shoulders, and let me talk and weep and sob. I’m sure he’d seen it all before in his job, crazy owners refusing to let their pets go.

  ‘I was upstairs,’ I said, my voice trembling, words coming in bursts between sudden shaking breaths, ‘getting ready for our date. I was upstairs, tarting myself up, while Jimbo was down here on his own. He shouldn’t have been on his own … he was a good dog … he deserved so much more than that … I should have been with him …’

  Matt lightly kissed the side of my head and turned my face around to rest on his chest. He was wearing what looked like a new shirt, fresh white cotton that he’d probably bought for our night out.

  ‘In my professional opinion,’ he said, stroking my hair back, ‘he was asleep. You know he loved to sleep.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sniffle, ‘it was one of his very favourite things.’

  ‘It was. And he was very good at it. I think Jimbo had had a nice walk around the Rockery with you earlier – and I know he did, because I saw you go past – and then he came back here and probably got fed some nice food, and had a few sloppy gulps from his water bowl. I think he probably followed you around the kitchen for a while, hoping for a sausage, and I think he was perfectly happy.

  ‘Then he went to his basket – his lovely, comfortable, warm basket – and curled up in a ball. The ball he’s still in now. He went to sleep, Laura. That’s all. He just went to sleep. He wasn’t in pain, and he didn’t suffer, and you didn’t let him down. He knew you were just upstairs, and he was happy here, just like this.’

  The grief and the guilt and the misery had piled up, making my heart hammer in my chest and my ears buzz and my fingers tingle. It was a pain so raw, so primal, that it felt like a panic attack. It used to happen all the time after David died, but had settled down into rarity. Until now. Until Jimbo.

  I was still sobbing, almost hysterically, and had to fight to get words out between gulps of air.

  ‘I should have given him a sausage! And I should have held the ladder! And I should have made him go to hospital, even when he said he was fine!’

  Of course, poor Matt probably had no idea what I was raving on about – but he was intelligent enough and sensitive enough to put it together, to use that intuitive nature of his to understand that this pain, this emotional distress signal, was about more than the death of a very old Labrador.

  He held me tighter, and simply let me cry. He muttered soothing words, and encouraged me to breathe, and lightly stroked my back, and eventually, when I had nothing left to pour out, he physically picked me up in his arms and carried me over to the sofa.

  He sat down, taking me with him, scooped onto his lap like a child that needed comforting, and held me there, cuddled into him, my knees curled up and my head buried in his chest.

  I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but I do know that it wouldn’t have mattered to Matt if it was hours or even days. He was there for me, my friend, my not-quite-lover, my ally in Dorset life.

  He was there for me through every sniffle and every frantic, sucked-in breath and every smear of mascara on that new shirt of his.

  And when the worst of it has subsided and I was able to breathe again, and my eyes were red and swollen and sore, he leaned down to gently kiss them both.

  ‘I’m taking you back to Black Rose,’ he said, in a tone that suggested there was no point in arguing, even if I was capable of it. ‘You’re spending the night with me.’

  I opened my eyes as wide as I could, and felt suddenly scared again – surely he didn’t think I could still …

  ‘And no, of course I don’t mean you’re spending the night with me in that way,’ he added, his lips tugging sideways in a sad smile. ‘I understand. But I won’t leave you, Laura, all right? You need to be with someone and I’m afraid I’m the best you’ve got right now.’

  So he’d taken me back to his cottage and settled me down with a glass of whiskey and the TV on for background noise, and he’d taken Jimbo away. He’d carried him, basket and all, into his truck, and driven him to his surgery. I didn’t want to ponder what happened next, or how I could tell the kids, or what we’d do with his poor, furry body.

  All I could do was sip the whiskey and stare at the screen without seeing a thing, and fight off the sense of impending desolation as best as I could.

  I didn’t want to fight it – I wanted to give in to it. I wanted to lie down on the floor and let it float over me like a rolling black fog. I wanted it to take me and suffocate me and make all of the things that were hurting me go away.

  I’d felt like this before, and I knew what would happen if I did let that black fog roll over me. I would lose myself and lose my will to live, and lose my ability to be of any use at all to my children.

  It would be like the time that Becca came to stay, and much as I was suffering, I knew I couldn’t allow myself to inflict that kind of pain on Lizzie and Nate and my sister and my parents ever again.

  So I sipped the whiskey and I watched a reality TV show about allotments and I shivered inside the blanket that Matt had draped around my shoulders, and waited for him to get back.

  When he did, he made me hot tea, also with whiskey in it, and convinced me to eat a few chocolate Hob Nobs. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but just then it was the last thing I’d felt like doing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I’d said, as I watched him watching me. His hair was furrowed where he’d been running his hands through it, and his lovely white shirt was soggy with my tears and stained with my make-up, and the fatigue and concern was clouding the usually sparkling hazel of his eyes.

  ‘This hasn’t turned out quite the way we’d planned, has it? I’m so sorry …’

  He’d frowned and sat next to me, and tucked the blanket closer around my shoulders.

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’re all fragile, aren’t we? And we all need a little help sometimes, no matter how tough we seem on the surface. I’m sorry for a lot of things, Laura. I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through. I’m sorry about David, and Jimbo, and the fact that you’ve suffered so much.

  ‘But I’m not sorry about being here for you, or about my shirt – I see you looking at it – or about the fact that we didn’t finally get naked. I’m not sorry that you needed me, and I’m not sorry that I’m going to spend the rest of the night holding you in my arms, keeping you as warm and safe as I humanly can. And tomorrow … well, we’ll get through tomorrow, all right? We’ll get through it together.’

  I squeezed his hand and yawned. I was exhausted and emotionally drained and could only feel grateful for his tenderness, and his blanket, and his seemingly never-ending supply of whiskey.

  It’s funny the paths life takes us on – five weeks ago Matt was the dishy stranger helping me unpack my roofbox on my first day in Dorset. The man Jimbo took an instant and inappropriate interest in.

  Now I am sitting on his sofa and he is helping me to drive back the siren call of that rolling black fog – helping me hold on to the here and the now. Helping me to survive.

  ‘I’m so tired,’ I said. ‘Would it be all right if we went up to bed?’

  He’d led me up the stairs, and although I’d always expected the night to end with that, nothing was happening as I’d expected or hoped. Instead, he was sweet and respectful and handled me with such astonishing care. I fell on top of the duvet and he wrapped me up, and that’s where I stayed.

  Now, fully awake and wishing I wasn’t, I try to extricate myself from his embrace. As soon as I mo
ve, his grip tightens and I hear him sigh my name, still half asleep.

  I allow myself one more moment where I rest easy and glory in the feeling of lying next to him, being wrapped up in him, so close I can feel his heart thudding into my back. One more moment where I let myself think it’s all still simple.

  Then I get up, still wrapped in my blanket, and leave the room. The certainty of what I am feeling is adding to my pain, and my feet drag like they are made of lead. I need to escape. To run. To get away, from Black Rose and from Matt.

  Because now, even without sleeping with him, I realise that Becca was right. That Matt does mean something to me. That he means way too much to me.

  And I know that I am still far too fragile to risk giving so much of myself to someone else.

  I simply wouldn’t survive another loss.

  Chapter 33

  The weather is strange today; clear blue skies interrupted by stretches of scudding white cotton-bud clouds that seem to blow across the horizon so fast they look like they’re on a time-lapse video.

  It is warm, but with a strong breeze blowing up from the coast that is swirling my hair around my face and flinging Lizzie’s ponytail up into the air.

  We are gathered together in the Budbury Pet Cemetery, a place I never knew existed until this morning. It is in a beautiful, meandering walled garden behind the Community Centre and apparently predates that building by decades.

  The weathered brick walls are covered in climbing ivy and the pathways that wind through the space are carpeted with pine needles and leaves from the trees. There are small grave markers and larger headstones and wooden crosses, and simple home-made tributes of framed photos and hand-drawn cartoons. They’re probably the most touching of all, a child’s vision of their beloved pet.

  The earliest dates I can see go back to the 1920s and there seem to be mainly dogs and cats, but also a few tiny plots for rabbits, mice and birds. In one corner there is even a donkey called Petunia, who laid her head to rest here in 1958 after years of carrying children up and down the beach.