Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  Although the main street of the village is not far away, you can only distantly hear the passing traffic and the sound of people walking by; the walls and the trees seem to insulate this place, keeping it shady, still and silent.

  Lizzie and Nate had come home early this afternoon, after I called my mum to let her know what had happened. To be honest, I actually texted my mum to tell her what had happened and then ignored my phone when she called back.

  I know that was a cowardly thing to do, but I just wasn’t up to talking about it. I didn’t want her to hear the weakness in my voice or to suspect how feeble I was feeling. Instead, I texted again saying I was busy but fine. Both were lies.

  The kids, once they arrived back at Hyacinth, flew into my arms. Both of them at once. This is an absolute rarity and we huddled together in the living room, crying and snivelling, and trying to console each other.

  My mum and dad stood back, holding each other’s hands. My mum, in particular, looked tearful, and after I finished smothering the children I dashed over to hug her too.

  ‘I’m so sorry, love,’ she said, wiping my tears away and holding my hair back from my face. She looked at me so sorrowfully, but also with that familiar concern, searching for traces of the nervous breakdown she is right to suspect.

  ‘I’m okay, Mum,’ I said, giving her what I hope was a reassuring smile. ‘I’m sad, and I’ll really miss Jimbo, but I’m coping.’

  And, I suppose, I am. As best as I can. I feel empty and hollow and like I am made of straw, as though an especially strong gust of wind would send me tumbling and flying down towards the bay, like a child’s lost helium balloon.

  But I need to at least appear as though I am all right. I need to get through today and get through Frank’s party, get through my last few days in Dorset and head home. Once I’m home, I’ll feel differently – I’ll be able to forget all about this crazy summer, these crazy people and the crazy ride I’ve been on with Matt.

  I’m not sure if what I am feeling for him is real or if it is just gratitude. Gratitude for his kindness, his gentleness, for the way he has coaxed me back to life like a frost-bitten seedling who needed some time in the sun. Or whether he is just my belated rebound man – the first person I’ve been attracted to since David’s death.

  It is probably, I think, watching him, one of those. It has to be, because I couldn’t cope with anything more damaging.

  Matt has already been here for a while with Edie May, who heads up the pet cemetery committee. He has dug a Jimbo-sized hole and he has wrapped him in his favourite red-and-black-tartan blanket. He has been in the ‘cool room’ at the vet’s surgery – I really don’t want to know what that is, so I don’t ask.

  The kids pat his blanket-wrapped head and between them Sam and Matt lower Jimbo down into his little grave. I don’t even realise I am crying until Lizzie grabs my hand and looks at me with her own big, tearful green eyes. Nate is blinking it all back, trying to be the tough boy, until I place a hand on his shoulder to comfort him and it all breaks free.

  They have both chosen small gifts to leave for Jimbo, which they step forward and add. Nate has brought a fluorescent-green tennis ball with the fluffy skin chewed and mangled so much it is barely recognisable as a spherical object. He really could chew when he put his mind to it, Jimbo. Lizzie adds in a small plastic box, the kind you get Chinese takeaway in, which contains two cooked sausages. His favourite.

  There is a small crowd of us here, in the shady, square, walled cemetery and I am grateful for all of their support.

  Cherie is there, leaning on her crutches, hair flying wild in the breeze; Frank next to her, holding his cap respectfully in his weather-worn hands. Sam and Matt are waiting for Lizzie and Nate to stand clear, Matt with a shovel at his feet. Ivy Wellkettle and Sophie are smiling sympathetically and the entire Scrumpy Jones family is there – Joanne, Joe and Josh. Joe is holding two carrier bags that clink when he moves, so I suspect he has brought me a sample of his cure-all cider.

  Willow is there, staring sadly at the grave, dressed as usual like a space punk princess in her distressed leggings and clunky, silver spray-painted Doc Marten boots. Edie is next to her, their arms linked.

  And on either side of me and the children stand my own mum and dad, with their neat haircuts and their sensible glasses and their matching expressions of worry. My dad has his arm around my shoulders and is squeezing me a bit too tight, and my mum is holding Nate’s hand. Lizzie is squashed in the middle, her eye liner running. I see Josh looking at her with such concern, I want to go and kiss him myself.

  ‘Well,’ says Edie, gazing around at us all. ‘We’re here to say goodbye to Jimbo on this sad day and we’re going to do it the traditional way. I think, Joe, you’ve brought the supplies?’

  Joe nods and passes one carrier bag to his wife. Joanne pulls out a stack of plastic tumblers and Joe pops open a few bottles of his cider cave special and pours until each cup is half full. Josh plays his part by handing them out to everyone in turn.

  There is a quiet and slightly awkward moment where we all stand there, holding our plastic glasses aloft, cider bubbles fizzing, not really knowing what to do.

  ‘Here’s to Jimbo,’ says Matt, after a few moments. He holds his glass high and says, ‘He was a bloody good dog.’

  Somehow those simple words are exactly right. Jimbo was a bloody good dog and even thinking it cracks open an unlikely smile. Once I remember what a good dog he was I feel slightly lighter.

  When David died lots of well-meaning people told me to remember him as he was – to forget those images of him hooked up to the life-support machines and to instead focus on the good times.

  After a while, I wanted to punch anybody who said that – because we just hadn’t had enough good times for that to cheer me up. He was only thirty-three, for goodness’ sake.

  We’d had a wonderful marriage and two beautiful kids, but it was over too soon. It was hard to focus on the good times we’d had when I was facing a whole lifetime without him, knowing that there would be no more good times to celebrate. That he wouldn’t be at Lizzie’s wedding, or see our first grandchild, or do embarrassing country dancing to Cotton Eye Joe with me at my fortieth like we’d planned.

  Remember the good times, they’d say. Go screw yourself, you know nothing about it, I’d silently reply, hiding my resentment with a smile – because I knew that they, like everyone else, did mean well.

  With Jimbo, though, it actually does help. If I separate the pain of losing David from the pain of losing Jimbo and give that bloody good dog the send-off he deserves, it does help.

  I have so many silly memories of him: as a puppy chewing up whole rolls of toilet paper and then hiding in the airing cupboard; the way he’d chase cats until one of them hissed at him, then he’d hide behind our legs; the time he got off his lead at a campsite in Scotland and threw himself right into the swimming pool, splash-landing in the middle of an aquarobics class.

  He was funny and silly and greedy and loyal and lovely – he was a bloody good dog.

  We all raise our glasses and join in, before taking swigs of Joe’s cider. Or, in the case of my dad, a tiny sip as he is driving on to Cornwall this afternoon. They’d wanted to stay, but I’d done the acting job of my life and persuaded them that everything was fine.

  As my Dorset friends all start to troop out of the pet cemetery – single file, as you have to go through a narrow wooden gate to reach the real world again – I am left with Lizzie and Nate, my parents and Matt, who is tactfully waiting until we leave before he fills in Jimbo’s grave.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ says my mum, staring into my eyes so intently she appears to be trying to read my mind. And, as she’s my mother, I have a shaky moment where I wonder if she actually can.

  ‘I’ll be fine, honestly,’ I reply, holding her hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘And I’ve only got a few more days here anyway. I’ll be home before you know it.’

  My dad steps i
n and gives me a quick hug.

  ‘Of course she’s fine, Val,’ he says to my mum, nodding towards the people single-filing through the gate, and at Matt, standing there pretending he can’t hear every word.

  ‘Can’t you see she’s in good hands?’

  WEEK 6

  In which I wave goodbye to the Comfort Food Café …

  Chapter 33

  Busy is good. Busy is useful. Busy is a distraction. Busy gives you a brilliant excuse to avoid things you want to avoid and concentrate instead on the things that allow your brain to stay inside your head, rather than causing it to dribble out of your ears.

  So, I’ve been busy. Mostly very genuinely. Normal café life continued and the party-planning took on a life of its own. I found myself living with my mobile phone permanently attached to my body, often precariously perched between my jaw and my neck as I tried to talk and cook at the same time. How it didn’t end up in a Mars Bar Milkshake, I don’t know.

  There is one big rule about Frank’s annual birthday party – that nobody who is employed at the Comfort Food Café is allowed to work on the night. So, bizarrely, I find myself talking to the caterers and to the agencies who hire out the staff and to the people who are setting up the outside bar and providing the beer and the wine, and it is all exhausting.

  Seriously, I think it would be easier to simply do all the catering myself than have to answer even one more question about how many paper plates we’ll need and whether we want plastic champagne stems or not.

  I’ve spoken to the band – The Honky Tonk Fossils from Dorchester – and I’ve spoken to the PA people and I’ve spoken to the DJ and I’ve spoken to the fancy-dress-shop guy, who is delivering a load of fun country-and-western costumes for people to wear on the night, in case they foolishly forget their own.

  I’ve spoken to all of my mystery guests and I’ve spoken to Cherie’s sister Brenda, and I’ve spoken to my mum and dad, who are enjoying their time in Cornwall.

  I’ve spoken to pretty much everybody, in depth, about everything – apart from Matt.

  Poor Matt. I’ve avoided him like the plague for the last two days. I hope he hasn’t noticed, or if he has, that he’s assumed it’s because I’m so busy. As I tell everyone within earshot how busy I am, all the time, he can’t help but realise.

  After Jimbo’s burial, I have only been alone with him once, when I called round to Black Rose that night to thank him. To thank him for his kindness, for looking after me and for taking care of Jimbo as well. They were thanks that he thoroughly deserved and I’ll never forget how much he has done for me.

  But Jimbo’s death and the aftermath, made me realise how fragile I still feel. Not all the time and not to the same desperate extent as I did a few years ago. I’m so much stronger – I’m able to function like a normal human being, hopefully be a good mum, run a busy café, plan a party and give every outward indication that I am absolutely one hundred per cent fine and dandy.

  Inside, though, the picture is a little more fuzzy. I do feel strong, in some ways, but the way I reacted to Jimbo’s passing and to waking up in Matt’s arms have made me suspect that at least some of that strength still lives in a house built on sand.

  Right now, throwing myself any deeper into a relationship with him would potentially test exactly how solid the foundations of my emotional stability are, and it’s simply not something I’m willing to do.

  I can’t afford to take that risk – not only for my own sake, but for the sake of the people who rely on me and the people who love me.

  I have no doubt at all that Matt would be honourable and behave with integrity in any relationship. He is also, which I can never quite persuade my libido to forget, drop-dead bloody gorgeous and an extremely talented kisser with exceptionally gifted hands.

  But it is still a risk. If I let it go any further, if we effectively have a sexual hit and run before I disappear back to Manchester, I may well get hurt in ways that I’m not yet equipped to handle.

  It all sounds so sensible and obvious when I explain it, when I think about it. But when I feel it instead, it is like a sore spot I can’t stop prodding.

  I will be thrilled to get Frank’s party out of the way, for so many different reasons – not least of which being that I can leave the day after. The café will be closed, and when it reopens there will be very few tourists left as all the families, including mine, go home to get ready for the new school year.

  My duty here will be done and I can leave Willow and Joanne to keep it going for the locals until Cherie is back. I can run home, tail between my legs, and focus on ironing school uniforms and finding lost trainers and washing stinky PE kits and packing pencil cases. I am looking forward to the mind-numbing mundanity of it all.

  Right now, though, there are only a few hours to go until people start to arrive and things are hotting up. The catering firm has arranged trestle tables for the food and the bar staff are already here, dressed in their own cowboy hats and sporting water pistols in their jeans pockets. The water pistols will be used later for refilling shot glasses, apparently.

  I think, for the thousandth time, that this could get very messy.

  The band has done its sound check and they have all line-danced their way into the village for a few ‘snifters’ at the Horse and Jockey before the gig. Even messier.

  Their stage, such as it is, is a raised wooden platform on the patio at the side of the café, where the barbecue is usually set up. We had planned for them to use the inside if it was raining, but so far the weather is as kind today as it has been for most of the summer.

  We have had bales of hay, which are set up around the stage, brought over from Frank’s farm, along with other country-and-western-style accessories that Cherie has insisted will look great – a giant wooden cart wheel that I am convinced will roll off down the cliffs with the tiniest of nudges, an old leather saddle that has been draped across one of the bales and one of those giant wooden totem poles you see in movies.

  I have no idea whether Cherie has all of this random stuff in storage somewhere, or if she’s been amusing herself ordering it while she recovers – all I know is it was delivered in a big white truck and had to be hauled up the hill by a team of sweating men in tracksuits.

  The stage and the café itself are strung up with fairy lights, which I am sure will look magical once it’s dark, and every one of the outdoor tables has its own candle in a glass lantern that will be lit up nearer the time. There is a hog roast already set up and later there will be platters of meats and cheeses and breads, bowls of salad, a hot plate with chilli and tacos, and chilled trays of desserts and puddings.

  The smell of the hog roast, together with the thought of all the party food, makes my mouth water, and I am reminded that I’ve not actually eaten all day – busy, you see.

  Willow is around somewhere and has warned me that I am very close to being in breach of the not-working-at-Frank’s-party rules. Lizzie and Nate are inside, still a little subdued, still a little sad.

  It would be arrogant and selfish of me to assume that I am the only one who felt Jimbo’s passing so keenly. For most kids their age, losing a family pet would have been their first experience of death. Mine, sadly, are old hands at it – and this has definitely re-opened some half-healed wounds for all of us.

  I glance inside and see them slouched at one of the tables, Lizzie looking at her phone and Nate gazing down at the bay, scruffy blonde head resting on his folded arms,. They’re also sad, I know, at the thought of leaving this place. Of leaving the café, the Rockery and all their Dorset friends. Of saying goodbye to the beach, the village and the sheer amount of freedom they’ve had this summer.

  We were all pretty quiet when we were packing our stuff up, ready to head off tomorrow. We’ve lost a lot – and we all had a little cry when we put Jimbo’s lead and collar into the boot and noticed how much more space we have now there’s not a fat Lab lying in it.

  But we’ve also gained a lot – the kids
seem to have all kinds of souvenirs from the beach: fossils, shells, old coins and shiny stones washed iridescent by the sea.

  I seem to have gathered a collection of ugly nick-nacks from the gift shop, as well as my postcards from Jean, and the new set of colouring books that Edie May bought for me yesterday afternoon. Most of our clothes, bundled up in bags, are already stored in the roofbox – and this time I took a footstool home from the café so I wouldn’t need to get Matt to pack it up for us.

  It’s going to take us all a while to readjust when we get back, and I’d be a fool if thought it was going to be easy. Lizzie, in particular, has really mellowed since we arrived here – her budding bitch has calmed, taking a more amusing diversion into sarcasm, and she just seems much more laid back and content. As a result, we’ve been getting on so much better and the respite from her diva tantrums has been terrific.

  But like she blamed me when I dragged her away from her Manchester life, I have to be prepared for the fact that she might blame me for dragging her away from her Budbury life as well. It could be a rocky ride, at least until she gets back into her city-girl rhythms.

  And Nate? Well, he’ll miss his mates and the space to run and play, and he’ll miss his Man Buddies too. Sam, Frank and Matt – their endless patience with playing football, teaching him guitar and taking him fossil-hunting, and introducing him to the business end of a dairy cow. They’ve been good for him, and good to him.

  I realise that I am starting to veer towards the melancholy and snap back to attention and look at my clipboard. I always wanted to be the sort of person who had a clipboard – and now I’ve finally made it into the big time.

  I have a list of what needs doing and who needs chasing, and a timeline that is already slightly wonky. There will come a point where I simply have to give up on the schedule and go with the flow – but that will be later, once the Special Guests are out of the way and I can either run screaming from Cherie’s attempts to chop me up with a tomahawk – I am sure there is one here somewhere – or relax happily, knowing that I’ve done something special for them.