Sunshine at the Comfort Food Café

by Debbie Johnson

  I wander around the room, admiring the decorations, keeping an eye on Mum, and pretending not to do what I’m actually doing – which is looking for Tom.

  I finally catch a glimpse of him on the far side of the room, and let out an audible sigh when I do. Like the rest of the men, he’s dressed up, in a suit and bow tie. But unlike the rest of the men, the sight of him makes my heart rate bump and my breath catch in my throat. He’s gorgeous, and I want to run across the room, knocking people out of the way as I go, and throw myself into his arms.

  As though he senses my gaze, he looks up at that exact moment, and we live out a perfect cliché – our eyes meet across a crowded room. I see him stare at me, look me up and down, and know that he feels exactly the same as I do. This whole ‘just friends’ thing is truly rubbish.

  Just as I see him start to make his way towards me, the phone in my hand beeps. It takes me a few seconds to react, I’m so lost in Tom, but I soon snap myself out of it and read the text from Becca.

  ‘The beagle is landing,’ it says. ‘Battle stations.’

  I dash across to Cherie, who is standing at the centre of all the activity surveying her kingdom, and shout: ‘Five minute warning!’

  Cherie claps her hands, and bellows at Frank and Cal: ‘Roll out the red carpet! Get the music on! Get your umbrellas!’

  Everyone jumps to attention, and I see the two men head into the hallway, carrying a big bundle. They stand on the steps, and together let it flow out into the garden – a proper, full-length, actually-like-Hollywood red carpet.

  Tom disappears off to the corner of the room, where he has various gadgets that I presume are to do with sound and vision set up, and the rest of the guests all make a mad dash towards Cherie, who has pulled a big cardboard box out from beneath Edie’s gift table. She is handing out umbrellas, all of them in bright primary colours, like a sergeant major issuing ammo.

  I have no idea why, but I learned a long time ago not to question Cherie’s actions – she usually has a plan. I join Mum and Van and Auburn in the umbrella queue, and once we’ve all been supplied, Cherie leads us outside.

  She directs us perfectly, taking into account different height levels and the need not to get poked in the eye by random spokes, and within a couple of scurrying minutes, we’re all in place. We stand along the edge of the red carpet, umbrellas aloft, a perfect canopy of red, green, blue and yellow forming a sheltered archway over the carpet.

  For a second, we all stand there, rain hammering down on our brollies, the random spotlights playing across our faces in the darkness – then everyone bursts out laughing when we realise how brilliantly silly we look. But hey, we’re keeping Edie’s red carpet dry, and that’s what counts.

  Just as we hear Becca’s car pulling into the driveway, Tom hits the music, and the theme tune from Strictly Come Dancing belts out from the speakers just inside the hallway.

  It’s impossible to resist the temptation to start doing a silly dance, and none of us are good at resisting anything – so pretty soon after the opening notes, the whole umbrella-wielding entourage starts to bop and wriggle, brollies twirling and shaking as Becca parks the car.

  Sam gets out of the passenger side, dressed in a dapper suit jacket that seems to be made of velvet, and dashes round to open the doors for the ladies. Becca steps out first, giving us all a thumbs up as she looks at the umbrellas shimmying in the rain, and is followed by Edie.

  Sam already has a big striped golfing umbrella up and open above her head, protecting the perm she obviously had touched up today.

  Edie pauses, and looks at the crowds, and the red carpet, and the sight of us all dancing to the theme tune of her favourite TV show beneath our undulating archway of umbrellas. She gazes at the beautiful lit-up facade of Briarwood, and the roaming searchlights, and just for a moment it seems like it’s all too much for her.

  She stands still, perfectly turned out in a baby blue dress and matching sequinned cardigan, and clasps her cheeks in both her wrinkled hands. She stares at us all, and I see her take off her specs and wipe tears from beneath her eyes as she takes it all in.

  She says something – I can’t tell what, because the music is too loud – and within seconds Becca and Sam are on either side of her, offering her their arms. She smiles, radiant with happiness, and links her arms with theirs, looking like a child between them.

  Then, God bless her, she struts down that red carpet like the star she is.

  Chapter 36

  We all cheer and shout, and bounce our umbrellas up and down, showering raindrops, until Edie is safely inside. Everyone follows her through, and you can see how overwhelmed she is when she is escorted to her throne in the ballroom. Her face lights up as she casts her gaze around the place, and I can only imagine how many decades’ worth of memories are playing across the show reel of her mind.

  I’m thrilled when she walks up to Anton and places a kiss on his smiling face, and know as she disappears among a crowd of friends and family that she’s going to have the night of her life.

  I stay on the periphery, letting Edie enjoy her moment, smiling as the reflection from the glitter balls dazzle their way around the room.

  I can see my mum, sitting at one of the tables with Auburn and Van, sipping a glass of champagne that’s just been delivered by Martha in her waiter’s uniform. I note that Auburn isn’t actually drinking, which is unusual in a social situation, and that Van is perched on the table, looking at his phone, distracted.

  The music starts – a nice easy waltz to begin with – but nobody seems quite ready to dance just yet. Without Zelda and Mateo bossing us around, it’s entirely possible that we’ll all just decide to rebel, and break-dance or do the Macarena instead.

  I glance over at the corner of the room where the music lives, and see Matt in there, staring at buttons and looking slightly confused. I decide to make his life easier by fetching him a can of Guinness, which I open, and pour into a champagne flute. He’s a man of simple tastes.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, accepting it gratefully. ‘At last, a proper drink!’

  ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ I say, passing him the rest of the can.

  We stand together for a few moments, silent, watching the party unfold before us. Edie is unwrapping her presents with glee, and Cherie is stuffing the used paper into a bin bag next to her. Anton is looking very pleased with himself next to them.

  ‘Are you looking for Tom?’ asks Matt, suddenly. He’s a quiet bloke, Matt, but not unperceptive.

  ‘No. Yes. Maybe,’ I reply, laughing at myself by the end of it.

  ‘Well, it’s good to have a plan,’ he responds, smiling at me. ‘He left once he’d put the music on, and we all trooped outside to make Edie’s rainbow arch. Looked like he had a lot on his mind. So do you.’

  ‘No, honestly – my mind is completely empty,’ I reply. ‘A blank canvas. Nothing in there but tweetie birds and unicorns.’

  He raises his eyebrows at me, and obviously doesn’t believe me. I’m shocked – I think I look exactly like the kind of person who has tweetie birds fluttering around in her head.

  ‘You should go and find him,’ he says simply. ‘Take him a drink. Not the Guinness though – that’s all for me.’

  I grin, and walk away. He’s probably right. I should go and find Tom – even if it’s only to say thank you for helping us all organise this night for Edie. Without him and his lightbulb moments, we’d all be crammed into the café right now, sweating our fishnets off.

  The problem with that plan soon becomes clear – I can’t actually find Tom anywhere. He’s not in the ballroom, and he’s not in the food and drink room, and he’s not outside in the garden – which is lucky, as he’d need a flotation device. I check a couple of the side rooms, and even sneak past the tape that cordons off the cloakroom area. I lurk outside the toilets for a while, because I’m classy like that, and am rewarded only by the sight of Laura doing that weird jumping around dance us ladies do when our tights are fa
lling down in the gusset region.

  I check the ballroom and the other rooms again, and even in the big storage cupboard under the stairs, in case he’s done a Harry Potter.

  After all of this comes up empty, I have a lightbulb moment of my own, and suddenly have an idea as to where he might be. Where a man like Tom might go off to if, as Matt said, he had a lot on his mind.

  I stand at the foot of the stairs for a moment, fondling the wooden pineapple-shaped bottom-stopper and admiring the polish of the banister, and come to a decision.

  I run up the stairs, quickly before I can change my mind, and make my way up to the second floor. To that same corridor where all of this began – the corridor where my once-evil and now-just-annoying older siblings goaded me into opening the door of a room they’d persuaded me was haunted.

  I still feel nervous now but for different reasons. I walk past the other doors, the smell of fresh paint still strong up here, and down to the end of the hallway. I pause outside, and wonder whether I should knock. Eventually I decide I don’t need to – I certainly didn’t last time, and anyway, he’s probably not even here.

  I take a deep breath, and turn the handle, and push the door open. It still bloody creaks, like something out of a horror film.

  Sure enough, there he is – sitting alone in the windowsill, shrouded in moonlight. He glances up as the door opens, and I see I’ve caught him deep in thought. At least this time neither of us screams or runs away in terror.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, edging into the room and closing the door behind me. I can hear the sound of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ coming up the stairs, the one we practised the paso doble to, and wonder if Cal is doing his bullfighter thing again, making little horn shapes with his fingers.

  ‘Hey back,’ he says, quietly. It’s dark in here, apart from the moonlight, but for some reason I don’t flick the magical switch next to me. Something tells me we might both be better off in the shadows.

  He’s tugged his bow tie loose, and it’s hanging around his neck unevenly. His jacket is still on but unbuttoned, and the laces on his proper grown-up man shoes are undone.

  ‘You look like James Bond after a heavy night at the casino,’ I say, walking towards him slowly.

  ‘And you look better than all the Bond girls put together in a blender and mixed up,’ he replies.

  ‘I should hope so,’ I answer, pondering the image. ‘Even Pussy Galore wouldn’t look good if she’d been run through a blender. Are you all right? Why are you hiding away up here?’

  ‘I’m not hiding away. I’m … Okay, I’m hiding away. There are a lot of people down there, and I’ve done my bit. Nobody needs me hanging around making very bad small talk.’

  ‘What about me?’ I say, reaching out to stroke his hair. Soft and velvety as usual. ‘I might need someone to make very bad small talk with.’

  He takes my hand in his, and holds it steady. He looks into my eyes, and he’s not smiling. He’s not smiling, or laughing, or looking like he’s in the mood for banter. I feel my breath catch in my throat, and suddenly feel even more petrified than the time I burst in here as an 8-year-old.

  ‘You don’t need me, Willow,’ he says, sadly. ‘And that’s okay. I understand why you’re making the choices you are – but I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to live with. I thought it would be all right. I thought I could be Joey, and you could be Phoebe, and it’d all be fine in the end. But when I saw you tonight, looking like you do … well, I realised it’s not going to be easy. In fact, it’s nothing to do with how you look tonight – you could have walked into that room wearing a bin bag and reindeer ears, and I’d have felt the same.

  ‘It’s you – being around you, but not being with you. I think I can get there, in the end. But I’m not there yet, and I—’

  ‘Need some time?’ I finish for him, knowing exactly where that sentence was going. Time. It’s what I keep telling myself will cure everything – but right now, there seems to be so little of it.

  I lean forward, and kiss him gently on the forehead. I understand – I have to. This man, like all of us, still carries traces of the time when he was a child – when he was a boy, growing up in this very room, feeling unwanted and unloved. And now, I can tell, he feels that way again, and it’s all my fault. I didn’t set out to hurt him, but I have.

  ‘Yes,’ he says simply, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in close. He buries his head in my chest, and I hold him there for a moment. I am the one causing the pain, and the one attempting to console him. There is something truly screwed up about that.

  ‘Yes,’ he repeats, pulling away from me as though he realises the same. ‘Some time. I’m going to go back to London for a bit. Not forever, I promise – I’ll be back here at some point. And I’m only a few hours away, if you need me, for anything. I won’t disappear on you – I just need a break. I just … need a bit of time to get my head sorted. Then when I get back, I’ll be the best friend you ever had.’

  I nod, to show that I heard him, but I can’t risk speaking out loud. If I speak, I’ll say the wrong thing. If I allow myself to open my mouth, I’ll tell him I don’t want him to be my friend. I’ll tell him I love him. I’ll beg him to stay, and be so much more than my friend. I’ll let my desperation persuade me to make promises I can’t keep, and make demands that I can’t justify.

  I can’t speak, because I know that doing that wouldn’t be fair. I know it wouldn’t, no matter how much I want to. I can’t expect him to hang around waiting for my life to get simpler. Waiting for me to have less responsibility. Waiting for me to feel able to commit to anyone other than my mother – because that probably isn’t going to happen.

  So I stay silent. I nod again, and I kiss him one more time, and I leave him – alone there, perched on the windowsill, in that room he grew up in. Shrouded in moonlight.

  Chapter 37

  By the time I stagger back down the stairs, after a brief sobbing pit-stop on the first floor, the music has changed again. ‘Always A Woman’ by Billy Joel. I stand in the doorway to the ballroom, and see that Zelda and Mateo have arrived – which means that everyone is now dancing, for fear of getting hit by a big stick.

  Auburn is actually in Mateo’s arms, high heels kicked off, swirling around in her stockinged feet. She gives me a wink over his shoulder, and I wonder if she’ll be giving him marks out of ten by the end of the evening. I laugh, and give her a thumbs up – why the hell not?

  Van is dancing with Mum, in the corner of the room, obviously persuading her to stay far from the madding crowd because of her very stylish boot, and everyone else seems to be coupled up and getting jiggy with it – in a very old-fashioned way.

  Everyone except Edie, that is, who sees me in the doorway, and beckons me over to her throne. She’s perched on all her cushions, and has her feet on her stool, and is surrounded by gifts of all shapes and sizes.

  ‘Have you seen my swag?’ she asks, eyes sparkling, pointing at the table full of goodies. ‘I don’t know how I’ll fit it in the house! I might have to get one of those rental units, like you see on that Storage Wars show in the afternoon.’

  I smile, nod, and make admiring noises about her pot pourri selection and cuddly rabbit hot water bottle and fluffy slippers. I don’t feel in much of a party mood any more, but this is Edie, so I do my best to look happy. Obviously, being Edie, she sees right through me. I don’t suppose you get to spend over nine decades on the planet without learning a few things.

  Peering at me over her glasses, she holds out one tiny hand, and says: ‘Would you do me the honour of this dance? I need to show these whippersnappers how it’s done!’

  ‘But of course, birthday girl,’ I reply, helping her up and walking to the dance floor.

  ‘I’ll lead,’ she whispers as we start to move. ‘You don’t look like you’re capable of counting to three right now.’

  I nod – she is correct – and try not to tread on her feet as we waltz. She usually wears quite sen
sible and sturdy shoes, but tonight has on little blue ballet pumps decorated with pom-poms. My Docs would squash them flat, along with her toes, which wouldn’t be very celebratory.

  ‘Nice posture,’ she says, as we pass Frank and Cherie. ‘You can tell he learned as a child, can’t you? Now … come on, tell me all about it. I can see you’ve been crying, and you look miserable as sin. I might be being a nosy old biddie, but it’s my party, and I’ll pry if I want to!’

  She seems delighted with her pun, and I have to admit it’s a good one. I sniffle a bit, and am glad that the room is lit by chandelier and glitter ball rather than anything more revealing.

  ‘Is it about your nice young man?’ she asks.

  I nod, and sniffle some more, and finally say: ‘It is, yes. It’s all very complicated, Edie.’

  ‘I see,’ she replies, dancing me back towards the window seat, obviously fearing for the safety of her metatarsals. We both sit down, and she passes me a glass of champagne – she has about six lined up in front of her, the old lush.

  ‘Complicated, is it?’ she repeats, taking a sip. ‘But not impossible, eh?’

  ‘It feels impossible right now,’ I answer. ‘And anyway, it’s your birthday party – I don’t want to spoil it.’

  She reaches out, pats my hand, and smiles kindly at me.

  ‘Oh no, dear – you brought me my very own Anton du Beke. Nothing could possibly spoil that! I suppose, perhaps, that you think you can’t find time for him, young Tom? Because of your mum, and work, and being so very busy all the time? And perhaps you blame yourself for your mum’s accident, because, I heard tell – scandalous gossip I’m sure! – that you were with him here when it happened?’

  I can’t help it – I actually blush. The only thing worse than a ninety-two-year-old talking about my sex life would be a ninety-two-year-old talking about her own sex life. This delights her, and she cackles into her hands at the look on my face.

  ‘Goodness – you youngsters! You didn’t invent sex. None of you would be here if the older generation hadn’t discovered it first, would you? Now, look at your mum, Willow. Does she look unhappy?’