Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café

by Debbie Johnson

  “Don’t be putting that on in here,” says Frank, his face deadly serious. “You’ll be living out many a man’s fantasy. They’re only flesh and blood, you know!”

  I pop it onto his head instead, where it looks very fine indeed, his silver-white hair peeking out of the sides.

  “How did it go?” asks Matt, pint of Guinness in hand.

  “Erm … strangely well. Not a bad word to be said about her. Glowing comments all round.”

  He nods, as though he wouldn’t have expected anything else at all, and Cal arrives with our drinks. A pint of strange real ale called something like Black Badger’s Bottom for him, cider for me. I gulp half of it down in one go, which attracts admiring glances from the menfolk. I’ve still got the magic.

  “Looks like someone’s got a thirst on,” says Frank, gesturing at the glass. Oh boy, was he right.

  Chapter 24

  I end up drinking quite a few more pints of cider, and a Baileys ‘for the road’ Why is it that Baileys can hold such magnetic allure at the end of the night? You know it’s a bad idea, but somehow it seems to be calling to you, in all its creamy goodness.

  Matt and Frank leave at about ten – they both have early dates with various animals – but we stick it out until the bitter end. We get double orders in when the last bell rings, and we stagger back out into the rain at around midnight. By that time, Big Edie’s lights are all out, but Little Edie’s are all on again. New baby fun times.

  Cal, although he doesn’t look like it, has consumed even more beer than I have – I suppose he just has more room to store it. Despite the fact that he could probably walk in a straight line if he tried, there’s no way he can drive, and neither can I.

  The rain is lashing down, there’s a wicked wind blowing up from the bay, and we’re two miles away from the cottages. It’s at times like this I miss living in a city, where you can just throw yourself in front of a black cab and climb in the back seat with a kebab.

  Cal is staring up into the rain, seeming to actually enjoy it as the drops splatter on to his face and pour down his neck.

  “Better get a move on, then …” he says, taking my hand and leading us towards the road out of the village. “Miles to go before we sleep, and all that.”

  I stop, and keep hold of his hand so he has to stop as well. I have had a brainwave. One of those perfect brainwaves that makes utter sense when you’re drunk.

  “We can stay at the cafe,” I say, “I have the keys, and Cherie’s kind of given me a flat to stay in … it’s only a few minutes away. At least we can dry off and wait out the rain. Plus the whole place is full of booze. And food. And records.”

  “Sounds like paradise,” he replies, grinning a white-toothed grin in the moonlight. “Come on, I’ll race ya!”

  He may have much longer legs, but I’m nippy, and willing to cheat. I know all the shortcuts, and disappear off behind the Community Hall before he’s even finished the last word of his sentence. Again, it’s one of those things that makes sense when you’re drunk – galloping along coastal paths on a dark, wet night, purely for the childish satisfaction of beating someone in a race.

  As I don’t plunge to a watery death or break my ankle, it all seems completely worth it – I reach the cafe door seconds before he does, out of puff but triumphant. I wave my arms in the air, dance around him, and chant: ‘Loser, loser, loser …’ while pointing at his face. It’s all very gracious and sporting, the stuff that Olympic ideals were built on.

  I am singing We Are The Champions by Queen as I unlock the doors to the cafe, and let us both in. It’s a relief to be out of the rain, but also eerie in here at night – the weird objects and handmade mobiles hanging from the ceiling look slightly sinister, twisting and turning in the moonlight, casting shadows on the table-tops and looking as though they’ve suddenly come to life.

  “Woah …” I say, pointing at the way the dangling seven-inch vinyl singles are rotating, “look at that! Do you think this place is haunted? Pirates? Smugglers? Jilted peasant wenches?”

  “No,” replies Cal, closing up behind him. “I think we opened the door and let a howling gale in, and that you read too many books.”

  “No such thing as reading too many books,” I say, going through to the kitchen and swiping a few cupcakes from the chilled display cabinet. They’re all made of chocolate sponge, and decorated with autumn themed toppings – golden leaves swirled in icing, fat blobby orange pumpkins, Halloween faces. Laura’s been playing again.

  I write a quick I.O.U, scrawling in lopsided letters that I’ll pay for the cakes tomorrow, and gesture for Cal to follow me up the stairs to Cherie Land.

  He emerges into the flat, and immediately grins as he looks around.

  “This is brilliant,” he says, taking in the wall hangings and pictures and weirdness. “Exactly the kind of place I’d imagine Cherie living. She’s quite the girl, isn’t she? Seems to have really bad luck with light bulbs, though …”

  “Oh! That’s on purpose. She just likes watching you changing them. Hope it doesn’t offend you to be objectified in such a terrible way.”

  “Ha! I thought something dodgy was going on … and nah, it doesn’t offend me. Being here, surrounded by all you gorgeous ladies, is a bit of a change for me. It’s mainly smelly blokes back where I live, apart from the odd wife … You’re staring at me … what’s wrong? Seen another ghost?”

  “No,” I reply, looking him up and down. “You’re dripping all over the place. Take your clothes off.”

  He pauses, and gives me a long, lazy grin that makes my tummy feel a bit funny. Or maybe that’s the cider.

  “Bit sudden, isn’t it, Zo? I mean, I got the impression you didn’t even like me much …”

  “What? Of course I like you! I’m just … I don’t know, I’m quite a private person, and you’re only here for a bit, and anyway, this is all about you and Martha, not me … and when I said take your clothes off, I meant so I could chuck them in the dryer. Don’t worry, your virtue is safe with me. I’ll go and find you something else to wear.”

  I scuttle away to the bathroom. I can feel a humdinger of a blush coming on, and don’t want to give him the satisfaction of witnessing it.

  I towel-dry my hair, and then root around on the back of the bathroom door, looking through Cherie’s vast collection of dressing gowns and lounge wear until I find one that I think will suit him perfectly. It’s Chinese silk, hot pink, and decorated with exotic flowers and neon-shaded lily pads. Luckily Cherie is a statuesque lady, so he should be able to squash into it. For myself I chose a plain black towelling affair, which, when I shimmy out of my soggy clothes and into it, comes down to my ankles and flows over my wrists. I look like one of those Jawas from Star Wars.

  By the time I come out, after a quick red-cheek check in the mirror, Cal is bare down to his white jersey boxers, and loading his clothes into the dryer. I pause to appreciate the view as he leans forward over the machine, then tear my eyes away – I’ll be blushing again if I let my mind wander. I shove the Chinese gown into his hands, and add my leggings and top to the laundry.

  He raises one eyebrow at the pink robe, but mercifully puts it on. I laugh immediately – it falls to his knees, but his brawny arms poke through about four inches lower than the sleeves, straining the material as he tries to wrap it around his chest.

  “Whaddaya think?” he asks, giving me a twirl.

  I trip over my own dressing gown on the way through to the living room, which kind of serves me right, and reply: “Gorgeous. It’s definitely your colour. Cake?”

  He follows, and we settle down to give in to our munchies. The cakes are, obviously, divine, and Cal has also rooted out a bottle of brandy. I sit cross-legged on the bed, carefully arranging the folds of the robe so that everything is covered, and he sprawls on the sofa, slightly less covered. I take pity on him, and throw him a blanket – I don’t need to be looking at that, thank you very much. The dusting of fair hair on the bronzed skin of his chest i
s way too distracting.

  My phone pings, and when I check it, I see a message from Martha. I’d texted her earlier saying I was very proud of her, and she’s replied: “I am printing this out and getting it laminated to use in future arguments.”

  I giggle, more than it merits due to alcohol and nerves, and sip my brandy. It fills me with instant warmth, and I bless the Gods of Serendipity that brought Cherie Moon into my life.

  “So,” says Cal, as ever looking a lot more relaxed than me, “alone at last. Talk to me.”

  “About what?” I ask, hoping he doesn’t say world politics or climate change.

  “Talk to me about Kate. Your version of Kate. Tell me what she was like.”

  I pause. Drink some more. Fidget with my dressing gown. Lean over to the record player and put on the album I’d been listening to yesterday: the appropriately titled Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. We’d always loved this one, Kate and I – singing along to each other about how we were just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.

  He’s right, of course. I do have my own version of Kate. My Kate wasn’t Martha’s Kate, or his Kate, and definitely not Barbara and Ron’s Kate. She was my very own crazy diamond, and I’d give anything for her to still be shining.

  So, I talk. I tell him about my Kate. I tell him about the day we met in primary school. About the way we grew up together – teenaged years, boy crushes, layers of make-up over our spots, sneaking glugs of Barbara and Ron’s whisky and topping up the bottle with water.

  Her, desperate to break free from their benign dictatorship, stifled by their rules and regulations. Me, wounded by a lack of rules and regulations – nobody caring enough to bother telling me what to do. Us meeting somewhere in the middle, creating our very own safe ground.

  Going to gigs and crashing festivals and nights in The Dump and being on first-name terms with club bouncers all over the city. Kate passing her driving test and us taking her ancient old Mini on a camping trip around Wales. Her going to Uni and me visiting most weekends. Endless nights on the beach near Aberystwyth, smoking weed and spotting whales in the moonlight.

  The way she worried about me when she went travelling for a month, just after I’d started working in the book shop. The postcards and late night phone calls and me meeting her at the airport when she came home, her hair bleached blonde by the sun, her toenails neon pink in grimy sandals, rucksack full of memories.

  Finding out she was pregnant, and spending the next hour laughing hysterically at the thought of either of us ever being mature enough to raise a child. Martha being born, and our lives changing overnight: a house, a mortgage, a proper job, family holidays. Listening to music in the kitchen, getting drunk in the house instead of the pub, dancing to Pulp and the Stone Roses while Martha slept.

  Her coping with the Barbara and Ron Effect and the ways they screwed her up; me coping with the No Good Parents Effect and the ways that screwed me up; both of us determined to screw up Martha as little as we possibly could.

  Life, moving on. Quieter in some ways, louder in others. Always together, always ready to deal with whatever got thrown our way.

  Until the day she turned up on my doorstep pale and shaking, like a ghost that had seen a ghost. The day we got thrown the world’s crappiest curve ball. The day she found the lump. The rapid-fire succession of GP-hospital-operation-chemo. The way she fought, the way she raged. The way she finally accepted, with far more grace and calm than I did. The day she died. Me by her side, Martha next to me, Barbara and Ron at the end of the bed, hovering, uncertain, broken and embarrassed at their loss of control, not knowing what to do or how to act.

  She’d been quiet, eased into silence by drugs and kind hospice staff. Just once that day, she opened her eyes. Held out her hands for me and Martha to hold. Told us she loved us, one last time. One last time before she left us all.

  I talk, and I cry, and he listens, and it feels … liberating. I can’t talk to Martha like this. I can’t talk to anyone like this, and somehow, letting it all out is releasing a giant bubble of tension and grief that I’ve been carrying around with me for so long. Focusing on Martha, on her life and her pain, squashing my own down and hoping that it might just go away. It hasn’t gone away. It probably never will.

  At some point, Cal comes over to the bed. He holds me in his arms, and strokes my hair, and kisses my forehead. We lie down, and he comforts me while I sob, and eventually, exhausted, we fall sleep beneath the tie-dye sheets.

  Two lost souls.

  Chapter 25

  When I wake up, he’s in the kitchen. I can smell fresh coffee brewing, and hear bacon sizzling, and the sounds of toast popping from the machine. He has the radio on, very low, and is singing along to Lionel Richie’s Hello.

  I lie for a moment with one arm thrown over my face, unable to move. I have a hangover. My eyes are glued together and sore from all the crying. There is daylight pouring through the skylight, and I don’t like it. The sound of rain clattering against the glass heralds the start of another beautiful day.

  I groan and sit upright. My clothes from last night are neatly folded in a small pile on the sofa, and a glass of water is next to me on the table. Cal is clearly a man capable of looking after himself, and has kindly decided to extend that capability to include me this morning.

  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. My first instinct is resentment, but I recognise that one as an old enemy: the ‘I-don’t-need-anyone’ bullshit that I hid behind for years. The bullshit that comes across as me being bossy and independent, but is actually more about me being scared – scared that if I let anybody get too close, they’ll let me down. They’ll get caught selling knock-off video games in the market and get sent to prison; they’ll decide there’s no room for me in their home and send me to a new foster carer; they’ll get diagnosed with terminal cancer and die.

  Cal sees that I am awake, or at least doing a good imitation of it, and walks into the room with two steaming mugs in his hand.

  “Hell-oooo!” he croons, in a bad mock-Lionel, “is it tea you’re looking for?”

  I moan, and reply: “Please tell me it’s coffee instead!”

  “It is,” he answers, laying the mugs down on the table. “It just didn’t fit the rhyme as well, so I adapted.”

  He’s fully dressed in his jeans and shirt, and his hair looks damp from an early-morning shower. Unlike me, he seems to bear no physical evidence of the night before. I try not to hate him for it.

  “So,” he says, smiling at me, speaking gently to avoid hurting my aching brain, “I suspect we may have had a little bit too much to drink last night.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Captain Hindsight,” I reply, sipping my coffee and hoping for a miracle. I tell myself that I’ve had hangovers before, far worse than this one. This one is just a whippersnapper of a hangover – I just need to pop a few pills, drink more coffee, go for a walk in the fresh sea air, and possibly amputate my own head. Then I’ll be absolutely fine.

  “What time is it? Is Martha all right?” I ask, as some of the fuzz starts to clear. Aaaah, coffee.

  “She’s fine. Called us dirty stop-outs, and seemed quite happy not to be the one behaving irresponsibly for a change. And it’s half eight. I’m off to help Frank around the farm – need to keep my hand in, don’t want to be turning into a city slicker …”

  “It’s Budbury. Population less than 400. One bus stop. I don’t think you’re in any danger.”

  “Well, by my standards, that’s a bustling metropolis, love. I’ve made you a bacon butty to help with your recovery, and now I know you’re alive, I’ll be off. How … how are you feeling, after last night?”

  I have a brief and fleeting moment of panic when he says that – what does he mean, after last night? Did something happen that I don’t remember? Was there more than consolation and sleep going on under the tie-dye? Surely, I’d know…

  He sees the look on my face, and correctly interprets it.

  “I mean after ou
r talk,” he adds quickly, grinning. “Don’t worry. I couldn’t have penetrated that dressing gown even if I’d tried. It was like sleeping next to the giant marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.”

  Phew. Small mercies. I mean, I’ve not had sex for a year and a half, since an equally drunken encounter with a bloke with a green mohawk I met at a booksellers’ convention. It would have been a shame to not even remember.

  I nod, gratefully, and think about how to answer that question. How do I feel? Apart from physically hideous, that is.

  “I feel … all right,” I reply, cautiously, as though trying it on for size. “I think it did me good. I needed to talk about her – to remember her. She was the most important person in my life, apart from Martha, and I’ve been so busy trying not to lose the plot, I suppose it had all been building up inside me. I never want to upset Martha by bringing the subject up, and neither does she, so we both tiptoe around it. So … thank you. Thank you for asking about her, and thank you for listening, and most of all thank you for the coffee.”

  He smiles, nods, and stands up. He’s so tall his head grazes the slope of the attic roof. He leans down and lays a gentle kiss on my curls, and grabs his hat.

  “Good. Eat your breakfast before it goes cold. I’ll see you later. I have a hot date with a heifer.”

  As soon as I hear the door close behind him, I drag myself out of bed, still wrapped up in the mighty towelling force field of Cherie’s dressing gown, and stagger through to the kitchen. I lean up against the counter, and eat the sandwich. Not only is it perfectly cooked, but Cal has washed all the dishes, put the milk away, and stashed the brandy back in the booze cupboard. Damn him. He’s just too perfect.

  After a shower, a couple of emergency ibuprofen from my bag, and some fun times hopping round on one leg while I try and put my leggings on, I check all the lights and switches are off and head back downstairs to the cafe.