Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café

by Debbie Johnson

  The thoughts are coming thick and fast, and it opens up a whole new world of opportunity. I’ve loved my time here – but I’ve missed my job as well. What if I could combine the best of both worlds? What if we could stay? What if February didn’t have to be the end?

  I feel excited, and nervous, and scared. It’s a big change. I’d have to talk to Martha about it, see what she thought. I glance across at her, and see that she is lying on the ground, making snow angels in her Postman Pat onesie, screeching with laughter as Nate gets his revenge by pelting her with snowballs. She looks and sounds so happy – but would she want to stay? Without Cal? I have no idea.

  “I’ll leave you with that food for thought,” says Cherie, dragging me out of my dream world. I realise that I’ve been completely silent, not responding at all, and splutter my apologies.

  “Yes, thank you, Cherie … I’ll definitely think about it,” I say, as she moves off to chat to her holiday tenants.

  The tenants look happy but confused, and I can see why. There is an air of controlled madness out on the green, between the kids and the dogs and weirdness of having a barbecue in the snow and the fact that both Little Edie and Big Edie are dressed as elves. Matt is doing a second round with more Champagne, and Katie actually looks relaxed for once, as little Saul helps Lizzie to roll up the body of what might end up being the world’s biggest snowman.

  Becca strolls towards me, cradling Little Edie in her arms, hardly any of the actual baby visible between the dangling green elf hat, the pointy green elf shoes, and the seven-inch thick clothing she’s wearing between them. Her eyes – Sam’s shade of dazzling blue – are open and alert, her tiny face creased into the cutest smile as she gazes up at me.

  “Wow. She’s a complete heart-breaker,” I say, holding out one gloved finger for Little Edie to grab on to.

  “I know,” replies Becca, grinning. “I say this with absolutely no bias as her mother, but I don’t think a more beautiful baby ever graced planet Earth. How are you holding up? With all this … Christmas?”

  She kind of sneers a bit as she says it, and I am reminded that this is very much not her favourite time of year.

  “Okay,” I reply, steadily. “I mean, it’s Christmas – what’s not to like?”

  “I’ll write you a list,” she answers. “One day. When I have time. But … I suppose it’s not too bad. In fact certain aspects of it are pretty amazing. This time last year, I had no idea what was going on in my life. Now here I am – all loved up and playing mama bear. Never would have predicted that one. But hey … things have a habit of sneaking up on you sometimes, don’t they?”

  As she says this, Cal promptly sneaks up behind me, grabbing me into a bear hug and making me squeal. Becca laughs, in a slightly evil way, having obviously watched him tiptoeing towards me for the last few seconds.

  I deliver a swift slap across the head to Cal, and only refrain from dishing out the same to Becca because she’s holding the most beautiful baby that ever graced planet Earth. I scowl at her instead, and she scuttles off, still giggling.

  Cal wraps his arm around my shoulder, and squeezes me into him.

  “Good day, isn’t it?” he says, dropping a kiss onto the top of my curls. “Even without the sunshine or the beach. Don’t think I’ll have enough stuff to go round this lot, but Laura says she’ll bring out turkey sandwiches if anyone gets hungry.”

  Of course she will, I think. She’s probably planned for the feeding of the festive five thousand already.

  “It is a good day,” I say, liking the feel of his solid mass next to me. He’s second only to Cherie on the hug front, is Cal. “And your daughter seems to be enjoying herself as well. I wonder how Peter’s getting on …”

  “He’s doing great,” replies Cal, as we stand and watch as Martha clambers up, dusts the snow off her legs, and heads towards us. “Sent me a photo earlier, of him holding his little niece. So far, so good.”

  Martha strides through the now churned-up snow in our direction, just as Cal dashes off to deal with a small barbecue emergency. It seems to have set on fire. So much for his native skills.

  “You okay?” I ask, as Martha performs an elegant skid, stopping right next to me. Her pale cheeks are streaked with pink, her black hair is dripping, and she seems to have forgotten to paint on her eyeliner this morning.

  “Yeah. Good. This is … all completely mad, isn’t it?” she says, holding out a gloved hand to indicate the scene in front of us. The dogs are whooping and jumping as Cal scoops charred bits of meat off the grill; Big Edie is hula-hooping in her elf outfit, and Laura and Matt are having a sneaky snog outside Black Rose. The devils.

  “Completely and utterly mad,” I reply.

  Martha pauses, and a flicker of pain ghosts across her face. She turns to me, and gives me a sad smile.

  “She’d have loved it, wouldn’t she?”

  “She would,” I answer, nodding. “But in her absence, I suppose we’ll just have to love it enough for all three of us, won’t we?”

  Chapter 35

  Cherie and Frank bring the house down. They’re dressed in matching suits and bowler hats, and have just finished a slapstick Laurel and Hardy routine that involved a lot of arse-slapping, falling over each other’s feet, accidentally knocking each other’s hats off, and comedic dancing. They both end it with a chorus of ‘that’s another fine mess you got me into’, to tumultuous applause.

  Edie, who has been set up on a mock judges’ table at the front of the space that’s been cleared in the cafe, is literally in tears of laughter. She holds up one of the Strictly-style paddles that Nate and Lizzie made her from cardboard, and gives them a Ten From Len.

  So far, she’s been a very generous judge – in fact, everyone has received a ten. I’m beginning to suspect that everyone else will as well – Edie is definitely a little on the tipsy side, and her sherry glass is never empty for long.

  Budbury’s Got Talent started at around seven pm, with Becca, who doesn’t drink, ferrying everyone over to the bay in her mum and dad’s motorhome. They’re staying at Black Rose looking after Little Edie, which is as good an excuse as any to get out of performing. I should have thought of it myself.

  We’re all sitting at tables that have been decorated with teeny-tiny Christmas trees, and there are possibly ten thousand crackers strewn around, ready to be pulled. The room has been draped with twinkling fairy lights, and the main ones switched off, so the whole place looks like a fairy tale cavern. If anyone is walking on the snow-covered beach below, it must look like something magical is happening up here on the cliff’s edge.

  Laura and Willow have set up a buffet area off to one side, trestles laden with cold meats and breads and pies and cakes and a whopping great bowl of trifle. Scrumpy Joe’s been in charge of the booze, and there is a half a cash-and-carry’s worth of beer, cider, wine, spirits and bubbly to keep us all merry and bright, as well as soft drinks for the younger crowd. Edie has her very own bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream on her judging table.

  So far, the acts have been hilarious. Scrumpy Joe, his wife Joanne, and son Josh, did a routine that involved blowing across the tops of cider bottles filled with different amounts of liquid – managing to decently replicate Silent Night in resonant puffs of air.

  Willow and her mum Lynnie, who is lucid and charming tonight, do an act that is part yoga, part acrobatics, with head-stands, hand-walking, and some scary looking moves that end with them both landing in the splits. They’re wearing matching black leotards and tights, as well as flashing cat ears – because, why not?

  Ivy Wellkettle, who I don’t know that well as I’ve luckily not had any call to visit her pharmacy, is joined on the ‘stage’ by her daughter Sophie, who is home from medical school for the holidays. The two of them perform a bizarre ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ type game, where the donkey is actually a full-size picture of the human body, and each time the pin lands, Sophie gives us an educational talk on that particular organ.

&nb
sp; Luckily they avoid any willies or boobs – it’s a rowdy crowd, not calmed any by the fact that Martha and Lizzie have tied a sprig of mistletoe to a broom handle, and are using it as a mobile device. They’re sweeping through the crowd with the Kissing Stick, as they call it, and encouraging random encounters – anything from full on snogs for Becca and Sam, enjoying their first baby-free night out together, to chaste pecks on the cheek between Edie and Matt. I knew I should have followed through on my death-to-all-mistletoe plan, and keep a careful eye on their wanderings.

  Lizzie abandons the mistletoe broom when it’s her turn to get up and perform. This one’s a bit of a family affair – Matt on guitar, Josh on bass, Nate on bongos, and Lizzie on vocals. They’ve taken pity on Laura, and given her a pair of maracas, which she shakes at completely inappropriate times throughout their show.

  The band is called The Dead Tulips, and as Lizzie is at the helm, decked out in finest Emo black, I’m expecting something with a tinge of Nirvana, or a hint of death metal. Shows what I know – instead, they launch into a fast, furious and occasionally entirely tuneless rendition of Barbie Girl by Aqua.

  Lizzie ends it with a particularly menacing ‘come on Barbie let’s go party!’, before saying ‘thank you Budbury – we were the Dead Tulips, and you’ve been a fabulous audience!’ She drops the mike like a true diva, and struts off the stage to equal amounts of laughter and applause. The rest of the band follow her off, Laura still jauntily shaking her maracas and looking relieved that it’s all over.

  Cal, sitting next to me, is creased in two with it all, as Edie combines all of her cardboard paddles and gives them every score between 1 and 10.

  Next up is Becca and Sam, who have actually changed costumes for their turn. Becca is in a slinky dress slit to the thigh, still a bit of baby belly left, but looking sexy as hell, face made up, dark hair wild and sprayed with something glittery. Sam is in a tuxedo, but with the tie hanging loose around his neck, tall and blonde and surfer supermodel handsome. Nate, in charge of what might loosely be called ‘lighting’ – it’s a big torch – creates a spotlight as they walk up.

  They strike a pose, and within seconds Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time is playing. Sam sweeps Becca into his arms, and they perform an extremely graceful and outrageously sensual dance. If I watched Strictly as much as Edie, I’d probably know the name of it, but I don’t. They swoop and whirl in and out of shapes, spinning and pausing and spinning again, ending with Becca in Sam’s arms, one long leg wrapped around his waist.

  Edie is beside herself with glee, clapping her tiny hands, on her feet applauding.

  “Oh my darlings!” she squeaks. “That was the most beautiful rumba ever! Even better than Jay and Aliona the other year!”

  “Just for you, Edie,” says Becca, giving her a cheeky wink as they return to their seats.

  Wow. That’s going to be a hard one to follow – which is a shame, as according to the set list that Cherie has chalked up on the board usually used to display the day’s specials, it’s now my turn.

  “That was hot,” whispers Cal into my ear. “I’m feeling strangely aroused …”

  “Don’t worry,” I whisper back before I get to my feet. “I have just the cure for that.”

  I walk up to the stage area, taking deep breaths as I go, and pick up the microphone from its place on Edie’s table.

  “Okay …” I say, clearing my throat nervously. “This is hard. I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I can’t act. I have very few talents, in fact – but this is one of them. I hope you enjoy it.”

  Everyone is looking at me expectantly, a sea of happy and semi-drunk faces all smiling their encouragement.

  One more deep breath, and I’m ready to go. I perform one of my very few specials – one I’ve been practicing for many years. I belch-sing the whole of Away In A Manger. Using skills I developed as a young and unpleasant child, I’ve completely mastered the art of swallowing in enough air, and expelling it in the right way, hitting just about enough of the notes for it to be recognisable as the carol.

  As I’d hoped, it makes everyone laugh – there’s really no other response to a performance like that, and before long, the guffawing sweeps the whole room like a Mexican wave of amusement.

  I nod, and drop a small curtsy, before exiting to applause, my face a fetching shade of beetroot. Edie flashes her ten paddle as I leave, which makes me strangely proud. Funnily enough, the teachers at school never used to like it that much when I did it during Christmas services. No wonder they all hated me.

  I walk back over to Cal, and raise one eyebrow.

  “Feeling less aroused now, stud?” I say, as I sit back down next to him.

  “On the contrary,” he replies, in a deep-voiced James Bond-style delivery, laying one hand on my thigh, “that was magnificent … I never knew you had such hidden talents …”

  It’s dim in our corner of the cafe, but I can see his eyes shining, and the half-smile forming, and the paler shape of the scar on his face. He’s drop-dead gorgeous, and for some reason, burping my way through a Christmas carol has left me on an adrenaline high.

  “Oh I do,” I reply, laying my hand over his. “Talents you can only imagine.”

  I say this in such an outrageously flirty voice that is so unlike me, it actually makes us both burst out laughing – which is probably for the best, all things considered. I’ve had way too much to drink, and it’s been an emotional day, and we’re both still ruffled by the rumba. I probably shouldn’t trust my judgement right now. Or possibly ever.

  “We’ll continue this discussion later,” he says, still grinning. “So hold that thought. But right now, duty calls …”

  Duty, I see, feeling bereft as he moves his hand from my body, comes in the shape of Martha. She’s not wearing the Postman Pat hoodie tonight – it is a party, after all. She’s fished out a black dress that I know was Kate’s, but is wearing it with deliberately tattered black leggings and her new boots, making it look more grunge than LBD. Her hair is pouffed up into a semi-beehive, the love child of a can of hairspray and some furious back-combing, and her eye liner is now well and truly in place. She’s wearing red lipstick, vivid against her pale skin, and she looks truly beautiful.

  She’s perched on one of the high stools that usually line up next to the cafe serving counter, holding the mike in her hand and looking not at all nervous – though I know she must be. Cal has grabbed his guitar from its case, and is jogging over to join her. He’s kind of dressed up too, in well-worn Levis and a black shirt, the belt I gave him between them.

  He sits on another stool next to Martha, and nods at her, letting her know he’s ready. I’m excited to see this – I know they’ve been rehearsing hard, and it’s got to be better than my Sing-Along-A-Belch.

  Martha holds the mike to her face, and Cal starts to strum, and it takes me a few seconds to recognise it. When I do, when I understand what I’m about to hear and see, I feel tears immediately sting the back of my eyes, and know that I am going to be helpless to resist. I grab up a napkin from the table, hoping it’s not coated in trifle – because I’m going to need it over the next few minutes.

  Cal is playing the song in a way that’s super slowed-down, an artful acoustic version, done at about half the pace of the original – but those opening chords are still uniquely recognisable as he expertly plucks the notes. The opening chords of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel.

  Martha comes in, her voice slow and pure and absolutely note perfect, drawling out the words and phrasing it in a way that has the whole crowd suddenly silent and awe-struck. The two of them work it perfectly – her singing, his playing, the power of the song itself. It’s easily the best thing we’ve seen all night, although I may be biased.

  I was right about the tears, and don’t even try to stop them. I just let them roll, let them come, let them gather in a pool at the bottom of my neck. This performance – this song, and all the memories it holds, of Kate, of Martha, of the past – deserves some tears, and
I don’t really care how soggy I get. I knew they were going to come at some point today – and this seems like the perfect moment. I’m overwhelmed: the singing, the playing, missing Kate, loving Martha, loving our new home here, even loving Cal, I admit to myself.

  I do love him, there’s no doubt about that – I’m not quite sure how I love him, but I do. He’s watching me as he plays, a gentle smile on his face, knowing the effect this is having, concentrating on what he’s doing but also on me. I try and smile back, but it’s a crooked thing.

  They play on, and in an obviously rehearsed move, when she gets to a certain line, Nate turns the spotlight of the torch onto me, and everyone’s eyes follow it.

  “Hot tramp,” she sings, slowly, achingly, pointing at me in exactly the same way we did that night in The Dump, seven hundred years ago, “I love you so …”

  Cal picks up the famous guitar riff from there, and Nate mercifully moves the spotlight away again. I see, as it wanders over the faces in the room, that I’m not the only one crying. Not the only one moved by this. Laura has given into it completely, leaning her head on Matt’s shoulder and weeping; Becca is holding her face in her hands and blinking away tears; Cherie is spellbound, her face damp and shining, gripping Frank’s hand in hers.

  Well done Martha, I think – you’ve reduced the entirety of Budbury to emotional rubble. I almost laugh – almost, but not quite. I’m still flooded with emotion, and don’t really know where to put it all. I’m sad and happy at the same time; proud and moved and raw. Mainly, though, I feel lucky – lucky to be here, with these people, with Cal and Martha. To have them in my life. To enjoy the privilege of being Martha’s fake mother, and Cal’s friend, and of carrying Kate’s memory with me.