Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café

by Debbie Johnson

  The snow has turned to grey, sleety rain, and I can hear it slapping away on the windows, as though it’s a monster trying to batter its way in. I’m lying in bed, listening to it, trying to persuade myself to drift off to sleep, when someone thumps on the door. I ignore it – it’s probably a drunk person, and I’m in no state to deal with a drunk person.

  I clench my eyes shut, as though that will somehow stop me from hearing, as the thumping comes again. I continue to ignore it, and hear swearing as well. Then the sound of a car door opening and slamming again, and some commotion across the road. Drunk people, like I thought.

  A few minutes later, the drunk person seems to have somehow found a key to my flat, and I sit up in alarm as I hear the door scraping open. I jump to my feet, ready to rock, and grab up a hefty hardback copy of the Oxford English Dictionary to protect myself with – words can definitely be mightier than the sword.

  I have it lifted in the air and ready to swing when the door opens, and Cal walks in. He takes one look at me – at the dictionary, at the aggressive stance, at the expression on my face – and immediately backs up, holding his hands in front of him in surrender.

  “Hey! It’s just me … take it easy, Zoe …”

  I let out a big puff of air, and lower my arm. Part of me would still quite like to whack him across the head with a dictionary, but I don’t. I put it down on the bed, and arrange my face into something more neutral. Something less damaged.

  He’s in the room now, making it feel small and crowded, which I don’t like. He’s forgotten his usual cowboy hat, and is soaking wet – presumably from traipsing around in the sleet outside. His hair is trailing rain down his neck, and his white T-shirt is moulded to his body in a way that very unfairly makes me feel vaguely lustful.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, stamping down on the vaguely lustful and performing that artfully British task of distracting myself by putting the kettle on. Again. “And where’s Martha? Is she all right?”

  He strides over, takes the kettle out of my hands, and places it out of reach. He turns me around so I’m forced to face him, and stares into my eyes as he talks.

  “She’s over at Kate’s house. She gave me the spare key, and she’s waiting there – she knew exactly where you’d be.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’m very predictable … why are you here, though? I told you both I’d be back tomorrow. I told you both I was fine.”

  “You did. And we both knew that was bullshit. What’s going on? Why did you run away? And how do you live in a place this small – it’s like being in a hobbit hole!”

  I feel strangely insulted at this comment, and snap back: “Well it’s perfect for me! I never asked you to come here, being all tall and big and filling the place up – bugger off back to Budbury whenever you feel like it!”

  “Not,” he replies, taking hold of my hand and pulling me over to the bed, where he sits us both down, “until you tell me what’s going on. You disappeared without a word of goodbye. You send us some nonsense texts about needing to cool down. And you look like shit. I don’t believe for a minute that all of this is because of what happened with us last night … so stop lying, and tell me what the problem is. We’ve both been worried sick about you.”

  He sounds angry now, but is still speaking quietly and slowly, as though he’s trying to control himself and not go completely ballistic. He also sounds, truth be told, a bit hurt. Maybe he expected his godlike skills to have a different effect on me.

  I stay quiet, chewing my lip, and wishing he’d just go away.

  “Come on, Zo,” he says, more gently, reaching out to hold one of my hands. “It’s just me and you. No Martha. Be honest with me, for heaven’s sake – what’s wrong?”

  He’s right, I think, letting my fingers fall lifelessly in his. It is just me and him. No Martha. There’s no reason I need to carry on faking it for now – and maybe he deserves a bit of honesty. Maybe he deserves to know how much he’s hurt me, even if it does mean I sacrifice my dignity.

  “I heard you,” I say, staring straight ahead at the bookshelves. At the posters. At anything but him. This is hard enough without having to look at his face.

  “I heard you, and Martha, this morning. Talking about your plans. Talking about leaving for Australia, and living together, all right? I heard it all. And it’s fine … I get it. New start. Daddy and daughter. I understand. And as far as Martha’s concerned, I’ll appear one hundred per cent okay with it – for her sake. But I’m not. I’m not okay. I trusted you, Cal – I trusted you! And for me, that’s a bloody big deal …”

  I hear him sigh, and feel his fingers tighten around mine. He holds my face, and turns it towards his. I try and pull away, but he keeps me there – and I have no choice but to meet his eyes. Deep, dark, and sad.

  “You,” he says, shaking his head. “Are an absolute bloody idiot.”

  My eyes widen at this, and I wonder if I can grab hold of that dictionary again – I expected anger, or embarrassment, or regret. I expected him to apologise, or feel guilty, or explain. What I didn’t expect was to be called a bloody idiot, and I don’t like it. I open my mouth to snap something back at him, but before I can, he starts speaking again.

  “No! Just be quiet, and listen, will you, woman? So, you heard us talking this morning, assumed the worst, and did a runner? Without giving either of us the chance to explain? Is that about the size of it?”

  “What is there to explain?” I say, voice high and desperate. “You’re both leaving on the third. She’s going to Australia. You’re going to be living together. You’re both worried about breaking the news to me. And you want her to call you Dad …”

  He actually laughs out loud at this point, which again is unexpected. I’m now as confused as I am upset, and none of that is helped by the fact that he kisses me, quick and hard, a brief encounter that’s over almost as soon as it’s begun. He reaches out, tucks stray hair behind my ear, and trails his fingers over my face – he strokes them beneath my eyes, sore from crying, and sighs deeply.

  “Like I said,” he continues, “you’re a complete bloody idiot. You only heard half the conversation, Zoe. Yes, Martha’s coming back with me on the third. She’s coming back with me for two weeks, while I sort my life out, and put my affairs in order. Say goodbye to my parents, pack up my stuff, and move back here. And yes, we’re hoping to live together – in Budbury, with you, you daft cow. Frank’s offered me a permanent job, managing the far, so he and Cherie can finally retire.”

  I blink at him, unsteadily, not quite able to compute what I’m hearing.

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?” I splutter, frowning in confusion.

  “Because I needed to talk to Martha first, see if she wanted her old dad to stick around or not. And then I needed to talk to you – which I was planning to do last night, but … well, we kind of got distracted with other stuff instead, didn’t we?”

  Predictably enough, I go red at that comment – which is nice, as it means my skin is now colour coordinated to match my eyes. I nod. Yes. We did indeed get distracted.

  “But why were you so worried about telling me? If she was just coming with you for a holiday?” I ask, still struggling to keep up.

  “Because it’ll be during term-time. She’s due back in college on the fifth, and thought you’d go bananas about her missing school. That simple. I can’t believe you thought we’d do that to you … you really do have trust issues, don’t you? So you’ve been here, all day, convinced that we were both dumping you?”

  I nod, miserably, trembling with emotion. I just don’t know how to react – I’d become so firmly rooted in my own sense of betrayal, so ready to think the worst, that I have nothing much left in the tank.

  He puts his arm around my shoulder, and squeezes me into his chest. One hand strokes my hair, and he holds me steady and quiet for a few moments.

  “Nothing to say?” he asks, eventually. “Run out of words? This is a first …”

  I clutch
onto his T-shirt, and lay a single kiss on his chest, and raise my face to look at him. He’s worth looking at, this man – but somehow, looking at him and knowing he’s staying is even more scary than looking at him knowing he’s leaving. Wow. I really am a mess.

  “I’m … sorry,” I say, placing my hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you the chance to explain. Force of habit. I suppose I was … freaked out. By me and you being friends. By me and you being more than friends. By everything, really. I shouldn’t have run. I was coming back, honestly – but I shouldn’t have run.”

  “That’s okay,” he replies, looking at me searchingly. “I forgive you, and I think you’ve had a miserable enough day torturing yourself without me adding to it. But … you still haven’t said how you feel. What you think. About me staying. It’s not just Martha’s opinion that counts, and it’s not just Martha I’m staying for … it’s you, Zoe.

  “I told you your heart would be safe with me, and I meant it. I love Martha, and I love you. I think we’ve got something special here, but I need to know that you feel the same … I need to know that I’m not the only one who thinks this is special.”

  I close my eyes, and breathe. Deeply. Cal has just told me he loves me. And I know I feel the same. The sudden switch from misery to elation has left me dizzy, and my heart is thumping so hard I can almost hear it. I’ve spent the whole day disgusted at myself for trusting this man – for allowing myself to hope – and that isn’t so easy to set aside.

  Not easy – but not impossible. I might have trust issues, but I’m not a complete loss. I look up at him, and smile. I let my fingers tangle up in his hair, and touch my lips briefly to his.

  “I love you too,” I finally say. “And I very much want you to stay. I’m terrified, but I really do want you to. More than anything. Now kiss me, properly, before we go and see Martha.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he replies, grinning. And he does, in his very own godlike way.

  Chapter 39

  Cal uses his keys to let us back into Kate’s house, and I falter slightly on the doorstep. I smell the pine-fresh aroma of cleaning products, and see the almost unnatural neatness and tidiness that Barbara’s visits have left behind. But that’s not all I see.

  I see Kate cooking in the kitchen, me sipping wine as she stir-fries; I see me and Kate on the patio, laughing and putting the world to rights. I see us with Martha, sprawled on the sofas, watching TV and eating popcorn. I see her hanging her coat up, and I see her on the phone, and I see her having a sneaky post-work nap in the big armchair.

  I see her everywhere – and I see her nowhere.

  Cal sees my reaction, and takes me into his arms. He murmurs kind words, and holds me tight, and slowly the world sets itself straight again. I breathe in the smell of him, and let my fingers enjoy the feel of him, and I pull myself together. If coming back here has affected me so strongly, then it’s probably even worse for Martha.

  I slowly pull myself out of his embrace, and smile.

  “I’m okay. Just … well. Let’s call it culture shock. I’ll go and find her – give us a few minutes?”

  He nods, and starts to prowl around the living room. This must be so strange for him – the first time he’s ever been in Kate’s home; the home that his daughter grew up in. Before I head up the stairs in search of the small evil princess, I make time to kiss him again.

  “Thank you,” I say, stroking his still-damp hair. “And I love you.”

  Those words have never come particularly easily from my lips, but I’d better get used to it – because it’s so worth it to see the look on his face. I follow up with a wink, and then trot up the stairs.

  I pause outside Martha’s room, take a deep breath, and push it open, fully prepared to receive a pillow in the face or a screaming mouthful of abuse. I kind of deserve it, and am willing to accept my fate.

  Huh, I think, as I edge nervously into the room – she’s not actually there. Her bed is perfectly made, her duvet cover replaced with something insanely pink – thank you Barbara – and all of her left-behind possessions have been tidied, dusted and arranged on shelves.

  I close the door behind me, and stand on the landing, gathering myself together. I know where she is – it’s just going to be hard to deal with. Maybe Barbara’s been in there as well, and sanitised it all. Maybe redecorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper, wound up the hair straightener cord, thrown all the old perfume bottles away…

  I turn the handle, and force myself to go inside. As soon as I do, I know that even Barbara’s brutal approach hasn’t stretched this far. She’s left it exactly as it was – only the fact that it’s been dusted showing that she’s been here at all. The curtains are open, and the streetlight shines through, streaks of sleet striping through it, casting dancing shadows on Martha’s face.

  She’s lying on the bed curled up around her mum’s old pillow, wearing the Glastonbury hoodie, black hair scattered on white linen. She barely moves as I come in, and certainly doesn’t acknowledge me verbally.

  I climb onto the bed, and wrap my arms around her. She stiffens slightly, but doesn’t perform any karate chops or scream.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I say, whispering into her ear. “Didn’t mean to upset you. I was always coming back, you know that don’t you? I was always coming back. I’d never leave you.”

  She sniffs a little, and uses my sleeve to wipe her nose. Nice.

  “But you kind of did. Leave me. And I know I’m being a drama queen, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. And neither was Cal. Has he told you? About me going to stay with him for a bit, then him coming back here to stay?”

  I nod, and stroke her hair. Her eyeliner is smeared, unsurprisingly.

  “He has. He says Frank’s offered him a job. How do you feel, about him moving here permanently?”

  “I was feeling great about it,” she replies, then nudges me in the ribs. Medium strength. “Until you did a runner. Why did you go, without even telling us?”

  I suck in some air as I ponder how to reply to that one. She doesn’t know I overheard that whole conversation and jumped to the wrong conclusions. I could get away with blagging this one…

  “I was a knob,” I say, instead. The time for blagging has passed. We all need to start being more honest, no matter how hard it is. “I accidentally heard you two talking about flying away back to Australia, and thought you’d decided to go with him for good. It upset me, and I didn’t want you to have to see me freaking out.”

  Her eyes widen in surprise, and she frowns as she obviously tries to recall the exact words that were spoken between them earlier in the day. As she replays the conversation, seeing it from my perspective, her confusion clears.

  “Okay. Yeah. I can see how that could happen. Why you’d think that. So, basically, we’ve both been freaking out because we thought the other one was leaving us?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” I say, sadly.

  “What a pair of losers. I suppose it’s natural enough, though … we both feel like we got left behind, don’t we? Even though mum didn’t want to go, she did. So maybe we can forgive ourselves for being losers every now and then.”

  I squeeze her tight, and she pretends to gasp for air until I stop. Wise beyond her years right now, this girl – and so incredibly precious.

  “I can if you can. And Martha? I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

  She nods, and replies: “Me neither. Well … not until uni. Then I’ll be off like a shot. What about Cal? Are you okay with all that? I mean, you seemed pretty okay when you were under that mistletoe …”

  I laugh, and reassure her that I am one hundred per cent definitely okay with Cal and ‘all that.’ I tell her about Cherie’s offer of a job at the Brilliant Book Café (which I’ve decided I will call my corner of the empire), and check she’s okay with staying at college in Budbury, and she is. More than okay with it – and like she says, it’s not that long until she’ll be off studying anyway. Maybe, by that
point, we’ll both be a lot more cool with the idea of leaving each other.

  There’s a gentle knock on the door, and Cal pops his head around to check on us both. He sees us on the bed, and smiles.

  “Room for a little one?” he asks, grinning at his own joke. He joins on the bed, scooting between us, grabbing me in one arm and Martha in the other. She splutters and pretends to object, but it’s all a show – she’s still a little girl, and has a lot of dad cuddles to catch up on.

  We lie there, like that, all three of us on Kate’s bed, for a while. We talk and we laugh and we hold each other tight, and we cling on to not only the past, but the future. For the first time, it feels like we have one – and I’m pretty sure that if Kate was here, she’d be saying ‘go for it, girls.’

  She’d smile her smile, that magical smile she had, and she’d be happy for us. For all of us.

  “Let’s spend the night here,” says Martha, looking around at her mum’s old room and maybe feeling the same about it all as I do right then.

  “And tomorrow,” she adds, “we can all go home. Together.”

  Coming Soon from Debbie Johnson

  Return to the Comfort Food Café…

  Sunshine at the Comfort Food Café

  Also by Debbie Johnson

  The A-Z of Everything

  Christmas at the Comfort Food Café

  Summer at the Comfort Food Café

  The Birthday That Changed Everything

  Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper

  Pippa’s Cornish Dream

  Cold Feet at Christmas

  About the Author

  Debbie Johnson is an award-winning author who lives and works in Liverpool, where she divides her time between writing, caring for a small tribe of children and animals, and not doing the housework. She writes romance, fantasy and crime – which is as confusing as it sounds!

  Her best-selling books for HarperCollins include The Birthday That Changed Everything, Summer at the Comfort Food Café, Christmas at the Comfort Food Café, Cold Feet at Christmas, Pippa’s Cornish Dream and Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper. Debbie’s next title is Sunshine at the Comfort Food Café, which is coming out in March 2018.