Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  In amid all of this are extremely random items, some hanging from the ceiling, some on shelves, others draped from small chains. My first sweep of the room reveals a one-man kayak in a faded shade of red; a decorated wooden boomerang; two halves of a broken oar; an old-fashioned Singer sewing machine in black and gold; a set of bongo drums; a huge, circular fossil as big as a tumble dryer’s door; a dangling mobile of what looks like papier mâché rainbows and unicorns, and another made from old seven-inch vinyl singles.

  Only one wall is free of the clutter and that’s because it’s lined with two giant bookshelves crammed full of paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines, colouring books and crayons, and board games that look like they’ve been there since my own childhood. There are several chess sets, draughts, Chinese chequers, backgammon, playing cards and dominos – as well as the likes of Ker-Plunk, Buckaroo and Frustration.

  At the far side of the room is another set of patio doors, which flood the whole place with natural light. Fingers of sunshine fall over the tables and the flowers and the strange collection of items in bright-yellow stripes, and I have to squint as I look out in that direction.

  The doors open out onto the cliff top and it looks as though a few tables and chairs have been set up there too. I wander towards it, wanting to feel the sun on my skin again, and as I get closer it feels so near to the edge that I experience a sudden rush of vertigo.

  I hold onto the doorframe and calm myself down with a few deep breaths. I realise that it was something of an optical illusion – there is easily enough space for a long bench and a few scattered tables out here – and an extremely sturdy fence is also standing between me and Certain Death. Still, I can see why nobody would bring their kids out.

  As I take a few tentative steps outside, I realise I’m not entirely alone. I jump slightly as I hear a tiny cough – the sort of clearing of the throat that people give to warn of their presence – and look to my left. There, sitting on the bench with her flip-flopped feet propped up on one of the tables, is a majestic-looking creature, who I immediately and instinctively know is Cherie Moon.

  She’s larger than life in pretty much every way – obviously tall, even though she’s sitting, with bare, brown legs that seem to stretch for miles in front of her. Her bottom spreads sumptuously over the bench and her ample bosom is exactly the kind that men dream of getting lost in. She’s wearing a flowery sundress that shows off plenty of tanned cleavage and her hair is draped over her shoulder in a thick brown-and-grey plait.

  I couldn’t possibly guess how old she is – anywhere between fifty and seventy-five, to be honest – and as soon as she smiles her whole face creasing up, she reminds me wonderfully of Ma Larkin in the Darling Buds of May. If, I think, sniffing the air, Ma Larkin had been at Woodstock.

  There’s a slight lingering smell of tobacco wafting around, so I come to the conclusion that she’s been out here for a smoke break. And as the slight lingering smell is also a tiny bit herbal, I’m not entirely sure what she’s been smoking. It’s probably not polite to ask at this stage.

  ‘You must be Laura!’ she says, standing up and towering over me exactly as I thought she would. I nod and smile back, feeling suddenly nervous and anxious and worried that she’ll take one look at me in real life and give me the sack.

  Instead, she envelops me in a huge hug that simply will not allow nerves or anxiety or tension to exist anywhere within its sphere of influence. After the initial English reaction of ‘oh-my-god-a-strange-woman-is-embracing-me’, I give in and hug her back.

  She’s such an imposing figure I struggle to make my arms meet around her waist and find my head clamped to her chest. It’s very comfortable there, and I suddenly understand – in an entirely non-sexual way – why men would find it so appealing.

  By the time she lets me go, I am feeling much better, not only about my potential employment prospects, but about life, the universe and everything. Possibly, I think, I have inhaled something my system is not quite used to, which seems to have imbued me with a sense of warmth and wellbeing.

  ‘Well,’ she says, standing back and looking me up and down, still holding my shoulders as though she might drag me back in for another cuddle at any moment. ‘Aren’t you the beauty?’

  I’m not quite sure how to react to that. Saying ‘no’ seems rude. Saying ‘yes’ seems arrogant. I settle for a humming noise that neither confirms nor denies.

  ‘Look at all that gorgeous curly hair! And those green eyes! Oh, my, you’re quite the Pre-Raphaelite, aren’t you?’

  Again, I’m not so sure what to say to this. All I can think is that Pre-Raphaelite ladies usually had red hair and mine’s dark brown. I am thankful, however, that if she is going to use art metaphors, she doesn’t go in the direction of ‘Reubenesque’ (snob code for fat), or compare me to those chubby, jolly Beryl Cook ladies. I’m not really fat at all – I’m just short, so it can look that way from certain angles.

  ‘Um … thank you?’ I say, hoping the power of speech will revisit me soon.

  ‘Where are the little ones?’ she asks, gazing through the patio doors and searching for them outside.

  ‘They’re at the back and they’re not so little,’ I reply. ‘At a guess, Nate’s standing by the barbecue drooling and Lizzie’s taking pictures.’

  ‘Oh – she likes photography, does she? You might have noticed the framed pictures in the café? My husband did those, many years ago.’

  I’m not entirely sure that posting pics of Jimbo licking his own arse online qualifies as ‘photography’, but I keep quiet on that one. Better if I unleash Lizzie bit by bit, rationing her out over the holiday period. By the time Cherie’s decided she wants to throttle her, it’ll be time to leave.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. ‘Only recently, though. Perhaps she can talk to your husband about it sometime.’

  Cherie snorts with laughter and gestures for me to walk back inside the building. I notice her using her bare foot to give a big, copper ashtray a nudge under the bench as we go – obviously its usual resting place.

  ‘She’ll need a spirit guide for that, I’m afraid, love,’ she answers, her mighty shoulders shaking in amusement. I take it from that comment that Mr Moon is with us no more, and wonder if I will ever reach the stage where I can joke about David’s death, or not cringe and die inside every time I have to explain myself to someone.

  Inside, the cool air hits me and Cherie walks towards the serving counter. She ducks underneath it with surprising suppleness for such a large lady and reaches for a blue ring-bound file.

  ‘Now,’ she says, tapping the folder with one scarlet-red nail, ‘this is your homework. I’ll give you a tour of the kitchens and all that jazz later, once you’ve had something to eat and drink, and had a chance to catch your breath. Will you be all right to start at eight to begin with? We mix the shifts up a bit and for the first few you can do them with me so we can get to know each other better. Once you’re up and running, I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Leave me to what?’ I say, frowning in confusion.

  ‘Leave you to opening up and running the café.’

  I feel momentarily dumbstruck at the thought of being left in charge of the whole place and decide that Cherie’s youthful days on tour with Janis Joplin, or whatever, must have left her a bit broken in the head.

  ‘You can do it,’ she says quietly, smiling at me. ‘I know you can. You have to trust me – I’m never wrong about these things.’

  There’s something in her tone, in her smile, in the confident way she holds her tall, strong body, which actually does make me trust her. This crazy woman, who I’ve only just met and who is entirely possibly high on more than life, somehow makes me feel that I can do it. I decide not to analyse it all to death and just smile back and nod.

  ‘Right. Good. Well, we’re usually open from eight until three in the week, and until four at the weekends. Mondays we’re closed, so that’ll always be your day off. You don�
�t have to be here all the time; we’ll work it all out together bit by bit. We need to be flexible because of Willow … did you see a girl out there? The one with the pink hair?’

  ‘Yes, she was hard to miss.’

  ‘That’s Willow. She’s like the daughter I never had, which means she’s a bloody handful! Her mum isn’t too well, so we try and fit in around her, when she can get care, that kind of thing. Is that all right with you? Nate and Lizzie are welcome to come here with you, if you don’t feel comfy leaving them at home. To be honest, they’ll probably soon make friends anyway – the kids round here tend to roam in packs; there’s not a huge amount of fleshly pleasures on offer in Budbury, so they have to make their own trouble.’

  She grins at me and I’m not sure how serious she is. I never imagined the Dorset coast was full of rebels without a cause, but I could be wrong. And Lizzie would fit right in, if only she could persuade herself to stop pretending to be so cool.

  ‘That’s all fine by me,’ I reply, gazing curiously at the blue file. ‘Flexible is my middle name.’

  ‘It’s not, though, is it?’ she asks, still grinning.

  ‘No. It’s Jane – how did you rumble me?’

  ‘I have a nose for these things, sweetheart. I’m like a human lie detector. And a human bullshit detector. I used to be a human metal detector as well, but then I had plates put in my arm after a skiing accident and I kept making myself bleep …’

  I realise that I am laughing out loud as she rambles on, which only seems to encourage her.

  ‘I’m also a human love detector,’ she continues, her warm-brown eyes now almost entirely swallowed up in the folds of her face as she laughs along.

  ‘I warn you now, Laura Flexible Walker, I can sniff out a romance a mile away.’

  ‘Well you won’t be getting a sniff of anything like that where I’m concerned,’ I answer. ‘I’m an entirely romance-free zone.’

  Cherie tips her head to one side as she inspects me, her fat plait tumbling down over one shoulder as her face tilts.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my love. A single woman is a rare find in these parts. The men tend to count their women folk back into the fold like sheep at the end of the day, there are so few of them – especially young, attractive ones like you. I think you’ll be more popular than you expect.’

  An image of Matt working – bare-chested, on his knees, down and dirty in the soil – flashes through my mind and I jump on it with both feet. Once both feet land, I stamp and stomp and squash until the thought is barely there at all. I’m slightly concerned that Cherie Moon may be a mind reader on top of everything else.

  ‘I don’t see myself as any of those things,’ I say, once I’ve stopped my mental stomp. ‘I don’t see myself as young, or attractive, or popular. And I certainly don’t see myself as single …’

  The truth of these words hits me hard as they emerge from my own mouth, as though they’re vocalising thoughts I’ve never dared acknowledge to myself before now. I’m married to the memory of a dead man, which is not how I planned to spend my thirties.

  Cherie’s smile is gentle and soft, and sympathetic. It feels strange to have shared so much, so soon, with someone I barely know.

  Maybe it’s the fact that I’m always trying to hold it together in front of my own family. Maybe the sea air has gone to my head. Maybe Cherie Moon just has that effect on people – but she feels like a safe haven. Like someone I can really talk to. Someone I can be myself with.

  ‘I know you don’t,’ she murmurs, her eyes shining. ‘But this is the Comfort Food Café, you know. And miracles can happen here.’

  Chapter 11

  I spend the whole evening doing my homework. That sounds tedious, but is vastly improved by the fact that I’m doing it while also sipping wine in our tiny back garden. I’m on a padded lounger, looking out over the hills as the sun starts to set. Everything is a heavenly mix of gold and green, and skylarks are chirruping and chirping as they rise and fall in a flurry of wings from the grass in front of me.

  It’s still warm, but there have been dire warnings – from Cherie, and from a couple of the locals I met at the café earlier – that the weather is likely to turn at some point during the next few days. I choose not to believe them and instead anticipate spending every single one of my Dorset evenings in exactly this position.

  My homework consists of the contents of the blue file I’d seen Cherie with earlier. There’s a plastic wallet full of recipes, some of them straightforward, some of them not so much, as well as some helpful pointers on kitchen maintenance – for example, ‘if the espresso machine starts to make a low-pitched hissing sound, bang the top very hard with a hammer. If it starts to make a high-pitched hissing sound, get out of the way.’

  It also contains photos of customers, scribbled notes about their preferences, and lots of asterisks and scrawled arrows that say ‘ask me for more info’, or ‘that’s a long story’, or ‘remind me to fill you in on this one’, in Cherie’s tiny, cramped handwriting.

  At the very front is an A4-sized print of some kind of fiesta, with names jotted beneath each smiling face. Now, I know my experience in the world of work is limited, but I’m fairly sure that a group shot of the clientele all wearing sombreros and brandishing glasses of tequila isn’t part of a normal first-day induction package.

  But I’m also starting to realise that ‘normal’ isn’t a word you can use in connection with the Comfort Food Café – or indeed its menu.

  There are staples on offer every day, all of which you’d expect to find in most cafés. A limited range of pasta salads, jacket spuds, soups, cakes and muffins, hot and cold drinks, ice creams, sandwiches, paninis, toasties. In other words, the usual suspects.

  Most of these won’t be a problem. I already know how to make scones and sponges, and I’m a dab hand with a blender. Either Cherie or Willow will be able to help out in the kitchen during really busy periods and during the slacker ones I’ll do the waiting on as well as the cooking.

  What is proving trickier is the fact that some of the dishes in the file are linked to specific people, with equally specific instructions about their preparation.

  Cherie’s put together a list of the ‘VIP’ customers – the ones who come in most days, or most weeks, who she clearly knows well and counts as friends. From what I saw today, high season on sunny days means lots of tourists in addition to the regulars – but the ones Cherie is most concerned with keeping happy are the ones who live nearby and who seem to go towards making up a complex patchwork quilt of a community.

  ‘They’re my family, you see, lovey,’ she’d said, once we were settled down with glasses of freshly pressed juice and ice-cream sundaes, ‘and I’m kind of like their mother hen. Some of these people come here every day. Some of them have nowhere else to go and nobody else to talk to – it’s not just about filling their bellies, it’s about giving them a bit of company. A cheery word or two. Listening when they want to talk, backing off when they don’t.

  ‘Sometimes they might only be here for a fresh cuppa and a slice of carrot cake – but other times … well, other times, they’ll have the weight of the world on their shoulders and it’s our job to take some of that weight away from them, even if it’s only for a minute or two. When they walk back down that hill, I want them to feel better than when they walked up it. That goes for all my customers – but especially this little lot. You take tonight to get acquainted, then we can meet up tomorrow and go through it all a bit more. You’ll probably have questions, I reckon.’

  She was right, I think, laying the file down on my lap and taking another sip of chilled rosé. I definitely have questions. Like what have I got myself into? And how am I going to remember all of this? I’m not always up to even making myself feel better, and am slightly daunted at the prospect of now being responsible for the wellbeing of what seems like an entire village.

  Jimbo is snoring at my feet and the kids are off roaming around smoking crack or p
laying air hockey or something. Nate’s new little footballing friend is here for the whole week, which means he’s sorted, and Lizzie met a group of other kids her age at the café earlier. A few of them – with Cherie’s permission – have come round this evening, and the last time I saw them they were heading for the swimming pool. Both of my offspring have loyally promised not to leave the Rockery, so for now I have only myself to worry about.

  That, I decide, getting up and realising I am slightly wobbly due to drinking half a bottle of wine on my own, is probably more than enough.

  I walk back into the house and pull together a tray of sandwiches for me, the kids and anyone else who happens to pass by. Nobody needs a big dinner. We were all well and truly stuffed full of food at the café at lunchtime – barbecue, fresh salad, home-baked breads and lashings of ice cream. I was quite tempted to roll down the hill and back to the car park like a giant egg, but was scared in case I accidentally toppled off the cliff.

  The kids had a really good time there. I could tell that Nate did, because he laughed a lot and said things like ‘I’m having a really good time’. And I could tell that Lizzie did because she also laughed a lot, but only when she thought I wasn’t looking. Seeing her sitting on one of the slanting wooden benches, sun glinting off her golden hair, tentatively chatting to a gang of other teenagers, was one of the better moments I’d had in the last twenty-four hours.

  None of them looked like they had gang tattoos – at least nowhere visible – and only a couple had piercings, which is kind of par for the course these days, isn’t it? From what I’ve seen, you’re actually more alternative if you don’t have a piercing or ink. Anyway, she looked happy and that was enough for now.

  I’d met Willow, the girl with the pink hair, and been introduced to several other people whose names I didn’t remember. I could only hope that eventually, after memorising the file and actually doing the job, I’d start to process things a bit better.

  Just as we were about to leave, Matt had turned up. I felt incomprehensibly embarrassed when I saw him emerge at the top of the steps, spotting him way before he saw me.