A few of Lizzie’s new friends have younger siblings, so Nate has people to play with too, and even when they are just trying to look cool, they’re generally doing it in the fresh air rather than in a deep, dark dungeon full of flashing video games and beeping noises.
I’m not making out it’s as straightforward as City Bad and Countryside Good, because I’m not enough of an idiot to think life here, outside the glories of the summer season where the weather is fine and tourists are spending, is easy. But for the kids, it seems a lot simpler.
Now, after being convinced she was going to die of boredom, Lizzie is blossoming, and I can’t describe how happy that makes me feel.
Happy, however, doesn’t apply to the way my body feels as I ease myself down onto the sofa and reach for the phone. I’ve not properly spoken to Becca for days, despite the odd text, and have promised her that I’ll ring tonight. I’m half looking forward to it, half wanting to pretend I forgot.
‘Hello?’ I say, as she picks up. There is loud music in the background and the sound of laughter. I’m hoping she’s having an impromptu house party and I can get off lightly.
‘Hey, sis!’ she says, obviously walking away from the source of the noise as it gets quieter. I hear a door close and the background shenanigans fade to a manageable hum.
‘Are you having a party?’ I ask, needlessly.
‘Kind of. Just a few of the guys – we thought we’d drop some acid and watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, see just how weird it actually gets.’
‘Really?’ I ask, hoping she’s joking. Also wondering if she means the original, or the definitely-more-scary Johnny Depp version. I wouldn’t fancy seeing that evil dentist while I was on hallucinogens.
‘Nah,’ she replies. ‘Just having a pizza with the girls. We might watch Spice World later, though, which is pretty trippy. So, how’s you? I like the look of that Cherie woman, and what’s going on with you and the old farmer dude? Have you dumped Matt the Hot Vet for him? And those lemon drizzle loaves looked amazing, I could practically smell them from here …’
Ah. Instagram strikes again. I wonder why I even bother communicating with words when Lizzie seems perfectly capable of doing it in pictures.
‘Farmer Frank is almost eighty,’ I answer.
‘And? Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.’
Frank is still a handsome man, fit as a whippet, but I shudder slightly at the thought of ‘trying it’.
‘Plus he’s gay,’ I add, in the vain hope that it will shut her up.
‘What?? No way! Lizzie didn’t put that on her captions!’
‘Because I just made it up to stop you encouraging me to shag someone older than granddad. I have no idea if he’s gay or not, but the fact that he was married for donkeys’ years suggests otherwise.’
‘It could have been a lavender marriage. He could be the only gay in the village, for all you know.’
‘Well, it is a small village, Becca, so maybe. I’ve not done a sexual orientation survey yet so I can’t say for sure.’
Becca is quiet for a moment and I realise she is looking through Lizzie’s photo collection. I’m used to this now and don’t freak out at all. Much.
‘So, who else have you met? There’s a photo here of you sitting with a middle-aged woman who has helmet hair – you know, like one of those Playmobil people? In fact, there are lots of pictures of you sitting down chatting to people. Are you sure you actually work there? Have you secretly been fired and now you’re just hanging around in an embarrassingly needy way, scaring the locals?’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, and no. It’s difficult to explain … Cherie, well, she’s unusual. I suspect she sneaks outside for a spliff every now and then, for a start.’
‘I like her already.’
‘I thought you would. Anyway, that’s not the only way she’s unusual. She seems to run the café as much for the people as for any profit. I don’t know if she’s even bothered about money – nobody is entirely sure about her past, but she seems to own both the café and the Rockery and she never does that usual small-business-owner thing of fretting when the place is quiet or moaning about the taxman.
‘She welcomes the tourists, but she also has this little group of locals … her VIPs, she calls them. I don’t know all their stories – that’s a work in progress – but I do know what they like to eat. That’s why it’s called the Comfort Food Café.’
‘I’m not sure I get it. It’ll be the acid kicking in. Doesn’t the name just mean they serve nice cake?’ she asks.
‘No. Well, we do serve nice cake. But each of these people has their own version of comfort food, and it’s very often not even on the menu. She keeps it all in stock, though, so they can always have what they want. And each of their comfort meals seems to have a story that goes with it. Like Farmer Frank, the hot old bloke – almost-burnt bacon butty, white bread and tea so strong a builder would think twice. Every day, for his breakfast – the same breakfast he’s had ever since he got married.
‘His wife died a while back, after they’d been married for, like, forty-six years. So now he has it at the Comfort Food Café instead. And the lady with the Playmobil hair? That’s Ivy Wellkettle.’
‘She is NOT called Ivy Wellkettle!’
‘She is, honest. Well, she runs the local pharmacy and she’s so nice. Dead quiet, really reserved, obviously clever. But she’s also a bit sad because she’s been a single mum ever since her daughter Sophie was born and now Sophie’s gone off to Durham to study medicine. It’s the hols, but the daughter’s off backpacking for a month with her new mates now. She never says it, but you can tell Ivy’s lonely. She talks about Sophie all the time, her whole world literally revolves around her – and now she’s gone, she still eats their favourite lunch, the one they used to eat together when Sophie was a kid.’
‘She’s a pharmacist, so I’m guessing something healthy?’ asks Becca, sounding genuinely interested.
‘No. Fishfinger butties. Cherie always has a few boxes of Captain Birdseye’s finest in the freezer just for Ivy. And Pot Noodles for Surfer Sam.’
‘Okay, now I think you’re winding me up. Surfer Sam? That sounds like a kids’ cartoon about a lovable slacker!’
‘Yeah. I know. I only met him yesterday. You should see if he’s on the pics, though I’m not sure Lizzie’s aware of him yet. He’s not actually a surfer – not a professional one anyway – but he kind of looks like one. You’d like him. He’s a coastal ranger or something, really outdoorsy, dead funny.’
‘What does he look like? Can’t see any photos … I’ll have to put a special request in …’
‘He’s a bit of a hunk, as our mother would say. Got that tall, lean thing going on that you always seem to go for. Anyway, his comfort food seems to be pot noodles. Chicken-and-mushroom flavour. He’s from this massive family in Ireland – he has, like, seven siblings or something – and he misses them like mad. Couldn’t wait to get away from them, but now he misses them. They used to have pot noodles for a treat every weekend, so now that’s what he has here, every Saturday.’
‘Okay,’ replies Becca, sounding amused. ‘I get it. Cherie’s like some old rock-chick mother figure for everyone? Who else have you met?’
‘Well I’ve met loads, but I don’t know all their stories. That’s why I’m sitting with people a lot on the photos. Cherie encourages me to, so I can get to know them as people, not just as orders. Like, I know that Scrumpy Joe Jones, despite his name, has a real yearning for home-made almond biscotti, which we make from scratch, but I don’t know why.
‘And I know that Edie May takes home an extra portion of everything she eats for her ‘fiancé’, although she’s got to be knocking ninety.
‘It’s all … very mysterious. The way the whole place works. Cherie seems to be universally adored, and she’s one of the most intuitive people I’ve ever met – even when complete strangers come in, she just seems to know what they want. Same with our kids – the
y came in for lunch the other day and she brought them both a jacket spud, Lizzie’s with beans, Nate’s with cheese. Which is weird, because – ‘
‘That’s what David used to make them,’ she finishes for me, sounding sadder than I do. ‘I know. That’s what they always asked for, that time when I stayed with you.’
Ah. Now I understand her tone. ‘That time I stayed with you’ is code. It’s code for a period of our lives so horrendous, so unspeakably awful, that we can’t even properly talk about it. It was about four weeks after David’s funeral and, to put it bluntly, I lost the plot.
Suddenly, just as everything was starting to get back to normal – ashes scattered, kids back at school, condolence cards taken down – I had a mini-breakdown. I woke up one day and simply couldn’t get out of bed. All I could do was stare at the ceiling and sniff the pillowcase next to me, and lie very, very still. I couldn’t even cry.
My poor children – bless them so much – didn’t know what else to do, so they called their Auntie Becca. She came round and for a week she was their mum. She was kind of my mum as well, sitting on the edge of the bed and chatting to me even when I didn’t answer; putting the TV on even though I didn’t seem to be watching; putting up with me even when I hadn’t showered for four days. Doing the school run. Cooking the tea. Having video nights with the kids to make it more fun for them. Walking Jimbo. She did it all and I will be forever grateful.
David, God love him, had many skills – but cooking was not one of them. On the occasions when I wasn’t around to make the tea, or on special events like Mother’s Day, when I was given the day ‘off’, he would always make jacket spuds. Because even he couldn’t go wrong with that. As a result, it became his signature dish – and one the kids always associated with their dad.
‘Yes,’ I reply simply. I can’t apologise to Becca for that week, not again. I had no control over it, it wasn’t a matter of choice – and I know from experience that she’ll come down on me like a ton of bricks if I even try to say thank you.
‘So. Moving on and not-so-subtly changing the subject,’ she says, ‘what about the vet? There’s a picture of you with him here. What is that? Some kind of soup? Is that his comfort food? Because that’s boring.’
‘He doesn’t seem to have a particular comfort food. He just likes things that are healthy and home-cooked. The weather’s been a bit cooler the last few days, so I’ve been experimenting with soup.’
‘You crazy bitch, you,’ she interjects. I ignore her.
‘So that one is probably Matt eating red pepper and lentil soup. Which is about as intimate as it gets, sorry to disappoint you. I did go into his cottage for a drink, though.’
‘When you say “a drink”, is that a euphemism for wild monkey sex?’
‘No. It’s a euphemism for a can of Guinness.’
‘Oh. Well. Don’t worry. In my experience, enough cans of Guinness can lead on to the wild monkey sex eventually. What’s his story, anyway? He’s gorgeous. He’s a vet. If he was on Take Me Out, everyone would leave their lights on. Why’s he single? What’s wrong with him?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with him!’ I say, and notice a certain snappish quality to my voice. I immediately regret it, as I know that Becca will notice too.
I expect her to start making some quip about me feeling protective towards him, or mocking me for caring, but instead there is just a moment’s silence.
‘Well,’ she says eventually. ‘Good. And I really don’t need to ask how the kids are doing – I can see for myself. They both look so happy. I know Lizzie was mooning over that Callum boy from her class before she left, but that all seems to have been forgotten. Who is this Josh kid anyway?’
It’s my turn for silence as I wrack my brains to remember if Lizzie has ever mentioned a ‘Callum boy’ to me before now. Nope, I decide, she definitely hasn’t. I bite back a small surge of bitterness at the fact that she’s confided in Becca and not me, and remind myself that as long as she’s telling someone, that’s all that matters.
Besides, I don’t blame her – I’m fairly sure Becca has a better understanding of normal teenage crushes than I do. I only had the one and it lasted the whole of my life.
‘Erm, he’s nice enough,’ I reply, recalling a dark-eyed, lanky sixteen-year-old who seems to wear a beanie cap twenty-four hours a day, no matter how hot it is. ‘Very polite. Eats a lot of sandwiches, doesn’t like cheese. The son of Scrumpy Joe, actually, the almond biscotti man.’
Becca laughs out loud at my descriptions, which is always worrying.
‘Have you just come across a photo of me with my face covered in raspberry jam?’ I ask, quickly, assuming the worst.
‘What? No! Why? Have you been covering your face in raspberry jam? Is it some kind of rural beauty ritual?’
‘No,’ I respond, relieved. ‘I was working on some Victoria sponges for the cake trays and I couldn’t get the jar open. We had a bit of a tussle for a while and I did that thing Dad always used to where he kind of squeezed the lid in the doorframe? Except the whole thing just exploded and … well, I’m glad it wasn’t caught on film for posterity. I never know where she’s lurking these days. It was easier when she was locked in her room reading that Morrissey autobiography you bought her.’
Becca laughs some more and I let her. Fair game.
‘No,’ she says, once she’s stopped giggling. ‘I wasn’t laughing at that – I am now, though. What I was laughing at was the fact that you seem to have started to think about everybody you meet in terms of food. Joe likes biscotti. Josh hates cheese. It’s like they’re all just taste buds on legs.’
She’s right, I think. I have started to do that – or maybe I always did. Most mums keep an extensive mental list of food likes and dislikes. There’ll always be one child who won’t eat tomatoes, or another who hates mayonnaise; and they’ll have a friend who’s allergic to nuts, and another who can’t tolerate eggs, and a husband who only likes his spuds mashed not boiled … we carry it all around with us, logged and filed for future culinary use.
Maybe Cherie’s notes are just an extension of that kind of mum logic. Which, when I think of it like that, means that my family suddenly got a whole lot bigger.
For some reason, this random leap in logic makes me happy. I chat to Becca for a few more minutes and I go to bed feeling lighthearted and optimistic and warm. My feet might ache and my back might be breaking, but for once, as I say goodnight to photographic David, I have a smile on my face.
Chapter 14
Cherie has now decided that I am more than capable of running the café by myself during its quieter periods. This means, generally speaking, early morning and later in the afternoon.
It will give her more time, she says, for ‘having lovely lie-ins’, and for planning the big annual summer party that she throws every year for Frank’s birthday – this was the origin of the Mexican tequila photos in my file, and as it’s Frank’s eightieth, it’s going to be a special one this year. I, she assures me, am completely up to the job.
That she has come to this conclusion after only ten days seems to me to be a very foolhardy and reckless way to run a business. It especially seems that way when I’ve only been in for half an hour, and already seem on the verge of blowing the whole place up.
I arrived at half-seven, reluctantly leaving Nate and Lizzie at home in bed. I feel slightly guilty about this, even though they begged me to, and promised to be really sensible and not use the cooker or have fistfights or push each other down the stairs. Lizzie, I remind myself, is fifteen soon, and Nate’s thirteenth won’t be far behind. Plus, they’re in a complex of family holiday cottages packed with responsible grown-ups, Matt is on the corner if they need urgent help, and they have a killer Labrador for protection.
There are also, I’m told sarcastically by Lizzie, these fantastic new inventions called mobile phones.
Still, I feel guilty. Also, nervous. In case one of them hurts themselves. Or someone tries to break in. Or there
’s some kind of natural disaster – an earthquake maybe? And they’ve been left Home Alone by their evil, selfish mum.
Perhaps this vague, nagging anxiety is part of why I don’t notice at first when the espresso machine starts to make a low-pitched humming sound. As my own brain is already making a low-pitched humming sound, casting my beloved children in a variety of disturbing imaginary scenarios, I simply block the real-life one out of my consciousness.
By the time I do notice, I’ve sliced tomatoes and washed lettuce, put the fresh milk away in the fridge, made pancake batter and put the spudders in the old-fashioned jacket-potato oven ready for later. I’m zesting lemons to make a dressing for the couscous and cucumber salad when I start to wonder if I’ve got tinnitus.
I drop the lemons and dash towards the coffee machine, grabbing the hammer that is kept hanging from a little chain next to it for just such occasions. I’ve seen Cherie do this a few times, so know what to expect. I whack the top of the casing and a big jet of steam shoots out. I anticipate it and do a swift sideways tilt to avoid getting it in the face. My eyes water a little, though, so I wipe them clear, realising, too late, that my fingers are essentially covered in citric acid from the fruit.
I wait for the machine to calm down and feel even more angsty when it doesn’t. I squint at it from between my, by now, sore and streaming eyelids and whack it once more with the hammer.
More steam and then an even higher-pitched sound. I recall very clearly my instructions for just this kind of event – ‘get out of the way’. So I nip around to the other side of the serving counter, far out of reach, and duck beneath a table.
I’m not quite sure why I duck beneath a table. Perhaps because I was thinking about earthquakes just a few minutes ago.
It does, however, allow me to have a much better view of Farmer Frank’s legs when he walks in at about ten past eight. He always wears heavy-gauge cords, no matter what the weather, and a checked shirt. He pauses and makes an impressed-sounding whistling noise when he sees the steaming espresso machine rattling away.
Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe Page 11
