Sunshine at the Comfort Food Café

by Debbie Johnson

  Yep. It’s been a weird start to the day – but now I have to make it better. Only I can do that, and I need to focus on the sunshine and the birdsong instead of taking a trip on a memory train that will deposit me in a lonely station at the end of the line.

  I re-read the list, and think it’s a fairly good summary of my day. I also seem to have accidentally created my very own psychedelic acid trip without the need for any pharmaceuticals at all: the neon pink notepad and bright green gel pen are resting on my knees, and I’m wearing leggings with pictures of yellow Minions on them. Funky.

  I stretch my arms, and glory in the feel of the sun on my skin. It’s like God has reached down to stroke my face – and He’s wearing really warm oven gloves.

  It’s been a long, nasty winter, and I feel that sense of absolute amazement I get every year when the spring arrives. It’s odd, because it does happen every single year – but each time, I’m taken aback by it. Our quiet corner of Dorset has had a lot of snow over the cold months, and I’ve been used to wearing long johns and seventeen pairs of gloves every day. Now, much to my surprise, it’s warm again … who’d have thunk it?

  ‘What do you reckon, Bella?’ I say, to the dog sleeping at my feet. ‘Time to get to work?’

  Bella doesn’t answer. Mainly because she’s a ten-year-old Border Terrier, and not exactly the chatty type. She doesn’t even bark, never mind talk.

  She does get up though, making direct eye contact with me while she squats down and has a wee, as though that’s her way of replying.

  ‘Yeah. Well, I’m glad you agree,’ I say, as I walk towards my van to get my cleaning supplies.

  My van is small and white and has a rainbow painted on the side. My mum painted the rainbow, and we’re both very proud of it. There’s a dream catcher hanging in the window, and Mum decorated the back with some ancient, yellowing stickers she found in a drawer – telling people to Ban the Bomb, Save the Whales and Hug a Tree. Sound advice, as long as you don’t get them confused and end up hugging a bomb, or banning the poor whales.

  Whenever I drive it, it kind of looks like I should be giving hitch-hikers a lift to a festival in 1976, or protesting at Greenham Common, or going on tour with Led Zeppelin. It’s actually full of cleaning products, some of which I have to hide from my mother because they contain chemicals stronger than baking soda. My mother has Alzheimer’s, and often doesn’t know who I am – but she can spot a planet-killing detergent at 300 yards.

  Bella, tired from her toilet efforts, lies on the grass. She stares with very little interest at a small flight of swallows who are also celebrating the unexpected return of spring, swirling and diving around the fountain. She lets out one very ladylike fart, then curls up into a furry ball. I remain unconvinced that any part of her genetic make-up is descended from a wolf.

  I put my notepad down on the front seat, and realise I need to start a new one soon. I never expected to enjoy it so much, but I do. I start every entry with the same words – name, rank and serial number – before making my ‘What’s Happened to Willow Today’ list.

  It’s a bit long-winded, but it’s become a habit – and as habits go, it’s not as bad as, say, crack cocaine or eating your own bogies in public (in private is a different matter – we’ve all done it).

  I started the note-keeping when Mum’s case worker recommended she do something called Life Story Work. As by that stage my mum’s life story seemed to have stopped – in her mind at least – at about 1999, it seemed like a good idea.

  It’s a way of helping her stay in touch with her memories and regain an element of control – reminding herself of who she was and who she is, I suppose. Sometimes I catch her reading it quietly, glancing up at me every now and then, and I know she’s trying to re-make the connections between her little girl and the grown-up woman standing before her.

  Yes, it’s sad – but it’s happy too, in its own way. Celebratory. And she’s really good at it. She’s always been one of those craftsy people, my mum, and her book is a beautiful patchwork collage of photos and postcards and old ticket stubs and even those little plastic bracelets they put on babies in hospital. It’s part life story, part diary, part practical – amid the reminiscences and memories, she’ll add in little reminders, like her address, and my phone number, and the name of the dog. We’ve had a series of Border Terriers, and she sometimes gets them confused.

  At first, I started up my own notepad just to keep her company and make it all feel a bit less weird. But I’ve got into it – and who knows? Maybe one day I’ll need it myself. Scary dairy. For the time being, it’s a bit of free therapy at least.

  I usually make lists in it, as I don’t have a lot of time on my own to sit and indulge in stream of consciousness rants. Lists keep it simple and usually make me laugh when I read them back. I once wrote the words ‘sausage rolls are brilliant’. On ten separate lines. I guess I’d really enjoyed a sausage roll that day.

  Today, though … well, today, I had lots to report, didn’t I? Especially about the imaginary Edward Cullen, who may or may not be real, and may or may not be the new owner of Briarwood.

  There has been much talk in the village about this new owner. About who it might be, and when he or she might get here, and whether they’ll be part of the gang or just play lord of the manor. About why they wanted to buy the place at all, given the state of it. We’ve spent literally hours debating it in the café. What can I say? Not much happens round here.

  Frank, Cherie’s husband, reckons it’s some foreign investor who’s going to tart it up as a posh corporate retreat for stressed executives. Frank is a farmer, but he has a vivid imagination. Edie May, who is almost ninety-two and has an even better imagination, reckons it’s been bought by Tom Cruise as a holiday home – but she’s not been quite right since her niece bought her a Mission: Impossible box set. Laura, who manages the café and is a bit of a soppy romantic, is convinced that it’s a young couple looking for a dream home to raise a family in.

  I’m here at Briarwood because I’m being paid to clean the place, by an estate agent in Bristol. My mum is safe and snug with Cherie at the café, and they’ll all be waiting for me to get back – desperate for me to spill the beans and fill them in on what I’ve seen.

  The problem is, as things stand, I’m going to have to tell them all that the House on the Hill has, in fact, been bought by an eternally teenaged vegetarian vampire. That should raise a few eyebrows.

  Chapter 2

  Inside, the house isn’t quite as daunting as I remembered. It’s been empty since Mr and Mrs Featherbottom – yes, that’s their real name – retired, over a decade ago.

  They’d moved to a flat in Lyme Regis, after spending years running Briarwood as some kind of private children’s home. That sounds terrifying in itself, but all my memories of the couple are really nice. Mrs F was round and often covered in flour; Mr F always seemed to have a fishing rod in his hand. In fact, I think perhaps I’m getting confused, and imagining them both as garden gnomes come to life.

  From what I can recall, and from what the older residents of Budbury like Frank and Edie have said, it was quite a happy place – considering the circumstances of most of the kids. Some of them were orphans, which sounds pretty Dickensian; others were placed there because their parents just couldn’t be their mum and dad for some reason, like illness or work. It was part home, part boarding school.

  Some of the children arrived in various states of distress – and pulling up in front of a building that looks like it might be patrolled by Dementors at night probably didn’t help.

  That’s one of the reasons my mum used to come here. To help the kids. She was always a little on the feral side, my mum – never had what you’d call a proper job in her life. My three older siblings – Van, Angel and Auburn – spent the first years of their lives on a hippy artists’ commune in Cornwall, until I came along. Different dad, a few years later – which at least partly explains why I’ve always been the odd one out.
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br />   They all moved to Budbury while Mum was pregnant with me, and she picked up bits of work here and there – enough to keep us in gender-neutral clothes that could always be passed down, as well as funding our hummus and pitta bread habit. I suppose she was ahead of her time in a lot of ways – trying to get us to eat organic, never taking us to the doctor unless a leg was about to drop off, giving us weird names before Gwyneth Paltrow ever thought of it.

  Here at Briarwood, she did a variety of things – yoga classes, meditation, arts and crafts sessions, creative writing workshops. She was just Mum to us, but I think to a lot of the kids she must have seemed like an insanely exotic creature, all wild curly hair and tie-dye clothes, smelling of incense and Patchouli oil.

  As I wander the corridors of the building, I can still see the signs of all that life – all those young people, living here together, with Mr and Mrs F trying to make it as nice for them as they could. There are still old noticeboards on the walls downstairs, the tattered remains of tacked-up paper dangling from rusted drawing pins. I know I need to clear them off, but it feels a bit like I’m somehow defiling a sacred place. Vandalising a museum, maybe.

  I pull one down, and part of the paper disintegrates in my hand. I can still see what it was about, though: Mr F taking part in a sponsored Fish-a-Thon to raise money for Save the Children. I smile, and place the sheet inside two pages of my notepad. I don’t quite have the heart to throw it into a bin bag, which might explain why my bedroom is cluttered enough to qualify me for one of those reality TV shows about hoarders.

  I continue my investigations, leaving the front door propped open with a brick – there is electricity in here, I’ve found, but a lot of the lightbulbs are blown, and others are flickering as I go. I’m already slightly jumpy, and the sizzling sounds of the overhead lamps and the on-again-off-again light quality isn’t helping. Luckily, I have my fearless guard dog with me – Bella has her nose to the ground, and is dashing around in strange looping circles that only make sense to her. She’s making a snuffling sound like a seal as she goes, which is reassuring in an otherwise silent building.

  I work my way towards what I remember was the office, and Mr and Mrs F’s living quarters, and again find something of a time capsule. Most of the furniture is gone, but there are a few odds and ends: a pile of mouldy paperbacks; empty filing cabinets, open and gaping; the desiccated remains of a potted plant that may or may not have been an African violet in a previous life. The bay window is grimy, but sunshine is pouring in and dappling the whole room with dancing dust motes.

  I try and shake off the impending sense of melancholy, and start thinking professionally instead. I know from the estate agent that the upper floors have been completely cleared. So, I tell the logical part of my brain – this is a very small part, with super-selective hearing – that’s where I should start.

  I’m booked for a few days, and there’ll be plenty of time to get around to the lower floors later. It’ll be easier once they’re empty – apart from anything else, it’ll stop me gazing at everything as though I have some weird telepathic power that allows me to talk to dead houseplants.

  Bella is sniffing furiously at the paperbacks, and I know what that might mean.

  ‘Nope,’ I say firmly, reaching down to distract her with a tickle behind the ears. ‘It might smell like it, but this is not the outside. So no puddles, okay?’

  She gives me a look from beneath her grey, whiskery eyebrows, and trots off back into the corridor. I swear, she understands every word.

  I retrieve my cleaning supplies – the usual exciting smorgasbord of cloths, chemicals and bin bags– and climb the wooden staircase up to the top floor. This will mainly be a reconnaissance mission – I’m guessing I’ll have to come back with the heavy-duty floor cleaning gear later, and possibly rope in some of the strapping menfolk of the village to help me lug it up the stairs. Luckily we are insanely blessed with strapping menfolk in Budbury. It seems to be located on some kind of mystical ley line that pulls them in.

  As I climb, I notice the thick layer of dust that’s built up on the curving banister. This always used to be polished so well you could see your distorted face reflected in it – it was kept that way by a combination of Mrs F, Mr Sheen, and the bottoms of boisterous young kids sliding down it.

  Briarwood was always bustling – there was always noise, and music, and activity, and the rich smells of cooking and communal living. Now, it’s so sad and quiet and musty – and I realise I’m thrilled that someone has bought it. I hope Tom Cruise takes care of the place and doesn’t turn it into a Scientologist bunker.

  When I reach the top floor, it is much smaller in reality than in my recollections. In the same way that Mars Bars seemed much bigger back then, Briarwood also loomed large. I think I’d imagined it was an enormous mansion, filled with secret compartments and haunted stairwells. It certainly felt like it back then, especially compared to the crowded three-bedroomed cottage that we all lived in.

  Now that it’s shrunk – or I’ve grown – I see that there are probably no more than twenty rooms, laid out over three floors. It looks a bit like a smaller version of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, sadly minus Wolverine in his slinky vest top. I’m sure there’s a cellar as well, but there’s about as much chance of me going down there alone as there is of me completing a PhD in astrophysics.

  I can see the marks where the carpet used to be, the floorboards around it more faded and dusty. The walls are bare, and each room I poke my head into is empty. The rooms vary in size, but are all decorated the same way – in blue wallpaper dotted with now-yellowing footballs, with threadbare blue carpet. I remember there were girls here as well. They probably all stayed on the floor below, in rooms with fairy princess wallpaper and pink carpet.

  I’m guessing the new owner will sort all of this out. It’s not my job to check the damp-proofing, or redecorate – it’s my job to give it a once-over with the Will-o’-the-Wash magic touch. I’m assuming there will be some hefty renovations eventually, but making it less disgusting will be a start. My contribution to bringing this place back to life.

  I decide to start with the windows – getting them clean will make the whole experience a lot more pleasant for everyone. By which I mean for me. The dirt and grime all over them is making the building feel even more neglected. It’s a beautiful day outside, and I need to let some of that sunshine in.

  I work my way through almost all of the rooms, opening the windows as I clean each one. Some need a bit of welly – they’re crusted closed by old paint or grot, and I become intimate friends with several weirdly shaped lumps of moss as I go.

  I gaze outside as I work, hoping for a glimpse of the man I saw in the pond earlier. He didn’t see me – I edged away as quietly as I could when I realised there was someone there. Nobody wants to be caught out having a personal moment in a pond, do they? And, as I can’t see any car parked nearby, it’s still entirely possible that I imagined it.

  I mean, I don’t think I did. I’m not usually quite that out there. But I am very tired, I have had a hard couple of days, and I can’t rule it out. Or, of course, he might just be someone who likes the pond and walks up here in the grounds of Briarwood – I’d noticed bits of litter, as well as old cider bottles and cigarette stubs, which is usually a sign of colonisation by the common or garden teenager.

  He didn’t look like a teenager – he was definitely grown-man shaped in all the right ways – but he could have been a walker. We get loads of walkers. Budbury is on the Jurassic Coast, and part of a network of clifftop paths that criss-cross the whole area. The Comfort Food Café is often visited by the kinds of people who wear high-vis singlets over their anoraks and use spiky poles to walk with. Maybe he was just one of those.

  I try and put it to the back of my mind, and concentrate on the job. Bella has found a corner she likes the smell of, and is snoring away as I work. As I keep cleaning, the scent of lemons starts to gradually overpower the scent o
f neglect. Each room has its own sink – they’re filthy, and will probably be next on the list – but the plumbing is still functional, even if it is creaky, which means I can fill and refill my bowls to my heart’s content.

  It’s mind-numbing work, and in all honesty that’s one of the reasons I like it. It stops my brain from wandering, and there’s also a very tangible outcome. You clean something, it ends up clean. It’s not like so many other things in life where you put in megatons of effort and nothing seems to change as a result.

  I’m hitting my stride, and building myself up to tackling the last room on the corridor, wishing I’d brought my radio or some speakers with me. I could put in my earphones, but hey – I’ve seen horror films. I know what happens to young women, alone in an old deserted house, when they don’t pay attention. The only thing you can do that’s worse than put earphones in is snog someone – the bogeyman will definitely get you if you do that. Stabbed to death in your bra and knickers, end of story.

  I’m not about to snog anybody, but I do wish I had the music. Maybe a bit of Meatloaf, or the collected works of Neil Diamond – something with a big chorus to sing along to.

  I’d like the distraction, as I’m now standing outside that last room. The one I’ve not even been into yet. Staring it down, as though I need to show it who’s boss.

  Not that it’s any different than the others, I’m sure – it’s just that we have a bit of history, me and that room. The last summer I spent any significant amount of time here, my darling siblings persuaded me it was haunted, and dared me to go in and find out.

  I still remember vividly how scared I was. Even though it seems silly now, like most dramas from your childhood do in hindsight, I’m a wee bit hesitant as I walk towards it, bin bag in one hand, spray gun in the other. You know, just in case I need to spray cleaning fluid in a demon’s eyes or anything.