Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  I grin at that description. It does sound brilliant. Straight away I can picture it: a little attic hideaway, all silk cushions and joss sticks and bowls of figs…

  ‘I thought,’ says Laura, walking through to the kitchen, dodging low-flying angels as she goes, ‘that it might be nice. I know you’re going to love it here, but I know you’ll love it even more if you have your own space.’

  I look around, at the tree and the streamers and the plastic holly and the big, battered sofa that’s covered in floral fabric and placed strategically in front of the TV. I imagine us all, crammed in here, sharing this space, breathing this air, inhaling this tinsel, being force-fed sickly festive movies about angels’ wings and miracles, while I slowly die inside.

  If I have my own space, at least I can watch Bad Santa without worrying that it’s too rude for the kids to see. If I have my own space, I can declare war on Christmas. If I have my own space, I can stretch out and walk round in my knickers and not bother washing the dishes until I’m good and ready.

  If I have my own space, I can stay just about in control – surely the greatest Christmas gift of all?

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, nodding. ‘I would love that.’

  ‘Good,’ she replies, opening the oven and pulling out a huge, steaming pizza. ‘But tonight, you’re stuck with us – and guess what? We’ve got Elf on DVD…’

  Chapter 5

  I am being crushed. I cannot breathe. I am gulping for my last ever lungful of oxygen before I depart this earth.

  Then, suddenly, it is over – and I am free. Free from the powerful embrace of Cherie Moon, proprietor of the Comfort Food Café; owner of the Rockery, and proud purveyor of the most punishing hugs in Britain.

  It is the morning after my arrival in Dorset and I am exhausted. This is a completely normal state of affairs for me in the morning. No matter how physically tired I am, my brain refuses to switch off, and I spend at least two hours every night lying awake telling myself I’m being stupid.

  Telling myself to just relax. Telling myself that I need to rest, to set aside my worries, to allow my busy mind to be at peace. Counting sheep, imagining Gerard Butler naked, spending my fictional lottery winnings, anything at all other than lie there awake, worrying about the very fact that I am still awake.

  But if you’ve ever suffered from insomnia, you’ll know it’s not that easy. The minutes turn into hours and the hours feel like days, and soon you start to yearn for the first sight of dawn creeping through the curtains. Then you can finally give up on your pathetic efforts and get out of bed, crawling from the duvet, grey and haggard, limping down the stairs to seek coffee like Gollum searching for his ring.

  This morning, when I limped down the stairs, it was made even worse by the fact that I was in a strange place, kept banging my head on dangling angels and reindeers and had to sip my coffee while being mocked by the world’s biggest Christmas tree.

  By the time the others finally started to straggle back into consciousness, I’d been up for two hours, fiddling with my laptop and pretending to work.

  I’m a freelance designer, which sounds a lot cooler that it is. I’m not coming up with cutting edge bathroom storage devices for Ikea, or creating the latest catwalk looks for Paris – I’m usually trying to produce bright, clear and attractive marketing materials for housing associations, charities and hospitals.

  You know the kind of thing – that leaflet that tells you what to do if you can’t pay your rent on time; or what services the Patient Liaison Panel provides, or how doing a charity hike across the Pennines can help people with cancer. One day, I might even get to throw caution to the wind and indulge in something like a holiday brochure or a theatre programme, who knows?

  What it lacks in excitement it makes up for in flexibility. I get to be my own manager, don’t always have to work in an office full of people I don’t like, and usually avoid the routine of pointless meetings and bitching sessions by the water fountain. Plus I get to be creative, in however limited a way.

  It also means that I get to come away and stay in Dorset for a month without worrying about getting my leave signed off by a control-freak boss – because I am my very own control-freak boss. I’ve brought a few projects with me, but am not too worried about them – at this time of year, I’ve noticed, pretty much everyone goes quiet. Everyone becomes unofficially focused on the festive season rather than work, and projects, deadlines and delivery dates sneakily get pushed back to the New Year.

  It usually drives me nuts – but this year? Well, I’m down with it.

  I’m also down with being here, in the famous Comfort Food Café, now that Cherie has finally released me from her death grip and my face is no longer squished into her humungous chest.

  We drove over here together and Lizzie, Nate and Laura were all three completely pipping with excitement about it. I have to admit, there was some pressure – the pressure of their obvious love for the place; the pressure of their anticipation that I’d totally share their love; the pressure to be as gah gah about the café as they are.

  Me? I’m not especially good with pressure. With doing what’s expected of me, or acting appropriately, or basically doing what I know I should be doing. I have a contrary streak bigger than Kim Kardashian’s arse, and it sometimes gets in the way of what should be perfectly normal, pleasant situations.

  So I was borderline anxious as we made the trek up the hill, pausing to admire the views on the way. The views, I have to say, did not disappoint in any way. Even without the sunshine, they are stunning – red and brown cliff faces sinking down onto golden sand; churning grey and white waves splashing onto the beach, the distant outline of the coast as it curves into Devon. Beautiful, even to a cynical old city girl like myself. I can imagine it all coated in snow, if the snow ever grows a pair of balls and gets to the sticking point. It’s going to be beautiful.

  I paused to take a few pictures, even though my niece was literally pulling me up the path by the hood of my fleece, half-strangling me in her eagerness to reach the café.

  When we finally got there – because, of course, after that, I had to insist on stopping every few seconds to take more pictures, just to childishly assert my independence – I was slightly out of puff, and slightly wary about what I was going to find at the summit.

  We walked beneath the pretty wrought-iron sign that announced we’d reached our destination, and out into the Garden at the Edge of the World. Or at least the garden on top of a very steep hill, overlooking a pretty dramatic coastline.

  The ground of the café garden is uneven, with picnic-style tables and benches dotted around on the slopes. I can imagine it’s packed out here in the summer, but this morning it was deserted, the faded grass and the wooden table tops dusted with frost, glistening in the pale sunlight.

  I saw a few upright patio heaters nearer to the main café building, standing between more tables and chairs, and rows of fairy lights draped along the roof. A gazebo has been set up, which I know from Laura’s updates has been approved as a ‘licensed garden structure’, which will allow weddings to take place. Specifically, Frank and Cherie’s wedding. They got together officially on the night of his eightieth, and have moved fast – but I suppose at their age, you might as well.

  It’s all incredibly pretty, and not a big stretch to picture this place lit up and luminous, with groups of friends huddled beneath the heaters, mittened hands wrapped around steaming glasses of warm mulled wine. All chattering and laughing and bursting into spontaneous renditions of ‘Jingle Bells’ while they admire each other’s Christmas jumpers.

  That was way too festive an image for my liking, so I shook it off, and instead followed the troops into the café. The building itself was low and sprawling, and looked as though it was perched right on the cliff’s edge.

  Lizzie pretty much barrelled her way into the place, so confident and sure of her place in this world, and I had a moment of such fierce pride that I wanted to go and hug her and tell her
I loved her right there and then. She’s gorgeous, my lovely niece – blonde hair and big green eyes and a borderline Goth approach to eyeliner. She always was gorgeous, but now she’s happy again, it shows even more.

  I know Laura had been starting to fret about Lizzie not eating enough, and I’d started to fret about her turning out to be more like me, which I wouldn’t wish on any parent.

  Her dad’s death knocked her for six, and Laura’s ensuing emotional collapse knocked us all for about a thousand. Seeing her like this – spry and bolshy and carefree – is an absolute balm for the soul.

  I follow her in, suddenly swamped with the kind of glorious warmth that makes you realise exactly how cold you’ve been. It was as though I hadn’t even noticed my shaking hands and chattering teeth until I walked through that door, and was wrapped up in the atmospheric equivalent of a fluffy blanket embroidered with pastel-coloured kittens.

  Laura, I suspect, would have seen that as some kind of analogy for the café as a whole; a place you go to heal without even knowing you’re wounded. Sometimes I think she attributes it with almost supernatural powers. Me? I’m a bit more cynical than her. Always have been, most likely always will be.

  But… I have to say, that hug from Cherie was a classic. I’m so tired, if she’d held on to me for a few more moments, I might actually have just snuggled up in her bosom and gone to sleep, like a snoozy rabbit.

  ‘My, my! I can’t believe there are two of you!’ she says, pulling back and looking me up and down. I return the favour and realise that Cherie Moon in the flesh is even more impressive than the Cherie Moon I’d seen in photos.

  She’s tall – very tall – and big. Not fat exactly, but large and solid, built like the kind of woman who could run empires and carry milk buckets and colonise vast continents.

  I know she’s in her early seventies, but she looks timeless, her skin tanned and weathered, her wrinkles worn without any attempt at hiding them. Her hair is long, brown and grey, and slung over her shoulder in a fat plait. She’s wearing an apron that says ‘I’m Sexy And I Know It’, and she smells so good. Of vanilla and sugar and freshly baked deliciousness. I would ask her if she could adopt me, if it wouldn’t upset my biological parents.

  ‘Yep,’ I say, smiling, because it’s impossible to do anything else. ‘Two of us. Our parents were very, very lucky people.’

  ‘That they were… though you look like you need a bit more flesh on your bones, my love. A few weeks here will sort that out – get a bit of your Laura’s home-made cooking down you!’

  I see Laura at her side, also smiling, so relaxed, and think for the millionth time how fantastic it is that she made this brave move. That she ignored all the doubters, ignored our parents, ignored every sensible piece of advice she got and did the Crazy Thing. Because sometimes the Crazy Thing is exactly what your life needs.

  And looking around the Comfort Food Café, I see a very healthy dose of crazy – bookcases crammed with paperbacks and board games, insane mobiles made from random objects dangling from the ceiling, plastic fish, framed photos, rowing oars, life rings, fishing nets, posters with pithy messages, giant fossils. It’s like an eccentric Victorian collector’s dream.

  There are also, I see, the beginnings of Christmas decorations starting to appear, and Cherie has an enormous cardboard box at her feet that has sparkly things oozing out of it. I hope she doesn’t expect me to be streamer girl. I don’t want to be adopted quite that much.

  ‘Can we take Aunt Becca up to the flat, Cherie?’ asks Lizzie, still fizzing in anticipation. Nate, I notice, has taken his traditionally more laid-back approach, has lobbed his padded jacket onto a table and is already sniffing around the cake counter eyeing up the world’s largest Victoria sponge.

  ‘Course we can, sweetie,’ replies Cherie, wiping her hands down on her apron and giving Lizzie’s hair a quick pat. It is testament to their relationship that Lizzie doesn’t immediately punch her in the throat.

  ‘Come on, Becca,’ she says to me. ‘Let me show you my des res. Sad to leave it, I am, but… well, life changes, doesn’t it? I’m heading off to live in sin with Frank – shocking at my age! At least ‘til we make it legal in a few weeks’ time… Laura, can you keep an eye on the place?’

  Laura looks around at the completely empty café.

  ‘I’m not sure I can cope with the rush, Cherie,’ she replies, giving her a wink.

  ‘Less of your cheek, madam – you know how it can get. One minute it’s deserted, the next there’s a coach party in, all wanting scrambled eggs and mochas…’

  ‘I know. I’ve got a few ideas I want to try anyway, for the Christmas menu. I’ve been experimenting with cranberry ice cream, but even Midgebo wouldn’t touch it, it was that bad.’

  We all pull a shocked face. If something tastes so awful that a Labrador won’t gobble it up, it must have been very special indeed.

  I follow Cherie through the bright, shiny kitchen, noticing the very slight hitch in her stride that is the only hint of the hip replacement she had a few months ago. We continue up a very narrow flight of stairs, which I see are now decorated with fluorescent strips.

  ‘Frank’s idea of health and safety,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘After I had my fall. I told him I just see them as go-faster stripes, but he will have his jokes… might come in handy if you’re ever trying to get back up here after a few tipples though, eh?’

  I see that my reputation has preceded me and know that Laura has undoubtedly painted me as a good-time girl not to be trusted with the sherry bottle. Little do they know.

  We emerge up into what I can only describe as a very tiny slice of paradise. It’s not the brightest of days outside, but what sunlight there is is streaming through the attic windows, bathing the whole place in yellow stripes. There is one big room, which contains pretty much everything I could ever need.

  There’s a bed, a TV, a squishy-looking sofa and a small kitchen area off in one corner. The walls are decorated with framed posters from classic rock albums, like the Velvet Underground and The Doors and The Who, and one of the sloping eaves is covered with a beautiful, exotic-looking red fabric that looks like Cherie haggled for it at a car-boot sale in Marrakesh.

  There’s a vast collection of vinyl, which Lizzie immediately gravitates toward and various foreign-looking objects that again don’t seem to be have been picked up at the local Ikea. There’s a hint of incense in the air – or possibly something stronger, if Laura’s description of Cherie’s smoking habits are to be believed – and an entire book-case filled with pictures of the lady herself, over the years.

  I stroll over and pick one up; it’s in that fuzzy technicolour that was once considered glorious, and now looks faded and dated – the kind my mum and dad have in their photo album, from the pre-digital age.

  I see Cherie, a good forty years younger, still tall and imposing, but a lot more lithe, barefoot and wearing a bikini. She’s lying at the side of a pool with a man with a lot of long, black hair and furry sideburns. They look impossibly glamorous, poster children for the seventies.

  ‘That’s me and my Wally,’ she says, standing next to me and smiling at the memory. ‘St Tropez. Some kind of showbiz event, it was. Lots of bands there. You couldn’t move for the TVs that’d got thrown out the windows.’

  I snort, suspecting she is joking but not quite sure. It does look like the kind of place you’d see Janis Joplin sipping a margarita. I think, with Cherie, that the mystery adds to the fun – I’ve been told that half the village still thinks she was Jimi Hendrix’s secret girlfriend.

  ‘You look really happy,’ I reply, stroking the glass clear of a speck of dust and standing it back up again.

  ‘That’s ‘cause we were, my love. We had a great life together, we did – and now it looks like I’ve been lucky enough to find someone who’ll put up with me second time round. Just like your Laura has.’

  ‘That is lucky,’ I say, gazing at the rest of the pictures – a long, rich life captured
in film. ‘I’m still waiting to find the first.’

  I’m not really sure why I say such a thing, and I’m certainly not sure why I say it with the melancholy tinge I hear lacing my own words as they leave my mouth. I’ve always been happy being a lone wolf. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m howling at the moon.

  ‘Well who knows, eh?’ answers Cherie, giving me a nudge so hard I take several steps to the side and almost collide with a wooden hat stand that’s topped with a carved dragon’s head. ‘Maybe you’ll find him here. Stranger things have happened at sea.’

  I automatically look out of the windows and down to the coast, where the sea is churning up against the sand.

  Somehow, I doubt there is anything stranger out there than me.

  Chapter 6

  Matt is, as promised, every bit the young Harrison Ford. He’s tall, on the brawny side, and has floppy chestnut brown hair that needs a trim. He’s quiet, softly spoken, and seems to truly come alive when he’s talking to Laura.

  My sister, sitting next to him at the big table, surrounded by friends and her new family, looks just as vibrant. She and Matt are chatting to other people, but I can tell by the way they’re sitting that beneath that table, their legs are crushed up against each other’s. Like they can’t bear to break contact.

  I’m struck again by how gloriously different she is now. This time last year, she was functioning, but still crippled by grief at David’s loss. Those first Christmases without him were pure torture, for everyone involved.

  The kids got the best and brightest presents out there, simply because she blew a small chunk of her insurance money on them, in an attempt to make up for the life she knew they were lacking. I remember her nibbling at a few mouthfuls of her turkey, the kids quiet and withdrawn, my parents desperate to find a way to reach her.