Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  I snort a bit of Coke from my mouth as he says it, because he is trying to keep his face straight and he’s failing.

  ‘Why? You’re irresistible to all women, are you?’

  ‘Well, I’d like to say yes, but Edie gave me the knock back at her ninetieth birthday party… still stings.’

  He clutches his hands to his heart, as though it is physically cracking at the memory, and I roll my eyes at him. He’s a bit of a clown, a quality I find highly attractive in a human being.

  ‘And Laura was never interested, either.’

  ‘Because of Supervet?’ I ask, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yes. Because of Supervet. They were meant for each other, those two.’

  ‘And I’m happy for her. My sister was meant to be in love. Meant to be in a partnership. I’m not. I can barely even tolerate my own company, never mind anybody else’s.’

  ‘Well that’s a pity,’ he says, meeting my eyes and making me feel a little bit hot and bothered. ‘I think we could have a lot of fun, don’t you?’

  ‘Possibly,’ I reply, non-commitally. I see the mock-devastated look on his face, and laugh.

  ‘Okay, probably.’

  He rolls up his shirtsleeve and makes a Schwarzenegger-style pose with his arms, bulking up his biceps and raising his eyebrows in a ‘well-what-do-you-think-of-these-babies?’ expression.

  I throw up my hands in defeat and resist the urge to do what I know he wants me to, and reach out and squeeze his muscles to see how ripped he is. I am attempting to stick to a strict ‘look but don’t touch’ policy.

  ‘All right. I give in. We would definitely have a lot of fun. But you wouldn’t respect me in the morning.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ he says quickly. ‘I’d respect you even more if I got to see you naked.’

  ‘I won’t respect myself, though, you see.’

  This is actually a little bit true. I have set up my current rules of engagement and, much as they might be bonkers, they’re the only ones I have. I can’t abandon them at the first sight of a pair of Paul Newman eyes and some mighty fine guns, much as I’m tempted.

  Something of this seriousness must come across in my tone, because Sam stops his posturing and gives me a slightly regretful smile.

  ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Well that’s different, then. That actually matters.’

  Chapter 8

  After that, Sam reduces his charm offensive to maybe a four out of ten on the official Flirtation Scale (which is a thing, by the way – Google it).

  For the next few days, I see quite a lot of him, but he is noticeably less suggestive. I suspect this is a battle for him, as he is programmed to be a complete verbal tart.

  Part of me is relieved. And, predictably enough, part of me is a little bit disappointed.

  It does, though, give me a bit of breathing space, which I desperately needed. If Sam had kept pushing, I might well have given in. I’m only human, and I like sex. I especially like sex with tall, handsome dudes who look like they know their way around a woman.

  I think he understands this, and his decision to back off is a kindness to me. Or maybe it’s all part of some bigger play, who am I to know?

  I don’t actually know Sam very well at all, which is something we are slowly but surely addressing.

  ‘What’s your surname?’ I say to him, during one of our evening strolls along the beach. ‘As far as I know, your first name is Surfer, and your last name is Sam.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he says, lobbing a stone into the water so perfectly that it skims and skips several steps before plunging down into the waves. ‘I had it changed by deed poll.’

  I make a beep-beep noise, and say: ‘My lie detector just went off.’

  We are both wrapped up in fleeces and both wearing big boots that are leaving firm imprints in the damp sand. The beach at this time of year is largely deserted, just a few die-hard fossil hunters and a handful of dog walkers keeping us company. I like it down here, because it’s largely a Christmas-free zone – nobody has, as yet, come up with the concept of decorating the cliffs with tinsel.

  ‘Okay. Rumbled. It’s Brennan. If we got married, you’d have a great name. Becca Brennan. You’d sound like a kick-ass female private eye.’

  ‘Well, that’s assuming that I’d take your surname, isn’t it? I’m quite happy with Fletcher, to be honest. I might keep it for professional reasons. And as far as you know, I’m already a kick-ass female private eye. I could be, for example, Jessica Fletcher’s granddaughter.’

  ‘Fair enough. That brings me on to my next question, then. What do you actually do, for professional reasons? Laura just said you were self-employed and spent a lot of time on your laptop.’

  ‘I’m a tax accountant,’ I lie, breezily, looking on in amusement as a Border Collie drags his unwilling owner into the edge of the sea, pulling on the lead so hard he has no choice but to follow, splashing right in up to his ankles.

  ‘No way. Not creative enough. I’d go for… comedy script writer.’

  ‘Close, but no cigar,’ I reply. ‘I’m actually a best-selling author. I came up with this great series about a former major in the US military, who now roams the land as a maverick fixer, righting wrongs and balancing out injustice wherever he goes…’

  There is a pause, where he screws up his eyes and thinks.

  ‘Nah. I think that’s Jack Reacher in the Lee Child books. I’ve seen pictures of Lee Child and he doesn’t have boobs.’

  ‘Oh yes. I forgot about that. I was fibbing. I’m actually a tax accountant.’

  ‘You are so not a tax accountant,’ he insists, passing me a flat stone so I can throw it. I skim it with zero skill and it sinks straight away. Can’t win ‘em all.

  ‘Graphic designer,’ I eventually admit. Not that it’s shameful or anything.

  ‘Okay. I’ll settle for that one. Next question, then – you’ve never come close to settling down, like Laura? Punch me if that’s too personal.’

  I ponder the issue and decide I can allow it. As long as I don’t tell the truth, it’ll be fine.

  ‘Not really. I think there were only so many domestic-goddess genes to go round in our family, and Laura got them all. I’ve never lasted longer than a few weeks in a relationship, not since I was a spotty teen anyway. And my overwhelming feeling when they end is always relief. You?’

  ‘Oh, sure… there was Gemma Finnegan when I was sixteen. That lasted two years, until she moved away to Cork and left me with my heart broken… then there were several years of playing around… then there was Suzanne, an English girl I met at college. Didn’t last as long, but it was pretty intense. Then some more playing around… then there was Izzy, but she wanted kids when I was twenty-two and just not ready… and then – ‘

  ‘Let me guess – there was some more playing around?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ he says, coming to a standstill and wiping his hands down on his jeans. He shrugs, trying to look apologetic but failing.

  ‘I’m thirty-five now and driving my ma and sisters insane. They’d like nothing better than for me to come home, find some nice fertile local girl and start procreating.’

  ‘Right. Sounds lovely. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Mixed,’ he says, walking over to sit on one of the huge boulders and indicating for me to join him. ‘I hate all their fussing and bossing. It’s one of the main reasons I left. I’m the youngest, the only boy, and there are approximately 7,000 of them – all with kids. Seriously, I have twenty-two nieces and nephews.’

  ‘Jesus. I wouldn’t have thought they’d have had time to worry about you, then.’

  ‘I know. But somehow, they manage to fit it in… don’t get me wrong, I love ‘em to bits. Couldn’t ask for a better bunch – and we have some bloody fantastic parties. My dad died a few years back and since then I think they’ve wanted me home more than ever… and I get that, I really do. And I miss them something furious. But every time I go back, every time I’m surr
ounded by all the fuss and the interrogations about my love life and the endless ‘isn’t it time you…’ conversations, I feel… well…’

  ‘Suffocated?’ I suggest. ‘Stifled? Strangled?’

  ‘Yeah. Exactly that. Then I feel guilty, because I know it’s because they love me. Same with you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I reply carefully, not meeting his eyes and gazing out to sea instead. ‘They’ve kind of given up on me on that front.’

  ‘Apart from Laura,’ he says, nudging me. ‘She still seems to be trying to find your happy ending.’

  ‘Well, that’s Laura for you. She thinks everyone should have a happy ending. She thinks everyone deserves one.’

  There is a pause while he mulls this over. I am feeling a little bit exposed by this point, and tug my fleece tighter around my body, hoping I can shut the world out with a bit of help from a wool-polyester blend.

  ‘And you don’t think you deserve a happy ending?’ he finally says. ‘Why? What did you ever do that was so bad?’

  ‘I push old ladies out of the way in the supermarket. And that’s just when I’m in a good mood. Now come on, I’m freezing. I feel an enormous hot chocolate coming on.’

  Chapter 9

  I spend the next weekend in Devon with Lizzie and Nate, doing Christmas shopping, eating in quaint village pubs and enjoying their company.

  Lizzie was vivacious and fun, her eyes glinting with happiness between the eye-liner stripes, her step constantly buoyant and energetic. She chattered on about Josh and about school and about running the Twitter account for the Cider Cave and about Midgebo and about her GCSEs and about some girl called Alexa who has auditioned for the X Factor and about a million and one other things I could barely keep up with.

  By the time she left Manchester in July, Lizzie had been seventy per cent sullen teen, thirty per cent little-girl-lost. Not just your normal sullen teen, but Sullen Teen With Dead Dad, which takes the potential for disaster to a whole new level. I could see the signs in her that things could easily take a very dark turn, and was genuinely worried that she’d follow similar paths to mine.

  It’s one of the main reasons that I, unlike my parents, never tried to talk Laura out of moving to Dorset for the summer – or, as it turned out, for ever.

  I’m not blessed with psychic powers; I just knew that Lizzie needed a change. They all did – but especially her. She needed to get away from the past, find new friendships, start to believe in the future again.

  Nate had always, on the surface, at least, been the easier one. He was more laid back, more pliable, less moody. Even now, as the first signs of hormones were sloshing through his ever-expanding body, he was more relaxed. The new relationships he’d found down here – especially with the menfolk of Budbury, like Matt, Frank and Sam – had been good for him.

  He was getting pretty handy on the guitar thanks to Matt’s lessons, he had a part-time ‘job’ at Frank’s farm, where he hung round with Frank’s grandson Luke, and he’d spent endless hours tagging along with Sam on his nature walks, surfing sessions and impromptu beach football tournaments. None of them were his dad, but they were solid, and I think David would have approved.

  Nate was still a little boy in many ways – but now he had men to hang round with, who didn’t fuss about his shirt not being tucked in or the fact that he’d only eaten cake for breakfast or that he had grass stains on his knees. The sudden influx of good, reliable male role models couldn’t have come at a better time for him.

  We stayed over on the Saturday night in a hotel near Sidmouth, where we had connecting rooms. We were tired after a busy day of shopping, walking and practising a different fake accent in each place we visited. I thought I’d scored an absolute blinder with my Aussie accent, until a girl waiting on us in a café on the seafront turned out to be from Sydney and I was rumbled.

  We spent the night watching trashy films on the pay-per-view and eating room-service food, before I disappeared off to my own bed, where I lay awake for most of the night listening to Nate snore.

  My sleeping patterns hadn’t got any better since I’d come down to the South West. Not even the peace and quiet of Cherie’s lovely attic flat had quite cured my insomnia, and I was barely getting enough shut-eye to function.

  I was used to hiding it, though, and knew that in some ways it was a good thing. At least I was facing up to it. I’d spent many long years self-medicating in many different ways, only sleeping after a close encounter with a vodka bottle or its equivalent in male form. I’d rather be tired and coffee-dependent than go back to that.

  Besides, I was glad to have been of some use to Laura. The thing with her and Matt looked to me like it was going to last the distance, but it was still relatively new. They were still discovering each other. She was still, in some ways, grieving the loss of the old, while also trying to enjoy the potential of the new.

  A night alone, with no children to worry about, would do them both good – and if I had to guess, I’d say she was getting even less sleep than I was. But for far more entertaining reasons. That train of thought led me inevitably on to Sam, which led inevitably on to me opening my laptop and doing some work. Nothing quite cures horniness like trying to fit 3,000 words of copy about bin collections into a space meant for 300.

  By the time we get back to Budbury, late on Sunday afternoon, I am skint, exhausted, and would quite like to lock myself in the attic for a good, solid twenty-four hours of solitude. There have been snow flurries all the way home and some of it has started to settle on the coast, like a light dusting of icing sugar on a yellow cake. We had to be careful on the drive, which frayed the last of my remaining nerves.

  Willow is in the café when we get back, finishing off the clean-up from the seven customers she says she’s had all day. Laura had left a small truckful of turkey sandwiches and a sinful-looking coffee and walnut cake that is only half eaten, so dinner is well and truly sorted.

  I know, from Laura, that Willow cares for a mother with Alzheimer’s, as well as working several jobs. You’d never, ever realise it from spending time with her. Perhaps, I think, looking at her pink hair and silver-sprayed Doc Martens and space-princess clothes, she actually has a time machine so she can zip about untroubled.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks, leaning against a mop and staring at me intently. I realise that I have been thinking at least some of this aloud. ‘You just called me a space princess. I mean, I don’t mind – that’s secretly how I think of myself.’

  Nate and Lizzie are sitting at one of the tables near the patio doors, also looking tired. Nate is gazing down at the bay, and Lizzie is tapping on her phone, probably texting Josh. I need to get them home to Hyacinth, but suddenly feel incapable. I’d been working on the assumption that Laura would be here, for absolutely no good reason.

  ‘Come on kids,’ says Willow, propping her mop up in one corner and standing with her hands on her hips. ‘Walk back with me to mine, and then I’ll run you home to the cottage. Last one to the car has to do a solo of ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen…’

  This prompts Nate and Lizzie into some frenzied action, both gathering up their backpacks and dashing for the door. Lizzie is going for the kill, but Nate pauses and gives me a dimpled smile and a wave in the doorway. Heartbreaker.

  ‘You sure?’ I ask, flooded with relief. It wasn’t just the drive that was freaking me out, it was the thought of having to make small talk with Laura and Matt, in a cottage that looked like Santa’s grotto.

  ‘Positive. You look knackered. Everything here is done, just lock up after me, all right? I’ll see you soon. Try and get some sleep.’

  After she’s gone, I drag myself up the stairs, carrying a plate of cake and try to do exactly that. Cherie’s flat is a brilliantly secluded and peaceful place, a bit like an improved version of my flat back in Manchester. Both are small and set up for single living – but Cherie’s has something extra. Maybe it’s the views. Maybe it’s the vinyl. Maybe it’s the assorted knick knacks sh
e’s collected during her life.

  But somehow, it has an atmosphere of calm and contentment that mine never has – probably because I live in it, and Cherie doesn’t.

  I dump my stuff, lay the cake plate down on the counter surface, and try very hard to ignore the fact that there is a small cupboard full of booze in the kitchen. Strange booze – odd liqueurs, vintage brandies, absinthe, foreign spirits – but booze nonetheless.

  If I was a normal person, I could have a small glass of Norwegian tequila and knock myself out. But I’m not a normal person, not yet at least, so I console myself with coffee and walnut frosting instead.

  After settling myself into a small nest on the sofa, wrapped in a tie-dye blanket with a glass of milk, I put on the TV. I am delighted to see before me What’s Love Got To Do With It: The Tina Turner Story, which, with adverts, runs at almost three hours long. Perfect. The only thing that could have been better would have been Armageddon, a film best watched drunk, or sleep-deprived.

  Eventually, I must have drifted off into snoozeland, which is often the way for me in situations like this. If I lie in bed and try to sleep, it doesn’t happen – but if I give my brain permission to concentrate on something else (like the triumphant Tina finally dumping Ike, or Ben Affleck saving the world from a killer asteroid), I can fool it into relaxing.

  And yes, I do realise that I talk about my own brain as though it is a separate entity to the rest of me. That’s how it feels a lot of the time.

  When I’m woken up some hours later, it is by the sound of my phone ringing. I have a walnut stuck to one side of my face and an empty milk glass rolling around on my lap. Tina has finished her story, and there seems to be some kind of documentary on about Thai ladyboys, with one of those women in the corner of the screen doing sign language. Bet that was a challenging gig.

  I screw my eyes up in confusion and see that it is now completely dark outside. One of Cherie’s windows is set slanting into the roof of the building, so it acts like a skylight. Above me is an ocean of navy blue dotted with dazzling golden stars. I feel like I am in a planetarium for a moment.