Christmas at the Comfort Food Cafe

by Debbie Johnson

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, lamely, ‘I haven’t got you anything.’

  I feel really mean now, like an absolute cow, but he just laughs and waves away my apology.

  ‘Don’t be daft. I know you don’t really do Christmas. It’s nothing big anyway. Just send me a picture of your boobs later and we’ll call it even.’

  Okay, I think, that I can do.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, feeling the edges of the gift – squishy plastic, cardboard, some very weird bumpy shapes. It’s quite big, not that heavy and completely impossible to identify.

  ‘It’s a watermelon. Look, I’m not going to tell you – that’s the whole point of wrapping it up. Just open it tomorrow. I hope you’ll like it. Anyway… I’ve got to get off. I’ve said my goodbyes to that lot up there. I just wanted a moment alone with you.’

  He leans forward and kisses me, barely a whisper of his lips on mine. Unhappy with that situation, I grab hold of him and wrap my arms around his shoulders, pulling him in for a more substantial exchange. After a few moments, we both come up for air, and he laughs ruefully.

  ‘I was trying to avoid that,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Now I’ll have a very uncomfortable drive to the bloody airport, you witch.’

  ‘Serves you right for springing a present on me. And… I don’t know, happy Christmas?’

  It’s a pitiful statement, half-heartedly delivered, and doesn’t feel right coming from my Christmas-hating mouth. But hey, at least I made the effort.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Becca,’ he replies, stroking my cheek in such a tender way that part of me wants to cling onto his ankles and stop him from leaving. ‘Thanks for everything, and stay in touch, all right?’

  I nod, and realise that I’ve run out of words now. I’m no longer feeling the Pharrell vibe. I’m feeling sad, and empty, and forlorn as I watch him get in the van, start the engine, and drive away. He toots the horn at me, and I wave, plastering a smile on my face that I just don’t feel.

  I take a moment, watching him disappear off into the distance, and wonder how I’m going to get through the rest of the party. I’ve never felt like this saying goodbye to a man before – usually I’ve felt relieved, to be honest – and I don’t particularly like it.

  I also don’t understand it – Sam has only been in my life for a very short time. How can I already be missing him? Feeling like someone’s chopped my arms and legs off and left me stranded and alone? It’s completely bonkers, and I am melancholy and confused and aching inside.

  I consider walking off down to the bay, trekking along the snow-covered sand until my mind levels itself out, but I hear the sound of extra-loud music wafting down from the café: Cherie and Frank’s first dance.

  I blow out a big, anguished breath, and make an effort to pull myself together as I trudge up the path, clutching Sam’s gift. It’s only mid-afternoon, but the sunlight is fading fast, and I see that the endless loops of fairy lights have been switched on, and the whole café is starting to look like some kind of fantasy castle perched on top of the cliff.

  I reach the gate just as Cherie and Frank take to the ‘dance floor’ – which is actually just a big, cleared space in the garden. The snow has been shovelled away, and I feel the frosty grass crunch beneath my wellies as I walk.

  There has been a lot of speculation as to what their first dance will be performed to. I suspect Scrumpy Joe Jones has even been holding some kind of side-bets on it. Laura’s call was ‘It’s A Wonderful World’. Edie thought it would be ‘something lovely by one of those Rat Pack rogues’. Matt suggested they might do the robot to ‘I Feel Love’ by Donna Summer, which personally I would have paid good money to see. Sam had gone with ‘I’ve Got A Brand New Combine Harvester’, which was just plain lazy. I’d been secretly hoping for some Motown magic, or some Marvin Gaye.

  It turns out that none of us were right. Of course. If there’s one thing I could have predicted, it’s that none of us would be able to predict it.

  They go for ‘My Generation’ by The Who, and it is absolutely hilarious.

  I suspect this is not quite what Pete Townshend was aiming for, but the song is perfect – and as far as I can see, as I watch Frank windmilling and Cherie shaking her significantly sized, red-satin-enclosed tail feather, Their Generation puts mine to shame.

  Everyone jumps in after a minute or so, and within seconds the garden is a heaving mass of drunk people in white wellies, doing scissor kicks and twirls and pogo-ing around. Katie is bouncing Saul on her hip, Willow is head-banging, disappearing beneath of swirl of pink hair, and Lizzie and Nate are off in one corner with the rest of the teenagers busting some deeply uncool moves that they probably intend to be ironic.

  I spot Laura and Matt bopping around, looking stupidly happy, and my mum and dad, predictably enough, are in on that action immediately, Dad strutting around like he’s Mick Jagger with his chest barrelled out. The effect is spoiled a bit by the beer belly spilling over his suit trousers, but what the heck?

  Edie and Lynnie are still making angel-shaped tree decorations with some of the younger children, but I see Edie’s wellies tapping away in time beneath the table. Even the registrars are boogying, as this was their last ‘gig’ of the day.

  Everyone looks daft and none of them care. Just the way it should be at a wedding. I get brief flashes of Frank and Cherie at the centre of it, her red dress glinting and her hair now loose and wild. Frank’s bunch from Australia are dancing together, and quite a few of Cherie’s relatives are cutting loose as well.

  They are completely surrounded by love: sisters, children, grandkids, nieces, nephews and, just as importantly, their friends.

  I am smiling at what I can see, but a tiny bit of me is dying inside. I walk towards the café, where I can pretend to be eating, but where, in reality, I know I can be alone.

  I have that feeling again.

  The one I used to be so used to. The one I had that first night I celebrated with these people – the one where I am on the outside looking in. I realise that I’ve been getting used to being free of it; that for some time now, I’ve actually been part of this world, not just an observer. I’ve been living life right alongside them, and now, suddenly, it’s all drained out of me. As if by evil magic.

  The only difference I can identify in my circumstances is that Sam is gone, but I refuse to accept that I am quite that pathetic. That the only thing connecting me to Cherie and Frank and Edie and Budbury and my own bloody sister, for goodness’ sake, is a man I’ve known for less than a month.

  It’s got to be more than that, but I can’t quite grasp what. I am tired, as usual, and I am overly-emotional. Tears never seem to be far from the surface at the moment, and I am going to miss Sam – all of them – so much when I go home, no matter how much I try to deny it to myself.

  Maybe this is my way of coping. Maybe my usually twisted-up little defence mechanisms are kicking in, and my head’s decided I need to disengage with Dorset before I do myself some real damage. That sounds mental, even to me – which means it could well be right.

  For everyone out there, in the fairy-lit garden with the flowers and the snow and the music and the inflatable snowmen, the party has just begun.

  For me, it feels like it’s over.

  Chapter 23

  I am woken up the next morning by my niece very deliberately bouncing up and down on the bottom of my bed. Or, to be more precise, her bed – she bunked in with Nate for the night to make room for me.

  The motion of the mattress wobbling around is making me feel decidedly queasy, and I clutch my stomach, head still hiding beneath the duvet. I only fell asleep what felt like minutes ago, and am not ready to face the world just yet.

  Lizzie, of course, has other ideas. I peek out from the covers and see that she is wearing a pair of Kylo Ren pyjamas. Cool.

  ‘Come on! Come on! Come on! It’s CHRIIIIIIIIIISTMAS!’ she yells, like a deranged teenaged Noddy Holder. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to get up for ages – you need
to come and see if Santa’s been or not!’

  ‘Lizzie,’ I mutter, using scissoring motions to try and kick her off the end of the bed, but only succeeding in looking like my legs are being jolted by a taser, ‘you are fifteen. I know you don’t believe in Santa any more.’

  ‘I know, I know… but I’m trying to preserve my sense of child-like wonder. You guys are always telling me not to be in such a rush to grow up!’

  She is, of course, evil. Because, yes, we do say things like that.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I grumble, trying to roll myself back up in a ball. ‘I want you to grow up immediately. Go out and join the army or get married or whatever… just leave me alone… I need to get some sleep…’

  ‘Well, tough,’ Lizzie replies, snatching the covers off me and throwing the duvet to the floor. I am left there exposed and suddenly cold, wearing saggy old PJs that are nowhere near as cool as hers.

  ‘You’ve got to come down. We’ve opened our big presents and now we need to do yours. Plus I need to use you as a diversion – Gran and Granddad are here, and they keep talking about going for a ‘constitutional’. I think that means they want us to go outside, and that’s not on my list of things to do today. I want to stay in, eat myself stupid and play with my toys.’

  ‘Toys? Do you still get toys?’ I ask, reluctantly admitting defeat and staggering around the room looking for my dressing gown. ‘What, like, Ker Plunk or something?’

  ‘No, don’t be daft,’ she says, handing me exactly the thing I was looking for – who knew I’d actually been organised enough to hang it on the back of the door? – ‘I mean technology, obviously. A new laptop. Which of course I desperately needed for school…’

  The tone of her voice indicates that, in fact, she will be using the laptop purely for watching videos of kittens, stalking Josh and messing around on photo-sharing sites.

  ‘What about Nate?’ I ask, glancing in the mirror and immediately regretting it. I look awful. My hair is stuck flat to my head on one side and sticking up in tufts on the other. My skin is pale and blotchy, and I have dark circles like bruises beneath both eyes. It looks like I’ve been punching myself in the face while I slept.

  I decide it doesn’t matter – I am among friends – and follow a skittering Lizzie down the stairs, as she chatters away telling me Nate got a new guitar and some X Box games, and I focus mainly on not tripping down the steps. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fallen flat on my face on Christmas Day, but I’m hoping that’s all behind me. I’m still feeling queasy from Lizzie jumping up and down on the bed, though, and it’s not being helped by the smell of cooking wafting up from below.

  I’d half expected the Comfort Food Café to actually open on Christmas Day, and for Laura and Cherie to throw open their doors to all the waifs and strays of Budbury. But Frank and Cherie have so many family members down for the wedding, they decided to just book the same hotel they had their stag-and-hen night in so everyone could have their own space, and they’ll all be eating their Christmas lunch there together.

  Tomorrow, the two of them are going off for a few nights alone in Cornwall, before flying back to Australia with Frank’s family. Maybe Cherie will end up opening a Perth branch of the Comfort Food Café and never come back. Who knows?

  Our Christmas gathering will consist of me, Laura and the kids, Matt and Midgebo, Mum and Dad, and Edie May. Laura invited Katie and Saul, but apparently Katie was happy with a ‘quiet one’ this year.

  As I walk through into the lounge, I am relieved she said no – Hyacinth really isn’t that big, and it’s going to be a tight squeeze as it is. I’m already feeling crowded and Matt and Edie haven’t even arrived.

  Mum and Dad are sitting next to each other on the sofa and Dad is trying to play some kind of FIFA X Box game with Nate, who is sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Dad is frowning very heavily, and waving the controller around while he frantically presses random buttons. My nephew, by contrast, is sitting very calmly, and using his superior thirteen-year-old video gaming skills to make his Messi run all the way to goal.

  The fake crowd goes wild, but Dad makes a harrumphing sound and drops the controls onto the sofa cushion. He’s not happy. I can predict almost to the syllable what he will say next.

  I see Laura in the kitchen, already getting me a mug of coffee, and our eyes meet across a crowded cottage. She raises her eyebrows at me, smiling, and we both mouth the words: ‘When I was a lad…’

  ‘Bloody stupid game, if you ask me,’ Dad says, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s wearing his Nice Christmas Shirt today, which will have been purchased new for him by my mum. ‘When I was a lad, we used to be outside playing the real thing, not sat in twiddling our thumbs…’

  I bite back the laughter, and instead go and give them both a kiss on the cheek. I ruffle Nate’s hair, and perch on the arm of the couch.

  ‘Don’t worry, Granddad,’ says Nate, ever the diplomat of the family, ‘we’ll go out and have a proper game later. Matt’ll come with us, and Aunt Becca will join in, won’t you?’

  ‘Course,’ I say, gratefully accepting the coffee Laura hands to me. ‘Just be prepared to lose.’

  I can actually think of pretty much nothing worse than running around at the moment, except perhaps eating a huge turkey dinner while wearing a paper hat from a cracker. Sadly, both seem to be on the horizon, so I need to suck it up.

  Laura plonks herself down on the armchair, and wipes her curly hair away from her face. She looks a little flustered and a bit red-cheeked, which tells me she’s probably been happily tinkering away in the kitchen for hours already. I have a sudden and uncharacteristic surge of guilt at being such an anti-Christmas auntie, when everyone else seems to be up for it.

  My sister catered a wedding yesterday – and now she’s cooking Christmas dinner. I know she loves it, but still…

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask, the steam from the coffee billowing in front of my face as I speak. ‘Peel carrots? Chop parsnips? Do whatever it is you do to sprouts?’

  ‘No, don’t worry,’ says my sister, grinning at me. ‘I’d actually like the food to be edible. Why don’t you open your presents?’

  I nod, and smile, and try to look excited, and she laughs. She knows I hate this, and I know that she knows, and she knows I know she knows… and, well, you get the picture. There’s a whole lot of knowing going on.

  Lizzie and Nate are actually pretty keen on this part, obviously, and start to pass me parcels up from the bottom of the ginormous Christmas tree. It’s been shedding so much there is a light scattering of pine needles over all the gifts, and I also see that the lower branches have definitely been nibbled. Probably by a naughty black Lab puppy. They’d only been able to put the presents out yesterday, as Midgebo was staying with Matt – he’d completely torn to shreds the one and only package they put there earlier, obviously sensing that there was a highly delicious and apparently edible (to a Labrador) set of matching coasters in there.

  ‘This is from us,’ says Lizzie, as I take one of the presents from her hands. I squeeze it and shake it and blow on it, in a charade of trying to figure out what it is, and eventually just rip off the paper. It doesn’t even have the chance to hit the floor before my mum has grabbed the wrapping up, screwed it into a ball, and placed it neatly in the black bin bag she has on her lap. She’s a house-keeping Ninja.

  Inside the parcel is a T-shirt. I open it up and see the words ‘Bah Humbug!’ printed with big, black capital letters. It makes me laugh, which delights the kids, and Lizzie immediately makes me pose holding it up for the camera for a photo.

  Next, they present me with a giant Walking Dead mug – ‘for your morning coffee, Auntie Becca’ – and a toiletry set that is apparently designed to help you sleep. It seems my foibles have not gone unnoticed. I make happy noises and take a sniff of the lavender bath oil. This is a mistake, as it is so strong I almost gag.

  I manage to hide that by immediately gulping down more coffe
e, and urging the kids to open their gifts from me.

  The next half an hour or so has a certain rhythm to it. We take presents from under the tree, and tear the paper off them. Mum demonstrates a supernatural ability to catch and dispose of said paper, no matter how far out of her reach it seems to be. We all proclaim ourselves delighted with our various items, which is definitely more true in some cases than others.

  I, for example, am genuinely pretty taken with the photo frame that Lizzie and Nate have made for me – shop-bought but decorated with shells they’ve collected from the beach. There is also a small envelope full of printed pictures from throughout my stay, which is very sweet.

  I look quickly through them, but am horrified to find that they are making me well up – so I simply pick the first one I see of Nate and Lizzie, and decide that will be the one for the frame. I slip it behind the glass with shaky hands, and hope nobody notices I’m an emotional wreck.

  Lizzie and Nate seem pleased with the very carefully chosen presents I give them – they each get a gift-wrapped box inside a gift-wrapped box inside another gift-wrapped box, the smallest one containing £50. Cash: the most personal gift a teen can get. I’ve also given Lizzie a nice book on photography, which she seems enthralled by, and a chess set made out of Marvel superheroes to Nate.

  Laura gives me a big box of Roses, and I give her a big box of Quality Street. This is an established ritual that we’ve been following since she had Lizzie, and we decided that our lives were too busy for shopping.

  There is, of course, also the Princess Leia slave-girl outfit, but that’s not one to open in front of our parents. It would either lead to a shocked silence, or, even worse, my mum saying ‘I’ve got one just like that at home, haven’t I Ken? It doesn’t half chafe, though…’

  My mum and dad, as ever, manage to get things that are awful and yet hilariously perfect. Lizzie pretends to be delighted with her new Britney Spears perfume, and Nate can barely keep his face straight when he unwraps a Lego set. Laura gets a Guide to British Birds – ‘because I know you’ve been keen on those skylarks in the garden’ – says Mum, proudly. I am the lucky recipient of a £30 voucher to get myself Hopi ear candle-d.