Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe Read online

  Now, I’m looking ahead and I see that there needs to be a change. David left us with enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage and the car loans, and to live on for a little while. We have no debt at all, which I know puts us at a big advantage over lots of families who are struggling to make ends meet.

  But there’s nothing coming in – no income. Which means no holiday – not because of my lack of planning skills, but because we can’t afford it. Not if we want to eat as well. Don’t get me wrong, our heads are above water, but there isn’t much spare after paying the bills and doing the shopping and coping with what feels like the mountain of expense a teenage girl piles up!

  If we ration we’ll be fine for another year. Rationing means no holiday – and I just can’t face it. I think we need a holiday – one that we actually enjoy, this time. We’ve all started to feel just a little bit better now. Almost against our will, there is more laughter, more easy chat, more smiling.

  The kids’ lives have moved on, certainly a lot more than mine! They’re both in high school now, both starting to grow into young adults, both changing. I’d like to add another photo album to that shelf before they’re too cool to be bothered with their poor old mum.

  I also know that I need to get my act together. I need to get a job – and not just for the money. I need to get out there, back into the world. Because the kids are that little bit older and more independent now. They don’t need me as much. They’re out a lot – or Lizzie is at least, and Nate is showing signs of following suit. That’s only right – it’s good. It’s what I want for them, to have normal lives. But me sitting at home in a rocking chair, counting cobwebs and watching The Good Wife on repeat isn’t going to do any of us any good.

  Getting a job will help me to meet new people. Get away from my own problems. Make my world bigger. I have my sister, my parents and his family too – but sometimes, if I’m honest, that feels like more of a responsibility than a help. They’re all so worried about me all the time, I feel like I’m under a microscope. I think they’re waiting for me to crack.

  I think they’re scared that long term, I can’t live without him. Maybe they’re right, I don’t know – but I have to try. I don’t want to forget David – that would be impossible even if I did – but I do need to start living my life After David. AD, if you like.

  I started looking at jobs a few months ago and came to the depressing conclusion that I’m officially useless. I have the aforementioned Home Economics A level, which is the pinnacle of my academic achievement (I also have a C in Health and Social Care and a B in General Studies, which are really of no use to anybody). I worked at McDonald’s for a year before I had the kids and I got a food hygiene certificate when I did volunteer work at the school kitchen. Not hugely impressive, I know – it’s not like Marco Pierre White is hammering on the door with a job offer.

  But I do cook – I cook a lot. Family dinners, occasional forays into something more exotic like Thai or Japanese. I do a mean roast and can make my own meatballs. I can bake and I can whip up marinades, and I can do a full English fry-up with my eyes closed.

  I wouldn’t get very far on Masterchef, but I can cook – proper home-made stuff – the kind of food that isn’t just good for your body but good for your soul as well. At least I like to think so. I’m amazed, in fact, that the kids aren’t the size of that giant marshmallow man in Ghostbusters by now – one of the ways I’ve tried to console them (and if I’m honest, myself as well) over the last few years is through feeding them. It keeps me busy, it makes me feel like I’m doing something positive, and it’s a way to show I love them now they’re too old for public displays of affection.

  They just scarf it down, of course, they’re kids – but perhaps, at somewhere like the Comfort Food Café, I could actually be of some use. It would be really, really nice to feel useful again – and to spend the summer in Dorset, and fill up another one of those albums.

  So. There we go. I think that’s everything. Probably more than everything. I’m not sure this is what you meant when you said send your heart and soul in letter form, but that serves you right for being so vague! I bet you got some really strange replies – this one being possibly the strangest of all.

  I won’t hold it against you, Cherie, if I never hear from you. But if you want to talk to me, or find out anything more, then let me know. Whatever happens, good luck to you.

  All the best,

  Laura Walker

  WEEK 1

  In which I travel to Dorset, sing a lot of Meatloaf songs, accidentally inhale what might possibly be marijuana, wrap my bra around a strange man’s head and become completely betwattled …

  Chapter 3

  ‘They filmed The French Lieutenant’s Woman there,’ I say, trying to meet my daughter’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. She’s not interested, of course. She’s too busy staring at her phone, thumbs moving quick as lightning as she types. So quick they’re just vague pink blurs, in fact. If Lizzie was going to be a superhero, she’d be called Thumb Girl: the Fastest Text in the West.

  Sadly, Thumb Girl doesn’t seem impressed with my cinematic reference, and really, what did I expect? Was that the best I could come up with? A sappy Meryl Streep movie from before she was even born? A historical romance featuring some award-winning moustaches and meaningful glances? It’s enough to give mothers the world over a bad name, for God’s sake.

  ‘Never heard of it, Mum,’ she replies, grudgingly. I’m actually surprised she even vocalises her response and suspect she’s saying something much ruder on her screen. I make a mental note to check her Twitter account later. Or Tumblr. Or Facebook. I’ve kind of lost track of which one is her favourite form of communication at the moment. It certainly isn’t good old-fashioned talking. Not with me at least.

  I scrabble for something more contemporary – something cooler. Something that might make her hate me ever-so-slightly less than she does right now. Something along the lines of ‘the lead singer from Green Day will be living next door to us’, but more … true.

  ‘Yeah. I suppose it is a bit old for you. Well, they filmed Broadchurch there,’ I finally say.

  ‘The one about the murdered kid?’ asks Lizzie, finally looking up, one eyebrow raised in query just about visible beneath her straight blonde fringe. The fringe has been getting lower and lower for months now – eventually I fear it will cover her whole face and she’ll look like Cousin It dressed by Primark.

  ‘That’s it, yes, the one with David Tennant in it,’ I reply, encouraged to have finally found some common ground. Even if it is common ground built on infanticide and Doctor Who.

  ‘Wow. What a great advert for the place,’ comes the sarcastic reply. ‘Remind me to get a rape alarm.’

  Okay. Deep breaths. There are at least four hours left of this fun family road trip, I remind myself. In an ideal world, we’ll at least save the shouting until we’re past Birmingham. I consider starting a ‘count the red cars’ game and realise that they haven’t played that since they were a lot younger. And I also realise – for about the millionth time – that I suck at this.

  David had a way of making car journeys fun. I’d be the one making sure we all had bottles of water and muffins to eat and spare carrier bags in case Nate threw up, and he’d be the one making them laugh. I’d be studying the map – Sat nav’s for Slackers, he’d always say – and he’d be driving and somehow managing to keep everybody’s spirits up.

  Well, they’re older now – and way less easy to amuse. Plus, I’m still not sure how it is going to be possible to read the map, drive the car and keep everybody’s spirits up at the same time. I’m struggling with my own spirits, never mind theirs as well. And, even though I’d never drink and drive (honest), every time I think of the word ‘spirits’, I start to yearn for a large, super frosty G&T. Or maybe a mojito. Later, I promise. Later.

  I take the deep breath I’d recommended to myself and ask – silently – the question that plays across my mind at least a fe
w times every day. Even more right now as we set off on this exciting adventure that nobody, including me, seems to find very exciting at all. What Would David Do, I think? WWDD, for short.

  David, I know, would be untroubled. He’d smile and ignore the cheekiness, and find a way to deflate the whole situation with a lame joke. Or he’d start to talk in a series of fart noises. Or put on a French accent and sing ‘Barbie Girl’. Something like that, anyway.

  But David did have the very big advantage of Lizzie adoring everything about him. He could never do any wrong in her eyes – whereas her feelings towards me, right now, aren’t quite so generous. At best, I suspect they go along the lines of ‘will someone please tell me I’m adopted?’, and at worst, she may be using her birthday money to hire a hitman. To say she’s displeased at being separated from her friends for the summer is something of an understatement – a bit like saying Daniel Craig is passably attractive.

  ‘It’s on the Jurassic Coast,’ I add, trying again. I can practically feel the black aura creeping over my shoulders from the back seat, but I have to try. Because that is definitely what DWD and I need to keep going. Sat nav’s for Slackers, and Quiet’s for Quitters. It’s 6.30am and I’ve only had one mug of coffee.

  If somebody doesn’t talk to me soon, I might actually fall asleep at the wheel, which would be bad for all concerned as I’m in control of a very full Citroen Picasso, complete with equally full roof rack and a fat black Labrador snoring in the boot.

  Nate perks up at my latest comment, looking up from his DS for a moment. Presumably Super Mario/Sonic the Hedgehog/Pokémon/delete as applicable is on pause. His hair’s a bit too long as well, but not for style purposes – we just haven’t found the time or the inclination to go to the barbers very much. That was one of his dad’s jobs, too. I’ve been trimming it myself with the nail scissors, which I really must stop doing – he’s twelve. He needs to stop looking like he lets his mum cut his hair, even if he does.

  ‘So did they film Jurassic World there?’ he asks, hopefully. I hate to disappoint, but feel that leading him to expect a first-hand encounter with a friendly bronchosaurus might ultimately result in him hating me when he realises I lied. He is, as I’ve said, twelve – so technically he knows that velociraptors don’t roam the hills and vales of Dorset. But he’s also a boy, so he lives in hope that he’s about to be whisked off to a super-secret island filled with Scenes of Mild Peril.

  ‘Erm … no,’ I admit. ‘But we can go fossil-hunting, if you like? Apparently there are loads washed up on the beach.’

  He gives me the smile. That small, sweet smile that says ‘I remain unimpressed, but love you anyway’. The uni-dimple makes a brief, heart-wrenching appearance, before he turns his face back to what really matters. The small device on his lap.

  I have a fleeting moment of nostalgia for the days when kids weren’t permanently attached to electronic gadgets, and then realise I am being both hypocritical and very, very old. When I was their age, I thought my Walkman was the absolute bees knees and used to pull very rude faces when my mum suggested I might get ear cancer if I didn’t take the headphones off every now and then.

  ‘That sounds cool, Mum,’ Nate says, already lost in his alternative reality.

  ‘Are you okay playing on that?’ I ask. ‘You don’t feel sick?’

  ‘No. It’s okay Mum. I haven’t been car sick since I was eight.’

  ‘All right. But I’ve put some bags in the glove box you know, just in case …’

  He nods and gives me another grin before playing again. Beautiful boy.

  I bask in my thirty seconds of maternal glory and glance out at the approaching motorway sign.

  Hmmm. Sandbach Service Station – I wonder if they do mojitos to go?

  Chapter 4

  We drive down the M6 without a single mojito incident and very little conversation. It’s quiet on the roads – due to most normal people being asleep – and even quieter in the car.

  I combat this by playing Meatloaf’s Greatest Hits very loud and singing along to ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, including all the motorbike-revving noises near the end. I’d do air guitar to the solos, but that’s probably against the Highway Code. I can just imagine the signs: cartoons of Meatloaf with a big red cross through his face.

  Nate frowns a little at my performance and I hear an exasperated sigh emitted from the back seat. Even the dog lets out a half-hearted woof. Everyone’s a critic.

  I choose to ignore them, as that’s what they’ve been doing to me for the last few hours. Obviously, once I decide on this particular path of action, Lizzie has something to say. Initially, I don’t hear her because of my singing. I’ve had three more black coffees since we first set off, so I feel totally wired and perfectly capable of appearing before a sell-out crowd at Wembley.

  ‘What?’ I shout, pausing the track when I realise she’s speaking.

  ‘Do you know,’ says Lizzie, who I see in the rear-view mirror is still staring at her screen, probably googling ‘ways to divorce your parent, ‘that this song is about dying in a terrible crash? Don’t you think that’s tempting fate a bit as we’re driving to the end of the world at 600 miles per hour?’

  ‘We’re not driving to the end of the world, we’re driving to Dorset,’ I reply. ‘And I think you’ll find that not only was Meatloaf on a motorbike, he was hitting the highway like a battering ram. We are in a ten-year-old Citroen Picasso and I barely ever leave the slow lane in case Jimbo suddenly needs a wee.’

  Jimbo is the dog. He’s the third black lab that David owned – his parents had Jimbo and Jambo when we were little; then a new puppy called Jambo the Second, who died just after we got married. After that, they didn’t want any more – they were very busy with their cruise club – so we took over, with Jimbo the Second. Poor Jimbo is almost thirteen now, completely grey around the muzzle and round as a barrel. He mainly sleeps, snores and snuffles, occasionally punctuated by moments of vast and unexpected energy, where he chases imaginary rabbits and scares much younger dogs.

  He’s a lovely beast, with very eloquent eyebrows and a powerful tail that can sweep a table clean when he’s feeling happy. He’s already on tablets for his arthritis and his heart isn’t brilliant, and he has all sorts of lumps and bumps that so far haven’t been anything serious.

  I know he’s not going to be around forever and secretly fear that when he finally goes I’ll have some kind of nervous breakdown. That all my carefully managed grief and sadness will come spilling forth and drown me in emotion. That I’ll start crying in the vet’s surgery and everyone will be washed out, down the street, like they’re on some kind of weird water-park ride made of widow’s tears. Which sounds like the kind of water park Tim Burton would design.

  I have had way too much coffee, it seems.

  Lizzie doesn’t reply to my defence of Meatloaf as a valid driving-song choice. I see that she has put her ear buds back in and is now pretending to be asleep. So much for that brief detente. I glance to my side. Nate is gazing out of the window, head lolling, eyelids heavy. He looks about three years old and my heart constricts a little, remembering a time when he was. The very best of days.

  I press play again, but turn the sound down, just in case Nate does want to drift off. It’s not his fault his crazy mother got him up at stupid o’clock to drag him to the far reaches of the country for the whole summer. It’s not Lizzie’s fault, either, and I get why she’s angry.

  She didn’t want to come. She’s fourteen. Her friends are her world and I have the suspicion there’s a boy on the scene as well. There usually is at that age. David died during her first year at high school, so she got off to a rocky start. She was the Girl With The Dead Dad for ages, subject to the same mix of pity and fear that being bereaved always seems to provoke in people.

  It’s taken us all a long time to get anything like equilibrium back, and hers seems to be wrapped up with her pals, with angsty rock music and with black eye liner. So, no, Lizzie really didn’t want
to come to a small village in the countryside, even if I did try and sell it as a very long holiday.

  She even asked if she could stay at my sister’s instead, which upset me so much I had to fake an urgent need for the toilet and lock myself in the loo while I wept. This is something I do quite a lot these days, as her tongue gets sharper and her hormones get louder and I fail to get any tougher.

  She’s seen enough of me crying to last a lifetime, I’m sure – and it’s better she thinks I’m suffering from IBS than continues to see me soggy. Anyway, getting your feelings hurt by your teenage daughter seems to be par for the course from what I remember. I can still recall the door slamming and the eye rolling and the telling my mum she just didn’t understand.

  Now I’m getting payback from my own daughter. I suppose it’s all part of the great circle of life, but not the kind they sing about in the Lion King.

  The problem with crying about one thing is that it inevitably leads onto crying about another. This is one of the many pleasant side effects of grief – you have a bit of a blub about one thing (like an especially sappy John Lewis commercial or a stroppy daughter) and you end up weeping about Everything That Hurt You Ever. But once I’d got that out of my system and left the sanctuary of the downstairs lav, I did consider it.

  I know Rebecca, my younger sis by two years, would have welcomed Lizzie into her life, and her flat in the city centre, and would probably have been a heck of a lot more fun than I am.

  Becca, you see, doesn’t have kids. Or a dead husband. Or even an elderly Labrador. She has no responsibilities at all, which is just the way she likes it. She got her teenybopper heart broken when she was seventeen, and since then has remained steadfastly single and carefree.

  Lizzie would undoubtedly have had a ball staying there for the summer, but I had to say no. Apart from anything else, Becca knows as much about boundaries and discipline as I do about particle physics. I may well have come home to find Lizzie pregnant, in rehab or starting a new life as a tattoo artist. All three risk factors could equally have applied to Becca herself.