A Gift from the Comfort Food Café: Celebrate Christmas in the cosy village of Budbury with the most heartwarming read of 2018!. Debbie Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ probably right, dear … say goodbye to Smokey McChuff Face for me, will you? Thanks for this lovely tea, but I must make a move. Busy day today – I’m judging in a sausage-making contest in the big city! I wonder what the sex catalogue people would make of that, eh?’

      I grimace, and wave her off. The ‘big city’ actually means the next village over, Applechurch, which is a regular metropolis compared to Budbury. They have three pubs, and a school, and their very own GP surgery. Dizzying stuff.

      I try my mum again and get no reply. To try and stop myself from worrying, I do some stocktaking, and by the time Auburn comes back in with her own mug of coffee and a plate of café-made cookies, I’ve discovered that we need more cold sore cream. Heaven forbid the lips of Budbury should go untreated. I make a note on my little pad, and take one of the chocolate chip sin-balls that Auburn offers. I have no idea why everyone in Budbury isn’t obese – must be all the walking we do to offset the sugar.

      I tell her goodbye from Edie, and carry on stalking the shelves, counting up boxes of Kleenex and wondering why chemist shops always seem to sell those lollipops that are made in the shape of whistles.

      Auburn follows behind me like a shadow. She’s hovering so close at one point that when I back up to get a wider look at our frankly stunning range of scented candles, I crash right into her.

      ‘Sorry!’ she yelps, jumping out of the way, the word muffled by her mouthful of cookie crumbs.

      ‘Can I help you with something, Auburn?’ I ask, smiling at her to take any potential sting out of my words. Full of confidence and brazen flash on the surface, she’s actually pretty easily offended – like she’s waiting for the world to notice she’s not all that.

      ‘No … I’m just bored, I suppose. I’ve got all the prescription requests done for Monday; I’ve checked my stocks in the dispensary, and I’ve eaten seven thousand chocolate chip cookies. So now I have a massive sugar rush and nowhere to go. I talked to Van while I was outside, by the way, just to see how things were going.’

      ‘Right – everything okay?’ I ask, perching myself on the stool behind the counter. Just in case we get a mad flood of customers – and also to stop Auburn from invading my personal space. I’m very protective of my personal space.

      ‘Yep. Mum’s teaching Saul how to knit. He says he’s going to make you a scarf for Christmas. And Van says he asked you out for a drink and you said no.’

      ‘I didn’t say no. I said maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Was he upset? I didn’t mean to upset him. I just … didn’t want to agree to something I wasn’t sure about.’

      She grins, full wattage, and seems delighted with it all. Van is her big brother, but not by much, and there’s a definite sibling rivalry that age and maturity hasn’t managed to erase.

      I’m an only child, and being involved with big families is always a magical mystery tour for me – no matter how old they get, there always seems to be part of them that stays feral, and wants to hold the other one down on the floor while they dribble spit on their faces.

      ‘No, he’s not upset. In fact I think you’ve accidentally mastered the art of treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen without even trying. Most people would just lie to get out of something.’

      ‘I don’t think I have the imagination to lie,’ I reply, quietly. ‘And I spent too much of my life tiptoeing around other people’s feelings to feel comfortable with it. Not so long ago, I’d have just said yes to please him.’

      ‘But not now?’ she asks, one eyebrow arched up in question.

      ‘No. Not now. Anyway, what lie would you have told?’

      She narrows her eyes slightly, as though she’s letting me know that she knows that I’m changing the conversation, steering it away from any personal revelations. I nod, to show that I know that she knows, and that I’m not about to start spilling my guts like I’m on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Budbury, for all its many charms, is not a great respecter of privacy. So, we both know what we know – and leave it at that.

      ‘Well,’ she replies, staring off into space as she thinks about it, ‘there are a variety of lies that would suit that scenario. If you’d met him in a club, you could give him a fake phone number. And a fake name. I used to pretend I was a nurse called Lorraine when I met men for the first time. This is different, though … you’d have to go for either something halfway believable, or a complete whopper.’

      ‘Examples, please. I live to learn at the knees of Lorraine.’

      ‘Okay – well, halfway believable. Tell him you’re a lesbian.’

      ‘What?? Do I look like I might be a lesbian?’

      She bursts out laughing, and I have to join in.

      ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ I add. ‘And it has its appeal – I could be the only gay in the village.’

      ‘That we know of,’ replies Auburn, nodding like she’s stumbled across the world’s greatest conspiracy theory. ‘Statistically, there must be some. I should probably organise an official survey. And lesbians, I believe, can look like absolutely anybody – so that’s a daft comment. Admittedly, you have a child – but you could say that was a one-off, and you’ve since had a personal epiphany of a Sapphic persuasion.’

      ‘I could, if I knew what that meant. All right. That’s one – how about the complete whopper?’

      ‘Those are more fun,’ she says, unwrapping a whistle-shaped lollipop and pausing to blow through it. ‘You could say you’re a nun on sabbatical. Or that you have a terrible sexually transmitted disease that’s made your lady parts fall off. Or that your dog ate your foot. Or wait until the night you were supposed to go out, and say a giant pterodactyl shat on your head.’

      ‘Or,’ I reply, taking the lollipop out of her hand and throwing it into the bin – the last thing she needs is more sugar – ‘I could just be honest. I’m really not at a point in my life where I want to be dating. Not that it was a date. Not that he implied that. Not that I’m being up myself, and assuming he’s interested in me that way. Because I’m sure he’s not – he’s a very attractive man, and there’s no way he’d fancy me. And even if he did, I’m not saying that I fancy him. Even though he is very attractive. And …’

      I run out of steam at that point, which is a good thing, as Auburn is already practically wetting herself laughing at me.

      ‘Aye aye, Captain Careful,’ she says, giving me a mock salute. ‘Message received, over and out – you’re not interested. Even if he was interested. Which is all very interesting. And as he’s my big bro, and I still think of him in terms of sweaty socks and acne, I can understand you saying no. But if not him, then what about someone else? I mean, you’ve been here for ages, and presumably single for ages, and … well, don’t you need a shag by now?’

      She looks genuinely bewildered by the concept of someone being celibate for this long. Auburn, for all her bluster, is actually almost as guarded as me when it comes to her emotions – she covers them up under layers of sarcasm and nonsense.

      She’s the same with her personal history – I know she lived away from home for over a decade, travelling and working, in South America and Asia and Europe. There must have been significant others, but she’s never talked about them. СКАЧАТЬ