A Wedding at the Comfort Food Cafe. Debbie Johnson

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter 3

      Willow eventually rejoins the ladies inside the café, and I decide not to. I feel shaken and stirred, much like my martinis, and can’t face the thought of them all looking at me in that concerned and curious way. I feel like enough of a freak as it is, without parading it in front of the cake collective.

      None of them would judge, or push too hard, or be anything other than kind and understanding. They’ve all had complicated lives, with ex husbands and dead husbands and imaginary husbands and loss and pain and damage, and they’ve all managed to somehow rebuild. Here, in Budbury, where the rebuilding of shattered lives seems to be something of a regional speciality.

      I know that if I fell, they’d spread their arms out and catch me like a big fluffy mattress. I care about them, and I like them, and I trust them. I’m just not 100 per cent sure I feel the same way about myself, at least not all the time. I’m trying to be a better person – staying rooted, staying with a family that needs me, doing a job that matters. Trying not to flake out and run. Trying to be my best self, as they might say on an American panel show.

      But my best self is feeling somewhat battered right now, and wants to sneak away. In the Olden Days, I’d have snuck away to another continent – but my life is here. Lynnie is here. Willow is here. Finn is here.

      I’ve been sitting on the table, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on my face in that way you do when it first comes back after winter, wondering what to do next. The pharmacy is closed for the day in honour of Laura’s party. Lynnie’s away. I don’t want to go back inside. I have a very rare free afternoon ahead of me, and until I think about Finn, have no idea what to fill it with.

      As soon as I do think about Finn, I smile. This is a strange new feeling for me – the very thought of a man making me grin. Not just in a ‘phwoar, he’d get it’ kind of way – though that’s there as well. But also because he’s funny and kind and patient and strong in all manner of ways. Physically, yes – he’s a bear of a man – but also in subtler ways. He’s one of those people everyone pays attention to, even though he never raises his voice. A natural leader, I suppose, who might in an alternative reality have been some big cheese in the army, or elected as Boss of the Entire World.

      In this reality, he runs Briarwood, Tom’s school for grown-up brainiacs. It only opened last year, and initially he tried running it himself, but there were too many problems – like the fact that supremely clever people are sometimes also supremely stupid. There were fires, and meltdowns, and minor explosions, and crises involving re-enactments of famous Jedi battles using real glass light tubes.

      Eventually, Tom – who is silly rich because he invents things I don’t understand and have no interest in – decided to get someone in to manage the place. And the people who lived there.

      I was involved in the interviewing process, mainly because I insisted, and Finn got the job. That was months ago, and we’ve been together for two of them. Two whole months, and so far, not a single crack has started to show – which is all the proof you need that Finn Jensen is indeed some kind of superior life form. If he’s put up with me for this long, he’s possibly eligible for sainthood.

      I set off on what I know will be a long walk – Briarwood is outside the village, at the top of a hill, surrounded by the kind of wilderness Bear Grylls would find a challenge. I can’t drive though, due to my alcohol intake, and anyway the trek will do me good.

      I repeat this to myself over and over again during the next half an hour, as the warm sunshine gets warmer, and the booze wears off, and I start to yearn for a glass of cold water. By the time I finally arrive at Briarwood, I’m hot and bothered and also starting to realise something: I have to tell Finn about Seb.

      I should have told him about Seb ages ago, but I didn’t tell anyone about Seb. Now the cat is not only out of the bag but probably having kittens back at the café – it’ll only be a matter of time before someone else casually mentions it to him, which would be unfair and crap and also embarrassing for both of us.

      I bypass the main room of the building, which is vibrating with death metal music as I approach. Them crazy kids sure do like their death metal. I glance at the big bay windows, and see them at work: skinny jeans, bright hair, rock T-shirts, piercings, glasses, a life-size replica of ET. That’s a new one, and it makes me smile as I walk through the entrance into the hallway.

      The house itself is probably Victorian, and was once the home of local landed gentry who fell on hard times. It later became a children’s home – a kind of posh private orphanage – where Tom himself spent a few key years after his parents died. That’s where he first met Willow, when we were all kids – Lynnie, in her pre-Alzheimer days, used to work here, doing yoga and art workshops with the young people.

      It fell into disrepair after that, until Tom came back and did CPR on it. Now it’s lively and loud and full of energy and that makes me so happy. I walk down to Finn’s office, where he also has living quarters, and where he will also have one of those lovely water coolers that make that nice glugging sound as it fills your glass. Bliss.

      I pause outside his door, and quickly swipe some of my hair out of my face. My hair is long and straight and deep red, which is where I got my name. All of us siblings got given names that suited our appearance when we were born – Willow long and lean; Van with a funny ear; Angel a little cherub.

      It’s also, right now, a bit sticky and glued to my cheeks. Not a good look. Once I’m satisfied that I’m as tidy as I’m going to get, I knock on the door to warn him and go inside.

      Finn is sitting behind his desk, looking god-like. He’s tall and big and broad and thanks to his Danish grandfather, has silky blond hair that he keeps a bit long, crystal blue eyes, and today, like most days, golden stubble. His face is dominated by high, wide cheekbones, and a slightly crooked nose, and, the minute he sees me, a smile that immediately sends a tingle down my spine.

      ‘God dag, Mein Herr,’ I say, blending Danish and German on purpose because I know it exasperates him.

      ‘Guten morgen, mon petit chou-fleur,’ he replies quickly, leaning back in his chair.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ