Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café. Debbie Johnson

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       Chapter 3

      I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, and as the door closes I see – for the millionth time – the photo that’s stuck up on there with a gaudy ‘I Heart Bristol’ magnet.

      It’s a photo of me, and Kate, and Martha. Taken on holiday in Dorset, maybe three years before – only three years, but an alternate reality. Most of my face is covered in a giant cloud of curly red hair, as usual; Kate is in the middle, blonde and pretty and full of life, Martha snuggling into her side.

      She’s using her fingers to make the classic Black Sabbath-style rock sign, but it doesn’t look rebellious – just funny. Her hair was still its natural colour – dark blonde – and her eyes sparkled with happiness. We were a strangely-shaped family, but we were a family – and now it’s my job to keep us like that. I want to feel that again: that simple sense of freedom, for Martha to rediscover the innocence and security that her mother’s death stole from her.

      Dorset. It could be perfect. Not too far away in miles, but a different universe. I stagger over to the laptop, and start to investigate.

      Within a few minutes, fate – or Google, as some people insist on calling it – has intervened. I search for property to let, and am immediately attracted to one result in particular. ‘Stay with us in sunny Dorset,’ it says, ‘where life is simple and you can leave your cares behind.’

      Wow. That would be good. I click through, and see a pretty holiday cottage complex called The Rockery near the village of Budbury. It looks idyllic, and within minutes I’m lost in the fantasy, imagining us both there – without our cares. I’m so lost in imagining this new life that I don’t even notice Martha coming into the room.

      “Where the fuck is that dump?” she says, so suddenly that I jump, and knock a glass of water all over the table. I swear back, in a very mature fashion, and leap around like a loon holding the laptop in the air so it doesn’t get wet.

      Martha leans back against the kitchen sink, smirking, as I create a glove made of paper towels and try to mop up the mess. I briefly consider punching her in the face, as I do most mornings, but talk myself out of it.

      She peels a banana and starts to eat it, looking on at my efforts like I’m some kind of performance art installation.

      “Thanks for your help,” I say, once I’ve finally cleared the table, my fingers now coated in soggy, mushed up kitchen towel.

      “You’re welcome,” she replies casually, throwing the banana skin at the bin and missing. It splats onto the floor, where, given her teenaged angst and my superlative housekeeping skills, it might stay forever.

      I sit back down, and squint through the sunshine at her face. It’s the third week in August, and the weather is still bright and gorgeous. The kitchen faces out onto our small patio garden, and the light streams through the window in vivid golden streaks, striping Martha like a tiger. I see that she’s at least managed a shower; her face is free of last night’s zombie movie make-up and her hair is hanging wet and clean over her shoulders. She’s wearing an old Glastonbury hoodie that I recognise as Kate’s, and that immediately softens my attitude.

      I remind myself, as I seem to need to do several times a day, that she’s just a child. A child missing her mother. A child I love. I was there when she was born, screaming and bloody, and I was there when her mother died; and I’m still here now – right where I need to be.

      “This,” I say, pointing at the screen, “is a place called Budbury. It’s in Dorset. And I thought we might … go there.”

      I let the words float out casually, but hold my breath as I wait for her to respond. There’s a battle royale coming, and it’s one I intend to win.

      “What, like, for a holiday or something?” she asks, screwing up her face in disgust as she looks at the photos. Budbury is on the Jurassic Coast, near to the border with Devon, and is absolutely picture perfect. There’s a small village with a hall and shops and even a pet cemetery; there’s a few pubs and a gorgeous-looking café perched on the side of the clifftops, and there’s a college just a few miles away. That was an important factor, the college.

      We’d both received a letter the day before from her old school, ‘regretfully’ informing us that the sixth form courses she wanted to do were now full. I suspect that isn’t true – they just don’t want her back. I’m angry on her behalf, but kind of get it – she’s been a great big handful of trouble this year, and I’ve spent what feels like hours sitting across the desk from the head teacher, squirming on the naughty chair, listening to her witter on about Martha’s problems.

      I’m not at all surprised that they’ve declined to have her back. Martha’s pretending not to be bothered by it, but I suspect the letter inspired last night’s binge. It was proof that everything has changed – and not for the better.

      She’s staring at my screen now, frowning. The scenery around the village is astounding – a million light years from our admittedly cosy little corner of Bristol. Even looking at the beaches and the tiny little coves and the pathways clinging to the sides of the cliffs makes me feel better – makes me yearn to be there, in the fresh air, walking and breathing and just … being. Maybe I’d get a dog, and learn to surf, and write beautiful poetry and drink scrumpy.

      I’m guessing, from the look on Martha’s face as she flicks through the slideshow, that she doesn’t exactly feel the same.

      “Looks like something from a horror film,” she says, dismissively. “Like the Village of the Damned. I bet it’s stuck in a time warp as well – they probably СКАЧАТЬ