Coming Home to the Comfort Food Café. Debbie Johnson

let that fool you – she actually won the hula hoop challenge, the others were just playing for the losers’ spots …”

      It’s a lot to take in. A lot of names, and information, and stuff to remember. Details to file away. None of which seems to be easy at the moment, as all I can see in my mind’s eye is a 91-year-old Catwoman hip-swivelling her way to victory.

      This place isn’t just weird – it’s super weird.

      The thought must have come across on my face, because Laura is laughing at me, and Martha is edging away from me. For a change.

      “Don’t worry, I know it seems a lot. And it’s all pretty strange – I only moved down here myself last summer, and it took me weeks to remember everyone’s names. I’ll be around to help you settle in, as much or as little as you like. I live here at the Rockery, and so does Matt. That’s Matt, over there – the scary doctor.”

      She goes a little dreamy-eyed as she says this, and I can’t pretend I don’t see why. Matt is sitting off to the side, an elderly Border Terrier at his feet, strumming away on the guitar.

      He’s big and beefy and even dressed in a white coat covered in blood, looks like the kind of doctor who would immediately raise your blood pressure. In a good way. Floppy chestnut brown hair, hazel eyes, all-round handsome. As though he senses us watching, he looks over, and waves at Laura. She waves back, and they give each other a smile that makes me feel like I don’t exist. That nobody else in the world exists. It’s sweet and lovely and intimate, and it straight away makes me feel lonely. I don’t think any man has ever smiled at me like that – certainly not while sober.

      I drag my mind away from that thought, as it is bordering on self-pity, and instead look around to see how Martha is reacting to all of this insanity.

      She is standing behind me, hands shoved in her pockets, and studiously ignoring the nearby zombie teenagers. My heart falls a little, and maybe breaks a little as well. I had hoped, as soon as I saw them, that it might make the difference – seeing people of the same age, of the same eye-liner inclination, of the same footwear tribe (most of the zombies are wearing Doc Martens, which never go out of fashion, even after the apocalypse). I suppose I’d hoped that she would see them as potential friends – but instead, she’s pretending not to see them at all.

      I am gazing at Martha, and feeling sad, when Laura slips her arm into mine and links me.

      “Don’t worry,” she says, quietly, following my gaze. “It just takes time. Give her a chance to get used to it all, to us. To the fact that you’ve dragged her kicking and screaming away from her friends.”

      I tear my eyes away from Martha, and back to Laura. It sounds so simple when she says it, but I’m not so sure.

      “Maybe,” I reply. “I hope, anyway. She’s … well, she’s been through a lot.”

      “I know,” Laura answers, simply. “Cherie told me. And you might not know it to look at her now, but Lizzie was the same. She lost her dad. I lost my husband. We were broken when we arrived here, and she hated me for making her come. These days, she’s … well, she’s still a pain in the arse sometimes; she’s impossible to get out of bed, she’s addicted to her phone, she swears too much, and she punches Nate in the kidneys most days, but … well, that’s all normal pain-in-the-arse stuff, isn’t it? Nothing we can’t cope with.”

      Wow, I think, looking at Laura through fresh eyes. I’d been standing here, feeling jealous of her and Matt, and assuming that I was looking at one of those perfect families. Mum, dad, two kids. Lashings of love all around.

      And while I was right about the love – that much is obvious – I’d been wrong about the circumstances. Laura is a widow, and Lizzie and Nate have suffered the same kind of loss as Martha, and nothing is as simple as it seemed on the surface. Maybe, just maybe, this place will do the same for us – sprinkle some fairy dust on our lives until we reach the point where all I have to worry about with Martha is her lazing around in bed. Not, you know, overdosing in a nightclub toilet.

      Martha herself has taken a walk, obviously not into the whole meet-and-greet party vibe, and is starting her new life in Dorset the way she probably intends to carry on: alone. I watch as she mooches from cottage to cottage, pausing to look at the names they all have engraved on slate plaques outside them, frowning as she does. She looks forlorn, and isolated, and very, very young. It’s like a kick in the teeth, and I suddenly wish we hadn’t come. Somehow, being surrounded by everyone else’s happiness – even if there is sadness just a layer beneath – feels like too much.

      I have an urge to change my mind right then. To scoop Martha back up, and load her in the car, and drive us to the nearest pub, where I will happily let her use her fake ID and allow us both to get absolutely shitfaced.

      Before I can give in and act on the impulse, Martha turns back, and joins us. Her face is slightly more animated than it has been all day, and she’s pulled her bobble out so her black hair is flowing over her shoulders.

      “What’s the name of our cottage?” she asks, abruptly.

      “Erm … Lilac Wine, I think?” I reply, frowning in confusion.

      She nods, as though she’s just figured something out.

      “Right. Jeff Buckley. And there’s Cactus Tree, which is Joni Mitchell, and Poison Ivy, which is the Rolling Stones, and Mad About Saffron, which is that hippy dude Donovan. Plus over there there’s one called Black Rose.”

      She raises her eyebrows at me expectantly, and I answer: “Thin Lizzy?”

      All of the cottages at the Rockery – a name which now makes much more sense – are named after songs. Quite cool songs as well, in a retro kind of way.

      “Wow,” says Laura, shaking her head in awe. “I can’t believe you figured it out that quickly, and you know all the songs as well … you two are way cooler than us!”

      Martha glances at her, glances at me, and replies: “Well, one of us is at least.”

      It’s cheeky, and could have been nasty, if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s almost smiling. Not full on – not grinning or anything crazy like that – but definitely almost.

      “We’re in Hyacinth House, behind the others and next to the pool,” says Laura, and waits a beat for us to figure that one out.

      “The Doors,” I say, at exactly the same time as Martha. I resist the urge to offer her a high-five – I think we all know how that would end – and instead satisfy myself with a small, internal whoop of joy. Perhaps this will all be okay, after all. The healing power of rock music might at the very least have given us a chance.

      Cherie wanders back over to us – I’ve seen her watching me and Laura, as though she’s giving us the chance to get acquainted before she butts back in. She’s perched her plastic fangs in her hair, and they look a bit like they might come back to life at any moment and start gnashing down on her head.

      “Martha figured out all the cottage names straight away,” says Laura, eyes wide as though Martha has performed some kind of miracle.

      “I’m not surprised,” replies Cherie, reaching out to smooth Martha’s hair behind her ears and somehow, amazingly, managing to keep her hand. “I could tell right away that this was the right place for these two.”

       Chapter 10

      Our first night in Lilac Wine is neither a roaring success or a complete disaster. On a scale of 1-10 – with 1 being ‘please pass me the Valium’ and 10 being ‘zippety-doo-dah’ – it’s probably about a 6.

      The cottage itself is lovely; all exposed beams and chintzy furniture and comfy cushions. There’s a gorgeous old fireplace that I can imagine lying in front of on colder nights, accompanied by a bottle of gin, and a battered pine dining table laden