The Comfort Food Café

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

M y name is Maxine Connolly and I am officially Not a Morning Person.

I used to be, back in the mists of time, when I had an early shift at the shop, or when I needed to get round to my mum’s to sort her out for the day. And, even further back, when there were school runs to do—but that’s so long ago it feels like a dream sequence now.

I kind of miss the school run era. It felt like a grind of logistics and assemblies and ironing back then, but now I see how magical it was. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but having young kids was way easier in some ways than having grown-up ones. When they’re little, you can control their world, keep them safe, make them happy. You always know where they are and who they’re with, and jumping in a muddy puddle or eating a chocolate Hob Nob can distract them from their woes.

When they’re older, when they’re teenagers, all that changes. You stop worrying about broken limbs and start worrying about broken hearts. They start lying to you, and they have friends you don’t know, and they drink vodka in the park instead of asking you to watch them go down the slide.

The other thing they do, apparently, is apply for jobs you don’t want on your behalf, without asking your permission. Or maybe that’s just specific to my teenager.

Sophie takes advantage of the fact that I am no longer a morning person to slip that one in, super-casual, leaning against the kitchen counter still wearing her tiger-print onesie. She does it while I’m still staggering around the kitchen in my dressing gown, my eyes glued together with sleep and desperate for coffee to bring me back to life. I mean, what kind of evil genius tells someone about a major life change before they’ve even had their coffee? I’ve let our dog, Gary, out for a wee, and that’s about as much as I’m capable of.

‘Mum,’ she says, looking all awake and young and annoying, ‘we’re moving to Dorset for a few months, all right? I found you a job. I’ve had enough of you lazing around the place while I bring home the bacon…’

Sophie has a part-time job in an amusement arcade, where she gives people plastic cups full of coins and makes sure nobody sneaks in with a screwdriver to steal the takings. It’s that kind of place. She only does Saturdays, and what she earns she spends on herself, usually via the medium of ‘vintage’ clothes off the internet or old-school video games for her PlayStation.

‘You don’t bring home the bacon!’ I bleat, waiting for the kettle to boil and then realising I haven’t switched it on.

‘Sometimes I do. Like the other week, you sent me out specifically to the shop to buy bacon, because you wanted to do a fry-up. So, technically speaking, I brought home the bacon, didn’t I?’

‘Technically speaking, you’re being an arse this morning. I haven’t even had my coffee. Why are you expecting my brain to function?’

‘I never expect your brain to function,’ she replies, deadpan. ‘I’ve given up all hope. I’m not even a hundred per cent sure you’ve got a brain at all. But what you do have is a super-duper, totally awesome daughter. Who has found you a job.’

I’ve managed to combine coffee granules and hot water by this stage, but I’m still confused. I mean, I know I’ll have go back to work eventually, but at the moment it’s a vague concept, lurking on a distant horizon. A bit like the diet that you always plan to start tomorrow—the one that feels okay in theory, as long as you don’t actually have to open a packet of Ryvita and stock up on zero fat cottage cheese.

‘I don’t need a job yet,’ I mumble, blinking my eyes in the hopes that everything will stop looking blurry.

‘Yeah, you do, Mum. I’m not talking about paying the gas bill here; I’m talking about the fact that you’ve become a recluse. All you do these days is sit around watching telly, and it’s not a good look. I think it’s time you removed your head from your own backside.’

‘Charming. Parenthood is so rewarding,’ I reply, rooting in the bread bin so I can make some toast.

She has a delightful way of expressing herself, my darling child, but she does have a teeny-tiny speck of a point as well. I don’t actually want any toast, but it gives me something to do to mask the fact that her words have stung me. That she might be right.

Financially, there is no burning need for me to go back to work. I have enough money for us to live on for a little while longer, because of my redundancy package and because we’ve sold our four-bedroomed detached for a really good profit. We’d almost had the mortgage paid off, and Ben was away at uni, so it made sense. Even after setting aside a bit for the kids and splitting the rest with Richie, my ex, there was enough for me to invest in a run-down terrace that needed ‘cosmetic improvement throughout’.

It made sense, but I hated selling our house. I hated showing bright young couples around, trying not to point out the flaws: the garden that floods every winter, the damp patch in the extension, the one tile missing from the roof. I wasn’t ready to give up on it or, I suppose, my marriage. I wasn’t ready to leave all those memories behind.

The good ones outweighed the bad ones, even after the last couple of years. It was still the house where we brought Ben and Sophie home from the hospital, small and wrinkled in their baby carriers. Still the house where we’d had happy Christmases and birthdays, and endless family film nights and takeaways and rows and cuddles. Still our house, and so much more than bricks and mortar.

But Richie didn’t seem to agree with me on that—he’d either erased those memories or they weren’t as happy as I thought—and it sold way too quickly. All that shared experience, all those years building a life together, were dismantled and packed into moving vans in the space of a day. I still walk past it sometimes, see the new family that’s living there. It always makes me cry, and I really must stop doing it. It’s that kind of behaviour that makes me think Sophie might have a teeny-tiny speck of a point.

So money-wise, I could survive a bit longer being an unemployed layabout, but work isn’t just about money, is it? Not for me, anyway. Mentally, I probably need to get back out into the world, to start interacting with the land of the living again. Every day I stay at home, every day I spend watching TV and avoiding real life, it gets harder to escape the clutches of my sofa.

I’m a sociable person, always have been. I like people. I find them endlessly fascinating. I have been known to stay on a bus way past my stop just to carry on an interesting conversation, and I never met a life story yet that I didn’t have questions about. Sophie says I’m just nosy, but I prefer the word ‘engaged’.

These days, though, I’m neither, and I know it’s upsetting her. I know I used to embarrass her when she was a kid, being on first name terms with her teachers and stopping to chat to random strangers on the street, but bizarrely, now I’ve stopped she seems to miss it. I hate the fact that my daughter is worried about me, at a time in her life when she should be completely carefree.

It’s because of that that I actually listen to her when she carries on talking about my ‘new job’. All my instincts are screaming at me to tell her to shut up, to leave me alone. Maybe give her some kind of ‘I’m-the-grown-up-here’ speech, or at the very least skulk off with my coffee. Instead, I just stare at her some more, and wait for her to proceed. I know she will—Sophie is incapable of staying quiet for more than five minutes unless she has a games controller in her hand.

‘So,’ she says, twisting her long dark hair around her fingers, a sure sign she’s actually a bit nervous, ‘you’ll be working in a café, in Dorset. On a hill. I didn’t even know where Dorset was to be fair, but it’s the seaside, and you know I love the seaside.’

‘Right. Well, what will I allegedly be doing, in this café, on a hill, at the seaside?’

‘Cooking and, like, talking to people.’

‘Talking to people?’

‘Yeah. That’s kind of part of the job description, and why I thought you’d be good at it. It’s called the Comfort Food Café, and it looks gorgeous. They have an Instagram account you could look at. Lovely cakes and dogs and views of the beach. And men, actually—all the men on the pics are really hot. Maybe they hired models? Who knows? Anyway. That’s where your new job is.’

‘I see,’ I say, leaning back against the counter, feeling an ache in my back from yet another restless night’s sleep. ‘And did they headhunt me? Narrow me down from a list of candidates passed on to them from NASA? Find me after an extensive search of boring loser chicks in the UK?’

‘You’re not boring, and you’re not a loser—but you are really irritating! I applied for you, and obviously I did an extremely good job of it.’

‘Did you pretend to be me when you filled in the form?’ I ask, feeling horrified. I dread to think what she put down as my hobbies and interests—naked bungy jumping, cage fighting, sex clubs. I wouldn’t put it past her. She once told her sixth-form English teacher that her dad and I had split up because I decided to be a bride of Christ, change my name to Maria von Trapp and move to a convent in Austria. The teacher knew us too well to believe her, but apparently she shared this revelation with the earnest delivery of an MP swearing they had no idea a party during lockdown was breaking the rules.

‘No, there wasn’t a form,’ she says, stealing my toast as soon as it pops up and slathering it with butter. ‘It was all a bit weird really. I had to send them an email, and pour heart and soul into it. And before you ask, no, I didn’t tell any huge lies—not even a small one, Mum! I can show it to you if you like, but I’d rather not. I’m actually nice about you in it, and it might fracture our fun Spongebob versus Squidward vibe.’

We pause at that point, and both of us say, at exactly the same time: ‘I’m Spongebob!’ I mean, nobody wants to be Squidward, do they?

I am curious about what she’s said about me, of course, but something about the set of her face puts me off insisting she tells me. I’m guessing she put a lot more heart and soul into her email than she’s currently comfortable sharing with me.

Again, I’m aware of how hard things have been for her as well recently: her dad leaving, the move, the split with Jack, bombing her A-levels, Ben being away (much as she pretends to hate him, I know she misses the constant combat). Even as she explains her insane plan, she looks nervous, jittery, and maybe underneath that even a bit sad. I can tell that she desperately wants me to listen, to believe, to at least give it all a chance. She’s trying so hard to come off as a confident grown-up that she seems even more like a little girl, which always melts me.

Maybe, I think, as I sip scalding hot coffee and watch her perform her obviously rehearsed big sell, I’ve underestimated how bad things have been for her. Or maybe I’ve underestimated how much she’s noticed about me. Us mums like to think we’re superheroes, don’t we? Putting on a brave face, always convincing our kids that everything is fine. Like that scene in Titanic when the mum puts her babies to sleep and reads them a bedtime story, even as the ship sinks.

It’s a lot easier when they’re little, when they believe every word that comes out of your fibbing mouth. They even believe that a magical fat man in a red suit climbs down every chimney in the world with sacks full of toys. That’s probably the first whopper we tell our kids, and we carry on doing it.

But if Sophie thinks I’m so down I need a pick-me-up in the form of a relocation package and a new career, I’ve obviously not done that good a job of hiding quite how low I’ve sunk. That makes me cringe inside, but it also makes me listen.

‘Why,’ I eventually ask, ‘were you looking for jobs for me in Dorset anyway? It’s hours away!’

‘I know. And to start with, I wasn’t looking for jobs for you; I was looking for me. Just browsing. Then I accidentally got sucked into one of those internet rabbit holes, you know? Where you keep clicking buttons and your brain keeps expanding to take in all the new crap you’ve just discovered?’

‘I am familiar with that, yes. But Dorset?’

‘I thought it was Cornwall, not gonna lie. And I know you like Cornwall. And I decided you should get a job and this one seemed just about random enough and weird enough that it might work. I was kind of surprised when it did. Anyway. None of that matters now.You’ve got a video call with Laura, the manager, at ten this morning—so for God’s sake, go and wash your hair, will you? I’ve sent you her number.’

That shocks me out of my stupor, and a glance at the big round clock on the wall tells me it’s already twenty past nine. Shit. This is real. This is happening. I realise I’m doing a goldfish impression, and she says: ‘You will do it, won’t you, Mum? You’ll at least talk to her? For me?’

I narrow my eyes at her, knowing I’m being manipulated but helpless to resist. She even gives me a cheeky wink, waving her pilfered toast in the air as she sashays out of the kitchen, telling me she has a hot date with Sonic the Hedgehog .

I finish my coffee and consider making some more toast, but realise that I have no appetite. I also have no energy, and even less desire whatsoever to have a video call with a strange woman who is expecting to be my boss.

Having no energy isn’t a new feeling for me at the moment. It hasn’t been for a long time. Some of it left me when my mum died, and I still miss her every single day. She had COPD and her last few years were tough. She was housebound, and the only joy she had in life was from me and the kids visiting her. It was a lot of pressure, but I loved her so much I never minded. After we lost her, I was suddenly rich in time, but poor in motivation.

Since then, life hasn’t exactly been a roller coaster ride of fun, and everything that has happened has chipped away at me. If I was a statue and not a human being, I’d just be a skinny little spike of marble by now.

I hear woofing from outside, and realise that Gary is still out there, the poor thing. I open the door and he rushes in, a flurry of fur and wagging tail, his little black face seeming to smile up at me. He’s a rescue from Hungary, and nobody can figure out what he’s made of, even the vet. A dash of dachshund, a splash of spaniel, a lashing of lurcher. He has short legs, but the broad rib cage of a running dog, and he can sprint like the wind.

He jumps up and licks my bare kneecaps, and I scratch his ears. He’s such a misfit, such an ugly little thing with his mismatched limbs and his weird bow-legged shape, but he’s endearingly full of love.

‘What do you reckon, Gaz?’ I say, kneeling down so he can give me a kiss. ‘Should we go for it, or should I tell this Laura lady that it’s all been a terrible misunderstanding?’

Gary ignores me, and licks his own bum. Sage advice.

I feed him, then make my way upstairs. I might as well have a shower anyway, because that’s generally a win in life. If nothing else, this video call makes me wash and blow dry my hair and put a little bit of slap on. It’s been a while, and I have to admit a touch of tinted moisturiser does pick me up.

By the time ten o’clock rolls around I’m sitting on the bed, looking spruced but feeling nervous. This is insane, I tell myself. I can’t move to Dorset and work in a café; the whole idea is madness. I will be polite, and talk to Laura, and explain that this has all been a mistake. That Sophie over-stepped, that she’ll have to find somebody else. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. And also, I mean, what kind of person offers someone a job without even interviewing them anyway? This is a whole new level of chaos, even by my standards.

I dial the number Sophie has sent me, and when it’s picked up, I am extremely surprised to be confronted by two small girls rather than a café manager. They can’t be more than four or five, and are giggling and holding their hands over their mouths as they stare at me. Both of them have masses of curly brown hair, and they are absolutely identical apart from their clothes. One is in a hot-pink Barbie T-shirt, and the other is wearing a Spiderman top.

‘Hello?’ I say tentatively, wondering if I’m somehow being pranked. ‘Is Laura there?’

‘She’s having a poo!’ announces one of the girls, giggling even harder.

‘A reallllly big one! Super-smelly!’ the other adds, holding her nose, and the two of them dissolve into hilarity. I hear a big woof in the background, and Gary’s ears prick up in response. He’s as confused as I am.

There’s a sudden blur as the phone is clearly grabbed, and a harassed-looking woman appears on my screen. It doesn’t take a big leap to see that she is the twins’ mum, as she shares the curly hair. It’s twisted up into a messy bun, framing a round but pretty face.

‘I was not having a poo!’ she declares wholeheartedly, shooing the girls away. ‘I was stopping our Labrador from eating a bag of Haribo Tangfastic! Please, please, please say you believe me. This is not the first impression I wanted to make!’

I have to laugh at her sheer exasperation, and reply: ‘I have a dog who steals food too. And hey, even if you were having a poo, so what? We all have poos, don’t we?’

‘Wise words, Max— Wait, are you Max?’

‘I am. And you must be Laura. I assume the terrible twosome belong to you?’

She grimaces, but you can see she is amused by their antics. My kids were born a year apart from each other, which was close enough for carnage. I can’t imagine having two at the same time.

‘For my sins, yes—Ruby and Rose. A little late-in-life blessing from the universe. I also have Lizzie, who’s just turned 23, and Nate, who’s almost 21. Long story, to be shared over a bucket of Prosecco and a barrel of cheese. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that when you get here.’

I am silent at this point, biting my lip and suddenly out of words. This is the perfect time for me to say no. To explain that I am not coming. Except … well, a bucket of Prosecco and a barrel of cheese don’t sound bad, do they?

‘Are you okay? Has the screen frozen, or is that the look of a woman wondering if she’s just teleported into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? Are you seeing Oompa-Loompas? Is everything feeling a bit weird and psychedelic?’

‘Umm … yeah, a bit. I mean, to be honest, Laura, I found out about all of this less than an hour ago. One minute I’m on a coffee hunt, expecting an exciting day of watching Netflix, and the next my daughter informs me we’re about to move to Dorset. I haven’t even had time to look at the café, never mind formulate a response that makes me look like the kind of person you’d want to give a job to. Which I’m probably not, by the way.’

‘Yes, you are!’ she says firmly, nodding so enthusiastically that her bun collapses, ‘I can already tell. I’m sorry if this has been an ambush—my kids used to do stuff like that to me as well. It was like living in a fun house, never knowing when the floor was going to tilt and tip me on my arse. So, just to give you a little reassurance, if this seems crazy, then it is. Crazy is kind of the default setting here.’

‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps?’

‘Yes. The company motto. Look, I understand why you’re confused. But when Sophie’s email arrived, I just knew you were the same as me. Or the old me, anyway.’

My nosiness—no, I mean ‘engagement’—kicks in, and I have to ask: ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, ages ago, Max, I was in a bad place. My husband had died a few years earlier, and I was on my own. Lizzie and Nate were fourteen and twelve. I didn’t know where to turn, and I was grieving, and we were all a mess.’

I can hear the twang of pain in her voice, and I can tell that her husband might be gone, but he’s not forgotten. My empathy sponge is immediately activated, and I say: ‘Gosh, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you, Laura.’

‘Yes, it was, no use sugar-coating it. It was the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. You know those points where you have no confidence, no self-belief, no direction? Where you feel like you’re a crap mum and a crap human being and you can’t even remember a time when you had any control at all over your own destiny?’

I nod, and suddenly wish I’d insisted that Sophie showed me what she’d said about me to this woman. That description is so close to how I’ve been feeling for so long now that it doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

‘Well, when I was at that point,’ Laura continues, ‘I saw a job advert, very like the one that Sophie responded to. In fact I stole some of the wording from the original, because nothing here has changed. I’m going to risk sounding like a complete flake here, but this place—the Comfort Food Café—isn’t like anywhere else. It’s special. It’s a place people can come when they need something, even if they don’t know what it is yet, even if it’s just a safe spot to slow down and have a rest.’

‘It sounds like a cross between a health spa and a rescue centre.’

‘Exactly!’ she replies, laughing. ‘See, you already get it! We collect strays, and we look after them, and I don’t want that to put you off or make it sound like you’re a dog or anything, because I was the stray myself at one point. Everyone here has a story to share, and from what I hear about you, you’re a big fan of listening to people’s stories.’

‘Did Sophie tell you I was really nosy?’ I ask, grinning.

‘No. She told me you were hard-working, and funny, and kind, and caring.’

This is so unexpected, and so utterly lovely, that I feel tears stinging the back of my eyes. I am embarrassed, and hope she can’t tell I’m on the verge of blubbing.

‘Oh. Right. Well, that was nice of her. She usually says I’m annoying.’

‘Well, she’s a teenage girl. You’re not doing your job properly unless you’re annoying her. Anyway. All of those qualities are exactly what we’re looking for here, for this job. One of our staff—Willow, you’ll meet her when you get here—is taking off to do some travelling, and I’ve just got a feeling that you’re going to be the perfect person to replace her.’

‘But why?’ I ask, genuinely confused. ‘You don’t even know me.’

‘Psychic powers,’ she says, tapping the side of her nose as though she’s sharing something top secret. ‘And instinct. I’m a big believer in instinct. We got a few responses to the ad, but yours—okay, Sophie’s—stood out. I knew it was the one, and I’m afraid I can’t give you any more scientific an answer than “just because”. Plus, it’s only a trial, isn’t it? If you hate it here, or it doesn’t work for any reason, then you can leave. We’re not going to kidnap you and keep you in our secret underground dungeon.’

‘Do you have a secret underground dungeon?’

‘We have a cider cave, which feels a bit dungeon-y, but it’s full of booze so it could be worse. Look, the point is, come and give it a go. Let’s take a chance on each other. Bring Sophie, bring the little dog I can see sitting next to you. Bring all your hope and all your optimism and all your faith—plus maybe some wellies, ’cause it gets really muddy down here in autumn. What do you say, Max? Shall I get that bucket of Prosecco on ice for you?’

As she says this, a blur of black appears behind her, followed by Ruby and Rose running past in a flurry of curls. There is screaming and barking and the sound of furniture being knocked over.

Laura stares off screen, unfocused, then turns back to me.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Midgebo has the Tangfastic again, and he’ll be shitting rainbows if I don’t get them off him. Just think about it, okay? That’s all I ask!’