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Eventually, we follow the advice of the fishing gnome and follow the path back to the cottages. The sunlight as we emerge from the deep-green shelter of the woods is quite dazzling and I turn my face up to the sky. I like the sun. It makes me feel better. I remind myself to make sure the kids get coated in suncream before we come out again, it’s that warm.
Our cottage is right next to the swimming pool. We peek through the windows of the pool and see that it is small but perfectly formed. There is already a family inside, the water is bobbing with inflatables, and the dad is pretending to be a shark, chasing screaming primary-age children around while the mum looks on and laughs.
They look really happy and I quickly walk away. I don’t want to feel jealous. I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out. Not today. Today, I want to feel thankful and hopeful and strong. I want to feel like Katy Perry in the Roar video, although I don’t share that image with the kids – they might actually die laughing.
‘Mum, look!’ says Lizzie, bounding back towards me, returning from her advance scouting party beyond the path. The pool and our cottage are the only buildings at the back of the complex, which is actually really nice. We’re not just here for a week on holiday, we’re here for ages, and the location means we’ll have more privacy. You know, for when we have all our wild parties.
I follow her down the path, and back through to the central lawn we saw when we arrived last night. It’s much prettier in daylight, with a big circular bedding area in the middle that’s full of luscious flowers; deep red dahlias, multi-coloured begonias, delicate sweet peas, the purple trumpets of petunias.
There’s a water feature in the middle, some kind of mock-Victorian affair that looks like a shower for fairies and elves, and pretty lilac clematis is trailing all around it. It’s the kind of effortless-looking gardening that actually takes a huge amount of effort.
I’m all right at gardening. Ours back home isn’t huge, and I gave up on a decent lawn years ago due to Nate’s incessant footballing and Jimbo’s pee patrols, but we have lovely borders and beautiful hanging baskets and a few trees that produce more apples and pears than we need every year.
David was always my slave labour, doing the weeding and digging and turning over and hefting bags of fertiliser around, while I was the evil mastermind. One of my more realistic ‘moving on with life’ plans was to get an allotment. It’s still a good idea – I’m just doing the ‘insane relocating to Dorset’ plan first.
‘What?’ I ask, failing to see what’s got Lizzie so excited. It certainly isn’t a nice clematis, I know that much. I glance around at the cottages circling the lawn. Some are much bigger than others, and the tiny ones look quite higgledy-piggledy, but they all have features in common. Each has a little path leading up to the door, each has a name plaque, and each has a beautiful hanging basket in a riot of colour.
‘This!’ she says, as she points frantically at one of the cottages. ‘Look at what it’s called!’
I squint slightly in the glare of the sun, and try and make out the writing on the slate plaque adorning the pale stone wall of the cottage.
‘Lilac Wine?’ I say, looking a question at her. It’s a weird name, but I’m not sure why it’s got her quite so bothered.
‘It’s a song, by Jeff Buckley!’ she says, snapping a photo of it. ‘We were listening to it in our music class. By lots of other people as well, but his is the best.’
She skips over to the adjoining cottage, bats away a few bees hovering around the hanging basket, and takes a photo of that one as well.
‘And this one,’ she says, ‘is called the Cactus Tree … don’t you think that’s odd, too?’
I nod. Because it is. Hyacinths and lilacs I get as names for Dorset cottages – but cactus? Not so much.
We stroll along, Lizzie and Nate exclaiming at the weird names of the cottages, her taking photos of each and obviously planning a long session on google at some point or another to solve the mystery. We pass Poison Ivy and the Laughing Apple and Cherry Blossom Road and then Mad About Saffron, which immediately strikes a chord with me.
‘I think I know that one!’ I squeal, obviously more infected with the excitement than I realise. And yes, obviously, I need to get out more.
‘What is it?’ squeaks Lizzie, bounding back towards me. Her hair is loose and wild and untainted by product, and it makes her look about five years younger. It’s only the eye liner that reminds me she’s a teenager at all.
‘Is it a band?’ she says, practically pogo-ing on one leg.
‘It’s a song, by … by …’
She looks at me expectantly, and I feel the pressure mounting. This is my chance to prove I’m cool, and I’m about to blow it. I start to hum the song, fragments of the chorus coming back to me. It was on an advert, I’m sure.
‘I’m just mad about Saffron …’ I sing, badly. I can’t remember the next line, so I go back to humming, and Lizzie is looking increasingly agitated as I fail to fulfil her quest for knowledge.
‘It’s … it’s.… oh, lord, I can’t quite get it! It’s there in my brain, just give me a minute! It’s by …’
‘Donovan,’ says a voice from behind us. ‘Mellow Yellow.’
I whirl around to see Matt, the man from last night. He’s wearing a pair of faded denim shorts with big pockets on the side, and no top. Again. He clearly doesn’t own many shirts.
He’s a bit sweaty, as though he’s been working, and I notice things about him I didn’t notice the night before. Like the fact that his brawny shoulders and back are really bronzed, as though he spends a lot of time outside. Like the tiny crinkles at the corners of his hazel eyes, and his very long lashes. Like the way the sun glints on the chestnut shades in his hair. Like the fact that he has really, really big hands.
My pulse rate speeds up slightly as I notice all of these things, and it takes me a while to identify the feeling. It’s called fancying someone, and it’s not happened to me for a very long time. This, I decide, is even weirder than the cottage names, and far more disconcerting.
I don’t know how to cope with fancying someone. I mean, I met David when I was in juniors. And of course I noticed attractive men after that – I was married, not comatose – but certainly not since David died.
It’s as though that part of me shut down at the same time he did. I’d not mourned it, or sought it out, or listened at all when various members of my family started to make subtle references to the fact that I was ‘still young’. I knew what that was code for, and it seemed like a completely absurd idea to me. As far as I was concerned, that aspect of my life was over.
I now feel more than a little freaked out, as I look at Matt, to realise that my libido at least isn’t entirely convinced that’s true. I also feel a twinge of guilt, for all sorts of complex and uncomfortable reasons, and dart my eyes away from him as quickly as possible.
‘That’s it!’ I say, turning back to Lizzie. ‘Donovan. Your granddad likes him. 60s stuff. So, we’ve got Donovan here, and we’ve got Jim Morrison and the Doors in our cottage. And Lilac Wine. So there’s a theme?’
Lizzie makes a slightly ‘duh’ face, and nods.
‘What’s the name of your holiday cottage?’ she asks Matt straight away.
‘Well, the cottage is called the Black Rose,’ he replies, wiping one hand across his forehead. He looks hot. And thirsty. I notice gardening gloves hanging out of one pocket, and use my laser-like detective skills to figure out that he’s the effortless gardener who actually puts in all the effort.
‘But it’s not a holiday cottage,’ he adds. ‘I live there permanently. Well I have for almost a year now. I was only supposed to be here for two weeks while I found somewhere else, but Cherie and I came to an agreement.’
‘Black Rose …’ she says, frowning, and starting to tap into her phone.
‘It’s a Thin Lizzy song,’ Matt replies, saving her the effort. She looks a little bewildered.
‘Rock band, mainly big in the 70s. All the cottages are named after songs or bands, you’re right. There’s Sugar Magnolia over there, which is a Grateful Dead song. Poison Ivy is the Rolling Stones. Laughing Apple, Cat Stevens. Cherry Blossom Road is Heart. Cactus Tree is Joni Mitchell. You might not have heard of them, but they were all well known. Cherie’s idea of a joke. Nobody quite knows if it’s true or not, but there are rumours that she was either in a band herself, or toured with one, or was Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend … I’ve never asked.’
‘Why not?’ says Lizzie, clearly fascinated.
‘Because that’s her business,’ he replies.
That is clearly an alien concept to Lizzie. It also reminds me of another issue, and I’m about to raise the subject of the Instagram affair when she pre-empts me.
Lizzie often does this neat mind-reading trick that occasionally makes me think she’s psychic. Or more likely that I’m very predictable.
‘Matt,’ she says, smiling sweetly. ‘I was wondering if you’re okay with me using a picture of you in a kind of school project? I’m keeping a record of what I do over the summer in an online photo journal. It’s on Instagram, but hardly anybody will see it, honest. I have all the privacy settings on, so it’s only for friends and family.’
Well, I think, some family at least. I’m momentarily taken aback by her description of it as a school project, and wonder if that’s true, or if it’s something she’s fabricated to make it sound more respectable.
Matt is gazing at a spot about three feet to the left of my head. I resist the temptation to turn around and see what he’s looking it, as I am starting to realise that it’s simply something he does.
He has a very slight disconnect going on that I recognise as the sign of someone not wanting to get too involved in a conversation or a social situation. I deal with mine differently – I smile a lot and pretend I have to dash off to the school/shops/doctor/library – but I instinctively know we’re coming from the same place. A place of entrenched solitude.
‘I’m not sure what Instagram is,’ he says eventually. ‘But as long as it’s not something likely to go viral, or embarrass me, or upset anyone, then that’s fine. Are you going to the café today?’
He’s changed the subject quite quickly, but Lizzie takes it as a win, and says her thank yous before disappearing off to take more pictures.
Nate spots another lad of about the same age emerging from Cactus Tree, kicking a bright orange football around, and starts to edge in his direction. The siren call of sport. I know that within minutes, they’ll be setting up penalty shoot-outs and having keepy-up contests and firing each other headers to practice, without even knowing each other’s names. Sure enough, even as Iook on, the boy raises his eyebrows at Nate, who nods, and they’re off.
‘Yes,’ I reply, turning my attention back to Matt, but using his tactic of not quite making eye contact. I feel very slightly awkward now we’re alone, mainly because I have caught myself out having naughty thoughts about him.
I am both shocked at my own behaviour, and also a bit humiliated, as though he can tell and already feels repulsed at the very concept.
‘Yes, we’re going to the café. For lunch.’
‘Good,’ he says, nodding firmly. ‘Have a nice time, then.’
He turns, not exactly abruptly, but certainly without any preamble, and starts to walk away. I am caught unawares and find myself watching his backside as he strides off towards what I assume to be the Black Rose.
He stops, suddenly, and comes back towards me, as though he’s remembered something. Turns out he had, and I could have lived without it.
‘I found these,’ he said, digging his hand into one of his pockets. ‘While I was working on the lobelia in the borders. I think they’re yours.’
He hands a small, scrunched bundle to me, before nodding again and walking more briskly away, like he really means it this time. I open my clenched fist, already slightly sick about it.
If I was feeling humiliated before, nothing he could have found lurking in the lobelia could possibly be about to make it any better.
And most definitely not a pair of size-fourteen skin-tone tummy-control pants with an elasticated panel for holding in the wobbly bits.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_81a78135-c577-5dcd-9aab-1b654726a79a)
We hadn’t seen much of the landscape when we arrived, due to the failing light and the fact that I was mainly concentrating on finding the cottages and not killing us in the process. So we set off early, even though the café is only a few miles away from our new home, to explore.
We soon see that the area immediately around the Rockery – which now makes a lot more sense, given the cottages’ music-inspired names – is stunning. Breathtaking. Even Lizzie is forced to admit it’s pretty.
We drive carefully along criss-crossing one-car tracks and through stretched-out road-side hamlets, and through woods so dense the trees meet overhead, arching across the paths and holding hands above us.
We drive through rolling hills and wooded glades and open fields that stretch and tumble as far as the eye can see, in more shades of green than I ever knew existed. The roads twist and turn through the countryside, edged by gnarled tree trunks and vibrant hedgerows and quaint cottages with thatched roofs, looking like a living postcard.
We see birds of all kinds, from frantically darting tits and sparrows to soaring kestrels floating on the air currents overhead; we see scurrying squirrels and oceans of listless, sunbathing cows, and on one confusing occasion a small herd of llama. We see horses and sheep and signs that warn us of crossing deer and migrating toads.
We see so many different wild flowers, twined in the hedges, twisting around the tree trunks, swaying in meadows – some I recognise, some I don’t. We see farmhouses and small shops and just one garage that seems to sell nothing but petrol and spare tractor parts.
And eventually, as we flow downhill with the road, trickling towards the coast like a man-made stream, we see the sea.
Nate is captivated and screams with excitement. ‘First person to see the sea’ was always a travel game we played – when they were too little to know any better, we even used to play it when we were staying inland, which was cruel but had them glued to the windows in silence for hours at a time.
At first, this time, it doesn’t even look like the sea. It looks like a shimmering, shining turquoise blanket that’s fallen down from the hills, rippling in the gentle breeze. We see increasingly longer glimmers of it as we wind our way downhill, glimpsed between bends and buildings, a distant, sparkling mirage.
After an hour’s random driving and a steep last-minute descent, we’re here. We drive through the village – a long, thin strip of road edged with a combination of fancy and functional shops, a pharmacy, a post office and a Community Hall – and take the coastal road out of it again.
I see the car park Cherie has advised us to use and pull in, reminding myself that despite our long sightseeing cruise to get here, we’re only about three miles from the Rockery.
I’m nervous as we park up at the bottom of the hill, edging into a spot between a Land Rover and a Fiat Panda and hoping I can get out again. The car park is packed, which doesn’t surprise me at all. The weather is divine and the location is even better.
Spread in front of us is a beach, small but perfectly formed, that curves inwards in a kind of horse-shoe shape. There are lots of families and dogs and walkers down there, enjoying the sunshine, paddling and swimming and spreading out over picnic blankets.
A single ice-cream van has set up at the far end of the car park, and is doing a brisk trade. Overhead, seagulls are wheeling and screaming and occasionally swooping down to snatch up a discarded cone or a wandering sandwich crust. The only other sounds are children laughing and adults chatting and the constant whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the waves creeping ever closer, splashing frothily onto the sand.
Nate gazes out longingly and I just know he’s already considering chucking off his trainers and rolling his jeans up to knees and making a run for it. Lizzie is trying not to look like she feels the same – because she hates Dorset after all – but I can tell she does. That alone makes me smile, and for a moment I consider suggesting we all head down for a quick paddle. But, you know, new job and all – best not to arrive barefoot and covered in sand.
The cove is surrounded by towering cliff tops and boulders that run from the bottom of the cliffs about twenty feet out into the sand. People are using them to sit on or drape clothes on to dry in the sun, and a few people are investigating the rock pools hopefully, looking out for crabs and creatures. At high tide the waterline undoubtedly comes all the way over, and I can see the dark, mossy marks left on the cliffs.
A path leads up from the side of the car park to the top of the hill. It’s steep and I fan myself with my fingers, which is totally useless against the midday heat. I’m not thrilled at the thought of climbing that path, but I have to. Because up the hill lies the Comfort Food Café, and Cherie Moon, and my new job, and, well, a free lunch. So I usher the kids in that direction, promising them a dip in the sea later, and we start the upwards trek.
The path actually has low steps cut into it and a wooden handrail, so it’s not quite as arduous as it looks. I see that over on the far side of the hill, there’s a more meandering path that’s been paved over, presumably so people can also make the Comfort Food pilgrimage if they have a pram or a wheelchair.
Near the top, by what is obviously meant to be a little viewing station, we pause. Not just to catch our breath – which is definitely a factor for me – but to admire the vista. It is pretty amazing, and Lizzie is silently taking photos already.
It feels a bit like we may have reached the edge of the world – all we can see is that glorious stretch of glittering blue-green water colliding with red and brown cliffs; dots of colour as back-packed walkers amble along high-up footpaths, patches of yellow sand getting smaller and smaller as they become more distant, curving off around the coastline.
The sun is shining down on my skin, I can hear the birds and the laughter and the waves, and I feel a moment of complete and utter peace. A rare sense that everything will be all right in our family’s fractured little world. I close my eyes and turn my face to the sky and smile.
‘You all right, mum?’ Nate asks, poking me curiously in the side. ‘You’re not having a stroke or anything, are you?’
I laugh and shake my head, and gesture that we should carry on to the top, where we can now very clearly see our destination.
Lizzie bounds ahead like a mountain goat in a Nirvana T-shirt, clicking away. She turns back to face us and takes a picture of me as I smile up at her. She even smiles back – a proper smile, big and warm and genuine – and I take a solid hold of the railing to stop myself falling down in shock.
And at the very top, I see it. An archway built over the path, of wrought iron decorated with beautifully forged metallic roses, a kind of man-made trellis, painted in shades of red and green. Amid the roses and the leaves and the stems are carefully crafted words, made up of curling letters, all painted white.
‘Welcome to the Comfort Food Café.’
Chapter 10 (#ulink_25620c82-a5df-5b84-99a0-c85f790ad3e7)
The café itself is one storey apart from a few attic windows and really rather ramshackle. It has the look of a building that has been expanded to suit varying purposes over a number of years, growing organically further and further along its cliff-top location. The entrance is surrounded by open green space looking out over the sea. The land here isn’t entirely flat and is dotted with slightly wonky wooden tables and benches.
Plenty of customers are using them, families, walkers and people who have the weather-beaten look of those who spend their whole lives outdoors. None of them seem to be put off by the slope, but I notice that quite a few are keeping a tight hold of their drinks.
There’s an enclosed patch of land off to the right, fenced in, with a wooden structure that looks a bit like an old-fashioned bus stop and offers a long, shady patch of protection against the sun. I realise that it’s some kind of doggie crèche, and although a few of the tables still have dogs sitting under them panting away, there are also about six or seven inside the little paddock. Some are running around, sniffing each other’s bits and play-fighting, but most are snoozing away in the shade or drinking from the water bowls.
We’ve left Jimbo at home this afternoon, as he seemed perfectly comfortable curled up in his bed, merely raising one eyebrow when I offered him his lead before we left – but it’s good to know that on the longer days he can come here with me.
There’s a decked patio section running the whole length of the building, with a few more tables and chairs, and off to the other side is a massive, industrial-level gas-powered barbecue. It’s the barbecue that’s producing the mouth-watering aroma and I see Nate licking his lips in anticipation.
An older man wearing a stripey blue-and-white chef’s apron seems to be at the helm, flipping burgers, turning steaks and prodding chicken breasts. He must be roasting-hot himself, with the heat and the smoke and the sun, but he seems perfectly happy.
Next to it is a large trestle table set out with salads, corn on the cob, jacket potatoes, sauces and condiments of every possible shade. A young woman with a dazzlingly bright shade of pink hair is laughing with customers as she helps them, serving up coleslaw and offering grated cheese and drizzling a huge bowl of rocket with olive oil.
The woman with the pink hair looks wild enough to have once been Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend, but definitely not old enough, so I rule her out as a potential Cherie Moon. And as the barbecue master is most definitely male, that’s not her either, unless she’s in disguise.
Lizzie has disappeared over to the doggie crèche and is taking photos of the sleepy hounds, and Nate is drifting towards the barbecue, nostrils flaring, one hand rubbing his stomach.
‘I’m just popping inside,’ I say to nobody at all, as both kids have forgotten I exist, and I walk through the open patio doors and into the main café building.
Inside, it’s surprisingly cool, which means there must be some kind of air-conditioning. Predictably enough, though, on a day like this, it’s completely empty, which gives me time to take it all in.
It’s not actually huge – more long and thin than spacious – and probably only seats about forty people at most. There are tiny circular tables meant for two, square ones for four and longer ones with benches that could sit families or groups. All of them are made of the same battered-but-beautiful shade of light-hued pine, and all of them are decorated with fresh flowers in tiny pottery vases.
