Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe. Debbie Johnson

       Chapter 7

      I wake up the next morning with a mild hangover and a slightly less mild desire to throttle my own daughter.

      I take a deep breath, grab the bottle of water I have thoughtfully placed on the bedside cabinet and glug down a few mouthfuls.

      I lie still for a handful of moments, gazing at the hyacinth-covered lampshade and the rose-patterned wallpaper and the flowers-I-don’t-recognise curtains, while snuggling under my sunflower-riddled duvet. I let out a huge sneeze. I seem to have developed psychosomatic hayfever, which is odd as I don’t even get the real kind.

      I have managed to snag the biggest bedroom by conceding the one with the en-suite to Lizzie. I am more than happy with that arrangement and I like my new home a lot. Even the bedrooms have beams in the ceiling and enough light is creeping past the edges of the curtains for me to know that the rooms will be bright and sunny and glorious. I can hear the TV on downstairs, which means that Nate is up and has conquered the remote, and I can actually hear Jimbo snoring all the way up here.

      Other than that, again, it’s just the sound of birdsong coming from outside, beautiful trilling harmonies that instantly make me feel more joyful. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so still and natural and peaceful.

      There is, though, one small thing spoiling my burgeoning sense of tranquillity. Stopping me from reaching a state of Buddah-like zen. In fact, making me bite my lip so hard I taste blood.

      It all started with the phone calls the night before. I chose not to use my mobile and instead called my mother using the brilliantly so-old-it’s-now-retro-cool Bakelite phone – the type with the massive handset and a big circular dial that takes forever to click all the way around.

      The children have stared at it as though it’s a museum exhibit, Lizzie poking it cautiously with her fingertips as though it might be some deviously disguised creature from Doctor Who. She once watched an episode where plastic came to life as pure evil and she’s never quite forgotten it. She was scared of her SpongeBob lunchbox for weeks afterwards.

      Anyway, museum exhibit or not, the phone worked perfectly. Now, for the sake of sanity and brevity – and in fact all of humanity – I will paraphrase my conversation with my mother. It went something like this:

      Me: Hi, Mum! We’ve all arrived safely and it’s gorgeous! Best place ever!

      Mum: Are you sure? It’s a long way off. How are you going to cope?

      Me: It’s an adventure, we’re all going to have a marvellous, brilliant, wonderful, life-changingly positive experience!

      Mum: Your dad will come and fetch you all if you need to come home, you know …

      It’s a wee bit depressing how little faith she has in me – but I know, because I’m a mum myself, that it’s only because she loves me so much. She knows what I’ve gone through and it breaks her heart.

      It’s not just me and the kids that David’s passing affected – it’s taken a toll on all of us. His mum and dad have never been quite right since; my parents constantly worry about me and I know that even Becca – beneath the drunken binges and party-girl persona – both misses him and feels for me and her niece and nephew, both of whom she loves beyond belief.

      My next phone call was, in fact, to Becca herself. I was surprised to find her in on a Saturday night, and was touched when I realised that she was waiting for my call.

      ‘Wassup, girlfriend?’ she said, in a fake American accent. She likes to experiment with accents, my sister. Well, with everything really – but the accents are one of the many reasons the kids like her so much. They’re especially fond of her ‘Nordic noir’ voice, where she orders food in the McDonald’s drive-through as though she’s a Scandinavian detective making a blood-curdling discovery in a Stockholm suburb.

      I filled her in on the day’s events – the driving, the singing, the vomiting. The ups, the downs, the sideways crab-walks. The uber-floral cottage. The peace and quiet and disturbingly dark darkness. The dog, and the man, and the cupcakes, and the roofbox and the delicious home-made wine I was sipping as I chatted to her.

      ‘Hang on,’ she said when I’d finished, and I heard a bit of shuffling going on in the background.

      ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, wondering if that was a wise idea. With Becca, it’s sometimes better not to know.

      ‘Adjusting the zip on my gimp mask,’ she replied, jauntily. ‘Or, just refreshing my laptop screen, I need to check on something. So – tell me more about this man.’

      ‘Oh, he’s just … a man. Well, a man called Matt.’

      ‘Matt? That’s a foxy name. I think I read a survey once that said men called Matt have very large penises.’

      ‘No you didn’t,’ I said, laughing despite myself. It’s impossible to keep a straight face when you’re talking to Becca.

      ‘What does he look like?’

      I thought about that question and realised I didn’t want to be totally honest in regard to how much I remembered about Matt’s appearance. Mainly because I remember way too much: him, bare-chested, water dripping down onto broad swimmers’ shoulders, towel hanging low on angular hipbones, the shape of muscular thighs pressed against the fabric … if I tell her that I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll call the local vicar and start getting the banns read.

      ‘He looks a bit like Harrison Ford,’ I said, eventually.

      ‘Saggy Harrison or fit Harrison?’

      ‘Fit Harrison.’

      ‘Han Solo Harrison or Indiana Jones Harrison? Because I think the latter might be useful – your vagina is so well hidden it might as well be in that warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant …’

      ‘Becca!’ I snapped, torn between horror and amusement. So, it’d been a while. I think your husband dying is pretty good excuse for a lack of sex life, don’t you?

      ‘Okay, okay … just saying. You could always borrow my Princess Leia outfit.’

      ‘What