Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe. Debbie Johnson
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.
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