Debbie Johnson - Summer at the Comfort Food Cafe

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.

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.