The Comfort Food Café, page 12
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I do go on a bit.’
‘No need to apologise, love. Nothing wrong with a bit of passion! That all sounds gorgeous, and I’m a bit jealous. Everywhere I live ends up looking like a squat in Marrakesh. You clearly have a gift. Is there anything we can do now?’
‘Well, Gabriel did say there’s another room full of stored furniture and Mr P’s stuff, and he also said it was fine for us to see what we wanted … but I’m a bit concerned because this is his turf, isn’t it? His territory. He might not like me messing with it.’
‘You make him sound like a dog who’s cocked his leg everywhere! Why don’t we go and have a look? See what there is? If he’s not happy, you can put it back.’
I consider it for a few moments, then agree. Truth be told, I’m bursting with curiosity, and the state of this place is hurting me.
We head to the room he’s shown me, on the other side of the house in one of the extensions. Inside, we find pretty much the entire contents of a junk shop. I switch the light on, and sneeze as dust assaults me. Clearly nobody has been in here for a while.
It’s all arranged pretty sensibly, with larger items of furniture at the back and smaller at the front. It’s a big room, long and thin, lacking the charm of the older part of the cottage, but still useful. I spy a small battered bedside cabinet as soon as I venture in, and immediately hoist it up. It’s ugly but solid, and once it’s been painted it’ll look lovely. I put it outside in the hallway, and go back in to forage for more.
As I carry out a visual survey of the furniture, Cherie is having a fine old time rooting around in boxes and drawers, occasionally holding up random items and making comments. Some of them are funny—a spectacular pirate’s hat, a half-deflated blow-up flamingo, a massive jug with a donkey’s face on the front—and some of them are a bit sad. Like a pill box that still rattles, and stack of unused blood sugar testing strips. A half-filled in crossword book. The signs of age and solitude.
I concentrate on the more practical stuff, because if I go down that rabbit hole, I’ll never escape it. I find a small round coffee table with turned legs that I salvage for Sophie’s room, and a couple of dusty but usable velvet footstools in a surprising shade of deep pink. Nearer the back, I see a nice old wardrobe that would definitely be useful, and a long dark pine sideboard that would look fantastic in the living room.
I make a mental inventory, and then shout to Sophie to come and help. Between us we manage to clear a path and carry the sideboard through, and I place it under the window. Leaving Cherie to her explorations, I go outside to the wildflower meadow. It’s autumn, so most of them are fading now, but there are still some plentiful patches. I don’t know their names, but they’re vibrant in yellow, purple, and white. I gather some up, and spend a few minutes trimming and arranging them in water in the donkey jug.
I smile as I place it on the sideboard, delighted with the way the sunlight streams through the window and casts floral shadows on the wood.
Back in the storage room, Sophie is just as thrilled when she comes across a huge old dirt-streaked television, one of the chunky ones with a massive plastic back.
‘It’s a CRT!’ she says, clapping her hands together.
‘Does that stand for crappy random tat?’ says Cherie.
‘No, it stands for… Actually, I don’t know what it stands for. But these are brilliant for gaming. And before you say, Mum, yes, I’ll keep it in my room so I don’t disturb you old people while you discuss the weather and play lutes or whatever!’
I was about to suggest that, damn her. Apart from the lutes. I tell her I’ll help her carry it upstairs later, and continue rummaging. I find a lovely antique-looking lamp with a brass stand and lavender-coloured glass panels, and take that through to the living room. Amazingly it still works, and I set it up in the corner nearest to where Gabriel reads. If I could only get rid of that ugly recliner, we’d be set.
Right at the far end of the long storage room, I come across a tall wing-backed chair. It’s a Chesterfield style with brass studs, made from deep burgundy leather. It’s gorgeous, and I get Sophie to mule-train it out for me. Once it’s in the living room, I wipe over the leather, and place one of the velvet footstools in front of it. Now two people can sit in here in comfort. Though I wonder if that’s one person too many for Gabriel.
All of this takes some time, and before we know it, Sophie dashes to the kitchen and announces that ‘the best stew in the world’ is ready. We all wash our hands and settle down at the table, and I wonder out loud if Gabriel might want to join us.
Cherie nods and gets out her phone, presses call, and says: ‘Gabe, darling, where are you?’
I can’t hear his reply, but she says: ‘Right. Well. I’m sure the fence will still need repairing tomorrow. I’m currently sitting in your kitchen and dinner’s ready. Come and join us, you grumpy sod!’
We leave the stew on the hob while we wait for him, and I realise I feel nervous about the small changes I’ve made to his living space. He did give me permission to look for things, but this is different.
When he walks through the door to an enthusiastic welcome from Gary, he stares at the three of us, standing frozen.
‘Yes, there are people in your kitchen,’ says Cherie breezily. ‘Just go with it. Wash up and join us.’
There’s a moment where I see him considering a refusal, but Cherie is hard to say ‘no’ to. Once he’s sitting, Sophie dishes up, placing a big platter of crusty bread in the middle. There’s enough wine left for a small glass for us three, and he cracks open a can of Fosters. Sophie puts some music on her phone—presumably a playlist for awkward dinner parties—and we tuck in.
Cherie declares that is the best stew ever, and even Gabriel nods appreciatively. The next hour passes by far more easily than I’d expected, the conversation flowing in the way it does when three chatty women are in a room together. Even Gabriel chips in, telling us about the place he lived in the south of France, where he renovated an old property and worked as a handyman. Sophie asks him if he speaks French, and he tells us he can have a fluent conversation about plumbing and replacing windows, but not much else.
By the time we wave Cherie off just after eight, it’s dark outside. She seems to have enjoyed herself, and there was no sign of her earlier grief, so that’s a job well done if nothing else.
Sophie enlists Gabriel to help her hoist the CRT television upstairs, and I know she’ll be happily lost in a world of treasure-hunting and puzzle-solving and coin-gathering for the rest of the night.
When he comes back down, I say: ‘Um, I made a few changes in the living room. If you don’t like it, I’ll rewind.’
He nods, and walks through into the lounge. I’ve left the lamp on instead of the overhead light bulb, and personally I think it looks lovely. I see him take in the new additions, and stare at the donkey jug full of flowers, and wait tensely at his side.
‘It’s … nice,’ he says finally. ‘I love the donkey. And it feels better with the dimmer lighting.’
‘Yes!’ I reply, relieved. ‘Less like a prison cell! I’m so glad you don’t mind.’
‘Were you worried I’d be furious and demand you turn it back into a prison cell?’
I nod, and bite my lip.
‘I’m not an idiot. I can see how much better this is,’ he says, wandering over to the new chair and stroking the leather. ‘It’s not even changed that much, but somehow it has… Did you find all of this in storage? I mean, I remember lumbering stuff in there, but I wasn’t paying much attention. None of it looked like it had much potential.’
‘Well, that’s all in the eye of the beholder. I like doing this kind of thing. I’ve got a few more items I’d like to use, if it’s okay. Bit of sanding, lick of paint, that kind of thing. And a wardrobe for upstairs if you can help with that. Plus, if you’re okay with it, I could maybe get some new curtains, do a bit of decorating when I have time…’
He nods firmly, and answers: ‘Yep. Fine by me. Keep track of costs and I’ll reimburse you. You’ve obviously got a flair for it.’
I feel a little warm glow at the praise, and then tell myself off for being so needy. I am good at this; there’s no need to be over-modest.
‘Sounds like a plan. It’ll be my way of thanking you for letting me stay. Do you want to see any more of the stuff? Or will it be weird, because he was your family?’
‘I don’t really believe that blood is thicker than water, and I never even met him. I’ll come and look, see what else there is.’
As we walk back through, past the stone stairs, I hear Sophie in her room shouting: ‘Mario, you crack whore!’
He raises his eyebrows at me, and I shrug. Let him think what he will.
Back inside the storage room I point out a few more items I think can be saved, and he makes a note of them on the little pad he always seems to have. There’s a sofa at the far end that is currently adorned in hideous tasselled green velvet, but the bones of it are good enough to reupholster. There are some wooden chairs which I can paint and re-cover for the bedrooms, and quite a few items of pottery that I think might be worth getting valued.
I find a writing bureau hidden beneath a pile of old bedding, a beautiful thing made of golden oak. Even Gabriel can see that one is special, and I can only imagine he was in some kind of fugue state when he started storing things in here.
I pull open the front panel, and it lies flat to make a desk, little compartments behind it. I see a few old bills, and a file that turns out to contain copies of insurance documents going back decades. Even Belle was insured, presumably against third-party damage. There’s a pile of receipts, including one that tells me when the Aga was last serviced, and paid invoices for deliveries of hay. Right at the back, I come across a big envelope tucked away on its own. As I pull it out, a small pile of photos flutter to the ground.
Gabriel picks them up and flicks through them, and I see his face register surprise.
‘These are pictures of me,’ he mutters, staring at them. ‘One when I was a baby. A school photo. When I joined the Army, my wedding… This is weird.’
I blink away my surprise at the mention of a wedding, and lean over to take a peek. He looks serious in his school picture, a strained grimace revealing a gap where his front teeth should be. The Army one is different; he’s in full uniform, his dark hair cropped, and he looks young and happy and confident. The wedding photo … well, that’s pretty special too. I’d guess he was somewhere in his mid-twenties, still in his Army uniform but with a few more pips on his shoulder and a medal pinned to his jacket. The bride is stunning, blonde, elegant, gazing up at him with adoration.
‘You never met him, but he still has these?’ I say, deliberately not asking about his wife. Of course I’m almost incandescent with nosiness, but I understand that we have come across these clues to his past by accident, and it might not be something he wants to discuss.
‘Yeah. Like I said, weird. There are letters here too. I don’t know whether to read them or bin them.’
‘What! How could you consider binning them? They’re part of your history. Don’t you want to know who wrote them, and what the family rift was all about?’
‘I’m not sure I do, no. What good would it do? Nobody’s left alive.’
‘Other than you, Gabriel. You’re very much alive, and… Look, it’s up to you, obviously. But to me that’s like buried treasure.’
‘That’s where we’re different, Max,’ he replies, passing me the bundle. ‘I just see the emotional version of an IED. It might mess with my head, and my head doesn’t need any more messing with. You read them if you like. Then if you think I should know, tell me.’
‘No. That’s too much responsibility. I either read them and tell you what’s in them, or I don’t. You can’t expect me to decide what is or isn’t important. That can’t be my choice.’
He considers it and nods, obviously unsettled by the whole thing. He announces that he’s going upstairs for a bath, and I head to the kitchen. There’s cake, and I might need it.
I make a mug of tea, and sit down to go through the contents of the envelope. I set the pictures to one side, and find that the letters are all dated. Apart from one, all of them are addressed to ‘Dear Norman’, who I assume is Mr P. All of them are signed ‘your loving sister, Marjorie’.
I take a deep breath, put them in order, and plough straight in. It’s a strange thing to be doing, immersing myself in the lives of these dead strangers, and it takes me over an hour to read and digest all the nuances, piecing the tale together. When I’m finished, I get two cans of lager out of the fridge, and walk into the living room. I heard him come down earlier, and find him on his recliner, hair damp, reading a Stephen King novel.
I hand one of the lagers to him, and take a moment to appreciate how warm and cosy it feels in here now, the remains of a fire smouldering in the grate. He looks up at me and raises one eyebrow. I sit down on the leather chair, and plonk my feet up on the velvet footstool.
‘So,’ I say, sipping my beer. ‘Do you want the long version of the short version?’
‘Short, for now.’
‘Well, some of this I’ve put together from the dates and contents of the letters, and some of it is conjecture, just to be clear. Without bringing in a psychic, I can’t be certain about any of it.’
‘Understood.’
‘Okay. Your great-uncle—Norman—was two years younger than your grandmother, Marjorie. Sounds like neither of them wanted to stay and run the family farm. He wanted to go to university, had his heart set on being a doctor. Marjorie was engaged to a local man called Philip, and he came from a family who owned another local farm. It seems like some kind of deal had been reached: she’d marry Philip and the two farms would merge; that way it would stay in both families. Except she didn’t go through with it.’
‘She called the marriage off? My grandmother?’
‘Not exactly. Sounds like she met another boy she liked better, a visiting archaeologist who’d come to do a dig at one of the hill forts.’
‘That fits,’ he replies, nodding. ‘My grandfather passed away before I was born, but he was an archaeologist. Gran’s house was like a cave of wonders, filled with artefacts and aerial photos of sites. I used to love going there as a kid. So, how does this relate to Norman?’
‘Well, she—Marjorie—eloped with her beau. Ran away to London and got married before anybody could stop her, and that left Norman stuck at home, with the burden of the farm now resting on his shoulders. It’s hard to imagine now, isn’t it? A young person accepting that kind of fate? But from the tone of your grandmother’s letters to him, she knew that once she left, he wouldn’t be able to. He was fifth generation on this land, and the pressure piled on for him to continue. Seems like he didn’t have a choice: one of them had to stay, and she’d taken that decision out of his hands.
‘She didn’t start writing to him until the eighties, so it’s not like this was a rash decision on her part. It seemed to just take her that long to ask for him to forgive her. As far as I can tell, they had had no contact at all before that, and there’s reference to the fact that their parents essentially disowned her once she eloped, and never spoke to her again.’
‘Right. Well, I was born in 1981, and her husband had died in 1980. Maybe that’s what started it?’
‘I think so, yes. Her first letter mentions both of those things. Apparently you looked like Winston Churchill marinated in a vat of port when you were born, by the way. I think it was a crossroads in her life, and she decided to reach out. She basically apologised, and said she knew what she was leaving Norman behind with, but she hadn’t been able to sacrifice herself to a loveless marriage just for the sake of a farm and some history.’
He cracks open his beer, and stares into the red embers of the fire, taking it all in.
‘Like you say, it’s hard to imagine,’ he repeats. ‘But it was what happened. Norman Pumpwell didn’t become a doctor. He didn’t follow his dreams; he stayed here. He ran the farm, and presumably looked after his parents as they aged, and then he aged himself. I know he sold off most of the land, just kept a few animals for company. So the irony is that the farm ended with him anyway.’
He looks around the room, soaking up its age and its history, and adds: ‘It’s so strange to think of my grandmother living in this house as a child. She was a lovely lady, a lot of fun. She basically raised me, and I still miss her now.’
The barely concealed sadness in his voice is hitting a little too close to home for me, and I don’t want to start blubbing so I push on.
‘So, by the eighties, she’s had your mum, who in turn has produced you. Your grandfather had gone, and maybe Marjorie just felt lonely? Started thinking more about the past? This is all pre-internet, so it meant letters, sent to the place where she last knew her brother lived. She talks about all kinds of things in them—her life in London, your mum, you. Mainly you. I bet she spoiled you rotten!’
He grins a little, and nods.
‘Didn’t he ever reply to her? Did you get the feeling that she was answering back, or was it all one-sided?’
‘The latter I’m afraid. She just carries on with her news, and there’s never any hint that he’s responded. She’s just writing into a void. Until the last letter in the envelope, which isn’t by her. It’s by him, Norman, your great-uncle. That one’s a bit of a heartbreaker to be honest. It’s dated early in 2022, which is maybe the year he died?’
‘It is. And the year after she died. He never knew it, but he was writing to a ghost. And he obviously didn’t send it, either.’
‘No, he didn’t, and it’s a shame he didn’t do it earlier. Maybe you’d have had a chance to meet him. So, his letter basically says he’s forgiven her, was sorry he’d ignored her for so long, and that he would love for her to bring you for a visit. He said he’d been living alone too long and got “set in his ways”, that he was basically a recluse until “those terrors from the village” dragged him back into the world.’
