A Gift from the Comfort Food Café: Celebrate Christmas in the cosy village of Budbury with the most heartwarming read of 2018!

‘What?’ I ask, as she tries to hide behind me – a foolish decision, as she’s at least two inches taller, significantly more round, and has huge hair. ‘You think it’ll be shit?’

‘No! I meant – oh, hi, Matt! How are you?’

He walks into the room, accompanied by the sound of the doorbell tinkling, having clearly decided to ignore the closed sign. It’s starting to feel a tiny bit like a French farce in here now, with all the comings and goings.

Matt – tall, brawny, looks a bit like I imagine a blacksmith would look if I’d ever met one – nods politely at me. That takes approximately one nanosecond, before he turns all his attention to Laura. His face visibly softens as their eyes meet, and for a second I see a glimpse of what Laura’s Matt is like. Not the public Matt – but hers.

They share a smile, one of those smiles that makes you feel like you might just be invisible, and he reaches out to touch her amusingly large hair.

‘Cherie texted me,’ he says, simply. ‘Said you’d gone home sick? And that you felt repulsed at the idea of caramel toffee pudding?’

Laura laughs out loud, and replies: ‘Yes, well. I’m amazed she didn’t call 999 at that stage. I’m all right … I’m … erm …’

I feel so awkward, so much of a spare part, that I begin to edge backwards out of the room. This is private. It’s personal. It’s special. It’s nothing at all to do with me. I try and think up a quick and believable excuse for leaving the two of them alone that doesn’t involve a pterodactyl with the runs, but soon realise I don’t need to.

I am still invisible, and they don’t even see me as I skulk off to the back of the building, through the dispensary, and into the relative sanctuary of the stock room and the tiny kitchen.

I close the door behind me, leaving them alone, which technically I’m not supposed to do in case they raid our drug supply – but I’m convinced they have other things on their minds than selling asthma inhalers on the Budbury black market.

I stand still and listen – relieved when all I can hear is the low-key hum of their voices and not any actual words. I look around, and see that I am surrounded by unopened boxes, shelving stacked with trays of plastic bottles and random objects like a pricing gun and shampoo samples and an as-yet-unassembled Christmas tree, lurking in one corner like a festive ambush.

I lean back against the counter, absentmindedly wiping up some spilled tea with the dishcloth, not even noticing for a few moments that I’m actually crying as I wipe.

It’s not sad crying – nothing sad has happened – it’s just … girl crying. You know the kind – when you’re just feeling overemotional and a bit off balance and you don’t really understand why.

I let myself have a small weep – nobody can see, it’ll be my little secret – and then swill my face with cold water so I don’t look too blotchy.

I’m being daft, I know – I have nothing to cry about. Sometimes, though, you just don’t need a reason, do you?

I distract myself for a few moments by washing and drying the mugs and spoons that are in the sink, and then tiptoe to the door to see how things are getting on. I can still hear voices, and some laughter, and then a silence. I’m kind of hoping they don’t get into some huge debate, or a mammoth life-planning session, and forget I’m here.

Just as that thought crosses my mind, I hear Laura shouting: ‘Katie! Katie, where have you gone?’

I emerge back onto the shop floor, and am immediately wrapped up in a big Laura hug. I glance from beneath her hair at Matt, who looks stunned, dazed, and utterly soppy.

‘He was pleased, then?’ I whisper.

‘Ecstatic. Honestly, if I’d known he’d be that happy, maybe I’d have done it on purpose …’

She smiles as she walks back over to Matt, who places a protective arm across her shoulders, and nods at me. This time, it’s a nod with a lot of warmth.

‘Thank you,’ he says simply. ‘For looking after her.’

‘Not a problem,’ I reply. ‘Any time at all. And obviously, I won’t mention this to anyone, until … well, until you make it official.’

After a few more moments of faffing, and Laura insisting on paying me for the pregnancy test she used and the spare she takes home ‘just in case’, they finally leave.

I flip the shop sign back to ‘open’, and watch them amble down the main street together, laughing and giggling, wrapped in each other’s arms. They’re a funny sight – her in the hot pink puffa, Matt in his far more sensible navy blue Berghaus – and completely lost in each other and in their own secret world. They don’t even seem to notice the rain, as neither of them has bothered pulling up their hoods.

I settle back behind the counter, looking on as they pass the pub and head for Matt’s surgery. I’m smiling, but I still feel a bit unsettled. A bit melancholy. A bit … just not quite right.

I can’t put my finger on what the exact emotion is, until I realise that I can no longer see Matt and Laura and their little bubble of intimacy and happiness. They’ve disappeared off from view, and now I’m just staring at my own reflection in one of the pharmacy’s tiny window panes. Rain is streaking down the glass, creating a weird optical illusion where it looks like my face has been chopped in two.

I look away from the double me, and let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I’m one woman. Alone, on a stool. Still breathing. Still holding on.

I’m so happy for them. And I’m so sad for me. Because all of a sudden, it hits me like a cartoon anvil dropping from the sky – I’m very, very lonely.

Chapter 11 (#ulink_cc590f77-01bd-5506-b7bd-8ccf0c06d73c)

Luckily, I don’t have too much time to ponder that realisation and feel even more sorry for myself, as we have a veritable rush in the Budbury Chemist.

A small group of walkers comes in, one of them looking for blister plasters, one looking for Imodium, and one looking for sore eye drops. They seem remarkably cheerful considering their shopping list, and set off again in a flurry of chatter and clattering boots and those weird walking poles that are probably helpful on hills, but out of place on pavements.

After that, Scrumpy Joe Jones, who runs the local cider cave, arrives to pick up a prescription Auburn’s made up for his wife Joanne, who has ‘one of her headaches’. He rolls his eyes at me as he says this, as though I completely understand what hell that implies for him.

As Joe leaves, I get a visit from the Teenagers, who roam Budbury in a relatively benign pack – less likely to vandalise the bus-stop than to walk your dog for you.

There’s Martha, Zoe’s kind-of-daughter, who is seventeen, and Lizzie, Laura’s daughter, who is in the year below at college.

The girls look very different – Lizzie blonde, Martha dyed black; one on the short side and one getting that tall, willowy look that young girls take for granted. They both, though, feature heavy black eyeliner use, Dr. Martens boots, and various shades of black, purple and green clothes. They look like they could form a band, and be the star attraction at Wednesday Addams’ birthday party.

With them is Josh, Lizzie’s boyfriend, and the son of the just-gone Scrumpy Joe. Like his dad, he’s tall and skinny and dark, with big brown eyes and an ever-present beanie hat. Nate, Laura’s son, is a couple of years younger than them but has learned to fight for his place in the pack.

Like my Saul, I suppose, he’s been without a dad since David died – but the menfolk of Budbury stepped in and he now never goes short of a footballing friend or someone to act macho with.

Last week, Laura caught him having a wee in the grid outside their cottage, and his response to her outrage was to tell her that Cal ‘says it’s manly’. I think it’s fair to say both Nate and Cal were feeling a bit less manly by the time Laura had finished with them, and there will be no repeat performances.

Tailing along is a new face – Ollie, Martha’s relatively new boyfriend. He’s eighteen, and looks an unlikely boyfriend candidate for a Goth princess, with his surfer-dude blond hair and the kind of clothes and build I associate with adverts for Abercrombie & Fitch. For some reason, even though he’s called Ollie, he’s always known as Bill. I daren’t ask why, in case they tell me.

They all mooch around for a while, sniffing the candles and briefly perusing the abandoned sex aids catalogue until I manage to wrestle it from Martha’s amused grip. Eventually they all buy a whistle pop each and disappear off down the street, trying to perform the theme tune from In TheNight Garden entirely with sugar whistles. I watch them go, a flurry of pushing and shoving and giggling, and think how weird it will be when Saul is that age. And how my life will look by the time he really starts his.

He’s already at nursery, with his little friends and miniature social life that consists of parties at soft play centres, and he’ll actually be starting in reception at primary school next September. It’s so weird with babies and little kids – every day of amusing them seems to last forever, but in the blink of an eye a whole year has gone. It must still seem like yesterday to Laura that her two were tiny, and now they’re part of the Budbury Massive.

At the moment I’m measuring Saul’s progress in small things – like when he’ll be able to reach the light switch, or write his own name with the ‘S’ facing the right way – but before long, it’ll be much bigger things. Like his first day at little school, then big school, then maybe Uni or work. One day he’s stretching on his tippy toes to try and put the lights on, next he’s walking down the aisle and becoming a father.

As all parents probably know – and I’ve just this second realised – that way madness lies. It’s not worth thinking about, apart from as a reminder to perhaps tend to my own life a tiny bit more.

Once you have kids you lean towards not noticing your own birthdays, or time passing – you’re so focused on theirs. This is natural, and right, and good – but it doesn’t mean I should forget about myself entirely.

All of these thoughts are hurting my brain a bit, and by the time I lock up the shop and finish for the day, I’m trying really hard to think less and do more. I’ve had a message from Auburn saying that Lynnie has gone for a nap, and Saul is helping her make jam tarts, and there’s no rush to get back for him.

Usually, I’d still rush – reluctant to believe that everything was actually fine, that Saul was behaving, that I didn’t need to go and relieve them as soon as humanly possible. That relying on people was a necessary evil to be reduced to the absolute minimum.

But I’ve been here for a while now. These people are my friends. I’ve just helped one of them find out that she’s having a baby. I help Auburn and Willow with Lynnie when I can. I sometimes clean Edie’s windows for her, after I saw her climbing on a stepladder as I went past one day, cloth in her 92-year-old hand. I helped Cherie talk sense into her hubby when Frank sprained his ankle and was insisting on carrying on working on the farm. I babysit for Little Edie so Sam and Becca can have the occasional night out.

I do things for them, because I want to – because I like them and because I enjoy helping. Being part of their world. But so far I’ve been so selective with how much a part of their world I allow myself to be; always backing off when things have felt too intense.

Like Edie’s ninety-second birthday party earlier in the year – it had a Strictly Come Dancing theme, as it’s Edie’s favourite show. Cherie organised ballroom lessons for us at the café, and I attended all of them. I love dancing. But when it came to the big night, and everyone else was dressing up and heading to the party, I cried off. Made an excuse and stayed at home. It felt too big, too overwhelming, too public.