Sunshine at the Comfort Food Cafe: The most heartwarming and feel good novel of 2018!
Debbie Johnson
Come to the Comfort Food Café this spring for sunshine, smiles and plenty of truly scrumptious lemon drizzle cake.‘As cosy as a buttered crumpet’ Sunday Times bestseller Milly Johnson‘Summer wouldn’t be Summer without Debbie Johnson!’ Jenny OliverMy name is Willow Longville. I live in a village called Budbury on the stunning Dorset coast with my mum Lynnie, who sometimes forgets who I am. I’m a waitress at the Comfort Food Café, which is really so much more than a café … it’s my home.For Willow, the ramshackle café overlooking the beach, together with its warm-hearted community, offers friendship as a daily special and always has a hearty welcome on themenu. But when a handsome stranger blows in on a warmspring breeze, Willow soon realises that her quiet countrylife will be changed forever.Curl up with this gorgeous novel and make yourselfat home at the Comfort Food Café.‘Just my cup of tea’ Sue Moorcroft‘Full of heart and a delight to read, another triumph from Debbie Johnson’ Bella Osborne
Copyright (#u7d00e978-47d7-5028-adb4-20b750c72190)
HarperImpulse
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2018
Copyright © Debbie Johnson 2018
Cover illustrations © Hannah George/Meiklejohn
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Debbie Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008263737
Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008263744
Version: 2018-09-24
Dedication (#u7d00e978-47d7-5028-adb4-20b750c72190)
For Terry and Norm, with love
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua750762c-10b3-5344-b3e1-006509ba59c3)
Title Page (#u7501e96f-0d36-5b1b-aa09-32ff58b60e8c)
Copyright (#ued282ebb-b1fd-5a6d-9cba-a9a170fc9233)
Dedication (#u6e34794e-b143-57a7-8bda-4aba4e660851)
Prologue (#u97581385-ef6e-593c-b016-d26c6d02cde8)
Chapter 1 (#u2012a632-f660-5aff-a124-50bbc3a3da26)
Chapter 2 (#u2a009432-332d-53ce-bff0-a06441e9ccc5)
Chapter 3 (#u64af0c86-2fdb-5926-857f-e3a39ad5b8a5)
Chapter 4 (#uf273a1af-9ea7-5aad-bdd0-f4bfedfb5dca)
Chapter 5 (#u7526c995-e631-54ea-840c-4295d546660f)
Chapter 6 (#u3dcb95f0-404a-5dcd-bf1b-56d69092a3d2)
Chapter 7 (#u45a6ac61-5690-574e-a923-2dc7db36eee1)
Chapter 8 (#u03becfd8-d00d-5bd3-b600-a0c817a6c1df)
Chapter 9 (#u3e63dffe-a78c-5272-a015-7ea92a3e4172)
Chapter 10 (#u7bb8c166-d294-5b70-9128-bca59b6f0df5)
Chapter 11 (#uc29d219e-6fb8-5e34-a206-d21a35963e32)
Chapter 12 (#udf444030-7b38-5e2d-9e54-d3e17dbee2a1)
Chapter 13 (#u19352566-461a-5096-b6ae-616626b39176)
Chapter 14 (#u148cc011-0392-5a70-8ec5-2da7b67ee5fd)
Chapter 15 (#u7ee3f12f-5309-5b72-ba78-94d3c6aed4aa)
Chapter 16 (#u08400298-2d07-5bd4-8aed-b753cf76c2b0)
Chapter 17 (#ua7a0c698-1534-5d2b-aab1-4c809fea50ae)
Chapter 18 (#u1c62a055-03f3-5d10-9184-b4d077ed965a)
Chapter 19 (#u481e2d13-feba-5407-a5c9-b55c6d175536)
Chapter 20 (#u1e1d59d3-f9be-53c7-89ec-622361db6274)
Chapter 21 (#u8779360f-3226-5658-92b5-1d3c35fbe72f)
Chapter 22 (#u157e41bf-0c3a-5eb2-bffd-4d2d08e6be5e)
Chapter 23 (#u546c525b-4e69-5f65-979e-d5c726bcd15d)
Chapter 24 (#u5ec58a2e-9102-5521-87f8-00cd87fa50ee)
Chapter 25 (#ua83f85ab-c379-5b62-af6c-47881f5f35be)
Chapter 26 (#uc0b42cf2-a4f1-5264-96a1-871b81662670)
Chapter 27 (#ue0e32a6f-9f0d-537e-b67c-8ade67ff65aa)
Chapter 28 (#u51193d11-95af-5962-a44f-a049a9d19cd1)
Chapter 29 (#ucca7d9a2-111c-5080-ae02-473d964f7079)
Chapter 30 (#uf5dd8efb-0d02-502c-8eee-8cfe5b557ba4)
Chapter 31 (#ucad116b2-579a-51f4-afe6-1ac9678498ef)
Chapter 32 (#ubc17adb5-3a50-583d-8817-e4141909536a)
Chapter 33 (#u49cb65a4-4097-50a8-9958-768b391501f6)
Chapter 34 (#u69a041fe-6396-5410-a917-d96a2fbca3e0)
Chapter 35 (#uba107fe1-9fe2-5db9-b624-2a93779fa802)
Chapter 36 (#uf4762501-c813-543d-9962-04a57b60536b)
Chapter 37 (#u08a7c3d3-fde3-51e8-95b4-0ce578777974)
Chapter 38 (#u0eaf06e6-2a4e-5b63-834f-a7c46b914aa1)
Chapter 39 (#u248648f2-7ccd-578f-aa48-a6a90b689b5b)
Epilogue (#u81287320-43aa-5272-8e1a-7a034e43495b)
Acknowledgements (#u86ea712d-bc16-5ac9-8988-9dd6df215b00)
Questions & Answers (#u37ac6eee-b29a-5200-b679-dd930c5751b9)
Keep Reading… (#uaf7a26bd-22f9-586c-ad50-7e73050adc6b)
About the Author (#u11f464b1-3f31-57ed-81d3-102c56f14eb4)
Also by Debbie Johnson (#u23b6fc23-9a3e-500e-86fb-9e336d26ca59)
About the Publisher (#uc324fb94-b4fc-5a92-877d-1e7a79fe69c8)
Prologue (#u7d00e978-47d7-5028-adb4-20b750c72190)
Summer Of The Year 2000
‘It’s haunted,’ says Auburn, poking Willow so hard in her skinny ribcage that she almost falls over. She rights herself by clinging on to her brother, Angel, who is almost as skinny as her, and trying to look completely unaffected by the whole adventure.
As part of his attempt at bravado, he pushes Willow away with both hands. She’s the youngest of the siblings by several years – always smaller, always quieter, always the butt of the jokes, always on the receiving end of the pranks. Always determined to prove that she’s not the weakest link, and usually getting herself into trouble along the way.
‘No it’s not,’ says Willow, staggering a few steps along the corridor and bumping into the wood-panelled wall. It’s an old building, this, all dark wallpaper and high ceilings and ornate plasterwork. It’s big, and filled with labyrinth-like corridors full of mystery. It’s also been, for this one summer, their unofficial – and slightly terrifying – playground.
‘It’s not!’ she repeats, glaring at Auburn in defiance. ‘You can’t have only one room haunted in a whole massive house. That doesn’t make sense!’
‘Course it does,’ says Auburn, looking to her big brother for back-up, red hair flashing in the dim lighting. Van is fifteen, and the oldest of the gang. He’s already six foot tall and has the musculature of a runner bean to go with his unfashionable Nirvana T-shirt and shoulder-length grease-bomb hair. He thinks he’s really cool, which doesn’t quite make up for the fact that everyone else thinks he’s a complete dork.
Willow gazes up at him from her significantly shorter eight-year-old’s height, frowning. She’s worshipped her big brother for a long time, but is starting to suspect that he might actually be evil. He definitely smells evil. She eyes the stains on his T-shirt, knowing that in a few years’ time, as soon as she’s big enough, she’ll be expected to wear it. Hand-me-downs are a way of life for the Longville family.
All three of the younger siblings stare at Van, waiting for his pronouncement. Auburn looks fierce; Angel is biting his chubby lip and trembling, and Willow has her arms crossed defiantly over her passed-down-several-times Barney the Purple Dinosaur T-shirt.
‘It could be …’ he says, creeping towards the door at the end of the corridor, ‘… that the evil spirit only resides in this particular room. Maybe something terrible happened there.’
‘Like what?’ asks Willow, trying to sound tough but wishing she could just run away and find her mum. She knows she can’t, though – Auburn would never let her live it down. Besides, her mum is leading some kind of meditation workshop out in the garden, and she’ll kill her if she interrupts it. Well, not kill her exactly – something a bit more zen than that, but it wouldn’t be good.
‘Like,’ says Auburn, whispering into her ear, ‘someone died in there. Maybe they hung themselves from the rafters. Or maybe they were bricked up in the wall and left to starve to death. Or maybe it was a little crippled boy whose parents were ashamed of him and kept him in there his whole life, until he wasted away.’
Angel looks on the verge of tears now, his blonde curls bobbling around his full cheeks. Van is nodding wisely, as though every word Auburn has just said makes perfect sense to his almost-adult mind.
‘That’s … crap!’ replies Willow, flushing slightly as she uses what she knows is a naughty word. Not sent-to-bed naughty, like the ones Van uses that start with F, but still naughty. Somehow, though, using it gives her the strength to do what she does next.
‘Prove it, then,’ taunts Auburn, pointing at the door. ‘Go and open it and see what’s inside. If you dare.’
The door in question, just minutes ago, looked completely ordinary, but now – after her 14-year-old sister has finished creating a whole myth around it – looks utterly horrifying. Dark wood, brass handle, empty keyhole. Practically the gates to hell.
It’s just a door, Willow tells herself, glaring at Auburn with the sort of hatred that only a younger sister can feel for someone she loves.
It’s just a door, to a room, that isn’t haunted. Because ghosts don’t exist, and even if they did, they might be friendly, like Casper.
She draws in a ragged breath, and tucks her straggly brown hair behind her ears. More than anything right now, she wishes they hadn’t started this game. They know most of the kids who live here, in this place – a place where kids with no mum or dad come to live. They know their names, and their stories, and they play with them while their own mum is working, doing art classes or yoga lessons or helping them with their reading.
They know most of them – but they don’t know who lives in that room. The door has never been open, the child who lives in there has never been seen, and the only evidence they have of his existence is the occasional shadowy glimpse through the window outside.
That’s what started it all – this debate about whether he was real, or a ghost. It was fun to start off with – but now? Now it’s very scary indeed. Willow doesn’t really want to open the door. She doesn’t want to see the spirit of someone hanging from the rafters with their purple tongue bulging out, or encounter a half-starved child who’s sure to be a bit angry with the world.
But she wants Auburn to see her weakness even less. Auburn is always mean to her, and always manages to hide it from their mum, which makes Willow look like she’s always moaning about nothing. If she backs out now, she’ll never let her forget it. Right on cue, she hears her big sister start making chicken noises behind her, and within seconds, the boys have joined in, flapping their arms like wings and clucking away in a poultry-inspired chorus.
Willow wipes her face with Barney – she’s sweating now, even though the dark hallway is cool – and takes a couple of tenuous steps forward. Ignoring the clucks, she finds her stride, and treads across the threadbare carpet towards the end of the corridor. Towards the door, and either glory, or potential death – she’s not quite sure.
She pauses outside, and waits for a moment, her fingers resting on the handle. She glances behind her, and sees their faces; Van, looking amused, Angel, frowning, and Auburn staring at her like she just knows she’s going to break.
That spurs her on, and Willow, with trembling hands, finally turns the handle, and pushes open the door. It creaks, and stiffens, and finally – finally – swings back.
She freezes, a tiny, scared figure in a too-big Barney T-shirt, eyes wide with terror as she looks inside.
The room is dark, the curtains drawn but not quite meeting in the middle – the only light coming in through the window is casting pale stripes over a cluttered desk. A desk that is scattered with coils and springs and cannibalised pieces of machinery, which her young mind immediately associates with the project on medieval torture devices that Angel did the year before.
Sitting in front of the desk, turning to face her, is a boy. Maybe a ghost boy, maybe a real one. She really can’t tell in the dimness. He’s older than her, with pale skin and dark hair, and eyes that are huge and brown and shocked over pronounced cheekbones. He has a screwdriver in his hand, and his gaze is almost as fearful as hers as he stares at her, blinking as the sudden light from the corridor floods in, drenching him in sinister shadow.
Even if he’s not a ghost, he looks haunted – and this is enough to send Willow over the edge.
She screams, loud and shrill, and slams the door shut again. She collapses on the floor in a shaking heap, and looks up at her brothers and sister, crowding around her.
They’re shaking too, she notices. With laughter. Auburn is pointing at her, and holding her sides, and Van seems to actually have tears running down his face. Angel, as ever, is copying them.
She climbs up onto unsteady legs, and runs away, humiliated and scared, knocking them viciously out of the way as she flees. She hates them right now – all of them.
Her little legs barrel her down the wooden staircase, and if the big door to the house hadn’t already been open, she might have crashed through it like a cartoon character, leaving a Willow-shaped hole in the oak.
She runs off down the gravel-topped path at the side of the house, and away to the wood, and the secret pond she likes. She collapses onto a moss-covered log, and kicks her trainer-clad feet at the shale and sticks and old leaves that have collected on the floor like a collage, catching her breath.
Being alone calms her down, and she knows she’ll be all right. He wasn’t really a ghost, after all. Ghosts don’t use screwdrivers and look scared when little girls burst into their rooms, do they?
She spends the rest of the morning playing quietly alone by the pond, still not quite ready to re-engage with the feral pack that is her family. Still, in her childlike way, haunted by that pale face and those big, dark eyes.
Chapter 1 (#u7d00e978-47d7-5028-adb4-20b750c72190)
The Present Day
My name is Willow Longville. I am twenty-six years old. I live in a village called Budbury, with my mum Lynnie. I work as a waitress at the Comfort Food Café, and I run my own cleaning business called Will-o’-the-Wash. I have a dog called Bella Swan, and I love my life. In the last twenty-four hours, the following things have happened …
1. My friend Cherie convinced us she was pregnant and expecting twins. This came as a surprise as Cherie is seventy-four. She told us she’d been to a fertility clinic in Montenegro and we believed her for about five minutes.
2. Bella Swan ate a frog.
3. The Comfort Food Café officially opened a bookshop. We celebrated with cakes decorated with pictures of famous literary characters like Oliver Twist, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Mr Darcy and the scary clown from It. That last one was my idea, and it was pretty creepy eating Pennywise’s face.
4. My mother attacked me with a frying pan when she thought I’d broken into the house.
5. I slept for maybe three minutes after that, as she’d also called the police.
6. I woke up to sunshine and it made me happy. Then I ate leftover Harry Potter cake from the café for breakfast, which made me even happier.
7. I came back to the House on the Hill, and even though it’s still scary, it seems a lot smaller now I’m not a kid. Technically at least.
8. I went for a walk to the pond first, and saw a naked man dappled in sunlight in the water, and his skin was shining like diamonds – I am now a bit concerned that I have conjured up a real life Edward Cullen.
I pause in my list making, and decide to stop. There’s really no way to top seeing an imaginary Edward Cullen in a pond, is there?
Instead, I sit, still and quiet, perched on the edge of the dried-up fountain, and enjoy the moment.
It’s the first truly warm day of spring, and Mother Nature has come out to celebrate. In fact, she’s downed a bottle of vodka and is having a full-on rave – the woods are swathed in new greenery, the grass is lush and thick, and carpets of bluebells are springing up in the clearings, waving their hands in the air like they just don’t care.
It’s all shockingly beautiful, and my spirits are flying so high they could almost touch the sun. You know, if they had fingers.
Today, I tell myself, is going to be a Good Day. It started off bad, then veered off into strange, and now it’s my job to make the rest of it good.
This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, with the House on the Hill looming behind me in all its hideous glory.
I can’t shake the feeling that it looks like something from a horror film. One of those horror films where the parents think it’s a good idea to give their kid the creepiest-looking doll in the world, and you spend most of it yelling: ‘Just get out! Go and stay in a bloody Travelodge for God’s sake!’
Technically, this brick-built extra from Amityville is called Briarwood – but to all us locals, it’s also the House on the Hill. There are some devilishly complicated reasons for that nickname; A, it’s a house, and B, it’s on a hill. Yeah, I know – bet that foxed you. Nothing if not sharp, us country bumpkins.
Even the hill is pretty scary – a clutch-churning demon where you have to rev up the incline in first gear, hoping you don’t roll all the way back down again if you do something reckless like sneeze, or sing along to Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ a bit too enthusiastically.
I haven’t been here for ages – not since I was a kid, in fact. That, both in years and experience, feels like several lifetimes ago. It’s getting on for twenty years now, which is a bit freaky. I gaze back at the building, and I suspect my face is looking a bit like my face usually looks when I’m scooping up dog poo and my finger pokes through the bag.
The red brick facade has scaffolding around it, but if there are any workmen, they’re invisible. The big, blue-painted wooden door is still standing, although it needs some TLC. The old windows still have their Gothic stone twirls around the frames, and the roof still looks like it needs a few gargoyles to complete its American Horror Story vibe. The fountain I’m sitting on has a stone-carved cherub in the middle, and is clogged with weeds and algae.
The gardens and shrubberies are overgrown and tangled, but someone seems to have been making some headway. Whoever it was must have had a machete, and possibly an army of Oompa Loompas to help him. I automatically start singing the Oompa Loompa song at that point, which isn’t quite as melodic as the background sounds of birdsong and the breeze ruffling the leaves of the oak trees.
It’s very strange to be back here, and it takes a lot to qualify as strange in my world. If I close my eyes, turn my face up to the sun, and stop singing the Ooompa Loompa song, I can almost travel back in time. I can hear the sound of my brothers and sister laughing; their footsteps scudding across the gravel; my mother chanting something insanely silly that she tries to convince people is a sign of deep spiritual awakening while a bunch of teenagers try to stifle their giggles.
That particular memory – the one of my much younger mum – makes me feel a tinge of sadness, so I try and put it away in a box and jump on its head. I’m wearing Doc Martens mentally as well as physically, so I give it a good old stomp to make sure it stays down.
It’s been a mad twenty-four hours, and getting no less mad now I’m here, after that brief and possibly hallucinogenic detour to the pond in the woods first. I know I’m tired, even if I don’t actually feel it – I’ve trained myself out of noticing fatigue in the last few years, but it still lurks inside me, like a jack-in-the-box waiting to spring up and catch me. And when I’m tired, my thought processes tend to trip over themselves, impossible to follow.
Yep. It’s been a weird start to the day – but now I have to make it better. Only I can do that, and I need to focus on the sunshine and the birdsong instead of taking a trip on a memory train that will deposit me in a lonely station at the end of the line.
I re-read the list, and think it’s a fairly good summary of my day. I also seem to have accidentally created my very own psychedelic acid trip without the need for any pharmaceuticals at all: the neon pink notepad and bright green gel pen are resting on my knees, and I’m wearing leggings with pictures of yellow Minions on them. Funky.
I stretch my arms, and glory in the feel of the sun on my skin. It’s like God has reached down to stroke my face – and He’s wearing really warm oven gloves.
It’s been a long, nasty winter, and I feel that sense of absolute amazement I get every year when the spring arrives. It’s odd, because it does happen every single year – but each time, I’m taken aback by it. Our quiet corner of Dorset has had a lot of snow over the cold months, and I’ve been used to wearing long johns and seventeen pairs of gloves every day. Now, much to my surprise, it’s warm again … who’d have thunk it?
‘What do you reckon, Bella?’ I say, to the dog sleeping at my feet. ‘Time to get to work?’
Bella doesn’t answer. Mainly because she’s a ten-year-old Border Terrier, and not exactly the chatty type. She doesn’t even bark, never mind talk.
She does get up though, making direct eye contact with me while she squats down and has a wee, as though that’s her way of replying.
‘Yeah. Well, I’m glad you agree,’ I say, as I walk towards my van to get my cleaning supplies.
My van is small and white and has a rainbow painted on the side. My mum painted the rainbow, and we’re both very proud of it. There’s a dream catcher hanging in the window, and Mum decorated the back with some ancient, yellowing stickers she found in a drawer – telling people to Ban the Bomb, Save the Whales and Hug a Tree. Sound advice, as long as you don’t get them confused and end up hugging a bomb, or banning the poor whales.
Whenever I drive it, it kind of looks like I should be giving hitch-hikers a lift to a festival in 1976, or protesting at Greenham Common, or going on tour with Led Zeppelin. It’s actually full of cleaning products, some of which I have to hide from my mother because they contain chemicals stronger than baking soda. My mother has Alzheimer’s, and often doesn’t know who I am – but she can spot a planet-killing detergent at 300 yards.
Bella, tired from her toilet efforts, lies on the grass. She stares with very little interest at a small flight of swallows who are also celebrating the unexpected return of spring, swirling and diving around the fountain. She lets out one very ladylike fart, then curls up into a furry ball. I remain unconvinced that any part of her genetic make-up is descended from a wolf.
I put my notepad down on the front seat, and realise I need to start a new one soon. I never expected to enjoy it so much, but I do. I start every entry with the same words – name, rank and serial number – before making my ‘What’s Happened to Willow Today’ list.
It’s a bit long-winded, but it’s become a habit – and as habits go, it’s not as bad as, say, crack cocaine or eating your own bogies in public (in private is a different matter – we’ve all done it).
I started the note-keeping when Mum’s case worker recommended she do something called Life Story Work. As by that stage my mum’s life story seemed to have stopped – in her mind at least – at about 1999, it seemed like a good idea.
It’s a way of helping her stay in touch with her memories and regain an element of control – reminding herself of who she was and who she is, I suppose. Sometimes I catch her reading it quietly, glancing up at me every now and then, and I know she’s trying to re-make the connections between her little girl and the grown-up woman standing before her.
Yes, it’s sad – but it’s happy too, in its own way. Celebratory. And she’s really good at it. She’s always been one of those craftsy people, my mum, and her book is a beautiful patchwork collage of photos and postcards and old ticket stubs and even those little plastic bracelets they put on babies in hospital. It’s part life story, part diary, part practical – amid the reminiscences and memories, she’ll add in little reminders, like her address, and my phone number, and the name of the dog. We’ve had a series of Border Terriers, and she sometimes gets them confused.
At first, I started up my own notepad just to keep her company and make it all feel a bit less weird. But I’ve got into it – and who knows? Maybe one day I’ll need it myself. Scary dairy. For the time being, it’s a bit of free therapy at least.
I usually make lists in it, as I don’t have a lot of time on my own to sit and indulge in stream of consciousness rants. Lists keep it simple and usually make me laugh when I read them back. I once wrote the words ‘sausage rolls are brilliant’. On ten separate lines. I guess I’d really enjoyed a sausage roll that day.
Today, though … well, today, I had lots to report, didn’t I? Especially about the imaginary Edward Cullen, who may or may not be real, and may or may not be the new owner of Briarwood.
There has been much talk in the village about this new owner. About who it might be, and when he or she might get here, and whether they’ll be part of the gang or just play lord of the manor. About why they wanted to buy the place at all, given the state of it. We’ve spent literally hours debating it in the café. What can I say? Not much happens round here.
Frank, Cherie’s husband, reckons it’s some foreign investor who’s going to tart it up as a posh corporate retreat for stressed executives. Frank is a farmer, but he has a vivid imagination. Edie May, who is almost ninety-two and has an even better imagination, reckons it’s been bought by Tom Cruise as a holiday home – but she’s not been quite right since her niece bought her a Mission: Impossible box set. Laura, who manages the café and is a bit of a soppy romantic, is convinced that it’s a young couple looking for a dream home to raise a family in.
I’m here at Briarwood because I’m being paid to clean the place, by an estate agent in Bristol. My mum is safe and snug with Cherie at the café, and they’ll all be waiting for me to get back – desperate for me to spill the beans and fill them in on what I’ve seen.
The problem is, as things stand, I’m going to have to tell them all that the House on the Hill has, in fact, been bought by an eternally teenaged vegetarian vampire. That should raise a few eyebrows.
Chapter 2 (#u7d00e978-47d7-5028-adb4-20b750c72190)
Inside, the house isn’t quite as daunting as I remembered. It’s been empty since Mr and Mrs Featherbottom – yes, that’s their real name – retired, over a decade ago.
They’d moved to a flat in Lyme Regis, after spending years running Briarwood as some kind of private children’s home. That sounds terrifying in itself, but all my memories of the couple are really nice. Mrs F was round and often covered in flour; Mr F always seemed to have a fishing rod in his hand. In fact, I think perhaps I’m getting confused, and imagining them both as garden gnomes come to life.
From what I can recall, and from what the older residents of Budbury like Frank and Edie have said, it was quite a happy place – considering the circumstances of most of the kids. Some of them were orphans, which sounds pretty Dickensian; others were placed there because their parents just couldn’t be their mum and dad for some reason, like illness or work. It was part home, part boarding school.
Some of the children arrived in various states of distress – and pulling up in front of a building that looks like it might be patrolled by Dementors at night probably didn’t help.
That’s one of the reasons my mum used to come here. To help the kids. She was always a little on the feral side, my mum – never had what you’d call a proper job in her life. My three older siblings – Van, Angel and Auburn – spent the first years of their lives on a hippy artists’ commune in Cornwall, until I came along. Different dad, a few years later – which at least partly explains why I’ve always been the odd one out.
They all moved to Budbury while Mum was pregnant with me, and she picked up bits of work here and there – enough to keep us in gender-neutral clothes that could always be passed down, as well as funding our hummus and pitta bread habit. I suppose she was ahead of her time in a lot of ways – trying to get us to eat organic, never taking us to the doctor unless a leg was about to drop off, giving us weird names before Gwyneth Paltrow ever thought of it.
Here at Briarwood, she did a variety of things – yoga classes, meditation, arts and crafts sessions, creative writing workshops. She was just Mum to us, but I think to a lot of the kids she must have seemed like an insanely exotic creature, all wild curly hair and tie-dye clothes, smelling of incense and Patchouli oil.
As I wander the corridors of the building, I can still see the signs of all that life – all those young people, living here together, with Mr and Mrs F trying to make it as nice for them as they could. There are still old noticeboards on the walls downstairs, the tattered remains of tacked-up paper dangling from rusted drawing pins. I know I need to clear them off, but it feels a bit like I’m somehow defiling a sacred place. Vandalising a museum, maybe.
I pull one down, and part of the paper disintegrates in my hand. I can still see what it was about, though: Mr F taking part in a sponsored Fish-a-Thon to raise money for Save the Children. I smile, and place the sheet inside two pages of my notepad. I don’t quite have the heart to throw it into a bin bag, which might explain why my bedroom is cluttered enough to qualify me for one of those reality TV shows about hoarders.
I continue my investigations, leaving the front door propped open with a brick – there is electricity in here, I’ve found, but a lot of the lightbulbs are blown, and others are flickering as I go. I’m already slightly jumpy, and the sizzling sounds of the overhead lamps and the on-again-off-again light quality isn’t helping. Luckily, I have my fearless guard dog with me – Bella has her nose to the ground, and is dashing around in strange looping circles that only make sense to her. She’s making a snuffling sound like a seal as she goes, which is reassuring in an otherwise silent building.
I work my way towards what I remember was the office, and Mr and Mrs F’s living quarters, and again find something of a time capsule. Most of the furniture is gone, but there are a few odds and ends: a pile of mouldy paperbacks; empty filing cabinets, open and gaping; the desiccated remains of a potted plant that may or may not have been an African violet in a previous life. The bay window is grimy, but sunshine is pouring in and dappling the whole room with dancing dust motes.
I try and shake off the impending sense of melancholy, and start thinking professionally instead. I know from the estate agent that the upper floors have been completely cleared. So, I tell the logical part of my brain – this is a very small part, with super-selective hearing – that’s where I should start.
I’m booked for a few days, and there’ll be plenty of time to get around to the lower floors later. It’ll be easier once they’re empty – apart from anything else, it’ll stop me gazing at everything as though I have some weird telepathic power that allows me to talk to dead houseplants.
Bella is sniffing furiously at the paperbacks, and I know what that might mean.
‘Nope,’ I say firmly, reaching down to distract her with a tickle behind the ears. ‘It might smell like it, but this is not the outside. So no puddles, okay?’
She gives me a look from beneath her grey, whiskery eyebrows, and trots off back into the corridor. I swear, she understands every word.
I retrieve my cleaning supplies – the usual exciting smorgasbord of cloths, chemicals and bin bags– and climb the wooden staircase up to the top floor. This will mainly be a reconnaissance mission – I’m guessing I’ll have to come back with the heavy-duty floor cleaning gear later, and possibly rope in some of the strapping menfolk of the village to help me lug it up the stairs. Luckily we are insanely blessed with strapping menfolk in Budbury. It seems to be located on some kind of mystical ley line that pulls them in.
As I climb, I notice the thick layer of dust that’s built up on the curving banister. This always used to be polished so well you could see your distorted face reflected in it – it was kept that way by a combination of Mrs F, Mr Sheen, and the bottoms of boisterous young kids sliding down it.
Briarwood was always bustling – there was always noise, and music, and activity, and the rich smells of cooking and communal living. Now, it’s so sad and quiet and musty – and I realise I’m thrilled that someone has bought it. I hope Tom Cruise takes care of the place and doesn’t turn it into a Scientologist bunker.
When I reach the top floor, it is much smaller in reality than in my recollections. In the same way that Mars Bars seemed much bigger back then, Briarwood also loomed large. I think I’d imagined it was an enormous mansion, filled with secret compartments and haunted stairwells. It certainly felt like it back then, especially compared to the crowded three-bedroomed cottage that we all lived in.
Now that it’s shrunk – or I’ve grown – I see that there are probably no more than twenty rooms, laid out over three floors. It looks a bit like a smaller version of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, sadly minus Wolverine in his slinky vest top. I’m sure there’s a cellar as well, but there’s about as much chance of me going down there alone as there is of me completing a PhD in astrophysics.
I can see the marks where the carpet used to be, the floorboards around it more faded and dusty. The walls are bare, and each room I poke my head into is empty. The rooms vary in size, but are all decorated the same way – in blue wallpaper dotted with now-yellowing footballs, with threadbare blue carpet. I remember there were girls here as well. They probably all stayed on the floor below, in rooms with fairy princess wallpaper and pink carpet.
I’m guessing the new owner will sort all of this out. It’s not my job to check the damp-proofing, or redecorate – it’s my job to give it a once-over with the Will-o’-the-Wash magic touch. I’m assuming there will be some hefty renovations eventually, but making it less disgusting will be a start. My contribution to bringing this place back to life.
I decide to start with the windows – getting them clean will make the whole experience a lot more pleasant for everyone. By which I mean for me. The dirt and grime all over them is making the building feel even more neglected. It’s a beautiful day outside, and I need to let some of that sunshine in.
I work my way through almost all of the rooms, opening the windows as I clean each one. Some need a bit of welly – they’re crusted closed by old paint or grot, and I become intimate friends with several weirdly shaped lumps of moss as I go.
I gaze outside as I work, hoping for a glimpse of the man I saw in the pond earlier. He didn’t see me – I edged away as quietly as I could when I realised there was someone there. Nobody wants to be caught out having a personal moment in a pond, do they? And, as I can’t see any car parked nearby, it’s still entirely possible that I imagined it.
I mean, I don’t think I did. I’m not usually quite that out there. But I am very tired, I have had a hard couple of days, and I can’t rule it out. Or, of course, he might just be someone who likes the pond and walks up here in the grounds of Briarwood – I’d noticed bits of litter, as well as old cider bottles and cigarette stubs, which is usually a sign of colonisation by the common or garden teenager.
He didn’t look like a teenager – he was definitely grown-man shaped in all the right ways – but he could have been a walker. We get loads of walkers. Budbury is on the Jurassic Coast, and part of a network of clifftop paths that criss-cross the whole area. The Comfort Food Café is often visited by the kinds of people who wear high-vis singlets over their anoraks and use spiky poles to walk with. Maybe he was just one of those.
I try and put it to the back of my mind, and concentrate on the job. Bella has found a corner she likes the smell of, and is snoring away as I work. As I keep cleaning, the scent of lemons starts to gradually overpower the scent of neglect. Each room has its own sink – they’re filthy, and will probably be next on the list – but the plumbing is still functional, even if it is creaky, which means I can fill and refill my bowls to my heart’s content.
It’s mind-numbing work, and in all honesty that’s one of the reasons I like it. It stops my brain from wandering, and there’s also a very tangible outcome. You clean something, it ends up clean. It’s not like so many other things in life where you put in megatons of effort and nothing seems to change as a result.
I’m hitting my stride, and building myself up to tackling the last room on the corridor, wishing I’d brought my radio or some speakers with me. I could put in my earphones, but hey – I’ve seen horror films. I know what happens to young women, alone in an old deserted house, when they don’t pay attention. The only thing you can do that’s worse than put earphones in is snog someone – the bogeyman will definitely get you if you do that. Stabbed to death in your bra and knickers, end of story.
I’m not about to snog anybody, but I do wish I had the music. Maybe a bit of Meatloaf, or the collected works of Neil Diamond – something with a big chorus to sing along to.
I’d like the distraction, as I’m now standing outside that last room. The one I’ve not even been into yet. Staring it down, as though I need to show it who’s boss.
Not that it’s any different than the others, I’m sure – it’s just that we have a bit of history, me and that room. The last summer I spent any significant amount of time here, my darling siblings persuaded me it was haunted, and dared me to go in and find out.
I still remember vividly how scared I was. Even though it seems silly now, like most dramas from your childhood do in hindsight, I’m a wee bit hesitant as I walk towards it, bin bag in one hand, spray gun in the other. You know, just in case I need to spray cleaning fluid in a demon’s eyes or anything.
I haven’t seen my siblings for varying amounts of years. They’ve scattered like sheep, landing in different places doing different things. It’s only me who’s still here, in Budbury – with our mum. I don’t blame them; they’re older than me, and moved away and built their lives long before she started to show signs of her illness. I don’t blame them – but I do miss them.
Even though, I think, as I pause outside the Room of Horrors, they were complete bastards that day – building up the terror, forcing me to go through with it, then laughing their arses off when I was so scared. It was the end for me and Briarwood – Mum kept on working here on and off, but I always made sure I had something else to do, even if it was tagging along with my evil big sister Auburn.Vicious as she could be, she wasn’t as scary as that room.
Over the years, though, I’ve thought of it occasionally – the way that kids can be so casually cruel to each other and not give it a second thought.
And, of course, the way I ran away, frightened out of my wits – I didn’t even talk to the poor boy in the room, who was just as scared. Who wouldn’t be? Some strange, feral child crashes into your space uninvited, screams at the top of her voice, and legs it without a word of explanation?
I think I scarred him for life – and as he was living in a children’s home at the time, he probably wasn’t in an especially good place to begin with. We were just two people who collided with each other’s lives for a split second. I still feel a bit bad about it, and wish I could go back in a time machine and at least push a note under his door saying sorry.
I force myself to stop procrastinating and open the door. Amazingly, nothing happens. No ghostly boys, no hanging corpses, no demons. Not even a whiff of the scary choir music from The Omen. It’s just a room – dark, musty, and sad.
The desk I remember, covered in what I now think was probably dismantled computer parts or reverse-engineered toasters, has gone. The swivel-chair the boy spun around in has gone. There’s nothing left here to tell me anything about the living, breathing children who once called this small place home.
I can feel the melancholy creeping back over me again, and shake it off. Nostalgia’s not what it used to be, and I’m probably not well-equipped to deal with thinking too closely about the past. I struggle enough to cope with the present.
I wander over to the window, preparing to open it like I did all the others, and stop dead. Hazily outlined through the grime, I see a person standing outside. He’s very still, looking up, probably thinking exactly the same thing as me: am I imagining this, or is there another human being out here in the land that time forgot?
I freeze for a moment, suddenly scared, and then use one of my cloths to wipe a circle of dirt from the window pane.
No, I’m not imagining it – it’s a man. A tall man with dark hair, and a bloody big dog. I wave at him, and he hesitantly waves back. He can probably only see one bit of my face, which must look weird.
The dog lets out a vast booming woof, and I hear Bella’s claws clattering on the floorboards in the hallway as she mobilises.
I follow her, fingering my mobile in my apron pocket for reassurance as I go. I generally don’t go through life assuming new people I meet are serial killers – but Briarwood has cast its unnerving spell, and it’s good to know I can communicate with the outside world if he suddenly wants to show me his stylish coat made of human skin.
I trot down the stairs, bundling up my bin bag as I go. Bella is ahead of me, her tail twitching in excitement. I am totally rocking the Cinderella look – face smeared with dirt, hair in a big mad pony, wearing a pinny that has a picture of King Kong on the front, odd socks popping out of the top of my Docs. Because life’s too short for worrying about your socks.
I emerge into the sunshine, and have to blink away the sudden blast of light that attacks my indoor eyeballs.
It’s been a surreal day. No sleep, domestic chaos, cleaning a haunted house, and now I’m standing out here, smiling at a man who definitely isn’t Edward Cullen.
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