In the middle of the long wooden tables at the Old Mill Bakery Cafe in Lyme Regis are big glazed bowls of homemade jam and peanut butter, honey and lemon curd meant to slather on your toast or croissant or scone.
It's Sunday, closer to lunch time when we arrive, a few families still lingering over brunch. At the counter we choose a whole tomato and pepper pizza to share - the cheese still bubbling hot on the top.
You dip your finger into the bowl of crunchy peanut butter and say,
It's lovely, what is it?
I tell you. And say,
It's to put on toast and you mustn't put your finger in it - it's un-hygenic.
When the pizza comes you reach for the bowl again - about to scoop up a dollop of peanut butter.
I stop you.
It's not meant for pizza.
Why not? You are indignant.
My culinary taste buds huff and puff and bristle.
Then I remember my father ....how he mashed golden syrup into butter and called it Thunder and Lightening....how he used to sprinkle sugar on lettuce.
So after the Pizza when I say, Would you like an Eccles Cake? and you say, What is it? and then Yes....and when you cut the flaky pastry parcel stuffed with spiced currants into thick slices and smear it with butter and spoonfuls of runny raspberry jam from the bowls, I
don't say anything....but I look around and wonder if anyone is staring.
And I think how it's hurting you, how all these layers of excess make you puff when you go up the stairs, make you huff when you bend down to do up your shoe laces.
Then I hear my father in my head laughing his big crumpled laugh and saying,
Leave him alone...there are worse things than putting peanut butter on pizza..... worse things than getting fat.
So I spear my knife into the long warm croissant on my plate...... reach for a bowl of shining strawberry jam....and wonder how much longer we'll be able to eat together in a cafe....... without it hurting so much.
