Comfort and Joy (9 page)

‘See you at Christmas,’ says Tamsin. She blows Pat a kiss but doesn’t look at Sam or Jake.

‘What’s happening, Clara?’ she whispers as I show her out. ‘Why has everything become horrible?’

‘It’ll be fine,’ I say, like the world’s best liar.

I should leave it. I should give Pat a hand with the last bits of the tidying up and say goodnight and go to bed. It’s too
late to do any wrapping, and for the second time inside of five minutes I feel myself on the verge of tears. Wrapping is nice.
Wrapping is soothing. Wrapping is exactly what I need right now. But I ignore the voice in my head and go back into the kitchen.
I sit back down at the table with Jake and Sam. Tim is now slumped across it, his floppy, posh-boy hair being wiped around
by Pat and her eternal J-cloth.

‘Please leave it, Pat,’ I say. ‘You’re an angel to have tidied, but stop now. Come and sit down. You’re not the bloody cleaning
lady. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘Ah, it’s no trouble,’ says Pat. ‘I like to feel useful.’

‘All the same. Sit down.’

‘I think I’ll go up to bed,’ Pat says. ‘It’s getting late. Would you mind if I took up a wee snack? A wee cake. I don’t know
why, but I’m famished.’

I make her a plate of Christmas cake – a fine achievement by Maisy and me, though I say so myself – and biscuits to go with
her tea and three sugars. Pat is fearless in the face of encroaching diabetes, I’ll give her that. She hugs me tightly as
she says goodnight and shuffles off to bed.

So now it’s just the four of us and a bottle of whisky that Sam’s unearthed from somewhere (without much difficulty. If you’re
Irish, or indeed Scots, and people don’t know what to give you for Christmas, they always go for whisky. Sam gets about twelve
bottles a year from various people he works with.

‘Well, that was jolly,’ I say, pouring myself a couple of inches. And then I don’t say anything at all, because I want Sam
to
apologize to me, or to somehow convey regret, by his face or by something he does with his hands, or even by sighing sadly
and contritely. But he doesn’t. His expression is absolutely serene.

‘Tim,’ I say. ‘Tim! Wake up.’

‘Awake,’ says Tim.

‘I think he should sleep on the sofa,’ says Sam. What the fuck is it with him and people sleeping on sofas?

‘He only lives ten minutes’ walk away. Can’t you walk him round? The fresh air would probably do him good.’

‘I’m fine,’ says Tim, shaking his head experimentally. ‘My head’s a bit sore, but I’m okay now.’

‘I’d rather he went home,’ I say to Sam, rudely, as though Tim wasn’t there.

‘So would I,’ says Jake, ‘because then I could have the sofa. Tam’s not taking my calls. I could drive, I suppose …’

‘I don’t think you should,’ says Sam. ‘You might get stopped.’

‘I’d like to stay,’ says Jake, suddenly looking very old. ‘I don’t want to go home by myself.’

‘Have another drink,’ says Sam.

The atmosphere in the kitchen is calmer than it has been in a couple of hours, and I should leave it. I should go upstairs
and sort out some bedding and a pillow for Jake, and plump up the sofa. Instead I say,‘You know earlier, Tim? When you were
so astonished that I took myself for a drink at the Connaught?’

‘What?’ says Tim. And then, ‘Oh yeah. I remember.’

‘And you said Sophie would never do a thing like that, and she agreed?’

‘Yes,’ says Tim. ‘What about it? She wouldn’t.’

‘But why is it strange for me to do it and not at all strange for you to do an extreme version of the same thing right here
at my house?’

‘We’ve had this conversation already,’ says Tim. ‘It’s a weird
thing for a woman to do. I mean – if you wanted to go for a drink, why didn’t you go with your husband?’

‘Because he wasn’t there. I was by myself in the middle of Oxford Street, doing the Christmas shopping.’

‘I don’t think it’s that weird,’ says Jake.

‘Thanks,’ I say, as though he has just given me a jewel.

‘I’d better head back to the missus,’ says Tim. ‘Cheers, Sam, for a fun evening.’

‘Any time,’ says Sam. ‘Drink on Boxing Day, maybe?’

‘Sure, sure. Thanks, Clara,’ Tim says, avoiding my eye. ‘Well, bye then.’ And off he goes.

‘It
is
pretty weird,’ says Sam, still on about my drink earlier. ‘The timing of it, Clara. It’s hectic, it’s chaos, and you bugger
off to the Connaught, all dressed up.’

‘You don’t like me being dressed up? I thought you were just saying that women somehow owe it to men to make an effort?’

‘I’m saying nothing else,’ says Sam, pouring himself another whisky.

‘No, but you’re implying. What are you implying, Sam? I mean, you know why I was dressed up. I told you this morning. I was
meeting my editor. I’m hardly going to do it in tracksuit bottoms, am I?’

‘You were wearing a lot of make-up,’ Sam says.

‘Well, there you go. I am the Whore of Babylon,’ I say, rage rising inside me again, so much rage that it tamps down the guilt.
‘I always wear make-up.’

‘Not that much. And not lipstick.’

‘Do you have any idea of your levels of hypocrisy?’ I say. I can hear how shrill I sound, and I have time to register that
shrill isn’t a good look. Also that, right now, attack may be my best form of defence. ‘Of your, your … outstanding,
award-winning
levels of hypocrisy? Your new friend Timbo can get shit-faced and he’s just having fun, being a bloke, letting his
hair down, and I can’t go for one lone fucking drink
by myself
without you making it sound like a
betrayal
? I mean, what happened? Two minutes ago you were saying that I used to be fun, that I used to be
charming
, that I used to drink cocktails, like you were fucking sobbing over the corpse of What Used To Be. So then I go and drink
a cocktail, charmingly, but that doesn’t work for you either? What does work for you, Sam? What do you
want
?’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ Sam says.

‘I think I’ll just go and catch forty winks,’ says Jake, who has spent this entire time slumped mournfully, sending texts
to Tamsin.

‘I’ll get you some bedding,’ I say.

‘Linen cupboard, second floor. Towels, too. Help yourself. Sleep well, mate,’ says Sam.

‘Night, then,’ says Jake. His leather trousers squeak poignantly as he shuffles away, his gait now that of an old man.

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ Sam repeats. ‘I could have joined you. I’d have been there within twenty minutes.’

‘It didn’t occur to me,’ I say. ‘It was a completely spur-of-the-moment thing. Spontaneous. It felt like a treat. I don’t
spend that much time by myself. It just felt like a fun thing to do.’

‘Really,’ says Sam. ‘Well, there you go. And what happened when you got there, for your
treat
?’

‘I told you what happened. I had a champagne cocktail and remembered I’d forgotten Tamsin’s present.’

‘Isn’t that nice,’ says Sam.

‘It was, yes. What do you want me to say?’

‘Less,’ says Sam. ‘I want you to say less.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I used to love it when you talked. But now you just talk at me. You used to be full of opinions, and now you’re just
full of judgements. This is good and this is bad and this is not
allowed, dear me no – we couldn’t have people sleeping on
sofas
, we can’t have men getting
pissed
, we can’t have men telling the truth about how they think and feel.’

‘Sam,’ I say, more plaintively than I’d ideally like. ‘You’re talking like you hate me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more.’

‘But I do.’

‘That’s too bad,’ says Sam. ‘Are you coming to bed?’

‘No,’ I say, quite stupidly, because I am suddenly extremely tired and Pat’s in the spare room and Jake’s on the sofa.

So then he goes, on his long legs and with his jaw all tight, and I sit there, in my kitchen, which is festooned with Christmas
cards strung on cheerful red ribbon. I sit and think. And what I think is: this isn’t just a row. I mean, it
is
a row, at one level, but it’s a symptom. It’s the lump before the diagnosis, the crack of bone before the thing is officially
called a fracture. I get up and make a cup of tea; there’s a painting of a snowman that Maisy did at school pinned up on the
wall by the kettle. I’m so tired. And I don’t know what to think. One should really always have arguments in the morning,
or at least in the daylight: you can’t entirely trust your thoughts at night, or at least I can’t – they get distorted. Did
the bone crack, or did we just bang our shins? How much of this stuff are you supposed to put up with? The lump needn’t be
fatal, after all, and bones heal. I don’t know. I don’t know anything, except that I’m not feeling especially festive. Also,
I feel sorry for everyone (myself included). I can’t stand the way everyone is so scared of being lonely: I don’t want to
be one of those people. Poor Hope, so badly behaved, who’d really save a lot of time and effort if she wrote PLEASE LOVE ME
all across her forehead in indelible marker pen. Poor Tamsin, making so many compromises (she told me last week that when
she has an orgasm, Jake says,
‘Good girl.’ Call me shallow, but that alone would be a deal-breaker). Poor Jake, and poor Jake’s sex-vocab and poor Jake’s
children. Poor Sophie, who bought into the mad nuclear-family dream and doesn’t know how to ask for her money back, and poor
Tim, who’s not a bad person, just a bit of a twat. Who else? Oh yes: poor Sam, being married to me. Because perhaps I really
am a terrible cunt. Perhaps he’s right. Not just about how I used to be fun and I’m not any more, but about things generally.
I mean, I don’t love him as much as I used to, as I was thinking only this afternoon. That’s not very nice, is it? I love
him more than I love my really fantastic range cooker, and considerably less than I love my annoying children. That’s part
of the problem: there’s nothing to compare any of this with. I suppose if I loved my cooker more, at least I’d know. If I
fancied
my cooker more, that would be my clue, right there.

The one thing I know about love is that it means having somebody who’s always on your side. When you’re a couple, I mean.
You exhale, and you think it’s all okay, because the person you’re with is on your side, and you’re on theirs. You are, in
this respect at least, as one. Your front is united. You support each other. You are complicit. Whether you behave well or
badly, you know there is one person in the world who gets it, or trains themselves to get it, or pretends to get it,
because they’re on your side.
They’re on your side because they love you. And what tonight has taught me is that Sam is no longer on mine. You’re not on
a person’s side if you call them out in public, or if you call them names, or if the tone of your voice suggests actual hatred.

I know how to make lots of things okay, but I don’t know how to fix that, in him or in myself. I make another cup of tea.
What I must try to be is the person I’m not, I decide wearily. I must be the person who is adult enough not to think, ‘Fuck
this for a game of soldiers.’ I must be a good wife, like a wife in
a book. I must work at things. I mustn’t lie to my husband about what I did at the Connaught. In fact, I must avoid the Connaught
and everything it stands for. It’s already stopped feeling real; a few hours on, and it feels like a lovely daydream. None
of this makes me feel especially better, and I have the whooshy, blurred feeling at the back of my head that you get when
you lie to yourself, but it’s late and I really need to get to bed. It’s a shame I can’t curl up on the kitchen table; having
told Sam I wasn’t coming up, I’m now going to have to creep in beside him.

I wrestle the bag out of the bin, so it’s there in the morning, in time for the last rubbish collection before Christmas.
As I drag it outside, I notice it’s snowing.

And as I come back inside, I see my phone is lit up. It’s 12.36 a.m. on Christmas Eve and I have a text message. As I press
the button to read it – it’s from him, of course it is – I also notice, Miss Observant, that my hand is very faintly shaking.

You wouldn’t look at a live turkey and think, ‘That bird’s gagging for it.’ Dead though, all plucked and huge-breasted and
gaping between the legs – sorry to say ‘gaping between the legs’, but if you don’t like it, imagine how I feel when it pops
into my head at seven in the morning – there’s an unsettling corporeal heft about turkeys, and also something faintly porno.
I wonder if women all over the country are thinking the same thing, humping their giant bird out of the fridge and into the
giant roasting tray, staring at its lifted-up legs and innards, into which they are shortly to insert their fists.

I’m fisting the turkey too. For God’s sake: my life. I’m giving it a good stuffing with Mr Lidgate the butcher’s finest: apricot
and cranberry in one half, walnut and bacon in the other. The wing tips shudder in response. It really doesn’t help morale,
or my rising feeling of nausea, that this bird, this monster, weighs very slightly less than Maisy did a couple of years ago.
It’s like roasting a child. Well, a child with giant goosebumps and bits of black quill left embedded at random in its flesh
– bits of quill that you pay extra for, obviously. Bronze, innit.

I probably wouldn’t be thinking any of this if it hadn’t been for the text I received last night. From the man from the Connaught.
Whom I met this time last year, and whom I have recently – because he lived abroad until three months ago – been seeing. ‘Seeing’:
such a marvellous euphemism. Anyway, whom I have now been seeing for three months. And whom I ‘saw’ properly yesterday for
the first time,
if you get my meaning.
It was the eve of the anniversary of our first meeting, sweetly.
And it was amazing. But the whole context is so weird, or maybe just so new, that I feel protective of myself, careful, half
scared. I don’t want to hold the man from the Connaught up to scrutiny. The man from the Connaught must just exist and be.
If I sound cagey about him, it’s because he makes me feel cagey even with myself. I don’t want to fall in love with him. And
besides, despite our intimacy, I have no idea at all about the man from the Connaught’s intentions. Perhaps he doesn’t have
any.