Comfort and Joy

by India Knight

  ‘Yes, okay, you may have to deal with the full bush. And probably only Diego Rivera liked the ’tache–monobrow combo.’

  ‘I think South Americans in general are partial to facial hair,’ says Kate. ‘Or at least indifferent to it.’

  ‘And you have to wash, and brush your teeth and have baths and go and get waxed every now and then. And not be morbidly obese or have stains down your clothes, and maybe not burp your appreciation repeatedly when someone buys you dinner. And that’s kind of it. The other stuff is so many cherries on the already quite appetizing lady-cake. You know, Hope? We’re nice. There’s nothing wrong with us. We don’t have to go on as though we need to starve ourselves or have extensive plastic surgery and a personality transplant …’

  ‘Wouldn’t hurt,’ says Robert.

  ‘… and an interior-decorated mansion just to “get a man”. It’s just such balls.’

  ‘Word,’ says Flo. ‘Also you forgot our teeth.’

  ‘What? Oh. Yes, quite. It’s bad enough that none of us can drink red wine because we all bleach our teeth.’

  ‘I don’t,’ says Kate.

  ‘I just wash mine in Steradent,’ says Pat. ‘Is there any cake?’

  ‘Over there,’ I say, pointing to the dresser. ‘I made it with Maisy.’

  ‘It’s all very easy for you to say,’ says Hope.

  ‘There is no man on earth who’s going to love you more because your highlights cost £300,’ I say. But this entire conversation is pointless: I know Hope simply doesn’t believe me.

  ‘Is she still going on about wanting babies?’ asks Jake, coming back into the room. ‘Sam sent me down to get the whisky.’

  ‘Are the children okay, Jake?’ asks Flo.

  ‘What? Oh yes, perfectly happy. Yours are watching a thing about some pigs that live in a human house.’

  ‘Peppa,’ says Flo. ‘I fancy Daddy Pig.’

  ‘Everyone fancies Daddy Pig,’ says Evie. ‘Obviously. Where’s Ed?’

  ‘Upstairs with us,’ says Jake. ‘You okay, Tamsin?’

  ‘Enjoying you being the babysitters,’ says Tamsin, smiling at him.

  ‘The whisky’s on the side, there,’ I tell Jake. ‘The Scotch. If you want the Irish, it’s in the cupboard.’

  ‘Thanks, Clara. I’d better go back up. Sperm donors,’ he says to Hope as he’s halfway out of the room. ‘You can have some of mine, if you want. The Jakester’s seed is mighty.’ He does a rather upsetting little thrust to illustrate. ‘You coming up, Robert?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ says Robert. ‘I’m scared of Hope.’

  ‘I think your fiancé just offered me his semen,’ says Hope, giving Tamsin a wild-eyed look.

  ‘Your poor life,’ says Evie sympathetically. ‘It just gets worse.’

  As everyone sits in the kitchen with wine and coffee – the general consensus is that we’re still too stuffed for pudding – I take Kate aside and lead her upstairs to my bedroom, which is a blessed oasis of calm compared to the bazaar-like chaos of the rest of the house. The boys have retreated to their top-floor lair, and the smaller children are still being watched over by the men, an anthropologically unusual occurrence that I feel ought to be taken advantage of.

  My bedroom is large enough to have a sofa in it. Kate perches on its worn velvet arm while I sit on the bed, the soft embrace of which immediately makes me feel exhausted. It fleetingly occurs to me that I could not have this conversation and instead go for a quick, refreshing catnap – I am suddenly unbelievably tired – and so I inch forward a bit, in order to be not so comfortable and more likely to stay awake.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, Kate. It’s a weird kind of question.’

  ‘Shoot,’ says Kate. ‘Though you do look awfully tired, Clara. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be lying down?’

  ‘I am weirdly tired, actually. I was just thinking that.’

  ‘Well, you’ve barely stopped. I know you think I don’t notice anything, but actually I am unusually observant. I’d have made an excellent sniper, I always think. You must be exhausted. You really are a goose for not taking advantage of Conception and Pilar, you know. I say it every year.’

  This is a reference to Kate’s housekeepers, who – although their names suggest an almost permanent state of genuflection – don’t apparently ‘do’ Christmas. She’s always offering to lend them to me at this time of year, to help with clearing up and so on, but as we have established, when it comes to 25 December I have my own strange compulsion to do everything myself.

  ‘I just don’t want, you know, staff milling about. It’s not … it’s just not very me.’

  ‘Think of them less as staff and more as your very own Christmas elves,’ says Kate. ‘Sent by the mothership in your hour of need.’

  ‘Mm. But then what? You know – we’d get them presents and they’d feel obliged to get us all presents, which would bankrupt them, and then we’d sit them down to lunch and there’s no room and the whole thing would feel a bit uncomfortable.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, remember when you asked them to Sam’s and my wedding? It was nice of you, but I had a bit of a problem working out the placements.’

  ‘They were next to that grand friend of yours from school, if I remember. The heiress.’ Kate starts to laugh, catches my eye and then laughs more loudly.

  ‘She’s a very committed feminist socialist. I just wanted to see what would happen when she met people who were actual Filipina maids. I mean, it’s beyond parody.’

  ‘What did happen?’

  ‘Well, disappointingly she was slightly insulted to be seated next to them, I could tell by her face. I think she’d have preferred a hot man.’

  ‘Not very democratic of her,’ says Kate. ‘And rather sexist.’

  ‘Yes. She asked them whether they were paid the minimum wage –’

  ‘The nerve!’ says Kate. ‘I never liked her, even when you were at school. Mimsy sort of girl. They’re paid it many times over, because I am not a monster.’

  ‘And then – well, she just sort of ignored them.’

  ‘Rather a waste of them. They’re very jolly. Of course they’re also extraordinarily right-wing, it always takes people aback.’

  We are both laughing now.

  ‘Oh, this is silly, sitting like this,’ Kate says. ‘Let’s get into bed for a little while. It looks so cosy. Come on, shove up. I feel rather tired too. My ancient bones are weary.’

  ‘You’re fifty-nine, Kate.’

  ‘I know. It’s unspeakable. And don’t tell anyone. I’ve started saying I’m sixty-five, though actually I’m thinking I might bump it up to seventy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they literally gasp in disbelief at my extraordinary state of well-preservedness. People really are stupid to lie in the other direction. When I meet a woman who lies about being younger than she is, I think, “Poor thing, forty-five and so unutterably ropey.” ’

  She’s already kicking off her shoes and easing herself out of her wrap. Twenty seconds later we are in my bed, propped up on a slew of fat, squishy pillows.

  ‘You gave me these a couple of Christmases ago, remember?’

  ‘Siberian goose down,’ Kate nods. ‘Nothing to beat it. I know you thought it was a dull present, but – life-changing, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, God yes. The only trouble is, it makes all other pillows give you neck-ache.’

  ‘The princess and the pea. How spoilt we all are,’ says Kate. ‘When I think of how you and I used to live.’

  ‘Hardly in a shoe gnawing on bin findings, Kate.’

  ‘No, but in a studio flat with very few mod cons.’ She sighs. ‘We used to share a bed you know, rather like this but with desperately inferior pillows. And sheets and blankets rather than a duvet. I rather miss sheets and blankets. We were blissfully happy.’

  ‘That’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about, actually.’

  ‘Bedding?’

  ‘No, my
father.’

  ‘Julian? Good Lord. Well, I assume he’s fine, darling. As you know, we aren’t on what you’d call best-friend speakers. Ask the girls, they’re going to see him tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I mean my father-father. I mean Felix.’

  ‘Felix?’ Kate almost splutters. ‘Good grief. What brought that on?’

  ‘I don’t know, really.’ I note I’m twirling my hair, like I used to do as a child. ‘I was thinking how Maisy doesn’t have any grandpas, and you’ve noticed how obsessed she is with who goes where?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I thought – a bit earlier, when we were all upstairs – that maybe I should meet him.’

  ‘Felix?’ says Kate, looking astonished.

  ‘Yes. Felix.’

  ‘But … but darling, why?’ asks Kate.

  ‘I don’t really know the answer to that, either. To lay something to rest, I suppose. To see where I came from. To show my children.’

  ‘You know where you came from,’ Kate snaps. ‘You came from me.’

  ‘I know, I know. But do you not see? I feel like it would give me – and maybe the children – a sense of … of something that might eventually be important.’

  ‘It hasn’t been important for forty-one years,’ Kate says.

  ‘I know. But still.’

  ‘Don’t romanticize this, Clara. Don’t be sentimental. You’re not going to fall into each other’s arms in slow motion. The world isn’t suddenly going to rearrange itself. Scales will not fall from eyes. All will not be explained.’

  ‘I know that too. But still. I quite fancy the idea. I’m not explaining it very well. But I’d like to do it. I think. I mean, he is my father. Genes have got to count for something, right?’

  ‘I see,’ says Kate.

  ‘So, can you help? I haven’t heard from him in years. Where is he, for instance?’

  ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ says Kate. ‘I used to love smoking in bed.’

  ‘There was half a packet in the drawer,’ I say, rootling through the bedside table. ‘Here we are. Might be a bit stale. And … here we go, matches. No ashtray. You can use that empty mug.’

  ‘How sordid,’ says Kate. ‘Marvellous.’

  We sit in silence for a while. There are knots of anxiety in my stomach, which is odd because I didn’t think I cared that much. About any of this. Any more.

  ‘Well,’ Kate eventually says. ‘It’s funny you should ask about Felix.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Because it so happens that I saw him ten days ago.’

  ‘What?’ I say, sitting bolt upright, like a meerkat. ‘Felix? My father?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Kate, inhaling. ‘We kept vaguely in touch, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t, actually.’

  ‘No. Anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean, you kept vaguely in touch?’

  ‘I mean I’ve seen him, what, two or three times over the past decade. If that.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I wonder if you do.’

  ‘I see that you didn’t choose to tell me that you were seeing him. I might have liked to clap eyes on him. Or … or him on me.’

  Kate sighs. ‘I’m sorry for all my failures,’ she says. ‘I’ve always tried to protect you.’

  ‘How do you mean? Protect me from what? You’re making him sound like a psychopath. Or, or a paedophile or something. What? I really don’t see what’s remotely funny.’

  ‘He is neither. Anyway. Do you want me to continue?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I say, feeling about fourteen years old and quite mutinous.

  Kate pauses again and smokes for a bit. It’s very irritating, particularly as she makes it look so elegant. Most people smoke like navvies (not unattractive in itself, in the right context), but Kate smokes like a film star from the 1940s, and now I want one.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, darling. Smoke if you want to, only don’t sit there with that ghastly longing expression.’

  ‘I gave up years ago.’

  ‘Don’t be worthy. So dull. I smoked throughout my pregnancies. Everyone did. Drank rivers of wine. Ate blue cheese and liver, so nutritious. And we all produced these absolutely gigantic, bonny children, not the shrimpy little wraiths I see nowadays.’

  ‘I know, but you can do that thing of smoking five a day. Anyway. Carry on.’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Protecting me.’

  ‘Oh yes. What I mean, Clara, is that I have always tried to protect you from Felix’s absolute lack of interest.’

  This would be painful to hear if what she was saying wasn’t demonstrably true, and hadn’t been demonstrably true for over four decades. Nevertheless, the words are not pleasing to my ears or heart.

  I don’t say anything for a while.

  ‘Are we playing Pinter Play?’ Kate says. Pinter Play is a game Kate invented for long car journeys when I was a child. The aim is to say as little as possible while still just about making sense.

  ‘Where did you see him? I thought he lived in the middle of a desert.’

  ‘He does. In a cactus, practically. Like a character from those books you used to love. Richard Scarry. Do you remember? There was a worm that had an apple house.’

  ‘Lowly Worm. Maisy loves those books too. Anyway. You were saying?’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘You saw Felix in the desert.’

  ‘Ah yes. No, I saw him in Harley Street. Well, Marylebone High Street, to be precise. He’d come from Harley Street and I’d come from Regent’s Park.’

  ‘Harley Street?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Kate. She pauses again for a while. ‘Where his physician is.’

  ‘He’s lived in Mexico for nearly forty years, but his doctor’s in Harley Street?’

  ‘I know, isn’t it odd? Some Professor Thingy. Touching faith in the superiority of English medicine. Or English addresses. I don’t suppose he nips over every time he has the flu. But he, but, ah …’ She falls silent again.

  ‘Kate, this is unbearable. I hate playing Pinter Play.’

  ‘All right,’ Kate says with a sigh. ‘He asked to meet me. I met him. He wanted to eat cheese, so …’

  ‘What do you mean, cheese?’

  ‘Darling, don’t shoot the messenger. He loves cheese, Felix. He is absolutely mad about cheese.’

  ‘Great. That’ll give me something to remember him by: “My father. He loved cheese. Your grandfather? He loved cheese.” Maybe I could get a tattoo. A heart with a dagger going through it and “Mum” in curly writing, and on the other arm a block of Emmenthal.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Clara. The point is, there is no cheese in America,’ Kate continues. ‘It’s the worst place on earth for cheese lovers. His desert is literally a desert when it comes to cheese. All you can get is that ghastly sliced plastic stuff that tastes of worse than nothing.’

  ‘Mum, please. Fast forward past the cheese.’

  ‘So I met him in that cheese place, you know, La Fromagerie. They have a big communal table. We sat down and ate cheese. He almost swooned with joy.’

  ‘This is surreal, Kate. It’s doing my head in.’

  ‘It’s rather a revolting word, isn’t it, “cheese”? But I am reporting events as they unfolded. As I was saying, we ate cheese. He ate industrial quantities of it, actually – rather gross, though one forgives because of the cheese hiatus. The cheese exile.’

  ‘Kate!’

  ‘Fine, fine. I’m getting to it. He looked pretty peaky. He told me he was unwell. On his last legs, Clara, to be perfectly straightforward with you. The final stages of some ghastly cancer that nobody knows what to do with. He was saying goodbye.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I say.

  ‘It was rather touching. Do you mind if I have another cigarette?’

  ‘Help yourself. So, what, he’s going to die?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I’m afraid he is. Imminently.’

  ‘Where is he? I’ll have to change the plan …’ I’
m thinking aloud now. ‘See him at his bedside. Take him some grapes. Some cheese. But not take Maisy, too distressing. I wonder if the boys … It’s sooner than I wanted. Oh God. Where is he? Private or NHS?’

  ‘He’s back in Mexico.’

  ‘Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.’

  ‘Darling, there was nothing anybody could do. He wanted to die at home. Perfectly reasonable of him.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Though of course if one were him one would die at Claridges, with a trolley of cheese at one’s side. I did offer, but he just laughed rather wildly.’

  There is another pause, the longest one yet.

  ‘Are you angry, Clara?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I understand,’ she says, taking my hand. She has worn the same shade of nail polish – Chanel Rouge Bengal – for as long as I can remember.

  ‘I … I wanted to fix it, and it can’t be fixed,’ I say. ‘It’s too late.’ The tears come out of the blue and plonk onto my lap.

  ‘I know,’ says Kate.

  Eventually she says, ‘May I say something?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘It isn’t anything I haven’t said before,’ she says, ‘But I want you to listen carefully. Clara. It’s important. Are you listening?’

  ‘I’m all ears. I’m made of ears.’

  ‘Now isn’t the time to be sarcastic.’

  ‘No. Okay. I’m listening.’

  ‘Do you want to blow your nose?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you should blow your nose. It’s off-putting.’ She climbs out of bed, goes into my bathroom and comes back with a loo roll. ‘Here. Blow.’

  ‘Kate! I’m not five years old.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  I blow my nose.

  ‘I put a family together,’ Kate says, turning so that she is looking me straight in the eye. ‘And I made it the best family I could. I found you the best father – someone I genuinely believed to be the best father in the world. He and I have had our differences in recent years, but I still believe that to be the case. I stand by my choice. And it was a choice, Clara. There would never have been any question of me marrying Julian if I hadn’t thought he’d make you a perfect father. And I think he did. And we loved you, and we loved your sisters, and we all loved each other.’