Comfort and Joy

by India Knight

  Kate was married to Julian at the time – he is my sisters’ dad. And my mini-stocking was always fabulous: earrings and lipsticks and thoughtful, hand-picked little books of poetry and suchlike. There was absolutely nothing, nada, zero, to complain about. But I felt – jealous isn’t quite the right word. I didn’t want more or better stuff. Envious, then. Envious of my sisters’ fat, teddy-stuffed stockings and everything they symbolized: their childhood, with two parents who were their parents, two parents who loved each other living under the same roof; the ordinariness of the teddies and little games; the absolute safe, cosy, family-ness of it.

  And now, oddly – or not oddly at all, depending on your viewpoint – my own children are in the same situation, with a stepfather, and a much younger sibling (just the one) who lives, utterly secure, at home with a mummy and daddy under one roof; a sibling whose fat, teddy-stuffed stocking may present an emotional contrast that kind of harshes their Christmas morning mellow. Or not. They’re happier than I was by miles, but still – I’m taking no chances. I hurtle down a floor, to the HMV concession, to stock up on Xbox games.

  It all gets done, eventually. It always does – I don’t know why I get myself in such a flap. Unless I’ve miscalculated, I’ve now got presents for everybody – enough presents, good presents, the gifts that will bring joy to the family home and would cause the Baby Jesus to kick His legs and coo with pleasure if His crib were in our kitchen. I take out my tattered list and double-check: yes, all done, though I’m not sure about the fluorescent underpants for Jake, which seemed a good – well, a comical – idea at the time. Still, too late now. I’ll do a last-minute supermarket dash tomorrow – this might finally be the year that we don’t run out of bay leaves – and try to get the bulk of the wrapping done tonight after dinner. I’m laughing, basically. All that fuss, and here I am, sorted, good to go, like some marvellous housewife in a magazine. Things are looking up.

  The crowds have thinned out a bit – it’s just before 6 p.m. – and even the pigeons no longer seem that keen to walk alongside me. Maisy’s at home with her granny, Sam’s mum – mine doesn’t do babysitting – who said earlier she’d actively like to look after her and put her to bed. ‘Take as long as you like, love. It’s what I’m here for,’ she said, in her martyred but kind way. I have time – ample time – for a coffee and a sit-down.

  It suddenly occurs to me that I can probably do better than that. I don’t really want to donkey my parcels and bags around in the rain only to squeeze myself into an overcrowded, overheated coffee shop, and besides they start shutting at about this time. A light bulb goes on up above my head: I could go and have a drink somewhere really nice. Somewhere I could leave my parcels with a matronly guardian, and where someone would take my coat and bring me, I don’t know, a giant Martini. And some olives. And some nuts. Maybe those little Parmesan biscuit things. Because actually I’m starving. Yes. Who does those things? Who cocoons you in that way? Why, a hotel. I’ve perked up massively by now: under the giant wet hood of my Arctic parka, I am smiling in the rain. I’m going to take myself to a glamorous hotel, for a pre-Christmas drink by myself. How festive is that? Just the one drink (don’t want to spend a fortune), and then home within a couple of hours tops, in time to cook supper.

  If I’m going to do this, I might as well do it properly. I don’t want to sit in the bar of a sad hotel, with sad men from out of town who’ve come to London to see their children before heading off again to spend Christmas all by their lonely, divorced, broken selves. This leads me to quickly count my blessings, an old hobby that I’ve never quite managed to give up. Chief among them, tonight: I am not a sad man whose ex-wife only lets him see his children for a couple of hours on 23 December, while she sits silently in a corner, bristling with resentment and old woundage and he thinks, ‘This used to be my home.’ No. I may be divorced but I am not sad. Or a man. Also, I’m really good at being divorced. I’m a gold medallist. I’m an Olympian. Robert, the boys’ father, remains my excellent friend, as evidenced by the fact that he and his parents are coming to Christmas, as they do every year. Pat on the head, Clara. (Everyone thinks I’m awfully clever to be good at divorce, and I smile and look positively crammed with the wisdom of the ancients, but actually there’s nothing to it. Put it this way: if you’ve been the child of serially divorced parents yourself, you become very, very skilled at How Not To Do It.)

  The Connaught, then. Ha! Why not? The Con-bloody-naught, so chic and refined. I haven’t been in there for years. It’s exactly the sort of place where a person might go and have a drink and be left in peace and feel like a lady in a hat in an old-fashioned novel, plus it’s barely a ten-minute walk away. Worry: do I look smart enough under my polar-explorer coat? Why, yes, for once: I had coffee with my editor this morning and thought I’d better make an effort, so I am wearing an actual dress. A silk dress, since you ask, nicely cut to emphasize the good bits and minimize the bad (stomach, chiefly. We’ll speak no more of it). And I have proper shoes on, and make-up in my handbag. No problemo: Connaught here I come. It is fated.

  I’m walking through Grosvenor Square now, past the American Embassy, which it is impossible to get near because of all the anti-terrorist barricades. People huddle past, braced against the rain, which hasn’t let up since eleven this morning; hundreds of outsize fairy lights glisten from the enormous trees lining the square. Two cars nearly splash me a little, but I don’t care: I feel elated. I never do anything like this – take myself off to hotels, I mean. Once your default setting is switched to domestic, as mine has been for nearly two decades, you don’t spend an awful lot of time on your own doing randomly fun, extravagant-seeming stuff. You only have minutes a day on your own doing non-homey, non-worky stuff, if you’re lucky and all your children are at school and it’s not the holidays. Some people must really like it, I guess, and I like it too, the whole big bustling family thing, but I also really like my own company and sometimes I miss it. What’s that awful expression that makes me gag? ‘Me-time’. That’s what I’m having. Perfect timing: me-time before the onslaught of Christmas Day.

  Slight left, and here’s Carlos Place, and here’s the Connaught, shining in the dark with that yellowy light, like a house in a book, like a beacon of possibilities. A uniformed doorman outside is seeing someone into a Bentley: the scene is the definition of old-fashioned glamour. I wish I wasn’t wearing the stupid parka, but anyway. In I go. Yes, madam would love to leave her parcels. Yes, do take madam’s coat. No, I think I remember where the bar is, thanks, and anyway I’m just going to nip into the Ladies first to put on some make-up. Which is just as well, because when I look in the mirror I see the rain has washed all of mine away, leaving only two smudged black circles around my eyes: I look like I’ve been crying. New face, back out down the corridor, and yes – air-punch of a yes – here it is.

  Here is my me-time bar. There’s a fire, and dim lighting, and old-fashioned sofas and leathery club chairs and a polished walnut table just for me, with puffy, monogrammed paper coasters awaiting my drink. I sink into the chair, which seems to sigh with pleasure upon receiving my bottom, and I unfurl like a flag. Begone, stupidly expensive china animals! Shoo, pointless panic about presents! All is well with the world, and here’s my waiter, and it’s two days to Christmas and oh man, this is nice. This is so nice. A champagne cocktail, I think, rather than a Martini – I have a vague notion that it won’t be as strong. I don’t want to be drunk: my tolerance for alcohol has decreased tragically with age, and these days my hangovers can last up to forty-eight hours. I wouldn’t mind, but they’re so seldom worth it.

  The white-jacketed cocktail man catches my eye and smiles as he makes my drink, and I am filled with love for humanity. This is so … civilized, so old-fashioned, so wonderful, such a rare treat. The waiter brings an assortment of snacks, and having taken a sip of my drink, I peer round with interest at my fellow humans. It is as I thought: smart couples of a certain age, the odd patrician-looking, pinstriped busi
nessman of the kind that has offices in St James’s, two elderly ladies with stonking jewels and too much face powder, hooting with laughter. I imagine this is their annual ritual, that they are old friends who still meet for their Christmas drink, like they have done for decades. I hope me and Tamsin are like that, when we’re really old. I can just see us.

  Arse. Tamsin. My oldest and dearest friend. Tamsin is coming to Christmas and I haven’t got her a flipping present. How did that happen? She always comes to Christmas and I’ve never forgotten before. I got her boyfriend a present and not her: how crap. I rack my brain, trying to picture the contents of my emergency present cupboard, which is where I store gifts that need to be recycled because they’re not my bag, or stuff I get sent by PR people (advantage of working for a glossy magazine). But Tamsin likes the same stuff as me, so if it’s in the cupboard it won’t be her bag either. And she can always tell if I palm her off with some freebie. Crap. Crap. Crapadoodledo. Wasn’t she on the list? I dig around in my handbag and find she wasn’t. Terrible oversight, of the kind that makes me worry about getting Alzheimer’s. I take another sip of my cocktail, surprised to note that it’s nearly finished. The thing is, now Tam’s finally hooked up with someone, the pressure to give her a fantastic present isn’t as massive as it used to be during her (prolonged, eternal-seeming, much moaned-about) single years, when I felt it was my duty as friend-in-chief to buy her the kind of thing that a) she could never afford (she’s a school- teacher) and b) a boyfriend might give her. And now, hallelujah, she has a boyfriend, a proper one, Jake – they’ve been together nearly a year. He is incredibly old and sometimes they use Viagra (again, I worry fleetingly about having bought him pants: aside from anything else, does it make it obvious that Sam and I have discussed his aged loins?), but we needn’t dwell on that – the point is that as far as I remember he usually buys her nice presents. He gives good gift. So it’s not so bad. I’ll just make a note to nip to the …

  ‘Is this seat taken?’

  I glance up briefly. There’s one of those interchangeable men in suits standing there, pointing at the club chair opposite mine.

  ‘No, no – have it,’ I say, looking down at my present list again. They had really nice stripy cashmere scarves at the shop down the road from home – I’ll get her one of those in the morning. And some books. And maybe some pants, so Jake doesn’t feel victimized. ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I say, still looking at my lap and scribbling ‘T – scarf + pants’ on my list. ‘I’m going in a minute, anyway.’

  ‘I’m grateful. It’s very busy in here,’ the man says. ‘May I get you another drink?’

  ‘No, thank you. I think I’d better …’ I look up properly for the first time. ‘Oh.’

  He is raising his eyebrows, and smiling.

  It feels like about twenty minutes go by, in slow motion. I am looking at the man. He is looking at me. Nobody is speaking. I can hear the old ladies laughing, though they sound very far away.

  ‘Another drink?’ he repeats.

  I realize that, for the second time today, my mouth is slightly open. I snap it shut, only to open it again. ‘I, er. I. No. I have to go. I can’t. I. Yes. NO!’ is what comes out, humiliatingly. I can literally feel the blood rising to the surface of my skin. I am about to become puce.

  ‘Have one more. For Christmas,’ he laughs. ‘Same again? I promise I’ll leave you alone with your, ah, paperwork.’

  I say ‘Okay’ in a weird squeaky voice.

  To me, the man is the most attractive man I have ever seen. I don’t know what else to say: it’s a simple statement of fact. I, Clara Dunphy née Hutt, have literally, in my life, never seen anyone so handsome. It’s subjective, of course. But … it’s not just handsomeness. I know handsomeness, from interviewing the odd film star and so on for work: it takes you aback initially, but you adjust to it very quickly and just feel annoyed when you go back into the real world and find everyone walking about with their plain old faces. You don’t, as I do now, feel like you’ve been winded, punched, jacked out of time. And that little stab in my stomach. I know what that is. That’s not good. That’s not supposed to happen to the old-lady wife and mother. I mean, it’s been years. How weird.

  ‘He’s bringing them over,’ the man says, coming back and sitting down. And then, gesturing to my ratty little list, ‘Please. Don’t let me put you off.’

  ‘It’s just my list, you know, for presents,’ I say, pretending to write something important down on it. What I actually write is ‘HELP’, not in letters so large that he could see them from across the table, but as a useful aide-memoire to myself.

  ‘Ah yes. I’ve been doing some of that too.’

  ‘I was in Oxford Street,’ I volunteer pointlessly, and then, as if that piece of banality wasn’t enough, I add, ‘I had two pigeons walking on either side of me. We were like a gang.’

  He looks mildly surprised by this, as well he might. Surprised doesn’t even begin to cover how I’m feeling. A little voice in my head says, ‘Leave. Go home. It was fun, the drink in the Connaught, but it’s over now.’

  ‘I went to New Bond Street,’ he says. He has been smiling at me ever since he sat down. It’s a knowing sort of smile, and I know what it means. If I were a different sort of person – one to whom these things happened, one who didn’t find anything odd about being winded by strangers in hotel bars – I would smile back at him in exactly the same way. I’d be wearing stockings under my dress, instead of M&S tights and flesh-coloured Pants of Steel, and the whole stranger-in-a-hotel-bar scenario would be almost drearily familiar to me. But I am not a different sort of person, so I frown and blush and frown and stare, until it occurs to me that it might be an idea to compose my face, which is, as predicted, a fetching shade of scarlet.

  ‘Bobond Street,’ I say. ‘I hope it was less crowded. Bond, I mean, not Bobo … Bobond.’ I am sounding like a nutter. I have never stammered in my life. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Bond Street, you were saying.’

  ‘It was hideous.’

  ‘Yes. Will you excuse me?’

  I have to leave the table. I wish I could explain it properly. To be succinct: if the man, whose name I don’t know and whom I met maybe four minutes ago, said, ‘Let’s go round the back and do it against the bins,’ I’d say yes. This disturbs me profoundly. I feel like someone’s flicked a switch in my head; lobbed a bomb into my little world of domesticity and special Christmas-treat drinks. Actually, I feel like I’ve had a brain transplant. No – like zombies ate my brain. Because I can truthfully say that it has never happened to me before. I understand the concept of lust, obviously – I had entire relationships based on lust, when I was younger – hot monkey sex with someone who you knew was a bit pointless, if exceedingly hot. But this isn’t normal lust. This is … filmic. Surreal. Another thing altogether.

  I go back to the loo. They have armchairs in there, and I plonk myself down on one. Am I drunk? Surely not from one cocktail and a quarter.

  Other hand: maybe I’ve got completely the wrong end of the stick. Maybe this man is smiling and looking at me like that because he feels sorry for me, all alone in a bar two days before Christmas, clutching my scrappy little piece of paper and wittering on about pigeons, with a face so red it looks like it’s been boiled. His heart goes out to my speech impediment. He’s just being kind. Christ! He’s probably waiting for someone. His former-supermodel wife and nine exquisite children, I expect. I need to get a grip. ‘Get a grip, Clara,’ I say to myself out loud. I am in a bar, someone has sat down at my table, they are incredibly, amazingly, inhumanly attractive, and that’s that. So what? I am an adult, and quite a responsible one. I have self-control. I am also a biped, who can – and will – stand up and leave whenever I like, using my two stout feet to propel me homewards. The world is full of attractive people: there’s no need to flip out like a weirdo because one talks to you. Deep breaths. Wash hands. Be normal. That
stab in the stomach isn’t necessarily desire: it could be hunger. Go back, eat the nuts, finish the drink, say thank you, go home. Not rocket science, by a long chalk.

  The problem is, I wasn’t always a person of the flesh-coloured pants variety. There was a time, many centuries ago, when triceratopses frolicked playfully across the plains with diplodocuses, when I was acquainted with the woman in the stockings. Well, not the actual stockings – they’re so ooh-saucy, someone’s-feeling-lucky – but the general ‘Here we are: anything could happen’ thing. But it was a very, very long time ago. Happily for me, I don’t find that many people attractive, plus my propensity for bad behaviour has been napalmed into extinction by years and years of marriage, children, supermarkets, laundry, bills, school, work, all of that stuff. And, I tell myself again, I have probably got the absolutely wrong end of the stick.

  But I know, when I sit down again. The air is heavy, like syrup. Even the molecules in the air seem charged. And I smile back at him and lean forward in my chair.

  No, we didn’t do it against the bins. But, all the same, there exists, it turns out, an accelerated and dizzying kind of intimacy that is so intense and overwhelming, it feels not a million – or even a hundred – miles from infidelity: while you could certainly state that ‘nothing happened’, this would only be true if you were an emotional imbecile and your heart was dead. What I learned tonight is that it is possible for nothing and everything to happen in the same breath. I push the thought – confusing, exciting, disabling, impossible – out of my head and try to calm myself, and in the taxi home I make myself think about Sam. Sam, Sam, only Sam.