Read Online Comfort and Joy by India Knight - Free Book Online Page A

came
     home to find them both in front of
Sex and the City
, this being Pat’s absolutely favourite programme in the world. Pat was red with mirth and howling with laughter, Sam only
     marginally less so. ‘Oh, you have to see this, Clara,’ Pat had said, breathless with giggling. ‘It’s that funny.’
    I’d seen the episode in question before: it was the one where Samantha has a boyfriend whose sperm tastes bad. ‘Funky’, if
     I remember rightly. Now. The idea of watching this with my own mother doesn’t bear thinking about, and my mother is a metropolitan,
     much-married, wised-up sort. The idea of Sam watching it with his totally blew my mind. There they were, huddled companionably
     together, honking with laughter at sperm-in-the-mouth jokes. I don’t especially think of myself as a blushing flower, but
     I felt so embarrassed that I went downstairs and tidied the kitchen. When I asked Sam about it later, in bed, he said that
     Pat was laughing at the alien campness of the programme generally, at the hilarious (to her) out-thereness of the women, rather
     than at bad-tasting sperm
specifically
. But I wasn’t so sure. Pat has had four children and, presumably, an active sex life before her widowhood. I couldn’t really
     take the conversation forward beyond that without causing myself to visualize Pat administering oral sex, so I didn’t. But
     still. I don’t think she’s quite as unworldly as Sam believes her to be.
    I don’t know what manner of blow Jake’s brought along to my supper party, but everyone’s completely wasted by the time I dole
     out pudding, including – incredibly – Sophie, who took several deep puffs to prove, I suspect, that she was as game as Hope,
     who offered Tim a blowback (enthusiastically accepted)
and who is now being stared at by him with unabashed, red-faced, drunken longing. This has the effect of making me cross with
     Hope and making me feel sorry for Sophie for the second time tonight, and so I engage her in a safe-territory conversation
     about schools and nurseries and local babysitters. We’ve been chatting amiably enough for five minutes or so – about baby
     slings, and whether one exists that doesn’t hurt your back – when Sophie suddenly says, ‘Did you like being pregnant?’
    ‘I loved it. It’s my ideal state.’
    ‘I hated it,’ Sophie says in a quiet voice, looking straight at Tim, who is not looking back at her. ‘I was so ill, all three
     times.’
    ‘Poor you,’ I say, meaning it. Her face looks smaller than it did ten minutes ago, more vulnerable, and also more stoned.
     Across the table, Tim is still drunkenly gibbering at Hope; I notice Sam has poured him more water and is now offering coffee.
    ‘Constant morning sickness,’ Sophie says, laughing mirthlessly. ‘It never really went away. Pretty much twenty-four hours
     a day. The first time round was dealable with, but when you have toddlers running about and you need to throw up three times
     an hour …’
    ‘But Tim helped, I’m sure?’
    ‘He was working,’ Sophie says.
    ‘But … but so were you. And you were ill. Looking after children is work too, you know.’
    ‘Mm,’ says Sophie. ‘So people keep telling me. It’s hardly the same thing as going in to the City at the crack of dawn every
     morning.’
    ‘It’s much worse,’ I say.
    Sophie smiles at this, unexpectedly. ‘Can I ask you another thing?’ she says. ‘It’s … it’s quite personal. I wouldn’t dream
     of asking normally, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
    ‘Ask away,’ I say. ‘And it’s Jake’s blow.’
    ‘It’s about sex,’ Sophie says.
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘Did you … After Maisy. Because with me, I’m just … I’m just so tired. So tired,’ she says, closing her eyes.
    ‘You have three small children,’ I say. ‘Of course you’re tired. You’re exhausted. Maybe stop baking bread and making yogurt?’
    ‘But Tim … Tim has needs, you know.’
    ‘Nobody needs