India Knight - Comfort and Joy

Thanks to my publisher, Juliet Annan, for bearing once again with my unauthorly approach to deadlines. Im a journalist the idea of writing something eighteen months in advance is absurd to me, but I do see that its not remotely absurd to publishers, and Im very grateful that my dear Mrs Penguin didnt get her feathers in a flap and peck me to death with her beak while awaiting delivery of my manuscript.

Thanks to Jenny Lord and Ellie Smith at Penguin, who didnt peck me to death either.

Thanks, as ever, to the incomparable Georgia Garrett, my agent and beloved friend. (Shes not my friend because shes my agent I hate that how gloriously you love me, person whose job it is to do well by me. Shes my friend because weve known each other since we were eighteen.)

Thanks to the wonderful Leanne Shapton for making me my favourite book jacket, ever.

Thanks to Patricia McVeigh for help with the Irish.

Thanks to Jenny McIvor for Mr Penis. That must have been a fun night.

Thanks to my family, blood and extended, for their love and support. Special thanks to the fathers of my children.

And thanks to my mother for being my mother. Any other mother would be the most hideous comedown. Any small talent I may have, I owe to her.

By the same author

My Life on a Plate

Dont You Want Me?

NON-FICTION

The Shops

Neris and Indias Idiot-Proof Diet (with Neris Thomas)

Neris and Indias Idiot-Proof Diet Cookbook
(with Neris Thomas and Bee Rawlinson)

The Thrift Book

So Im walking down Oxford Street, sodden by the sheeting rain, like I walk down Oxford Street sodden by the sheeting rain every single bastarding Christmas. Well, I say Christmas I mean festive period (which always makes me think of menstruation, except while wearing a jaunty paper hat and blowing a tooter, for fun. Poot poot!). Its not actually Christmas Day that would be tragic or, come to think of it, maybe quite refreshing: just me and the odd tramp and our cosy cider, rather than me and my sixteen or so, um, loved ones.

No, its the 23rd and Im picking up a few last-minute bits and bobs. Quite why Ive left these bits and bobs so late is a mystery, but again, its an annual ritual. If you didnt know any better you would think fancy! that there are people I subconsciously dont especially enjoy buying presents for, people who pop right out of my head until 23 December every year, when I remember not only that they exist but that they are coming to spend Christmas at my house, yay and wahoo.

I couldnt possibly comment, except to point out that the incredibly annoying and pointless thing about my approach youd think Id have figured this out by now, since it happens every year is that, in the last-minute panic, I end up spending far more money on the bits-and-bobby presents for the bits-and-bobby people than I do on presents for people I really love. Take this grotesque china cat with boogly eyes and improbable eyelashes, the one I am holding in my hand right now (Ive come out of the rain and into John Lewis as, apparently, has half of London). Perfect for my mother-in-law. 200, you say? Well, my goodness. I stare at the sales assistant in disbelief. Has she looked at the china cat? Its eye-bleedingly hideous, its not very big, and here she is, saying 200 with a straight face. Also, collectors item. Yeah, maybe, if youre mad. Id rather collect those dried white dog turds you never see any more (why? Where have they gone?). No, not really. I wouldnt like to collect dog turds at all, obviously. Im just becoming bad-tempered, which always makes me go a bit Internal Tourettes. Its just its so much money. Having glared, I smile penitently at the sales assistant and gingerly hand the cat back.

But then I go trawling off round to the bath salts and novelty gifts bit of John Lewis, and there are so many people, and having been cold fifteen minutes ago in my parka, despite the fact that it is designed to withstand temperatures down to 20 degrees, I am now boiling hot, and I think I cant give her bath salts again, or soaps its got to the stage where it looks like Im making a point about personal hygiene and she doesnt read books and she doesnt listen to music and she has no hobbies except collecting cats, so off I return to the china animal concession, sweating lightly, forcing a smile that probably looks more like a death rictus. 200. 200! The financial markets are falling apart, Sam keeps muttering darkly that our mortgage is about to do something terrible, Im wearing frankly shabby underwear that Id like to replace, and Ive just spent 200 on a china cat that looks like it came via a full-page ad in a Sunday supplement: Pretty Lady Pusscat needs a home. Look at her pleading eyes and feel your heart give way. Fashioned from the finest porcelain by skilled craftsmen, Lady Pusscat will be your cherished friend

It gives me a lurch in my stomach to think of the cost, on top of which Im now paranoid about dropping Lady Pusscat. Im going to tell Pat, my mother-in-law, that this is what its called. I know exactly what shell say: Oh, isnt that grand. Lady Pusscat! What a beautiful name. Isnt that grand. Pat likes to sandwich normal speech between two expressions. The thought of it makes me smile to myself with a mixture of love and irritation. This is more than I spend on my own mother, I note, as I hand over my credit card. Well, more than I initially spend on my own mother.

But at least Pat will be really pleased with the cat. Shell appreciate it and say thank you nicely, and put it on her special cat shelf, and possibly get a little piece of card and write LADY PUSSCAT on it in her best handwriting, and place it reverently underneath. The problem with Kate, my esteemed mama, isnt that shes on the list of people I cant be bothered to buy presents for until the last minute. And neither ha! is she a person that I forget exists. The problem with Kate is that she has all the stuff she could conceivably want. Shes on a list of her own, called People Who Have Everything (mind you, she doesnt have a Lady Pusscat. Now theres a thought. Maybe I could mix things up a bit and get her a Lord Puppy). There is nothing I can buy her, though obviously Im going to have to buy her something.

The thing is you wouldnt think it from this rant, even though its true I really love giving people presents. It gives me pleasure. I put a lot of thought into it. I start early, even if I do finish on the 23rd. And Ive yet, in adult life, to give Kate something that provokes the kind of reaction Im after: the gasp of delight, the genuine grin of pleasure that makes you think the whole flipping Christmas faff is worth it. She liked a clay ashtray I made at school when I was six. She still has it on her desk, all beaten up and manky and poignant in about ten different ways. Its nice that shes kept it, but I havent been able to match that present in the intervening thirty-four years.

What happens with Kate is I throw money at the problem. I think, if it costs enough, shell like it. This is a fatally stupid approach it doesnt work, and all that happens is that when she glances at her present, murmurs her thanks and then leaves it behind, I feel incensed and want to run after her telling her how much it cost. I did this once, to my shame. Id bought her this amazing, hand-stitched sequined stole beautiful, dull-gold proper sequins, not brash plasticky ones. It cost a fortune: I was still paying for it months later; in fact, if I remember correctly, there was an unpleasant episode with a red bill that Id shoved in a drawer to make it magic itself away. She unwrapped the stole and said, How sweet, and then she put it on the sofa next to her, never to be glanced at again. I couldnt help myself: I said, Its by this amazing new designer. I had it commissioned for you. It, um, it cost and I told her what it had cost. Kate put down her glass of champagne, closed her eyes as though in an agony of pain, and said, Clara. I beg you. Please dont be vulgar.