Comfort and Joy Read Online Free PDF Page B

couple moonlighting as
     shelf-stackers in their sleep. Of course, all of that presupposes that a wrecking ball doesn’t swing in out of nowhere and
     demolish the pyramid in three nanoseconds.
    Home, to the known universe, and where my love does not lie waiting silently for me. Maisy’s in bed already and Pat is kindly
     tidying the kitchen, Jack and Charlie having made themselves
and a couple of their mates supper – spaghetti with butter and cheese, by the looks of things: to think there was a time when
     I imagined them whipping me up little snacks for treats; I even taught them how to cook.
    ‘You shouldn’t tidy up after them, Pat,’ I say, bending to kiss her hello. ‘They’re perfectly capable of using the dishwasher.’
     This is a lie: the dishwasher exists, their dirty plates exist, and never the twain shall meet, unless you make dire threats
     involving either gating or pocket money – and even then, they don’t rinse them first and the filter gets clogged up with disgusting
     bits of old mince. ‘It’s no trouble,’ Pat says sweetly. ‘And Maisy was good as gold.’
    We’ve known each other for six years, Pat and I, and she’s never been anything but lovely to me. Well, you know. ‘Lovely’
     in the mother-in-law sense, where the word is elastic enough to encompass a high degree of competitiveness, some jealousy,
     plenty of resentment, and more childrearing advice than the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe would know what to do with. This
     latter is especially bold considering her own – how shall we put it? – complicated relationship with her children. Pat, like
     so many former matriarchs, now sees herself as a martyr, a sort of Mater Dolorosa who has been abandoned by her ingrate offspring;
     it seems never to have occurred to her that her children demonstrably love her but are a) a bit busy, what with work and families
     and children of their own, and b) wary (justifiably, frankly) of giving up a weekend to go and stay with her and be told,
     tearfully, what complete disappointments they are to their mammy. Happily, Pat doesn’t find me disappointing – just perplexing,
     as though I were a different species, which I suppose I am. Pat is originally from County Tyrone and has worked hard all her
     life, first in factories and then as a shop assistant in a bakery; I am from west London, privileged and spoiled. The difference
     used to thrill us in the beginning: I was,
in those early months and years, fantastically excited by her modest origins, her salt-of-the-earthness, her council flat
     with its china cats and artificial flowers. Here, I would think, sipping vodka on her unfeasibly plump, immaculate sofa, was
     proof that we were all the same. We weren’t: I was just pissed and filled with hippie-love for all of mankind. But I know
     she liked my accent, and the way I knew how to order in restaurants – the way I took her to restaurants in the first place,
     or to shops, and was, unlike her, never made to feel small by a maître d’ or snooty sales assistant. I have my uses. Also,
     I make her laugh, and she me.
    ‘Tamsin called to say she was on her way over,’ Pat says. ‘She’s bringing Jake. Is he the oul’ fella you told me about?’
    I am torn between loyalty to my friend and wanting to know what Pat, who is despite everything quite wise about stuff other
     than her family, makes of the age discrepancy.
    ‘He’s a bit older than her, yes,’ I say, with princely understatement.
    ‘Ah, it’s a shame,’ says Pat, looking fantastically – disproportionately, really – downcast and wiping down the table for
     the third time. ‘A dirty oul’ fella like that, with a young girl.’
    ‘She’s hardly a young girl, Pat,’ I say, wanting to laugh hysterically at her description. ‘We’re practically the same age.
     We’re middle-aged women.’
    ‘All the same,’ she sniffs. ‘It’s not right, fellas like that playing the goat. And she should know better. A beautiful