Comfort and Joy by India Knight Page A

didn’t you? And do you remember the name of the greens you liked yesterday?’
    ‘Puntarelle,’ the child said.
    Sam grabbed the table, his knuckles white like in a story, and
started swearing under his breath – ‘Get me away from the cunts, Clara, or kill me. Just kill me.’ He’s so good-natured normally
     that it was quite amusing to see, and I wasn’t as incensed by the display as he was – actually I was rather impressed with
     the baby’s command of language. But I know what Sam means: there comes a point, with foodie-ism, where you think, ‘These people
     are just fetishists,’ especially when they see food as the echt signifier of class and social place. There’s a certain kind
     of eating that basically says, ‘This is what
we
do, because we are special and unlike the herd. We are not proles. We make pesto out of ferns and acorns: that’s how evolved
     we are.’ Sometimes we both pine for the days of casseroles and fondue sets, which were a great deal easier to get your head
     around when you were eating at someone’s house than having to admire people’s perfect, fantastically elaborate recreations
     of restaurant food – and not just any old restaurant, but ‘fine dining’, if you please. Besides, as Sam points out, he developed
     his own athlete’s body on a childhood diet of potatoes, tinned food, salad cream and fluorescent fizzy drinks.
    ‘Wouldn’t eat this, though.’ Tim points out helpfully. ‘Spicy. Hot. Hot and spicy.’ He leers at Hope as he says this. I silently
     push the water jug in his direction, trying to catch Hope’s eye, only to find that she’s just as blotto as he is.
    ‘Nice curry,’ says Jake. ‘Quite authentic. I lived in India, you know. For a couple of years, back in the sixties. Man, what
     a country. What a place.’
    ‘I didn’t know that,’ says Tamsin, smiling at him. ‘How cool. You’ve done such cool stuff, Jake.’
    ‘I know,’ says Jake. I suppose when you get to his stage – he must be in his late sixties, though we’ve never been given a
     straight answer to the question of his exact age – there isn’t much point in modesty or self-deprecation. ‘I’m rock ’n’ roll,
     baby.’ This is also true: he is wearing leather trousers, for
starters. They’re quite nice, as it happens. Worn in, not all stiff, a description that could, from what I hear, also apply
     to Jake.
    ‘We should go,’ Jake says, putting his hand on Tam’s thigh. ‘To India. Me, you and Cassie. Take her out of school for a bit.
     Let her travel. See the world.’
    ‘Broadens the mind,’ says Pat, who has travelled to England, Greece (once, with us), Calais and to the bits of Spain where
     you can get a Full English.
    ‘Exactly, Pat,’ says Jake. ‘Broadens the mind. Very good for children.’
    Pat beams at him. ‘India!’ she says. ‘It’s that far away. Mind, you’d have to watch out for the monkeys.’
    ‘How long would you take your daughter out of school for?’ This is, of course, Sophie.
    ‘I don’t know – what do you think, Jake? Three months or so?’
    ‘Three months,’ nods Jake. ‘And if we liked it we could stay longer. Or move on somewhere. Go with the flow, you know.’ He
     is beaming too now, his lined, weathered face split into a leathery, trouser-matching grin. Have I mentioned Jake’s teeth?
     He has the most improbable gnashers, a full set of crazy, blindingly white, immaculate veneers, purchased at vast expense
     and a great deal of discomfort shortly after he met Tamsin. It’s like a bathroom showroom every time he smiles – white porcelain
     as far as the eye can see.
    ‘Three months!’ says Sophie.
    ‘No point going for less,’ says Jake. ‘Maybe we should go for longer, Tam. Maybe we should go for, like, a year. Hang out.’
    ‘Cassie’ll turn into a little monkey herself, so she will,’ says Pat fondly. ‘A little brown monkey, like a watchamacallit,
     a gibbon.’
    I’m not sure I entirely love the