Free Comfort and Joy by India Knight

people were septagenarian friends of your parents.’
    ‘Poor Soph,’ says Tim. ‘Poor Sophie-woo.’
    ‘Ah, you big gobshite,’ says Pat. We all turn to stare at her, but having got this off her chest, she looks around the table
     smiling the serenest of smiles and gets up to clear the plates.
    ‘I should go,’ says Hope.
    ‘And do you know,’ Sophie continues, ‘how long it’s been since I’ve had an alcoholic drink? Last summer. Last summer was the
     last time. And do you know what that drink was? One sip of champagne in hospital, when Bee was born.’
    ‘Here,’ I say, passing a bottle over. ‘Have some wine.’
    ‘And I don’t mind any of these things,’ Sophie says, to nobody in particular and with her gaze fixed on the middle distance.
     ‘I honestly don’t mind. Except. Except. That … sometimes I do. I really, really do.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ says Hope in a small voice, ‘if I upset you. I can’t help myself. I have issues. I’m working on them with my
     therapists. I didn’t mean to … to upset you,’ she peters out feebly.
    ‘You?’ Sophie says witheringly. ‘You haven’t upset me. I’m not upset. I’m just explaining a couple of things to Tim.’
    Tim, who has been listening to all of this with his head bent, in a position that suggests contrition, now looks up again.
    ‘You never want me to be happy,’ he says, forming the words slowly and precisely, so that he sounds almost sober. ‘You hate
     me being happy. You hate me having a nice time or having any fun. You … you
kill joy
. You’re a killjoy. Because so what,’ he continues, ‘so
what
if I want to have a drink? So bloody what? It’s two days before bloody Christmas. I get up at the crack of dawn and I come
     home late and I work hard and I earn all the money and it’s two days before bloody Christmas and so what if I have a drink?
     So fucking what, Soph?’
    There is an awful, laden sort of silence.
    ‘I’ll go,’ says Sophie. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, Clara. Thanks, Sam. Very nice to meet you all,’ she says to everyone
     else around the table. Her face is flushed and she is somewhere – somewhere uniquely feminine – between tears and absolute
     rage. ‘And happy Christmas.’
    ‘I’ll put you in a taxi,’ says Tamsin. ‘I know you’re only local, but you shouldn’t walk on your own.’
    ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’
    ‘I insist,’ says Tamsin, getting up.
    ‘Bye, love,’ says Pat, scooting round the table to give Sophie a hug. ‘You take care, now. Don’t let the bastards grind you
     down, eh?’
    ‘Thanks,’ says Sophie.
    ‘Say it with me,’ says Pat. ‘Come on, love. Say it with me.’
    ‘I’d rather just …’
    ‘DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN,’ Pat shouts, making a small resistance fist, before smiling pleasantly and getting
     on with her tidying.
    ‘Your mum’s completely stoned,’ Tamsin says to Sam. ‘Come on, Sophie, let’s go.’
    ‘There you go,’ says Tim. ‘That not-fun one is going to get you a taxi.’
    ‘I really should go home too,’ says Hope, in the way that she does – the way that expects six people to cry, ‘Oh no, please
     don’t.’ But even Tim seems to have lost interest. He says nothing, though he turns to look at her, glassy-eyed, his expression
     unreadable save for the tiniest flicker of contempt. This does not go unnoticed by Hope, whose eyes well up as she stumbles
     away to get her coat.
    ‘You too, Hope,’ shouts Tamsin from the hall. ‘Come on. I’ll put you in a taxi as well.’ And they are gone.
    ‘Shall I skin up again?’ asks Jake.
    ‘Absolutely-tootly,’ says Tim. ‘You betcha.’
    ‘They didn’t have any effect on me at all, those drugs,’ says Pat, who, yelling aside, has been smoothing down the same tea-towel
     for ten minutes with a blissed-out look on her face. ‘Ooh, hello love,’ she says to Tamsin when she comes back in five minutes
     later. ‘That’s funny. You were sitting right here a