Me, You and Tiramisu. Charlotte Butterfield

       Chapter 5

      Jayne backed away and looked suspiciously at the beige-green sludge that Will was offering to her on an outstretched spoon. ‘Try this.’

      ‘What is it?’ she said gingerly, edging a little closer, but still not fully entering into the spirit of the game.

      ‘Elderflower and pear chutney. I don’t know if I’ve got the right amount of juniper berries in it or not. What do you think?’

      Cautiously she allowed the tip of the spoon to touch her lips, ‘Oh my days, Will, that’s amazing,’ she opened her mouth wide so he could put the whole spoon in. ‘You need to do something about the aesthetics, though, because it looks like snot.’

      ‘Thanks for that, sweetheart, beautifully put. I might put that on the label as its tagline – Looks like phlegm but tastes delicious.’

      ‘There’s something to be said for honesty in advertising. Can I have another spoonful?’ she said leaning in.

      ‘No. You’re procrastinating, go to parents’ evening.’

      ‘Don’t make me,’ she whined, laying her head on his shoulder. ‘I can’t cope with the angry stage mums no doubt already forming a line to abuse me for not picking their kids for the main parts in the play. Can’t I stay here and eat chutney all evening with you? Please?’

      He kissed her on the top of her head, momentarily flattening the wild black ringlets that fizzed out at right angles in every direction. He gave her bottom a playful swat. ‘Go. Go and be charming, be beguiling, and lie through your teeth as to why their cherished offspring didn’t make the cut. I, meanwhile, am going to attempt to master a pumpkin, orange and chilli marmalade. I may save you some if you’re good.’ He started humming the same jaunty tune he always did when he was concocting culinary brilliance. ‘Call me if you’re done by ten and I’ll come and join you in the pub.’

      Despite her procrastinations, which she reasoned were completely understandable – who wouldn’t want to spend their evening perched on a kitchen stool being spoon-fed tenderly invented recipes from the love of their life – Jayne actually quite enjoyed parents’ evenings. Admittedly nothing really prepared her for one parent a couple of years ago sticking their iPhone into her face saying ‘Can you say again for the tape how Mia can improve her comprehension skills?’ Or the dad who kept rolling his eyes and making quack-quack movements with his hands whenever his wife was talking – she could tell he was a real keeper.

      The hubbub of noise emanating from the hall could be heard from the adjacent staff room, which was packed with every member from each faculty. Jayne nodded, waved and smiled her way through the throng to the kettle, where Abi stood waiting for her, two mugs of extra-strong Nescafé in her hands. She handed Jayne the one saying ‘Keep Calm, It’s Almost Summer’. They’d joined the school at the same time almost ten years ago, both of them fresh from finishing their PGCEs, sporting wide Bambi-eyes and proudly clutching their meticulously filled-in and highlighted lesson plans with noticeably shaking hands. Fast-forward a decade and the hopefulness that they had then was still there, despite an unhealthy dose of hard-earned cynicism trying its best to erode it.

      Abi blew across the top of her coffee and said, ‘So what’s it to be this time?’

      ‘I was thinking about that on the way over here. I think Queen.’

      ‘As in your son is one?’

      Jayne laughed and spilt a bit of coffee on her shirt, ‘Oh no! Quick give me a tissue!’ She arranged her scarf over the damp patch of brown and shrugged, ‘That’ll do. Right, what’s mine?’ They’d devised this game to get them through the early years of parents’ evenings to keep the terror at bay and it had become a rather un-PC ritual they did every term now.

      ‘Eiffel Tower.’

      ‘Bugger off. I can’t just drop in the words Eiffel Tower when I’m talking about year eight English. Make it an easier one.

      ‘Okay … what about ice skating?’

      ‘Wow, you’re on fire tonight. Okay, fine. Ice skating.’

      They took their seats at adjacent tables in the hall and, despite the parents all having booked their allotted ten minutes with each teacher, there was already a jostling crowd gathering in front of both of them.

      A few parents in, Jayne remembered the task in hand. ‘Right then, okay, well, Sophie did very well on the Anne Frank project, some very insightful creative writing on the diary excerpts, which gained her a B+, which was excellent.’

      ‘Why didn’t she get an A?’

      ‘Well, I like to think that grading projects is like judging an ice-skating competition,’ Jayne heard a muffled snort from the next table, ‘every technical aspect has its own mark and there are floating marks for added flair and flourishes, so in that respect, B+ was the end result. So all in all, very good effort.’

      Bidding a weary farewell to the last parents, the two teachers sat back in their chairs, mentally exhausted. ‘Jeez, how many different ways can you cover up the fact that you haven’t got the faintest idea who their child is?’

      Abi’s acerbic comments delivered with her singsong Irish accent made Jayne laugh every time. The first time they’d met was the interview day for the new intake of NQTs. Abi had run into the crowded classroom late, the door slamming behind her, punctuating her arrival, her dishevelled hair piled high on her head with a colourful scarf wrapped around it. She’d hurried to the empty seat next to Jayne and after a time whispered, ‘I’m going for the art job – please tell me you’re not or I can’t be your friend.’

      ‘You’re safe, and so is our friendship,’ Jayne whispered, ‘I’m English.’

      ‘That’s unfortunate, but you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself,’ she had muttered back, without a hint of sarcasm.

      Jayne had tried hard to suppress a giggle and failed. ‘Is something funny?’ barked the deputy head who was in the middle of her surprisingly unwelcoming welcome speech. Abi had surreptitiously winked at Jayne after they’d shaken their heads in unison and Jayne knew that wasn’t the last time this barmy woman from County Mayo would get her in trouble.

      In the summer holiday after their terrifying first year had ended, she’d taken Jayne back to Ireland to decompress for a few weeks. Her family were from this gorgeous little town on the banks of the River Carrowbeg called Westport that was bathed in the shadow of the Croagh Patrick Mountain. It was so beautiful that a big-shot Hollywood director visiting Ireland to discover his ancestry had decreed it was the perfect setting for his upcoming rom-com, which even before the first scene was filmed was already being hailed as the hit of the following summer.

      Abi had told Jayne on the ferry over that the whole town, ‘nay, the whole county, was excited beyond belief to have this happen, then a week into filming they realised it was the biggest load of ball-ache that ever was.’ But on the flipside, her parents, who were born and bred in Mayo, had rented out their two spare rooms to movie extras and had made enough to finally leave Ireland for the first time and go on a cruise around the Greek Islands. ‘Every cloud, Abigail, is sewn with a lining of silver thread,’ her mother had poetically said at the time.

      It was the perfect way to unwind after three terms of permanent heart palpitations. They had spent their days sleeping, eating breakfasts cooked by the mother Jayne wished she’d had and drinking unfancy coffee on the riverfront