Me, You and Tiramisu

‘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 promenade. Their evenings invariably ended up with them seven sheets to the wind singing in the lively Matt Malloy’s in the town centre. Everyone knew Abi, welcoming her back to the town with a hearty wave or heartfelt hug, and as a friend of hers – albeit an English one – Jayne wasn’t denied the odd embrace either.

‘It would have been so fabulous to grow up here, where everyone looks out for one another,’ Jayne had said wistfully one afternoon as they sat on a bench overlooking the river, eating little pots of ice cream, that had flecks of real vanilla seeds in it, none of your supermarket own-brand impersonal white tub for the County Mayo folks.

‘Aye, it’s alright when you’re being good, but as soon as you decide you want a bit of fun, your mam knows about it before you’ve even done anything.’ As brilliantly timed evidence, the butcher from the shop opposite stood in his doorway and shouted across the road, ‘Abigail Sheeran, can ye tell ya mammy we’ve got some lovely steaks in for your da’s supper?’

Abi had raised her hand and nodded her assent, before turning to Jayne and muttering, ‘Exactly how many days until we bugger off back to London’s wonderful anonymity, where nobody cares what the hell you’re having for your dinner?’

Jayne had leaned her head back on the bench, closed her eyes and allowed the warm afternoon sun to bathe her face, ‘Seriously, enjoy it, if we’d have gone to my mum’s we’d be sitting in the dark with the curtains closed to avoid either the landlord collecting rent or cajoled into joining a séance or something.’

Jayne smiled at the memory of that summer as she watched Abi gather up her papers on her desk and stuff them into her large straw bag.

‘Why are you grinning like an idiot?’ Abi said accusingly, looking up.

‘Nothing, nothing at all. Right, are we going for a drink?’ Jayne paused, ‘Will said he might join us …’

‘What? How’s he going to do that if he’s not real?’ Abi was convinced that Will was a figment of Jayne’s imagination, carefully crafted so she didn’t have to go on any more soul-murdering blind dates with men that she described as ‘perfect apart from [insert interchangeable disgusting trait here]’.

Jayne didn’t know why she’d delayed introducing Will to any of her friends, and both him and they were starting to question her motives. She supposed the truth was, because she’d never really had a boyfriend before, she had no idea how to share him. Rachel imagined that it all stemmed back to the two of them pitching themselves against the world, and with Will, Jayne had fallen into the same default setting. She didn’t quite know exactly how being part of a couple could transfer to being part of a couple in a crowd of people.

It had been six months and so far she’d sidestepped the inevitable introductions, but he’d recently brought up the subject of them moving in together – albeit carefully shrouded in a discussion about ‘unnecessary outgoings’. He’d even casually mentioned that he’d been thinking that a three bedroom flat was too big for a man on his own … he might have to bring in two lodgers … oh hang on … He’d delivered this speech in a nonchalantly informal non-rehearsed way, that smacked completely of someone who had very much rehearsed it, very formally, in front of a mirror. Jayne hadn’t really answered yet, just giving nonchalant nods and saying that she’d talk to Rachel, whilst inside she was screaming ‘Hell to the Yes!’

‘I thought I told you Abi, he’s real, but just invisible.’

‘Aye, so you did. So the only way we’ll know he’s there is if he pees on the floor and we see a puddle?’

‘Exactly. So you’re very lucky you’re not wearing your expensive LK Bennett heels this evening as they’d be absolutely ruined by my boyfriend’s wee.’ Jayne tried to dodge the register of parents’ names that Abi had deftly rolled up and was aiming at her best friend’s head. ‘Come on then, the Pitcher & Piano?’

Soaking from the rain outside, Abi and Jayne both stood in the doorway of the pub, shaking themselves like wet Labradors, when Abi looked up and whispered, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Jayne, three o’clock.’

Jayne was bent over the welcome mat scrunching her hair up, ‘What?’ she shouted.

Abi started talking out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Look at your three o’clock, he’s like Colin Farrell mixed with David Gandy, and oh Jesus, he’s waving. Jayne, I love you with all my heart, I do, but if he asks to buy me a drink, you have to bugger off quickly.’

Jayne straightened up and looked to where Abi was staring. ‘Stop perving, you moron, that’s Will.’

There was already an opened bottle of wine and three glasses on the table and he stood up as they walked over, ‘Hey baby,’ he leant over and kissed Jayne on the lips, then turned and put out his hand and said with his eyes twinkling mischievously, ‘You must be Abi. I was starting to think that you were pretend. Either that, or Jayne was having an affair every time she said she was going out with you.’

Abi pumped his hand up and down and grinned, ‘It was the latter, I’m afraid, but I managed to persuade her to give the other fella up and to give you a chance.’

The women started to regale Will with the highlights of the evening, and one bottle turned into two, which turned into three. And then he excused himself and headed to the loos. As soon as he was barely out of earshot, Abi spun round, ‘You’re kidding me? Now I know why you’ve hidden him away. Jeez, Jayne, I’m speechless, what an awesome guy. Marry him. Marry him now, and have babies that look like supermodels, but healthier versions. Oh my God, he’s amazing, and so funny, and lovely, and he’s totally besotted with you, he can’t take his eyes off you.’ She shook her head, ‘Wow, I’m speechless.’

‘So you keep saying, which is odd considering the amount you’re talking. Oi, enough with the hitting!’

‘Girls, girls, take it outside,’ Will said with a smile as he moved the table a bit so he could squeeze back onto his bench. ‘You’re meant to be respectable members of society, moulding our young, inspiring youthful minds.’

‘That is exactly what we’re supposed to do, Will, you’re right,’ Abi nodded, ‘but instead I spend most of my time washing paint off walls and placating tearful life models because my very immature A-level class think it’s okay to laugh and point and shout out, ‘you’ve got a tiny wiener.’ Little bastards. Anyway, Jayne tells me you run your own deli? That’s got to be fun?’

‘Yeah, I really love it,’ he replied, picking up a Budweiser beer mat and flipping it idly between his fingers, ‘I was a chef and didn’t really get much of a chance to experiment much and make what I wanted to make, so this way I can potter around in our kitchen and thankfully people seem to like it and want to buy it, although I don’t know if I’ll ever get rich selling five-quid pots of chutney.’

Even though most people would think that his devastating dimples were reason enough for Jayne’s infatuation, this was the side of Will that she loved – his modesty and complete lack of arrogance. He even seemed completely oblivious to the second-takes he commanded wherever he went, but she always spotted them and then basked in the envious staring that happened every time he kissed her or held her hand.

Rachel had asked her quite a few times if it bothered her, the reaction he got from women. The first time Rachel had seen it for herself was in a dry-cleaners, of all places – not that they were in the habit of accompanying him to do his laundry, that would be weird – but they were walking down Richmond High Street to get a coffee and he popped into the dry-cleaners to pick up a few shirts and came out all chuffed when the fawning woman behind the counter waived his bill. He couldn’t understand why, thinking that it must be ‘free-cleaning Friday’ or something ridiculous like that, and then Rachel, ever the diplomat, said, ‘it’s because she thinks you’re smoking.’