11.00 p.m.
Geoff and I are in bed. He’s on his e-reader. I’m examining my face in a mirror. “Amy,” he says irritably. “Stop staring at yourself.”
“Just admiring my wrinkles.”
“You’re middle-aged – of course you have wrinkles. You just have to learn to live with them like I have to live with my dodgy knee. It’s called ‘getting older’.” He turns back to his e-reader.
“I’m not ready to be old,” I announce. “I don’t feel old inside, and I don’t want to appear old on the outside.”
“Can’t help getting older, love. Embrace it. You are as old as you feel. Come over here,” he laughs, “let me have a good feel and I’ll estimate your age. Jess and Stanley don’t let age stop them from enjoying life, eh, Ames? I hear that they’re in great demand on the swinging circuit.” He turns back to his reading. I ignore his comments. I don’t want to know about Jess and Stanley’s perversions. I stare at my smooth forehead and smile inwardly. I am glad I have had the filler and the courage to do it. I am only sad that I don’t feel I can tell Geoff. I don’t think he’d ever understand.
Thoughts of Him jump back into my head. How old did he think I was? I want Him to call me gorgeous and awesome again. Why hasn’t he replied to my text? I sent it over a week ago now. I drift off to sleep feeling quite sad.
Week Four. Friday, 7.30 a.m.
At breakfast, I’m deep in thought about the grand adventure I’m on and my fate. Will this year change anything for us? I wonder. Will my challenges simply come and go, leaving us all in exactly the same place as we are now? I want different but I can’t quite define what different is yet, let alone how to make different happen. My thoughts are rudely interrupted by Evie telling Geoff about meeting Him at the doctors’ recently.
“Have you texted Him, Mum?” she giggles.
“Why not? If he can help you make some money out of it, that’s good enough for me,” Geoff sniffs.
“You don’t mind?” I say, feeling quite odd.
“It’s not as if he’s after a quickie with you, Amy – unless he’s got an Oedipus complex, that is.” He smooths down his hair, rubs a smudge from his Tissot watch and leaves for work, chuckling. I resist the urge to say something extremely rude to him as the children are in the room and I cannot give any hint as to what I felt – no, feel. I shiver. My chance meeting with Him is etched on my brain. However hard I’ve tried, I’m still thinking about it – every… single… minute of it – and especially those amazing blue eyes…
If Geoff had the slightest inkling, it would put an end to the chance of communicating with Him again. He’d get such a kick out of it and play on it for evermore at my expense. Life would become intolerable. No, Geoff must never know how I feel about Him, I decide as I check my emails and open one from school that’s promoting a fundraising coffee morning:
From: Josie Jamieson, PTA Chair
To: All Parents and Carers, Daisy Hill Academy
Subject: Charity Coffee Morning – School
Fundraising Event
Dear Parents and Carers,
As you are aware, we need to raise as much money as we can to improve the outdoor play area for our children to enjoy.
I know that we have many excellent bakers in our school community, and so the PTA have organised a community Coffee, Cake and Chat morning on Thursday 25th February in the School Hall between 09.30 and 11.30.
We desperately need your support, so please let me know if you are able to volunteer to bake some goodies.☺
Come on, ladies and gents. I know we can do it. If I can, with four children under the age of twelve, a six-bedroomed house to clean and a full-time job, so can you. And you know you can’t resist my home-baked scrumptious triple-choc-chip-dipped brownies served with whipped cream and sprinkles.
Hope you’re tempted. If you need any advice or guidance about baking, please do get in touch with me through school. I have several diplomas in cake and biscuit baking, working with chocolate and sugar paste. I would be absolutely delighted to share my expertise with you.
Thanks a bunch.
Josie Jamieson (Mrs)
School Governor (Daisy Hill Academy)
“You are not going to make me feel inadequate today, Josie Jamieson,” I say aloud, slamming an email back, thanking her profusely for her communication and confirming that I will be attending her damn annoying coffee and cake event. I add that I will bring cake, although I do not say what. That’ll get her, I fume. She’ll find it bloody irritating that she doesn’t know exactly what I am bringing, and there is no way that I’m letting on. Stew woman, stew.
During my coffee break, I reflect on my reaction to Josie’s email. There aren’t many people I really do not like, and I try to get on with most. I consider myself to be somebody who tries not to judge others, whatever they may do. But Josie Jamieson is difficult to warm to in the loosest sense. Not only is she the chair of the PTA, she is one of our School Foundation Governors – so I cannot avoid her. The worst thing about her (which is truly nauseating) is that she pretends to be the perfect wife and mother, despite her terribly ‘hard’ life.
What she doesn’t let on, however, is that her husband earns squillions as a lawyer in London, that she virtually lives at a health and fitness club an hour’s drive away, that she has a cleaner, a part-time nanny and a gardener, and that sometimes she even hires a personal chef. Bet that chef made her bloody triple chocolate brownies I think, returning to my desk.
Adriano’s Restaurant. 8 p.m.
Tonight, it’s Abba theme night at Adriano’s. The restaurant is packed to the rafters with Abba-esque memorabilia. The tables have been named after Abba’s greatest hits, gold and silver chocolate coins are scattered across the tables in place of table confetti, and huge blow-up posters of Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid adorn the walls. The lights are turned down low, and a glitter-ball twinkles above. The entire Abba back catalogue is being played at volume and everybody is singing along.
As is the custom, we take it in turns to relate the trials and tribulations of the past twenty-eight days or so. It comes to my turn. “Girls,” I say. “Have you read the latest missive from ‘alpha mum’?” They all know exactly who I’m referring to.
“Yes,” replies Cate resignedly. “What is that woman on?”
“She’s being her usual parasitic self. You know, we really do need to get one up on her,” says Bea wistfully. “and stop her using us to take all the glory for herself.”
“Now, that would be fun. But how?” I reply. “We always feel inadequate around her.”
As I munch my way through a bowl of mini prawns smothered in luminous pink cocktail sauce, my thoughts turn to my next challenge. “Oh, I haven’t told you what’s in store for me this week, have I?” I exclaim. I read it out to them. My challenge is to:
LEARN A SKILL TO IMPRESS.
“What are you going to learn, and who will you impress then, Ames?” asks Claire.
“Exactly,” I shrug. As our plates are cleared, we go round the table, brainstorming. Bea speaks first.
“Circus and magic tricks,” she announces. “I once met a woman whose husband bought her an ‘Adult Tricks Experience’ for her birthday, where she learned the art of inserting ping pong balls into her Jemima and pinging them out, one by one, in a controlled manner – into a soup bowl of all things.”
“That would certainly impress Geoff, and it’d be great practice for improving my pelvic floor. However, I’m not sure I’d like to spend a happy day with some pervy trainer helping me to… Sorry, your idea is rejected.”
“Sign up for that TEFL course you saw advertised recently, Ames. You’ve always wanted to do that. Then, once you’re qualified to teach English as a foreign language, you could always go abroad as a missionary?”
“That’s impractical, Claire,” interjects Cate. “Amy has a we
ek in which to complete this challenge, and she’d never do it.”
“It is a lovely idea, though,” I smile. “That is definitely a skill I’d like to have under my belt, but you are right – it doesn’t quite fit within the challenge rules. So what do you think I should do, Cate?”
“Oh, something practical, of course! Learn to knit or crochet… or try felting, perhaps?” Cate suggests. “You could start up your own business selling online or at local craft fairs.”
“No,” exclaims Bea, “that’s just too boring. Amy is supposed to be spending this year having fun and exploring herself…” She stops mid-flow, and we explode into hysterics.
“So, it’s back to the ping pong ball challenge, is it then?” giggles Cate. We sit in silence, contemplating the problem.
“Got it!” Bea explodes, almost knocking her drink over with excitement. She is positively beaming. “I know exactly who you can impress and how.”
“Go on, then,” I reply, and we lean forward to listen to her idea.
“Why don’t you show that Mrs Alpha Parasite – bake a Mary Berry style show-stopper cake for the Coffee, Cake and Chat morning? That’ll steal her thunder. She’ll probably hate you forever, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Bea, that’s genius!” I exclaim.
We bat the idea about while the main course of Duck à l’Orange is served. However, it is only when the retro sweet trolley arrives, groaning with ten different types of dessert, that the challenge is finally decided.
“I am going to wheel in a sweet trolley just like this one,” I proudly announce, sweeping my hand grandly in the direction of the trolley. “And it will be laden with at least ten Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood style cakes and biscuits that I will learn to bake all by myself,” I declare. “Not one cake will come from the supermarket.” The Girls love it. They all clap and cheer, and we toast the challenge with glasses of Mateus Rosé.
Later that evening, we successfully press-gang Aidan and Mario, the chefs and owners of Adriano’s, to sit with us and talk cake and biscuit baking. “It is very important that they look amaaaazing and taste absolutely fantastic,” I slur drunkenly. “They have to be up to Mary and Paul’s standards, which means that they must be perfect. No soggy bottoms.”
Aidan thinks that it will be pretty easy for me to learn some basic skills, as I do bake a bit. He kindly offers to give me a few lessons and he allows me to use all the gadgets in the restaurant kitchen. This is brilliant, as I do not own such things as a super-duper mixing machine, a chiller or a deep fat fryer. We agree to start our teach-ins on Monday evening, and I promise that tomorrow afternoon I will email him a list of sweet treats that I might like to learn how to bake.
Saturday afternoon.
My friends are assembled in my lounge, nursing dreadful hangovers and downing bucketfuls of herbal tea. We occupy ourselves watching random episodes of The Great British Bake Off. Geoff, the self-proclaimed cake connoisseur, has decided that he should be fully involved in this challenge to ensure I learn to bake some healthy fruit-based treats he can enjoy. “You’ll need an eff-off show-stopper four-tiered gateau,” adds Claire, taking a sip of her tea.
“And something for the children. Chocolatey, cookies, pastries… and what about something exotic?” throws in Cate. She is watching the iPlayer. “Ooh, look at this,” she exclaims. We gather round the TV, rewind the clip, and watch it again.
“I do like the sound of that Lincolnshire Plum Braid,” I say. “It’s packed full of fruit and Marsala wine. That’d look fab on the trolley, but is it okay to use alcohol for a school do?”
“Why not? I think you should add alcohol to everything,” Bea chuckles. “It’d make for a fun morning.”
Pippa and Evie are dispatched to the kitchen to find my cookery books, which they ceremoniously dump on the coffee table. “How shall we go about this?” asks Cate, staring in horror at the pile.
I turn to Pippa. “What do you think, sweetie?”
“Well, Mum. I think each of us should suggest something we’d really like to eat ourselves, and then we can vote on it. That’s how we make decisions when we have cake-baking nights at Rangers. What about a Valentine’s theme?”
“Good idea,” I say. Twenty minutes later, we have nailed it:
Cakes and Bakes – Valentine’s Theme
Doughnuts injected with a swirl of jam and custard.
Medley of mini-scones: cheese, fruit and plain.
Choc-dipped fruit kebabs.
Smartie cookies.
Show-stopper: Heart-shape tiered Victoria sponge-cake topped with strawberries and blueberries.
Flapjacks – date and plain.
Toffee apple crumble traybake.
“Three more to find,” announces Pippa. We settle on gluten-free cupcakes, shortbread and a dried fruit tea loaf. Pippa emails the list to Aidan and Mario.
Sunday, 7.00 p.m.
Mario and Aidan teach me how to use the deep fat fryer. I have never made doughnuts before, and so this is where we have decided to start. Two hours and thirty-six attempts later, I am ready to collapse – but I have finally mastered the skill, and they taste good. “One down, nine to go,” I yawn as we clean up the mess. The men just laugh. “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget to wipe the jam off your nose before you go.”
On Wednesday evening, I invite my friends and Geoff to Adriano’s to applaud the results of my labour. In the freezer sit all the finished cakes and bakes – bar the show-stopper. I have been advised to bake the sponges at half past six tomorrow morning to ensure they are at their very best. I also have biscuit decorating to do and chocolate-dipped fruit kebabs to prepare, but Mario and Aidan have assured me that they won’t take long. The sweet trolley has been polished and sits ready, gleaming. Claire loads the trolley into her people carrier with strict instructions to deliver it to school for quarter past nine in the morning. I will transport the cakes and bakes and meet her in the school car park. We are set.
Thursday morning.
Everything has defrosted. The biscuits are iced. Two square sponges are cooling, and I am cutting up strawberries for the show-stopper cake. I cut the sponges in half. Hmmm… they look dry, I think to myself. Have I overbaked them? I taste a tiny piece of sponge. “Yep, too dry,” I say aloud. “They need something to moisten them.”
I go into panic mode and pace the kitchen, searching for inspiration; my Star Baker status in danger. And then I see an unopened bottle of sherry sitting on the shelf. Without a second thought, I stab skewer holes in the sponges, drizzle a good half-bottle of the sherry over them, layer the cake with cream, decorate it with fresh berries and take a good slug of sherry myself – for medicinal purposes.
10.00 a.m.
I make my grand entrance, casually wheel the trolley up to Josie Jamieson and present my contribution. She looks aghast, then quickly recovers. “Mrs Richards…” she simpers. “Amazeballs.” She recovers her composure and tries to stick the knife in. “I do hope they taste as good as they look, my dear.”
“It’s my pleasure, Josie,” I reply, refusing to rise to her provocation. “Your email really did tempt me and fortunately, I had a little time on my hands.” Trying not to laugh, I disappear into the crowd to find The Girls, who are anxiously waiting for me.
Towards the end of the event, we purposely wander past the sweet trolley to see what has been eaten and what is left. “Hey,” remarks Cate. “The show-stopper has all gone.” On cue, Josie Jamieson appears at my side and gives me a big bear hug. She hiccups and appears to lose her balance slightly.
“Mrisses Richarrrds,” she slurs. “I have to tell you that…” She hiccups again and puts her hand to her mouth. “That Berry Merry cake, that very, no, that Merry Berry cake ish the mosht wunnerful cake ahhv ever teshted.” And with that, she turns abruptly and staggers across the room towards the headteacher.
It is at that moment
that I, along with everyone in the school hall, observe her skirt hem neatly tucked into a black lacy thong, exposing a peachy and toned buttock complete with a Daisy Hill Academy coat of arms tattoo. She slithers onto a nearby chair, shuts her eyes and appears to go to sleep. My hands fly to my mouth. Oh, my Lord. How embarrassing. Is she drunk on my cake?
“Who’d have thought Mrs Prim-and-Proper Jamieson would have a good old tramp-stamp on her arse?” giggles Bea. “Such dedication to the school. I didn’t expect that the ‘Merry Berry cake’ would cause such an uproar.” And we all fall about laughing.
March
Week Two. Friday.
I have to tell someone about what happened to me at the doctor’s recently, and I’ve decided to confide in Claire. She and I have been close for years, and she knows me well. In fact, she’s the most moral person I know. She’s always been trustworthy, and I’m sure that she will give sound, unbiased advice.
However, something tells me that I mustn’t give too much away. I feel guilty that what I’m experiencing is fundamentally wrong, even though it feels so right. Have I done anything wrong? I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure.
I’m so keyed up that I can’t face a scone today (and I adore the blueberry ones at Tea and Tranquility). Claire tries to tempt me. “No scone? I don’t believe last week’s Advanced Driver course challenge was that bad, Ames? So, what’s up? Anything exciting?” Her eyes sparkle.
I take a sip of my comforting Americano and, trying to act indifferent, describe how Evie and I met Him. It’s easy – oh, so easy. I could wax lyrical all day, but I curb my enthusiasm and keep the conversation light and tight. “I know nothing about him, not even his name.” I force a laugh. “He’s years younger than me; he’s not even my type. You know I don’t do men who make zero effort with their appearance, and he’s got tattoos for Pete’s sake – yet for some reason, I just can’t get him out of my head.”
51 Weeks Page 6