Loafing Around – Jenny 4

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

Peter looked at the ingredients and started to hyper-ventilate. Jenny sat him down next to the kitchen table and tried to calm her own nerves. She put a hand on his back as reassurance.

“We can do this,” she said, her mouth already dry, “It’ll be fun.”

Peter shrugged her hand away. “So it’s a brownie, right?”

“No, no, banana loaf.”

“We were gonna do a brownie,” he growled.

“We don’t have the right ingredients,” Jenny said quietly, biting her bottom lip. “And the bananas are going off.”

“Don’t like bananas.”

“It’s OK, you won’t taste them in there. It’s just – an ingredient,” she whispered. “It mainly tastes of ginger.”

“Ginger,” said Peter, like he’d never even heard of it before.

Peter refused point blank to mash the bananas because of the smell, so while Jenny did that he measured the other ingredients. Trying to cash in on his sudden sort-of enthusiasm, Jenny dashed around the small kitchen finding bowls for him to put the measured ingredients in, ready to be added to the bananas which she had yet to finish mashing as she’d been dashing around the kitchen.

“Have you made this before?” asked Peter.

“Not this precise one,” said Jenny. “Me and Izzy used to make them all the time when we were first together. It was a great way for us to share time and talk.”

“Is this one going to work then?” asked Peter.

“Should do,” said Jenny.

“You’re not sure?”

“The recipe has good reviews,” said Jenny defensively.

Peter mixed the ingredients and stirred diligently. There was so much Jenny wanted to ask. So many conversations she felt they should have. So many things she thought she should share.

“I don’t know if I’m doing this right,” said Peter. “Am I stirring it OK?”

“Looks great to me,” said Jenny. “Keep going – it’ll get a bit heavier but that’s what we want. A really good dough.”

“I did something like this in home econ,” said Peter. “Soda bread."

“Did you? How did it come out?”

“It came out when I dropped the whole thing on the floor. Lost the lot,” Peter half smiled the ‘it always happens to me’ smile.

“I didn’t know that,” started Jenny, sympathetically.

“I don’t tell you everything,” said Peter.

“I knew that,” said Jenny and her heart almost burst when she got a different half smile back.

“Honestly, I would like to know more about what’s going on with you,” she said, trying to cash in on this good fortune. “Anything really – whatever’s going on and whatever you want to talk about.”

“I think this is done,” said Peter handing her the bowl. “What now?”

“We kneed it a bit,” she said.

There was a flinch from Peter as if he thought – but no he didn’t. Jenny showed Peter how to wrangle the dough a little, and Peter showed some interest. For a while, with the smells, the manual work, the expectation that came with home cooking, Jenny was almost spirited back to herself and Izzy together. They worked things out as they went along, and for a while she appreciated her son and the fact that they were working more things out right now.

Scooped out and into a tin, their mixture was given the appropriate gas mark and left in the oven to cope on its own.

“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Peter. “I mean, we’ve just shoved all those things in there – the sugar, the bananas and the rest of the stuff. If it doesn’t work it’ll just be a waste, right?”

“No, not at all,” said Jenny. “It’s all a – a process. A thing to do, a chance to get together and…”

“Make something that doesn’t taste any good,” said Peter.

“I think,” said Jenny, “I think you have to look at these things with optimism. With the expectation that something good will come out of it in the end. You follow the instructions, you mix everything up and you wait and see the good that you produce.”

She and Peter stared doubtfully at the bread tin in the oven for a moment.

“Just give it time,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” said Peter.

Just then the front door opened and Izzy came in from her run. Usually she’d go straight upstairs and shower, but this time she was in the kitchen by the time the door slammed behind her.

“I bumped into someone,” she said.

“Oh,” said Jenny in an off-hand way, “Who was that?”

“No,” said Izzy. “I. Bumped. Into. Someone.”

She grabbed a paper towel, soaked it in water and sat on the kitchen floor. It was only when she started dabbing at the cut on her knee that Jenny focussed enough the realise entirely what she was saying.