FAMILY life is all about balance. While children are eager to let us know when an outing disappoints, we adults tend to be ridiculously gung-ho in our attempt to jolly things up. Take a cycling trip with my sons. Never mind that it looks like rain; it'll only be that light misty kind, I assure them, having taken a secret crash course in meteorology and being able to predict the weather with startling accuracy.
We are four miles from home when the heavens open. So torrential is the downpour that we can barely make out the fuzzy outline of a 4x4 which has pulled up beside us. "Are you all right?" a concerned woman asks, lowering her window. "Do you need help?"
"We're fine," I chirp. "It's quite exhilarating actually!" I almost add: "And rain's so good for the skin!" As she drives away, I glimpse her two little girls in the back, all snug and relieved that they were born into their family and not ours.
The ridiculously optimistic façade is actually our way of trying to cover up our errors of judgement. No adult wants to admit that they're wrong, especially in front of small children. We can't bear to say sorry or concede that we're raving idiots. Some years ago, to my shame, I flung my handbag at the wall in a fit of temper. It didn't hit anyone. It was just one of those demented-parent moments when you lose all reason and end up scrabbling on the floor because all your money's pinged out and rolled under the piano. How foolish I felt on my hands and knees, gathering up coppers. "Here's one," my son offered in a crowing voice. Naturally, the "handbag incident" still triggers great mirth to this day.
Similarly, no-one remembers the billions of unremarkable dinners which have been set down before them over the years. However, I fear that my chilli pasta debacle will still be recalled, amidst sniggers, in 2038.
Keen to break away from humdrum everyday fayre, I find a recipe for spaghetti with prawns and rocket in Jamie's Italy. How tastebud-enticing! And how hard can it be? The book shows a picture of Jamie deboning an entire pig to be cooked in an outdoor wood oven. He looks utterly relaxed - so surely I can knock up a bowl of pasta in a normal kitchen?
The recipe calls for red chillies. All I have are the dried bird's eye variety, which I've never used before. So pretty do they look, flecking the pasta, I sling in a few more. J and I sit down to eat. "Jesus," he gasps, "how many chillies are in here?"
"I didn't actually count them," I say frostily. "I just did what the recipe said."
"Are you sure?" While I'd like to report that he's being utterly namby-pamby about this, my own mouth feels as if its lining might lift off in one angry, smouldering sheet.
"There's nothing wrong with it," I croak, eyes streaming. J isn't listening. He's slugged all his wine and is now positioned with his face under the tap at the sink, blasting cold water directly into his wide open mouth. I want to say: Look at you, making an almighty fuss like the kids do when faced with something like tomatoes or broccoli. Instead, I gamely shovel in my dinner just to prove how darn fine it is.
"Ugh," J mutters, blowing out air and dabbing his face with a tea towel.
"Maybe you could pick out the prawns," I suggest, though talking is now virtually impossible.
"I've lost my appetite," he announces. By now it's apparent that this meal will be remembered in the same vein as my Cuban Chicken Crisis of 1997, which turned out to be a bleak year for poultry warmed through with Havana Club rum and garnished with slivers of mango.
As for Jamie's pasta, to prove how ruddy fine it is, I hog J's portion as well as my own, sending my digestive system into a state of extreme trauma. "Well," I announce, pushing away the plates, "I thought that was very tasty."
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