Tea is my typewriter

On the dresser in my mum and dad’s kitchen is a trifle dish. It’s made of thick, pressed glass with geometric patterns cut deeply into its sides. It has a thick stem which elevates its contents to four inches above anything else that might be on the table. It is accompanied by eight mini-versions of itself, in the same design but without the stem, for serving.

For about 340 days a year, the trifle dish sits on the dresser in my childhood home, surrounded by family photos, bills awaiting attention, birthday cards and lottery tickets. But at least once a month, we come to visit, my mum makes trifle, and the dish has pride of place on the table.

The trifle is as non-negotiable as the family visits. I am one of three sisters, and we all live within an hour of the house where we grew up. We never turn down the invitation for a weekend family dinner, and we descend with assorted partners and, more recently, offspring, wearing clean clothes, hair brushed, aiming to give the initial impression that we are coping well with life. We do this regardless of the truth, which usually outs in the course of the visit. 

Today there are eight attendees – my parents, my sisters and I, two partners and two children, one of whom is too small for real food. This is handy for the trifle arrangements.

On this particular Sunday, over an aperitif mug of tea, my dad is excited to show us some Roman coins he’s found with his detectorist pals in a nearby potato field. They rarely get the chance to search in the potato field, and he goes into great depth about the details of the find, their excitement, the hard work of digging, and, just as they were about to give up, their find.

My older sister is almost as excited to show us something my niece made at nursery, and starts digging in her oversized shoulder bag, which almost swallows her as she takes out a stream of nappies, wipes, dummies and nipple shields. We wait in anticipation but all she comes out with are fingers stained green by an eyeshadow that has burst at the bottom of her cavernous bag.

Through the open kitchen door I see Mum putting the finishing touches to the trifle. Every trifle she makes is identical, and has been since we were children. The jelly is strawberry and bright red. Slices of swiss roll are pressed onto the side of the dish, making a layer of impressive, clear swirls. A thick layer of sunshine yellow custard follows, and a topping of whipped cream, which she is currently applying. I know that in a minute she will add hundreds & thousands, and three glace cherries, one for each sister. The result is a splendid centrepiece which we all associate with belonging. It is a colourful confection that we will wolf down, every single time, regardless of how we might feel afterwards.

My little sister introduces her new boyfriend, about whom she must be serious enough to invite along to meet us. The poor man is nervous, and over lunch he goes into unrequested detail on his Phd on sedimentary rock formations. We all pretend to be interested.

Mum brings out the trifle and dad brings the bowls from the dresser, placing them in a circle round the trifle like little children vying for sweets. We all fall silent to admire its majesty, and to feel the nostalgia for our childhood. I know that for one moment, we are appreciating this feeling of being home, family through thick and thin, like layers of jelly and custard.

The boyfriend nervously breaks the silence to tell my mum how beautiful the trifle is, and she beams at him. It’s safe to say he’ll be welcome back.

“And what about you, Anna?” My mum looks at me. “You’re a bit quiet today, what’s going on with you?”

As she speaks, my dad sticks the serving spoon deep into the trifle. There’s a flat tap as it hits the bottom of the dish and a comedy squelch as he pulls out the first serving. 

The impact on the trifle is dramatic. Any structural integrity created by the custard’s surface tension or the ballast of the jelly are gone. The swiss roll slices peel away from the sides of the dish, and the space created by the evacuation is immediately filled with custard, cream, the two remaining cherries and the multicoloured smears created by animated damp hundreds & thousands. The removed spoonful is unceremoniously dolloped into a waiting bowl, a flurry of colour. All the clean dividing lines are gone. This is no longer trifle. This is only jelly, swiss roll, custard and cream, a set of disparate puddings jumbled up and plopped together in a bowl from the 1970s.

I look up at my mum and take a breath. “I’m pregnant.”