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‘Just one drink?’ said Abby, sensing weakness.
What was it her mum had said when she’d tried to leave the Brownies, gym club, pony club? Just give it one more chance, for me.
‘OK, I suppose one drink.’
‘Excellent.’
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_e8127cb5-fb2e-5be6-aed2-8a081dda0de9)
Everyone in the bar was so confident in their skills. Ali was sipping a demi pression and half checking out his reflection in the mirror behind them, pushing a hand through his neatly styled black hair that was so heavily waxed it sprang back into the exact same position as before it was touched. ‘I’ve always known about flavour,’ he said, tearing his eyes from the mirror and looking at each of his fellow contestants. ‘That’s my thing. I’m just worried he’s too traditional for me. That we won’t be able to express ourselves.’
Marcel was feeding coins into the fag machine. ‘You must master the basics before you can express yourself properly.’
‘You sound like Chef,’ snorted Abby.
‘There are worse people to sound like.’ Marcel shrugged. ‘In his time he was the best. The greatest. My family, they had all his books. His restaurant had queues out the door. I ate there once and I’ve never forgotten it. The food was exquisite. Like nothing I have tasted before. And then—’ he blew a raspberry through closed lips ‘—nothing.’
Ali went on as if he hadn’t heard anything else that had been said. ‘It’s been since uni—I used to be in the Chemistry lab making cherry essence rather than recreating photosynthesis. I’m like a flavour alchemist.’
‘And you don’t think Chef is?’ Marcel rolled his eyes heavenward behind Ali when he didn’t even register the comment and leant against the cigarette machine, unwrapping the cellophane on his packet while Ali waffled on a bit more about the chemistry of taste.
‘Did you know about Lacey?’ said Abby, cutting in.
‘No, what?’
Heads crowded together over the table; Cheryl knocked over the sugar shaker. Rachel stayed sitting back and looked away at the posters of famous film stars like Clark Gable and Brigitte Bardot that lined the walls, not wanting to hear that much more. She was finding it all too stressful, the notion of competition and the obvious desire in everyone to win. It had been a long time since she’d put herself in a position where she could be judged and it made her feel more vulnerable than she’d imagined.
‘Big businesswoman. Thirty years CEO of a luxury goods company. Jacked it all in for this.’
‘Really?’ George was shocked.
‘Apparently.’ Abby nodded.
‘Goodness,’ said Cheryl, quietly.
‘And how about you?’ Ali turned to Cheryl, who was pouring more red wine from the carafe on the table as unobtrusively as she could. ‘How did you get into this?’
Cheryl blushed, placing the carafe back on the table and toying with the cuffs of her jumper. ‘Same as everyone.’
‘Oh, no, love,’ said George, his accent thick Yorkshire. ‘We’re all different.’
Cheryl had a neat red bob, perfect, as if it had been cut with a set square. Rachel watched her flick it so it covered more of her face. ‘I used to be a bit bigger.’
‘I understand.’ Abby patted her on the arm.
‘How big?’ asked George.
Rachel made a face across the table, trying to encourage him to be a bit more tactful with his questions.
‘Pretty big,’ said Cheryl, blushing again, her hair getting further over her face. ‘To lose it I had to relearn about food. Learn to cook.’
‘But all them cakes—aren’t you tempted?’
She shook her head. ‘I make them for my family, or for the neighbours. It’s the baking that hooks me. I just love it and for some reason I’ve found that if I make it, I don’t eat it.’ She laughed for the first time.
Everyone smiled but Rachel saw Ali do a little eye-roll behind his beer to himself. As if Cheryl was easy pickings.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered to Abby.
‘Really? No. Don’t go. We’re getting to know each other.’
The last thing Rachel needed was these probing, nosy questions and people sizing her up as competition. ‘Yeah, I really should go.’
‘Will we see you tomorrow?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Rachel walked to the bus stop and when the bus didn’t come she walked back all the way to her dingy flat. There was thin drizzle in the night air, the droplets flecking in the beam of the overhead lights. All the narrow streets were lit with Christmas stars that had been twined up the lampposts and tinsel hung from windows and around doors. Outside the churches little nativity scenes glowed bright, but she barely noticed.
When she got to her building she stopped and looked up—at the blazing light from Madame Charles’s and then to the dark shutters in the roof—and thought of her lovely flat at home. Everything arranged just as she liked it. No surprises. All warm and cosy and hers.
Trudging up the stairs, she wished she were back home—sitting on her lumpy sofa, marking homework with smiley faces, secretly weeping at The X Factor—rather than here, in this draughty loft, baking with a load of strangers.
Inside she boiled up water on the rusty stove-top kettle and sat on the chair thinking about Chef laughing and cycling away. How could she have been so bad? It was gutting. And he was so cruel. She could make bread, for God’s sake. OK, she hadn’t baked it for years, but that wasn’t to say she couldn’t.
Bread was the one thing her hands simply refused to make, as if the dough held too much power in its smells, its texture, its taste—just the simple process of kneading and rolling was like her own personal Pandora’s Box. But she’d always been good at it. Her gran could often be heard lamenting Rachel’s refusal to make her a batch of rolls or a wholemeal. As she thought about it she wondered if Ali, with his flavour combinations, could make a decent loaf.
Damn Chef. He must have weaknesses. No one had come into the workshop and giggled at his past failures, had they?
She leant forward and turned on the oven, watched the flames roar to life through the glass and turned it off again. Then she found herself on her feet taking flour from the shelf, butter she’d got from the Carrefour out of the fridge and breaking eggs into a chipped mixing bowl. Before she knew it she was flouring the worktop and kneading and stretching her dough as if she were on autopilot. Not thinking, just doing. When she looked down and saw the little round blob of dough it almost took her by surprise. She was glad to be able to leave it to prove on the table and got as far away from it as she could, going to the window to stare out at the Champs Élysées view.
She gazed at the perfect strands of fairy lights on the beautifully trimmed trees. It was dazzling—not a blown bulb or twig out of place. But combined with the sweet, sticky smell of raw dough in the air, it all made her suddenly feel quite homesick. Made her think of the monstrous great big tree that they hauled into the centre of Nettleton every year, branches sticking out all over the place. She’d always get needles itching down her back from helping to carry, and Jackie would stand on the church steps, bossing everyone about which side should face front. The great tree would wobble precariously as Mrs Pritchard’s handyman, Kenneth, secured the base and her son tied the top with rope to a lamppost and the old King’s Head sign. She sniggered at the memory of the year they’d forgotten to tie the top and it had crashed through the upstairs pub window at two in the morning almost skewering a pair of sleeping ramblers.
Compared to these Champs Élysées trees, theirs was like the giant at the top of the beanstalk. Too big, hugely ugly and draped with a ramshackle selection of lights that the village had accumulated over the years. Some were big coloured light bulbs, others small maniacally flashing fairy lights that Jackie’s grandmother claimed had given her a funny turn. Around the lower branches the kids hung the snowflake decorations they made at school, all in a big cluster. And on the top was an angel that her gran could remember as a child. It was a disastrous beast. These perfect, beautiful French trees would turn their backs on it in disgust. They would shun the pride and joy of Nettleton.
Rachel had a sudden urge to ask Jackie to text her a photo of it, but stopped mid-message, not wanting her to think she was a pathetic, needy idiot.
Instead the alarm on her phone went off to tell her the dough was ready. In the past she would have plaited plump strands into individual little loaves but this time she just wanted it out of sight and hurled it into the oven, like a hot potato, where it sat off-centre on the baking tray.
There was a knock on the door as she was still staring into the oven trying to work out how there was bread baking in there after so many years of her steering well clear. Surprised, she ran over, oven gloves still on, and pulled it open.
Madame Charles’s housekeeper was standing on the landing, a big basket clutched in front of her paisley-patterned housecoat.
‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle.’
‘Bonsoir—’ Rachel paused.
‘Chantal.’
‘Bonsoir, Chantal.’
There was silence. Rachel leant by the door unsure whether to invite her in or if she was just about to be told that she’d done something wrong. She wondered whether she should tell Chantal now that she was leaving tomorrow.
‘I bring you some things.’ Chantal held up the basket, then peered round Rachel into the flat. ‘For your room.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel didn’t know what to say. ‘I think I have everything I need. Actually I’m leav—’
Chantal cut her off. ‘Things to make it—je ne sais pas—happy?’
‘Happy?’ Rachel looked down at the bag as Chantal squeezed past her and put it down on the table.
As Rachel closed the door Chantal pulled out two red cushions, a little frayed around the edges, and went and rested them on the sofa, plumping them up with both hands and then pulling the corners straight so they sat beautifully, as they might have once done in Madame Charles’s flat. Coming back to her bag, she took out a strip of thick aquamarine wool and, shaking it out, draped it over the ratty armchair in the corner, tucking it in neatly around the edges of the cushioned seat. Then she stood back, arms pointing to the objects, as if highlighting to Rachel what she was trying to do.
‘Happy,’ she said again.
Slightly perplexed, Rachel watched her go back to her Mary Poppins basket and pull out a mirror with pink china flowers across the top. Pointing to a chip, Chantal rolled her eyes and said, ‘That Madame Charles throws away.’
Next came a spider plant that she carried through the alcove and sat on the window sill alongside a tiny snow-globe of the Eiffel Tower; this she shook and held out to Rachel.
‘I buy this for you.’
Crossing the room, Rachel picked the ball of plastic out of Chantal’s hands, lost for words. When she shook it she noticed her hands were shaking as she watched the snow fall gently round the spire—twisting and swirling round the miniature statue.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ Rachel said, transfixed by the globe and the kindness of the gesture.
Chantal shrugged. ‘I think of you up here alone in this—’ she glanced around ‘—this place and I think that it is not comfortable, especially at Christmas. My daughter, she is about your age and if she was here I would want someone to make her comfortable.’ Chantal folded her arms across her chest.
‘Does she live in Paris?’ Rachel asked, turning the globe upside down again and watching the flakes tumble past the spire of the tower.
‘Oh, no.’ Chantal shook her head. ‘She is in the South. In Nice.’
Rachel looked up. ‘I love Nice. I went on holiday there a couple of years ago. Such a beautiful city. How lovely that you can go and visit her there.’
Chantal seemed to hug her arms a little closer round her chest. ‘I have not been.’
‘Oh,’ said Rachel. ‘She comes to see you?’ she asked and then kicked herself when she realised she’d missed the tension in the comment and should have just changed the subject.
‘Non.’ Chantal turned to look around the room, and then with a forced casualness said, ‘We do not speak any longer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She waved a hand as if it were nothing. ‘She has a strong will.’
Rachel nodded, immediately curious as to what had happened.
‘Anyway, I think of her when I think of you up here, and I would want her to be comfortable.’ The oven timer pinged and Chantal, taking it as a cue to change the subject, wandered over, peered in through the oven door and, smelling the freshly baked bread in the air, she sighed.
Rachel went to place the plastic snow dome on the shelf but changed her mind and kept hold of it as she glanced at Chantal, who seemed suddenly smaller and more alone than she had done when she’d first come in. ‘Would you like some bread?’ Rachel asked.
‘Oh.’ Chantal rested her hands across her waist and stood as if this were what she’d been waiting for all along. ‘If it is not an intrusion.’
Rachel shook her head. If anything it was something of a relief to have someone there with her and Chantal appeared to feel the same way.
A few minutes later the housekeeper was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, smiling through a mouthful of warm, soft bread. ‘C’est très bon. Parfait.’ Tearing off another piece, she said, ‘You make very good bread.’
‘Thanks.’ Rachel hadn’t touched hers; she was somewhere else entirely, overwhelmed by the smell of fresh-baked dough, the sadness in Chantal’s eyes when she talked about her daughter, and distracted by her snow-globe and the red cushions.
‘Yes. It is very good. Très bon. Like the boulangerie at the end of the road.’
Rachel thought again about what her mum would say if she told her she was going to quit the contest: One more chance. For me.
‘You compete, oui? For the bread? That is the competition.’
‘Pretty much. With Henri Salernes.’
‘Oh la la, Henri Salernes. Very grand. Whatever happened to him? I had his book. Very good, a very clever man. And his brother, yes? The two of them, they had a lot of skill. And their restaurant, it was very famous. And now nothing except the pâtisserie, oui? Just a little pâtisserie that no one would know belonged to him. Very sad. Trying to prove too much too young, I think. That is what the papers say if I remember, grew up badly—not a good home, you understand?’
‘I don’t really know that much about the restaurant. Just that he was an amazing baker once.’
‘Oui, once. He was the youngest and the most celebrated. He changed the way we bake. And his brother, he change the way we cook. One was the savoury and one the sweet … Then it all goes, pouf, like that. All the money for Henri on the drink and the drugs, I think. It is always on the drink and the drugs. Silly man. He had a lot of talent. But …’ she held her arms out wide ‘… c’est la vie.’ She popped the rest of her slice of bread in her mouth. ‘Well, if I was the judge, you will win already. You do very well.’
Rachel reached forward and tore a little chunk off the loaf and popped it in her mouth. The power of the taste almost made her crumple on the spot. Soft and warm like a blanket.
One more chance. For me.
‘Very well. Very good bread.’
For me?
OK, Mum. She nearly said it out loud, nodding and holding tight to the globe.
‘You find it better? Yes?’ said Chantal, following her gaze from the snow-globe to the rest of the room.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Rachel replied. ‘I find it much better.’
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_d8f5684f-cdc7-5ba9-995b-4158a5855680)
Next morning Rachel arrived at the pâtisserie with all the embroidered flowers that he’d made such a fuss about snipped off her apron, determined to prove to Chef Henri he was wrong about her.
Then she might leave.
The pâtisserie itself was one of her favourite bits about the whole competition. On the ground floor, it was small and unassuming but the counters were piled high with some of the most delicate pastries and tarts she’d ever seen. The glaze on the tart au citron shone as if it’d been freshly polished that morning. The sign on the front of the shop was written in gold and inside an old lino floor was scratched and scuffed where customers had stood waiting in line. To the left of the counter were high stools that seemed to seat the same three old men every day, who came in to drink espresso and eat croissants, and behind the counter was a young woman with bright pink lipstick and wild curly hair pulled into a messy plait, who had introduced herself to Rachel as Françoise the day before when Rachel had been completely lost trying to find the competition kitchen. She’d patted her on the shoulder and wished her good luck in a conspiratorial tone that Rachel hadn’t quite understood until she’d come face to face with Chef.
Now, as she walked in and bought herself a pain au chocolat for her breakfast, when it came time for her to pay, Françoise raised a brow as if to ask if Rachel now understood her words of luck; Rachel nodded, a silent understanding between them about the tyrant boss. Françoise laughed and told her that he didn’t get any better the longer you knew him.
As Rachel left the pâtisserie through the side door that led into the corridor she’d just started to take the stairs up to the kitchen when she came across a man in a suit, who flattened himself against the wall to let her pass.
‘Merci beaucoup,’ she said, not really paying attention, caught up in thoughts about what Chef would say about the fact she hadn’t run back home to England.
