The Parisian Christmas Bake Off (4 page)

Rachel looked around; it seemed everyone was going sweet. Lacey was cutting figs and straining prunes from a jar. She could see a row of tiny moulds ready to be lined with filo. Marcel had told them on the way in that his chocolate tart never failed. The secret was Armagnac from his family’s distillery.

Rachel was dithering, her hand hovering over peaches. She watched George pick the fruits for a pear, apple and orange blossom tarte tatin. Cheryl was asking Abby to confirm ingredient weights for a cherry and date Bakewell. And Ali had decided on a basil and white chocolate vol-au-vent, the idea of which had made Chef snort with disgust.

As she stood panicking, gazing at all the ingredients, her eyes landed on a lump of feta, hard and crumbling into the wooden cheese board on the side, and she had a brainwave. Almost kissed the air and said a prayer of thanks.

When she reached for the cheese she caught Lacey roll her eyes and mutter under her breath, ‘Oh, here we go. Trying to be different.’

But she ignored her. She wasn’t trying to be different at all. She was trying to do whatever it took not to be at the bottom. Being last wasn’t a feeling she was used to. And if she was going to cling on and prove she had some skill, then this recipe was tried and tested. She knew because it wasn’t just Ben’s taste buds that recommended it, it was generations. A recipe passed down from her Greek great-grandmother.

Tiny filo cheese pies so thin and delicate, brushed with glistening egg yolk and packed full of feta, ricotta, blue cheese and parmesan, that cracked and burst on the top like volcanos when cooked. Baked till golden, they were the taste of summers in Greece sitting under vines, Coca-Cola for them, chilled retsina for the adults. Clinking ice cubes, steaming plates of cheese and spinach pies, sizzling prawns, pale pink taramasalata, olives warmed by the sun. Her gran in a hat fussing. Her great-grandmother in a chair, faded blue sundress and Scholl sandals. The waves rolling the pebbles. It was the taste of summer and sunshine and family.

It was the taste of a time that was perfect.

She still made the pies, every now and then, but she didn’t go to Greece any more.

As she rolled out her filo, Chef sat up at the front sipping his espresso, Lacey carved her figs into intricate flowers, Marcel dripped chocolate from up high so it would cool into stars on his baking parchment, Ali started whipping his basil with the blender to make a foam, Tony cut his finger again—Abby said it needed stitches. Chef sighed. Rachel’s pies puffed and cracked in the oven.

Time ticked away and she ummed and ahhed about taking them out as she watched Lacey make the finishing touches to her tartlets, dusting icing sugar over a flowered cake stand she’d brought from home.

‘Five minutes,’ said Chef.

She needed six.

Abby was brushing down her counter. Rachel’s was a mess, the sieve poking out from a pan, a baking tray at an angle in the sink, spoonfuls of cheese splattered across the surface.

‘One minute,’ Chef yelled.

Rachel looked at her pies. Almost. Almost. She heard her great-grandmother,
Patience, Rachel. Patience in the kitchen
. Her timer ticked.

‘Fuck it,’ she said in the end as the others stood neatly by their creations. Fifteen seconds to go, she yanked open the oven door, her glasses misted with steam, and tipped her pies onto a white plate she’d found under her counter.

When the stopwatch beeped, Chef slowly unfurled himself from his chair and walked from stand to stand perusing the goods. Marcel had supplied a crystal glass of Armagnac, Abby had a model Santa and a sherry to go alongside her mince pies. Lacey’s beautiful tarts sat proud and decadent on their tiered platter, as good as anything Rachel had been served for her birthday tea at the Ritz. Slicing a sliver here and a chunk there, Chef announced his verdicts.

‘
Délicieux.’
Lacey’s tartlets.

‘Average.’ Abby’s pies.

‘A waste of good Armagnac.’ Marcel’s chocolate.

‘Intriguing.’ George’s tarte tatin.

‘Disgusting.’ Ali’s basil creation.

Then he stopped at Rachel’s. She watched as he cast a disapproving eye over her bench. He picked up and dropped her sopping cloth, then prodded her haphazard pile of pies. Their innards were squelching out as they squashed each other without the proper time to cool.

He took one between finger and thumb, holding it as if he found it as distasteful as the dirty cloth. He blew on it, tore it in half and listened for the crack in the filo. Satisfied by the sound, finally he put it in his mouth. Biting, waiting, smelling, biting again, swallowing, pausing.

Her palms were sweating. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted to impress him.

‘Rachel,’ he said. Paused. Seemed to disappear from the moment for just a second. Took another bite. ‘Your food, it looks like shit. But it tastes… It tastes not bad.’

‘The drinks are on me.’ Rachel didn’t know if it was happiness or relief but, God, she felt good.

Most of the group was crammed round a booth table in the corner of the bar; a carafe of white wine and a stack of tumblers were in the centre. Marcel was loping back in after a smoke and Lacey hadn’t come because she didn’t like to socialise with the competition. Poor old Tony hadn’t fared the pastry test well and was pulled aside at the end and told not to come back.

He was sitting now, head in his bandaged hands, nursing a whisky and soda.

‘Bloody hard, wasn’t it? I mean, tough competition. Tougher than I expected.’ Tony was a proper English gentleman. A deputy head at a private boy’s boarding school in Suffolk. ‘I’ll have to lie to the kids. Can’t have them thinking I went out first round. That would never do. I’d never live it down,’ he said, taking a large gulp of his drink and shaking his head as the fire hit the back of his throat.

‘It’s not so bad,’ Abby offered.

‘And you had hurt your hands,’ Cheryl chimed in softly. ‘You can’t be expected to do your best if you’re injured.’

‘Yes. Absolutely. You’re quite right. That’s exactly what the wife said. She arrives this afternoon. I told her someone else already went out yesterday. We’ll have a couple of nice days in Paris. Spot of Christmas shopping and all that. Maybe go up the Tower. Nice view from the top of the Pompidou, so I’m told.’

‘Where are you staying?’ asked Rachel.

‘The Ritz.’

‘Oh.’

‘And you?’ he asked, whisky glass to his lips.

‘Not the Ritz.’ She laughed.

Around the table people had started talking about Christmas plans for when they went home.

‘I’m flying back on Christmas Eve, straight after the final event. Not that I’ve a hope after today.’ Abby poured more
vin blanc
. ‘Hopeless. How can you tell someone their pastry is hopeless? Like a soggy sock, he said. Here, taste this—does it taste like a soggy sock?’

Rachel took a bite of the boozy, sugar-encrusted mince pie and shook her head. It tasted sweet and delicious to her, of plump sticky raisins, spiced brandy and flaky, buttery puff pastry.

Marcel sat forward, twirling his half-empty glass of rum between his fingers, wolf-eyes locking on Rachel. ‘When do you go home?’

‘Boxing Day,’ she said, glancing away, hoping the conversation would move on.

‘Boxing Day?’ repeated George. ‘You got family here or summit?’

She shook her head. ‘No. No family.’

Marcel sat back, swirling his drink in his glass, and she could feel him watching her closely.

‘What will you do on Christmas?’ Abby asked.

‘Sleep probably. I think Christmas Eve will be a big day whether we’re in the final two or not.’

‘But it’s Christmas…’ said George, pulling open a packet of crisps and glancing round as some instrumental Christmas music started up as if illustrating his point.

‘I know. But really it’s just a day like any other.’

Abby looked at her as if that was certainly not the case.

Rachel shrugged.

Marcel leaned forward; the perfection of his features made her want to reach out and trace them. ‘So you do not
do
Christmas?’ he asked with a quirk of a dark brow.

‘
Non.’
She smiled, a touch shyly under his gaze. ‘I like Easter.’ She laughed.

Abby asked why she didn’t like Christmas but Rachel did a Lacey and pretended she hadn’t heard.

‘Interesting. Well…’ Marcel sat back and licked his bottom lip. She felt a shoe brush her foot and pulled away before realising it was his. Brown hair falling in front of his eye, he pushed it away and went on, ‘If you get lonely, you are welcome to spend the day with me.’

Rachel giggled and felt her cheeks start to pink.
‘Merci, Marcel.’

‘
De rien,’
he replied with a shrug, his lips turning up into the hint of a smile.

That night she strolled back from the bus stop; the rain had stopped for now and the sky was completely clear. The shadows of the plane trees speckled the road like puppets in the moonlight and the puddles of water glistened like crystal. Looking up at the few stars above her, she felt a rush of excitement.

‘Not bad,’ she said out loud. ‘They tasted not bad.’ And allowed herself a surge of pride.

At her door she found Chantal sitting on the thin wooden bench on the landing, knitting what appeared to be an incredibly long scarf in purple and maroon wool. She was buttoned up in her camel coat and scarf and Rachel wondered how long she’d been there.

‘
Bonsoir, ma petite
. What did you cook today?’

Rachel unlocked the door as Chantal packed up her needles and followed her in.

‘Cheese pies.’

‘Ah,
très bon
. I put the kettle on?’

‘OK.’ Rachel watched her from the doorway, a little warily, as Chantal made herself at home—filling the kettle, laying out cups and a plate for the pies, then hoisting another huge bag onto the chair.

‘I bring more things.’

Rachel unwound her scarf and pulled off her gloves. ‘Chantal, you don’t have to.’

Chantal looked round as if it was obvious she did. Then began laying out her bounty. Another bedraggled plant. A bright blue frame, a horse ornament with only three legs, a throw for the sofa, a green glass vase with a crack down one side, and a lace doily that she placed in the centre of the table under the teapot.
‘Et voilà.’

Rachel laughed. ‘Thank you, Chantal,’ she said, thinking of all her minimalist white furniture and key pieces from Anthropologie and Heal’s back home.

The flat was coming to life. Splashes of colour and all the little extras beginning to make it more homely. It wasn’t her taste but it was certainly better than it had been.

Before she left, full of cheese pies and tea, Chantal threw an orange linen napkin over the sidelight so it cast a soft, warm yellowy glow on the room. She stood back and said with pride, ‘It is nearly perfect, yes?’

Chantal was waiting the next night as well, when Rachel came home with strawberry tarts overfilled with crème pâtisserie so the strawberries wobbled precariously on top and most had slid off into the box.

‘Not very pretty.’ Chantal had laughed. ‘But
très bon
,’ she said, licking her fingers and depositing a clock, a stripy rug that had begun to unravel and a red and white spotty biscuit tin.

With the tea and cake over she clapped her hands together and beckoned to Rachel. ‘Now you come downstairs with me.’

Rachel looked outside; it had started to snow, light flakes frosting up the window. Chantal was wrapping up in her layers.

‘Come,’ she said again, more forcefully.

Rachel made a face behind her back, as if she really didn’t want to, but pulled on her coat and boots and tramped down the stairs after her thinking about how tired she was and how many steps she’d have to trudge back up again.

Outside Chantal beckoned her into the alley alongside the front door.

‘Really?’ Rachel questioned, thinking this might be some crazy human-trafficking ploy. How well did she actually know Chantal?

When Rachel peered round the corner, Chantal lifted a hand to point and said,
‘Et ici!’

Rachel looked at where she was indicating and there, tied to a lamppost with a chain and padlock, was a rusted old fold-up bike. Chantal slipped her the key.

‘My niece, she didn’t want it. She was going to leave it in the road.’

The bike was turquoise, scratched and rusted with
Mirabelle
written down the side in white bubble writing and a white wicker pannier on the front.

‘For your cakes.’ Chantal laughed, pointing at the basket, which she had strung with silver tinsel.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ Rachel ran her hand over the handlebars.

‘You say nothing.’

‘I’m so touched.’

‘Ah, you are sweet.
Joyeux Noël
.’ Chantal patted her on the arm and walked over to her 2CV. Heaving open the battered door, she got in and drove away while Rachel stood where she was, one hand still clutching the handlebars, and waved.

The following day, Rachel cycled to the pâtisserie, the tiny specks of blizzarding snow hitting her cheeks, making her feel alive and excited as she pedalled as fast as she could. Who’d have thought she’d be cycling the streets of Paris like a local?

Locking up her bike, she saw Philippe, her Religieuse man, drive past and she put her head down, unsure why, but the thought of talking to him made her fumble her lock and then drop it in the snow by mistake.

As she walked round to the front of the shop she saw he was just coming down the street and it was too late to pretend she hadn’t seen him.

‘
Bonjour.’
He smiled, waving from a couple of metres away. Like hers, his scarf was up over his chin to avoid the pelting snow and when he got close he had to wipe the moisture from his face. ‘It is good weather,
non
?’

‘Hi. Yes.
Bonjour
.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Look, you know, I’m sorry about the other day. With Chef. It was very embarrassing’

‘It’s not a problem. I know what he’s like.’ Philippe shrugged. He was much taller than her, which she wasn’t used to, Ben being about five foot seven, and she had to glance up when he spoke. Brushing the snow off the front of his coat, he went on, ‘Henri’s my brother. We have worked in the same building for a very long time.’

‘Your brother? Wow.’

Stepping forward, Philippe opened the door for her. ‘I’m not sure wow is quite right, but, yes, he’s my brother. He is less…let’s just say his bark is worse than his bite.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘You take my word for it. He er…’ He paused, changed tack. ‘He is consumed by it, by the baking. And I think it makes him—’ he blew out a breath ‘—frustrated when it doesn’t all go his way. As he would like. He doesn’t understand that not everyone is like him. Their brains are different.
Oui?
’

‘If you say so.’

‘Life has never worked out quite how it should for him. He’s OK. I promise.’

‘OK.’ She looked at him dubiously. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

As he gestured for her to go inside she hovered by the open door, pointing for him to go first instead, trying to be polite, but he stood firm, hand out to
encourage her to go in. She hesitated and then they were suddenly both going through the door together, bashing into each other so their shoulders hit and they concertinaed in like an accordion.

Philippe laughed. She could feel the deep rumble where their bodies touched.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rachel muttered.

‘It was my fault. Not like a gentleman.’ He laughed again and she noticed how his eyes crinkled up at the corners. And how his hair, neatly combed to one side, had flopped a little out of place. When he smiled his teeth were perfect and his long aquiline nose with its bump on the bridge seemed suddenly to give him an air of distinction. She hadn’t thought of him as good-looking—not in the conventional way like Marcel or Ben—but now, as he smiled in the doorway she realised he was handsome. Like a nineteen forties movie star.

And she also realised that she’d been staring.

‘OK, then. Good. Lovely.
Au revoir
.’

‘
Au revoir
, Rachel. It was nice to see you again.’

‘Yes. You too. Yes. I have to go now. I’m going to be late. If I don’t get a move on.’ She was mumbling on as he watched.

‘Of course.’ He stood to the side to let her pass.

About to hurry up the stairs, she paused with her hand on the banister, wondering if she’d been rude. No man had ever been quite so gentlemanly with her before. Certainly not Ben and his four a.m. visits and no sleeping over.

‘Did you—?’ She turned back. ‘Did you enjoy your Religieuse?’

‘Very much.’ Philippe smiled, straightening his tie.

‘Good.’ She nodded, waited to see if he was going to say anything else and when he didn’t she turned and flew up the stairs, two at a time, without looking back.

Walking into the workshop, she found she was the last one to arrive. With poor Tony gone it was down to seven of them. Everyone was waiting, standing straight like toy soldiers behind their work stations.

‘Today is bread day,’ shouted Chef as he marched in the room.

Rachel had known it was coming. Lacey had told Marcel in confidence that bread was Chef’s pièce de résistance. It was all he cared about.

‘If I could—’ he stood at the front, hands on hips, nose in the air ‘—I would bake nothing.
Nothing
but bread. It is the essence of our existence. The food of generations. It is life. Bread.
Le pain
. Jesus—even Jesus—saw the promise of the loaf of bread.’

Rachel wanted to say that she thought the Feeding of the Five Thousand had another angle more important than the loaf but now certainly wasn’t the time. She glanced at Marcel, who rolled his eyes, which caught her off guard and made her burst out in a little laugh.

‘You find bread funny? Rachel, tell us what you find so funny about bread.’

‘Nothing. I don’t find it funny at all.’

Chef walked over and towered over her. ‘No. Rachel is the expert, it seems. Today
Rachel
,’ he sneered, slamming his hand down on the counter, ‘will be teaching us how to make the bread that she finds so funny.’