The Parisian Christmas Bake Off (5 page)

‘No, really. I couldn’t p-possibly,’ Rachel stammered at the idea of having to demonstrate to everyone.

‘Bake,’ he ordered.

‘Oh, really.’ Lacey sighed under her breath as she strutted over to Rachel’s counter.

‘We will all watch, Rachel.’

Rachel felt her hands shaking. Chef was standing so close in front of her she could feel his breath on her face. Everyone gathered round and stared in uncomfortable silence.

Gathering all her ingredients and a large mixing bowl, she took a deep breath and tried to calm the nerves that were shooting through her, but when she poured out some flour into her scales half of it tipped out into a heap on the counter.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Abby.

‘
Non
. It is Rachel’s work. Rachel will tidy it.’

Lacey tapped the surface, her diamonds clinking together, her lipstick drawing into the grooves around her pursed lips. Marcel was lounging back. For a second Rachel wondered if he had tried to make her laugh on purpose. She glanced longingly at the door. She’d swap this moment for a thousand Home Ec lessons with their Hitler teacher Ms Potter breathing down her neck.

Chef was clicking his fingers for her to get a move on. Ali was writing notes and was about to say something but Abby silenced him.

‘I don’t think I can—’ Rachel started to say as she scooped up the flour she’d wasted. But as she instinctively used it to cover the board for later, she was all of a sudden reminded of her mum doing exactly the same.
Can’t waste it. Think of all the work that went into picking and grinding the little sods
.

And it was as if she were there suddenly, pulling up the stool next to her; Rachel could practically smell the Estée Lauder.
Why are you doing that? It’d be easier like this. Don’t worry too much about scales, feel how much you need—sense it. Bread should be about you. What flavour do you like?

Everyone at school has Mighty White
.

Well, let’s make Mighty White, then
. She’d laugh.

Rachel reached for the wheat grains and malt that her mum would add for sweetness and wholemeal to her starchy white bread. She glided through the motions as all the rest of them blurred into a mist beside her. She was aware Chef was talking, but she wasn’t listening. All she could hear was her mum, whispering words she’d been blocking out for years—the tone of her voice, her laugh, the touch of her hand on her shoulder, the way she’d brush her hair out of
her eyes or sigh at how slow sieving things was.
Shall we just chuck it in? Come on, no one will know
.

It had been much easier to teach little kids their alphabets, Rachel realised, than step back into a bakery.

When she went to put the bread in the drawer to prove, she looked up and was surprised to find all the faces staring at her.

‘I’ll leave it for an hour,’ she said slowly, coming out of her trance.

There was silence for a second or two, where people glanced at one another, as if they’d all been somehow bewitched by Rachel’s demonstration. Finally Chef tapped the table and said, ‘
Bon
. Everyone please to the front.’ He seemed a littler quieter than usual. Less aggressive. ‘I will make soda bread while the dough rises.’

‘Was that OK?’ Rachel whispered to Abby.

‘Well, aside from you completely ignoring his every instruction, I’d say it was bloody marvellous.’

She didn’t listen to any of the soda bread instructions, just thought about the fact that twice now she had baked bread when she had been at her lowest point—lonely or afraid—and both times it hadn’t been the horror that she had imagined. It had actually been quite comforting. Sort of like a hug.

Out of the oven Rachel’s bread was beautiful. Exactly like the fake Mighty White her mum used to make.

‘This is delicious,’ sighed George with his mouth full.

‘Very tasty,’ Lacey managed through a tight grimace.

By lunchtime everyone had had quite enough of bread and they were all going to the bar, but Rachel cried off with the excuse that she had some stuff to buy. Instead she sat in the park on her own.

She found an empty bench and brushed off the snow with her glove, then sat on an old Pret a Manger napkin she found in her bag. The air was sparkling like a shower of glitter as the snow fell through the pine trees that loomed above her, big and dark and exotic. Huge pine cones jutted from the branches, white tipped with snow like porcupines, and birds dotted from branch to branch shaking the dusty sleet from their feathers.

All Rachel could think about was bread. To begin with the memories had been beautiful. Now she just felt sad. Drained. Deflated and vulnerable, stripped of every barrier she had in place. It was as if she could see the hole in her heart and it was bigger than she’d ever let herself believe.

Christmas lights were twinkling in every tree, glowing stars dangled amongst the branches, and all along the street angels were looped across the road by their wings. She watched the people hurrying past on their lunch breaks, the pavement packed, everyone carrying bags of Christmas shopping. She heard
carols echo from the nearby church choir practice and thought of her and Jackie singing in stupid voices as teenagers at the school Christmas choir service. Rachel pulled her hat down over her ears.

‘Is this seat taken?’

She looked up, surprised, and saw Philippe, his grey woollen overcoat hanging open over his suit. Rachel shook her head and moved her bag along to make room. ‘No, please sit.’

He made a poor effort of brushing off the snow and folded himself down, resting his elbows on his knees and turning his head to look at her.

‘My brother is better today?’

‘No,’ she said with a laugh.

He nodded silently, then stared out ahead of him. ‘I have a problem,’ he said after a second.

‘No, really?’ She looked worried.

He laughed. ‘Nothing serious. I must buy a gift.’

‘Ah, I see. What kind of gift?’

‘I’m not sure yet. That’s my problem. I feel I will only know when I see it.’

‘A tricky gift.’ She laughed.

‘
Mais oui.’
He sat back, stretching one leg across the other, raking a hand through his neatly cropped hair. ‘I am on my way to look now. I see you and I think maybe you would like to come? Your taste so far has been…impeccable.’ He smiled.

‘Oh, no, I can’t.’

He nodded and looked forward again, unmoving. ‘That is a great shame.’

‘I have to go back to class soon. I don’t have time.’

‘How long do you have?’ He checked his watch.

She looked guilty. ‘Forty-five minutes.’

He smiled again. ‘I understand.’

‘No, no, you don’t, it’s just I feel I need some time. Something happened in class. I just—’

‘Come anyway.’ He cut her off. ‘Come anyway, just because. Maybe just because I really do need some help.’

Rachel fiddled with her gloves, picking a hole in the wool. The snow had started to get heavier, dusting the pavements like icing sugar.

‘OK,’ she said after a pause. ‘OK, why not?’

‘
Bon.’
Philippe stood up and held out his hand to help her up; she took it for a second but let it drop as soon as she was standing. As soon as she did she wished that she hadn’t.

He put his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat and they walked together to the row of little shops in the Marais.

‘Wait a second—what is this?’ Philippe stopped her halfway down the road and then peeled something off the back of her coat. ‘It is a new look, yes?’

She blushed as she looked at the tatty, wet napkin he was holding that she’d used to sit on. ‘It was to protect my coat,’ she said, grabbing it from his hand and scrunching it up in the bin. ‘How embarrassing. I walked the whole way from the park with it hanging off me.’

He blew out a breath. ‘No one will care. They will think it is fashion.’

She raised a brow as if that would never be the case and he laughed as if he completely agreed.

They walked on in the direction of the Marais, their feet leaving a trail of footprints in the light coating of snow as Philippe pointed out landmarks and places she might want to visit some time.

Approaching the network of narrow streets, she saw all the gift shops were bustling, looking warm and inviting, playing classical carols and serving glasses of
vin chaud
.

‘So what does your friend like?’ Rachel asked.

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘Great start. Male or female?’

‘Female.’

She felt a bolt of jealousy that took her by surprise. Who would be buying her presents this year? Not Ben. She always insisted he shouldn’t bother and he never did. Jackie always gave her a bottle of champagne that they drank on Boxing Day. Her dad usually posted her a paperback. And her gran would declare that she was sending a donation to the RSPB or something similar in Rachel’s name—
Birds, darling, I much prefer birds to humans
. Then there was little Tommy from her class; he always gave her something. Last year it was a santa made out of a loo roll, painted red with a cotton wool beard. She’d left it up all year round.

Philippe paused next to a stall selling herbs and baskets of lavender and she watched as he scooped some dried oregano up and smelt it.

‘This is my favourite. I adore it. Here, smell.’ He held the little silver scoop out for her to have a sniff.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No, it’s his stall, you can’t just smell things.’

‘Why, of course you can. It is what it is here for. I think you worry too much about what all these people you don’t know think. You are a chef? Why do you not smell?’

Rachel caught the eye of the stall-holder, who nodded as if he couldn’t care less what she smelt, and leant forward for a quick sniff. ‘Very nice.’

‘Ah,
oui
. And this.’ He picked up another, crushed rosemary.

‘Again very nice.’ She did a quick embarrassed smell as he went on to sniff the lavender and the nutmeg and the big bags of ground cinnamon. ‘Do you smell everything?’

‘Everything,’ he said, very seriously, and asked the stall-holder to bag up some cinnamon for him. ‘For the
vin chaud
,’ he said to Rachel.

After paying they strolled on and Philippe turned to her and said, ‘Do you smell nothing?’

‘Well, yeah, I smell some stuff but not in the street.’

‘I think you are mad. The smell, it is the most sensual of all the senses. Here…’ They paused at a fruit and veg shop. ‘What about this?’ He picked up a fig and held it to his nose. ‘It is divine. It is much better than the taste.’

She peered forward, checked the shopkeeper wasn’t looking and had a smell of the fig. ‘It is very lovely. It reminds me of my holidays in Greece when I was little.’

‘
Pas oui
, of course, it is the best memory of them all. It reminds me of the tree we had in our garden. Henri would make me climb up it to get the biggest figs at the top. One day the branch break and I fall to the floor. And Henri he laugh and that makes me laugh, not cry. I was only six. All that from a fig.’

Rachel thought of her dough and her soft, sweet-smelling Mighty White loaf. She was about to say something about how it could sometimes be too powerful, the memory too overwhelming, but she stopped herself and laughed instead, saying, ‘You’re a crazy smeller.’

‘Yes, that is the case. I am. Look at my nose—it is built for the smelling.’

‘Mine too.’ She laughed, pointing at her own long straight nose that had been the bane of her life.

‘I think you have a very nice nose,’ he said, looking down at her face.

‘I think
you
have a very nice nose.’ She laughed.

And then they both looked away, as if they were both equally unsure what to say next.

‘I will buy the figs,’ Philippe said and disappeared inside as Rachel looked out into the street, at all the stalls selling gifts and trinkets and delicious delicacies, unable to hold in a smile to herself that he’d said he liked her nose.

Philippe came out with three bags and handed two of them to her. ‘A gift to say thank you for shopping with me.’

‘Oh, thanks, you shouldn’t have,’ she said, surprised, taking the scrunched brown bags from him and peeking inside. The first glistened like rubies—a bag of hundreds of tiny dried cranberries. The second was bursting with thin strips of candied orange thickly coated with crystals of sugar. They felt like the most perfect presents she’d ever been given. ‘These are lovely. Perfect. Thank you.’ She glanced up at him but he was looking away distractedly, staring ahead at the snow-covered canopies of the stalls.

‘They might be good for the baking, you know.’ He shrugged and started to walk on as Rachel had to do a little jog to catch up.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘
Mais oui.’
He turned to her and smiled. ‘It is all fine.’

‘OK.’ She nodded, shaking off any unease. ‘So say again what it is your friend likes.’

‘She likes beautiful things,’ Philippe said after a moment.

‘Don’t we all?’ Rachel laughed. ‘Expensive, beautiful things.’

‘Ah,
non
. Not expensive.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think expensive is what she’d want.’

‘Fair enough.’ Rachel stared into the shop window wondering who this perfect woman was. ‘How about a scarf?’ She nodded to the mannequin in front of them.

‘Too plain. She has one already. Too boring.’

‘Oh, OK.’

‘No, no, don’t take it that way. It was a good suggestion. I just think something maybe more like this—’ He pointed to a jewelled box in the next window.

‘Hideous,’ Rachel said before she could stop herself.

He laughed. ‘See, this is why I need a second opinion.’

They strolled on in silence. Rachel didn’t often do silence—usually chattering away to fill the spaces in her mind—but it felt as if silence was something Philippe was comfortable with. And somehow that started to make her comfortable too.

When they paused at a stall selling roasted chestnuts and bought a bag to share, she was almost reluctant when she said, through a mouthful of burning chestnut, ‘You know, I should be getting back.’