The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year: The Parisian Christmas Bake Off / Winter's Fairytale

CHAPTER FOUR

‘OK, class, these are the rules: one, I don’t want an apprentice; two, you do everything I say; three, if you are shit, you leave.’

Henri Salernes glowered at them and then turned away and disappeared into a side room at the back of the kitchen as if that was him done for the day.

He’d aged considerably since the photograph on her cook book, Rachel had thought when she’d seen him. Thick blond hair was now receding, his skin was rougher and horn-rimmed glasses seemed to make his eyes meaner. She glanced warily around the room. She’d arrived last and missed most of the introductions so immediately felt like the outsider. There were eight of them in total all vying for the coveted apprentice position. She wondered what they had had to do to be selected and felt a flicker of guilt about how she’d got her place. From the moment he’d walked into the room Henri had treated them like irritants he’d rather not have to deal with, and clearly the competition had been dreamed up by his publishers rather than his own desire to share his talent.

As they stood like lemons waiting for him to come back Rachel had another look at the competition. At the back was Tony, tall and dapper, who’d already sliced his hand open getting his new knives out. He looked taken aback by Chef’s abruptness and was shaking his head at the red-headed woman next to him, Cheryl, saying, ‘That was all a bit unnecessary.’

Everyone knew Henri Salernes had a fierce reputation. Once highly regarded in the industry, he was now a virtual baking recluse. Rachel had expected a bit of moodiness from him but not a complete lack of interest in them. As PTA Mrs Pritchard had said when she’d handed her the ticket, it was all for the money.

In the next row was Abby, who was all red lipstick and huge boobs; she was sighing and tapping her nails on the counter. When she saw Rachel looking at her she rolled her eyes as if to show she had no time at all for Chef’s behaviour. Next to Abby was Ali, who had introduced himself saying he ‘liked to experiment with flavour combinations’ and Rachel had had to stifle a snort. He was currently holding in a nervous giggle and looking about to see what everyone else’s reactions were. Marcel, a shockingly handsome Frenchman who had immediately caught Rachel’s attention, was raising one brow in disdain at Ali and allowing a sneer to play on his lips. And then there was George: old, bald with a white moustache, he put his hands on the counter in front of him and said, ‘Well, what do you think of that?’ But no one replied. The fierce-looking woman on Rachel’s far right, Lacey, who hadn’t told them anything about herself, shushed him. The only thing Rachel knew about her was from a phone conversation she’d overheard outside where Lacey was telling whoever was on the other end of the line that she didn’t need to be there. She was just brushing up on her pastry skills. She had a Culinary Arts degree.

They all fell silent as soon as Chef strode back in and Rachel stopped looking around and did what everyone else was doing: she rolled out her knives, checked her utensils, peered at the buttons on the oven and pulled on her new apron—the one her gran had embroidered her name on along with the sweet little flowers—fumbling the strings at the back with clammy hands.

Chef was up at the front shaking flour over his bench, which was double the size of theirs and wooden where their little tables were stainless steel. Next to him the walls were lined with bowls and trays and stocked like a greengrocer’s, fresh fruit and veg tumbling out of wooden crates, and huge sacks of flour and sugar leaned against the skirting board like fat men taking a rest.

It had taken Rachel ages to find the place; it was tucked down a side street and someone had graffitied over the road name. On the bottom floor was an unassuming pâtisserie that belonged to Henri and next to it a white door that opened onto a thin carpeted staircase that smelt of air freshener. The school was on the first floor up, a small room with two windows and packed full of work stations. Above it seemed to be another two or three floors of offices; she’d seen people in suits coming and going past the glass wall of their room.

Chef looked up when he was ready. ‘You have your aprons?’ He nodded when he saw them all, named like food on a shelf. Putting his arms behind his back, he strolled between them, peering at the stitching and reading the names aloud, then paused when he got to Rachel.

‘What the fuck is this flower? You think this is the kind of course for flowers?’ He glared at her, his thick eyebrows drawn together behind the rims of his glasses. ‘A sweet course? You think this is British Fucking Bake Off?’

‘No, Chef.’ Rachel swallowed.

‘You think you are Mary Berry?’

‘No, Chef.’

‘Get rid of those fucking flowers. Your name. The name is there so I don’t have to remember your fucking name. Comprende?’ She could feel his dislike emanating from him and immediately wanted to roll up her knives and run out of the building.

‘Oui, Chef.’

He cocked his head. ‘Don’t mock me.’

‘I-I wasn’t. I promise,’ she stammered.

‘I’m watching you, Rachel.’ He narrowed his eyes, leaning close so she could see the faint stubble over his jaw and the lines across his brow. Handsomely terrifying, a journalist had once described him, and she knew then exactly why. ‘Flower Girl,’ he said and stormed back up to the front.

Rachel glanced around, blinking away moisture in her eyes, and saw seven faces pretending not to look at her. George gave her a wink. As she swung back to the front she caught a look from Marcel on her left. Scruffy dark brown hair and wearing a woolly Lacoste jumper, he had bright blue eyes like a wolf’s that were watching her with either disdain or sympathy, it was hard to tell.

‘Flower Girl. This way!’ Chef shouted. ‘You’re here to learn, not look at the men next to you. Oui.’

Blushing scarlet, Rachel fixed her eyes on Chef’s table. He’d put out rows of pâtisseries—fluffy shell-shaped madeleines, rainbow-coloured macaroons, bite-sized lemon cakes, sticky rum babas and teetering piles of profiteroles.

Rachel loved profiteroles. She’d make them for Ben. He would say they were the best he’d ever tasted. Crème pâtisserie piped into the centre of perfect choux-pastry balls drizzled with the darkest melted chocolate she could buy in Nettleton. If Chef was going to say that they had to make profiteroles today then God or the Angel Gabriel was looking down on her. Chef wouldn’t call her Flower Girl after today, she mused as he summoned them up to the front. She’d be Profiterole Girl. Star Baker Numero Uno.

They gathered round the battered wooden bench, jostling to find a place where they could see exactly what was happening, and watched as Chef started to whisk together eggs and sugar. As he started to talk about all his little tricks of the trade everyone around her pulled out their notebooks and scribbled as he spoke.

Rachel felt herself begin to panic. No one had told her that she needed to bring a notebook.

‘Can I borrow some paper?’ she whispered to Lacey when she couldn’t stand it any longer, but Lacey pretended not to hear.

‘What is that? Who is talking while I talk?’ Chef looked up from his tray of madeleine moulds.

‘I needed some paper.’

‘Ah, you think you know everything, Flower Girl? You think you don’t need to write it down?’

‘No, it’s just—’ Rachel started but he’d gone back to his mixture, shaking his head as he spread it into the silver shells.

As she felt her face go red and nausea rising in her throat Abby nudged her on the shoulder and tore off some paper and George gave her a chewed pencil stump while Lacey shook her head and sighed.

It was a long day watching Chef work his magic. Rachel was exhausted; every inch of her scrap of paper was filled with notes. Then at the end of the afternoon he told them to make something from the day’s demonstration—something that best showed off their skills—and she found herself breathing a sigh of relief. He’d take her seriously after he tasted her famous profiteroles and Lacey could wipe that smug smile off her face.

But two and a half hours later the scene was not quite as she had imagined. Instead of savouring the flavour of her delicate creations, Chef was hurling her choux-pastry balls one by one out of the window, sneering, ‘These look shit.’

Rachel fled as soon as she could, stalking down the road, head down, humiliated, hat pulled low, and her coat, still damp from the night before, clutched tight. Her scarf was covering all her face except her streaming eyes. How had her pastry gone so wrong? In retrospect she realised she should have remade her pâtisserie cream because she’d known at the time it wasn’t her best, but she hadn’t thought it was that bad. It wasn’t that bad. Was it? She was out of her depth and the realisation that she hadn’t earned her place, that she wasn’t good enough, shouldn’t be there, was humiliating.

‘Hey, hey—’

She heard Abby call but kept walking. Feet pounding the pavement in her winter boots. Rachel had already decided she was never going back. She didn’t want this anyway. What had made anyone even think she had it in her to be a baker?

Saturdays at the counter standing next to her mum didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t actually baked anything that someone had bought, had she? Just pinched steaming loaves from the rack when no one was looking. Or sifted flour into the bowl for the lightest, softest croissants and whipped the egg white for the stickiest meringues while standing on an old bread box so she could reach the counter. It was her mum who’d done everything. All Rachel had done was cut the shapes of the biscuits. Bunnies at Easter. Ears of corn at harvest time. Ghosts at Halloween. Reindeer at Christmas; always with a red blob of icing on their noses. She’d watch her mum flick the nozzle of the piping gun so it was a perfect red dot. Then sometimes turn around and, when Rachel wasn’t expecting it, dot her on the nose with red. My little reindeer.

‘Hey, Rachel. Wait up.’

Rachel paused at the corner, wiping her nose with her glove.

‘We’re having a drink.’ Abby was out of breath. ‘Round the corner.’

‘Oh, no, thanks.’

‘No, come on, we need to get to know each other. That way we’re stronger against Scrooge in there.’ Abby did an impression of Chef Henri, waving his hands in the air in disgust.

Rachel shook her head. ‘There’s no point for me. I don’t think I’m coming back tomorrow.’

‘Oh, you have to. You have to. You can’t leave. You were so brave in there. I’d have had to run away if it was me.’

‘Thanks, but it’s not really how I imagined it. I don’t want to work with him. I’m going to go home actually. Get the first train back to London.’

There was a loud laugh behind her. ‘You quit, Flower Girl?’ Neither of them had seen Chef Henri cycling past on his old bike.

‘It’s not quitting,’ Rachel muttered, her nose tipped up in the air as she tried to look aloof. ‘I just don’t think it’s for me. I’ve made a mistake.’

He barked a laugh. ‘You are scared like a little mouse and running back to England with your tail between your legs. All the same, you English girls. Weak. Babies. It’s a little tough and you run home to Mummy. I bet—’ He paused. ‘I bet you can’t even make bread.’

Rachel took a deep breath, affronted and trying to think of something suitably cutting in reply, but he carried on.

‘Go on.’ He made a shooing action with his hand. ‘Run away. Run, run, run. One less person for me to get rid of. This is beautiful.’ He laughed and then cycled off, ringing his bell, before she could get out the words that were queuing up in her head.

She stood staring after him, furious. There was definitely a difference between leaving because it wasn’t right and quitting, wasn’t there?

‘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

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.