The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

‘Don’t cry,’ she said, walking over to helplessly pat her on the back.

‘It’s useless. I’m useless. I’m a failure. A failure. A fucking failure with a stupid husband sailing the fucking Caribbean or wherever the hell Mauritius is.’

‘It is in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa,’ said Marcel.

‘Thank you.’ Abby wiped her nose on the tissue Rachel gave her.

‘Look, just have half of my dough,’ Rachel said.

‘I can’t take your dough.’

‘Yes, you can. Just pick the bits out and he’ll be none the wiser. You’re adding chocolate and vanilla anyway, aren’t you?’

‘But there won’t be enough.’

‘There’ll be plenty.’

‘It’s cheating.’ Lacey stopped kneading and turned round.

‘Who cares? We’re all adults. It’s not school, Lacey.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘And you know he’ll kick her out and she doesn’t deserve to go over a mistake.’

Lacey pursed her lips, tapping the wooden spoon in her hand against her palm.

‘I wouldn’t do it if I thought she made crap dough. It was a mistake.’

Lacey was silent.

Then Abby said, ‘Would you tell, Lacey?’

There was a pause. Rachel watched George and Ali exchange glances, Marcel raised a brow, intrigued at how this would pan out, and Abby looked on with pleading eyes.

‘It’s none of my business,’ Lacey muttered in the end and turned her back to them.

Rachel winked at Abby and went and pulled her dough out of the drawer, tore it in half and the two of them went about picking out all the cranberries and raisins she’d so lovingly folded in half an hour ago.

Chef strode in just as Rachel was running back to her bench, slamming her bowl of dough down hard by mistake. He paused, seemed to smell the air like a lion sensing a change in the atmosphere. Then he walked over to Rachel’s bench, reeking of fags, his expression suspicious. ‘What’s going on?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Something happened. And it is usually you.’

‘No, Chef. I’m just mixing my chocolate into the puréed chestnuts,’ she said without looking up.

He waited, and she could feel him staring at her, as if he knew exactly what was going on. Her heart was starting to quicken as she tried to act as nonchalant as possible.

‘Hmm.’ He stuck his finger in the mixture and licked it. ‘You try to be very calm. You are never calm,’ he said, then walked away, not before lifting the tea towel off her dough and scowling at it.

When they came to laying out their breads Rachel had brought in a special box—one that Chantal had given her that Madame Charles had discarded. It was wooden, meant for a small hamper from one of the expensive food shops on the Champs Élysées. The name was embossed on the side in grand, swirling writing. Rachel had lined it with a strip of red wool and piled her soft, squishy but depleted buns inside. Each one had a white star of icing piped on the top. The chestnut and chocolate purée was in a little glass jar nestled in the corner.

Chef peered at it. ‘Presentation—better. Could improve.’

Rachel nodded, holding in a smile that she’d at least moved it up a notch.

He spread the thick chocolate on the ripped-open bun that was still warm and steamed in the cool air. He closed his eyes as he ate, savouring the sweet softness. ‘Very nice. Clever. I didn’t expect … Very nice,’ he said again, as if caught off guard, then he nodded and walked on. Rachel nearly punched the air. Abby gave her a thumbs up.

Chef prowled the other benches, tasting, criticising, praising faintly. Marcel’s Panettone hadn’t risen very much but looked amazing. He muttered that Ali’s pumpkin, cider and marzipan buns were too sweet but better than he’d expected. Poor Cheryl’s coffee and pistachio tea-loaf had burnt on the top and risen unevenly. The dough inside was undercooked and Chef refused to put it in his mouth.

‘This will be the last day for you, Cheryl. You will go home. You understand?’ he said, prodding the soft dough with his finger.

George gasped.

Cheryl nodded silently, her hair falling forward so it was hard to see the reddening of her cheeks. When Chef walked away, Rachel watched her dab a tea towel to her eye and hold it there for a second as she took some deep breaths.

George’s, Chef thought, was marvellous; he couldn’t get enough of it. He even laughed at how he’d managed to make a bread look like a yule log.

‘This is very inventive. I like it.’

George was beaming.

Chef came to Abby last. Rachel felt her pulse start to speed up. When he put the chocolate twist in his mouth and paused, she thought she could actually feel the minutes tick by. By the time he swallowed and said, ‘Très bon,’ Rachel thought her heart might have leapt out through her chest and run out of the room.

‘That is OK.’ He nodded. ‘A good dough. Some OK flavours. But a little small.’

‘Christ,’ said Abby as they stumbled out, laughing. ‘I thought I was going to die.’

‘Me too.’ Rachel was clutching her chest.

‘Thank God it’s over.’

A door slammed above them and then she heard her name being called from behind her. ‘Rachel! Stop there.’

They paused and turned to see Chef standing at the top of the stairs. ‘A word.’

Abby made a worried face and squeezed her hand before sloping out while Rachel backtracked up a floor.

Chef was waiting, thumbs slung in the string of his apron. Rachel paused on the top step but he beckoned her to come further forward, to stand right in front of him.

She waited, glancing from his weathered face to the slogan of the pâtisserie on his apron, to his polished black shoes.

‘You think after twenty years I cannot taste?’ he asked.

She looked at the floor. Staring at the patterns in the carpet.

‘Let me tell you something,’ he sneered. ‘All good bakers have a signature. Did you know that?’

Rachel shook her head.

‘A cake, a loaf, a tart … it is signed by their own hand. You—’ He pointed at her. ‘You leave a signature. And I can read it.’

Rachel glanced up.

‘Yes, that’s right. A big, bold signature.’ He almost spat it out.

She was suddenly terrified that he was going to boot her out.

Over the last few days this competition had gone from being a burden to the most important thing in her life. She’d started to find the challenge addictive. While she loved her job in Nettleton, she hadn’t realised how much she had missed this—the skill, the craftsmanship, the smells, the textures, the familiarity. The thrill of knowing that she had a talent, however rusty. She would do anything for it not to end now.

‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was just trying to help. I didn’t know. I did know. I know it was wrong. Oh, God—’

‘I should throw you out the door. You hear me? You waste my time. You make a fool of me.’ He waved his hands in the air. ‘You throw this away. That is what you have done. This chance that you ‘ave to be good and you have thrown it away.’ He paused, taking a deep breath.

She glanced up tentatively. Saw a look of confusion and annoyance pass over his face. It felt suddenly as if he wasn’t talking to her but that instead the words were ringing truer to himself. She thought of the stories she’d Googled. All that success that he had let slip through his fingers, the crown that he had allowed to topple, the reputation that had ended up in tabloid ridicule. In the moment’s pause he seemed to deflate before her eyes, his cheeks less puffed out, his colour less red. She bit her lip and tried to show the depth of her apology in plaintive eyes.

‘Merde, and I know what it is like. You are stupid.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face.

Rachel nodded, sensing something odd was happening between them. That she was teetering on the edge of being on the next train home but something, some emotion flickering over Chef’s face, might just be about to save her, throw her a rope and pull her back. ‘I’m sorry.’

He exhaled like a bull about to charge and ran his fingers over his stubbled chin. ‘I give you one more chance because you have a shred of promise. A shred. I am stupid to do it. But fuck me over again … you have no more chances. Comprende?’

She nodded, flooded with relief as if she might collapse into a puddle on the floor, and pleaded with herself not to cry.

‘Comprende?’ he said again.

‘Yes, Chef.’

CHAPTER NINE

That night Rachel got so drunk out of relief that she was still in the competition, terror at having been yelled at, and shock at the haunted look in Chef’s eyes. Her stupor meant that she didn’t pull her foot away from Marcel’s when he pushed his against hers under the table. Nor did she look away when he smirked at her across the table, his flirtatious eyes glinting beautifully. He had that familiar predatory nature of Ben that was surprisingly comforting.

When she’d walked into the bar Marcel had singled her out, got up to give her his seat, poured her a glass of wine, complimented her on her bake. He had made it more than clear that he was interested and the attention was intoxicating.

‘I think you are the best cook here. Without doubt. Chef, I think he is jealous,’ he’d whispered. ‘And—’ he’d paused ‘—you’re the most beautiful.’

She’d glanced away, blushing, but the words had hit their mark. He was pumping up her deflated ego, as if he knew exactly where her weaknesses lay, and she was lapping it up. Anything to take the attention away from her run-in with Chef.

Women were looking at Marcel from the bar, glancing round to see if he might be interested in them but he wasn’t; he was looking at Rachel.

‘So what did Chef say, Rachel?’ Abby leant forward, her eyes darting to Marcel as if trying to attract his attention, swirling her wine round in her glass.

‘Nothing. Just a reminder to work on my presentation.’

‘Ooh, special treatment for Rachel.’ She whistled, supposedly joking, but Rachel caught a weird look in her eye. ‘You and George had it nailed today,’ she said, taking a great gulp of red wine and pouring some more.

The air between them all was definitely changing. It was as if this really was a competition and for the first time in Rachel’s life she was near the top—not just hovering over average but up there in sight of the prize—and that clearly made enemies.

‘Don’t be daft.’ She laughed, brushing the comment away and reaching for a glass and the carafe to pour herself some wine. ‘He just loathes my mess.’

Abby raised a brow, disbelieving, clearly still smarting from her failure, and seemingly pissed off that Marcel wasn’t paying her the attention he was Rachel, and downed her drink before holding her glass out for Rachel to top her up.

‘A dark horse in the race, Flower Girl,’ drawled Marcel and, under the table, she felt his hand scrape her thigh. He had perfect hands, neat blunt nails and a dirty tan as if he’d spent the summer on a yacht in St Tropez and skied all winter. She decided that, in his black cashmere jumper, he actually looked fresh from the slopes of Val d’Isère. Close up she could even make out the remains of sunburn on the tips of his cheekbones.

‘Is there something on my face?’ he asked and she realised she’d been staring.

‘No, no. I was just wondering if you skied. You know, why you had a tan in December …’ She cringed at the embarrassment of being caught.

‘Mais oui, I spend every weekend in the Alps. It is my passion.’ He examined his hand to check out his own tan. ‘Do you ski?’

Rachel thought about the time when the hill on the edge of Nettleton had been caked in snow and Jackie had strapped her into her snowboard. You’ll be fine, just point it downhill and sit down if it goes too fast.

It had been a disaster not to be repeated. Rachel had sat down almost straight away and shot down the incline head first, one foot flailing about having popped from the binding and the other dragging the snowboard along with it. She’d waved her arms about in the air with the aim of getting someone to help her; instead the whole village had stopped what they were doing to watch. A photo of her at the bottom of the slope, caked in white like the abominable snowman, legs skew-whiff in the carved-up muddy slush, had appeared on the front page of the Nettleton News.

‘I snowboard.’ She shrugged, as if it were nothing. ‘Sometimes.’

A forgotten memory popped up of her and some of her class piled into an old canoe later that same day, winning a downhill race against Jackie and most of 3F on garden sacks, which was much more pleasing and obviously gave her a look of casual confidence that appealed to Marcel.

‘We should go together some time. Maybe.’

‘Maybe.’ She smiled, high on the attention, flirtily trying to tousle her hair.

‘Ooh, I’ll come,’ said Abby. ‘I’ve never been skiing. We could all go—it could be our reunion.’

‘Pas oui, definitely. The more the merrier. That is the phrase, oui?’

When Rachel nodded, Marcel squeezed her leg under the table and whispered, ‘I would prefer just the two of us.’

‘Me too,’ she whispered back, catching her smile with her teeth, relishing the attention, enjoying the haze of the wine and their intimate secret little club of two that was pulling back all the confidence she’d earlier let slip away.

‘Would you come, George?’ Abby leant forward, her boobs pushing together between her upper arms and, while not having the desired effect on Marcel, working well to get George’s attention.

‘Where?’

‘Skiing.’

George snorted into his beer. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, come on, it’d be fun. We’d all have to go.’

‘I think I’m a bit old to be throwing myself down ski slopes.’

Abby stuck her bottom lip out as if he’d ruined everything and George laughed. ‘I’m here, in Paris, isn’t that enough?’

She tipped her head from side to side. ‘I suppose.’ Then took a great gulp of wine and said, ‘Where did you learn to bake?’

‘Baker’s boy in the sixties,’ he said, stretching his shoulders back and taking off his glasses. ‘Sexual revolution passed me by. I had my head in a bloody oven the whole decade. Pay packet taken by me mum, bugger all I got. Everyone else is having sex left right and centre and I’m shovelling loaves.’

Abby laughed. ‘Surely, then, this should be the last thing you want?’

He tapped his nose. ‘You may think so, but what we forget is as we get older we find most comfort in the familiar. My wife died ten years ago, my kids have gone—all grown-up. All doctors—the lot of them. And I found myself alone, baking again. Then I had so much I took it round the neighbours and they passed it onto friends and then I had a little business. I made a cart out of builders’ crates that I take round offices. Who’d have thought? My neighbour, Jayne, painted it blue with lettering and that’s my job. Forty years an accountant, now a baker, just like I was as a boy.’ He put his glasses back on and shrugged, took a sip of his half-pint. ‘It’s a way of making friends. Keeping busier.’

Rachel listened through her wine haze. Comfort in the familiar. She looked at Marcel and he winked at her.

She smiled and kicked his foot under the table. ‘And what about you?’ she asked.

‘Lovely Marcel does it for the women,’ Abby slurred.

‘Touché.’ He smirked, tapping a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. ‘I do it because I can. Because it is something I am good at. It has been in my family for generations, from my great-grandfather grinding the wheat. One side of my family, they make the alcohol, the other side the bread. The two staples of life. So this for me is in my blood. I understand it,’ he said, tucking the fag behind his ear. ‘Like the women.’ He grinned, pushing himself from his seat and sloping outside into the falling snow.

Rachel watched the smoke of his cigarette curl up into the overhead light, twining round the glistening flakes.

‘He’s just so good-looking. It’s almost unfair.’ Abby had her chin in her hand and was looking out to where Rachel was staring, Marcel’s profile just visible through the half-open door.

They turned back to the table when someone else went outside and pushed the door shut behind them, partially blocking off the view.

‘It’s a shame Cheryl’s gone, isn’t it? I liked her. Unassuming,’ said George.

‘I know.’ Abby swept her hair back from her face. ‘Did you see her crying? It was terrible. I hope it doesn’t push her back into eating.’

Rachel bashed her on the shoulder. ‘It’s not going to do that.’

‘Well, you never know,’ she said into her wine glass and Rachel rolled her eyes.

There was a pause as Abby tried to formulate her point but had had too much to drink and Rachel went back to watching Marcel. The barman reached up to flick on the stereo and gypsy jazz started to play softly in the background.

‘It’s a shame someone has to win,’ said George into the silence.

Abby snorted.

Surprised, Rachel looked away from the smoke outside and back at George, a man with a bushy white moustache whom she had barely noticed that week, and smiled.

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It is a shame.’

***

Marcel offered to walk her home and, about to say no, Rachel found herself agreeing. The idea of no-strings company in her lonely flat, especially such goddamn good-looking company, seemed like the perfect rebellion from the strictures of the competition. It was like giving into pure, unadulterated temptation. Standing there in his battered leather jacket that shone in the moonlight, his arm draped casually over her shoulder, Marcel made her feel like the centre of the moment. It wasn’t buying a present for someone else with Philippe or begging Chef to keep her on or wishing Ben would sleep the whole night in her flat. It was her, singled out and centre of his attention and the feeling was addictive.

When she nodded Abby gave an unsubtle thumbs up that made Marcel smirk.

‘It’s a long walk,’ she warned him.

‘I like the challenge.’ Marcel shrugged, a cigarette clamped between his teeth.

She unlocked her bike and he took it from her, pushing it along beside them, leaving snake tracks in the snow.

‘This is a child’s bike.’

‘No, it’s small because it folds up.’ She laughed.

He held it at arm’s length, studying the rust. ‘Non. It is for the child,’ he said, then clambered on, cycling in wavy lines along the snowy pavement. ‘Get on.’

‘No way. You’ll kill me.’

‘Get on, Flower Girl, live a little.’ He circled her on the bike, his knees practically up to his ears as he pedalled.

‘OK but—’ As he slowed Rachel jumped onto the handlebars at the front and yelped as he rode them away along the cobbled backstreets, slipping through piles of grey slush and midway through taking one hand off to light another cigarette.

‘Are you smoking as well?’ She could barely turn her head, terrified that any minute they would crash into a wall.

‘Mais oui. It is fun, yes? You are having the fun?’ Plumes of smoke mingled with the falling snowflakes as he talked.

Squeezing her eyes tight when he veered from a lamppost, she opened them again to feel the snow dusting her face and her freezing hands clutching tight to the metal handlebars. ‘Oui. I am having the fun.’

‘Bon.’ He laughed and pedalled faster, but then slipped on a muddy puddle of slush and they fell off into a great mountain of snow that had been shovelled to the side of the road.

Rachel was on top of him, the bike halfway across the pavement; she was brushing snow from her mouth while he was leaning back laughing up at the clouds.

‘C’est fun, n’est-ce pas?’ He smiled, snow all in his hair, and then tightened his arms around her and rolled them over so he was on top of her and she could feel the freezing snow down her back.

‘I am going to kiss you, Flower Girl,’ he said, and she looked up into his ice-blue eyes and his perfect features and nodded.

His kiss tasted exactly of Ben. Of alcohol and cigarettes and arrogance. She let her head be pressed back into the snow and wrapped her arms tight around his back, her head swimming from all the red wine and the thrill of doing something she knew was bad for her.

Marcel only pulled back when they heard the siren of a police car in the background. ‘We go, yes? I do not want to be arrested for what I might do next.’

She laughed, pulling her coat tight around her as he stood up and then reached a hand down to help her up.

They walked on a little closer, their shoulders brushing with each step, glancing over at each other and then, as quickly, glancing away. When they saw a pharmacy green cross flash minus four degrees he put his arm around her and pulled her close, rubbing his hand down her arm as if trying to warm her up.

It was late when they got back to her apartment, maybe one o’clock. When she asked, ‘Do you want to come up, for coffee?’ he didn’t answer, just took the key from her gloved hand and unlocked the door, pushing it open for her, and followed her up the stairs.

Rachel felt a pang of guilt to see that Chantal had been there; a bunch of lilies on the turn were lying on the bench by the door next to a jar of strawberry jam. Marcel picked it up quizzically.

‘My friend,’ she said. ‘She gives me things.’

‘I thought you said you had no friends?’

‘Well, I—’ Rachel started, but he wasn’t listening. He pushed the door open and pulled her inside, kicking it shut on the wilting lilies.

As he unbuttoned and pushed off her coat she put her hands on his chest to slow him down, her mind swirling with alcohol. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked, moving towards the kettle.

‘Tea?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Why would I want the tea?’

‘To sober up?’ She shrugged.

He hung his jacket up and kicked off his boots, then rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out a litre bottle of Armagnac. ‘The last thing I want to do, Rachel, is sober up.’ He smirked, grabbing a glass and a chipped teacup from the shelf and sloshing them full of booze.

When he handed her the glass he chinked the edge with his cup and said, ‘To baking.’

‘To baking.’ She smiled, taking a tentative sip while he downed his in one and poured them both another slosh.

‘To winning,’ he said, holding his cup up high like a trophy.

‘To winning.’ She clinked his in the air and screwed up her face as she drank it down.

He laughed as he poured some more, spilling it over the floor as he trailed between his cup and her glass.

‘To the making love,’ he said next, blue eyes twinkling in the dim yellow light of the napkin-covered sidelight.

Rachel snorted into her Armagnac and had to wipe it off her face. Marcel was watching her over the rim of his teacup, waiting for her answer before he drank.

She swallowed. Tried not to laugh again and raised the glass in the air. ‘To the making love.’ She giggled.

‘Bon,’ said Marcel, draining his cup and ambling over to watch as she gulped hers down before sweeping her off her feet and carrying her through the alcove to the hard metal bed.

Next morning she woke when the garbage truck hissed to a halt in the street below. Stretching languidly, she reached across to find an empty bed.

‘Marcel?’ she said, sitting up and glancing around the flat.

Sensing something wasn’t quite right, she looked around for her phone but it wasn’t by the bed. Finally she found it still in her bag, alarm unset.

‘Shit.’ It was eight-thirty. She had thirty minutes to get across Paris to her class. Marcel was nowhere to be seen.

Yanking on her clothes, she glanced outside to see a thick carpet of snow, the heaviest it had been since she’d arrived. People were pushing through it, heads down. Cars were stuck, kids were sliding up the pavements on invisible skateboards.

‘Shit.’ She pulled on her boots, hopping around on the floor, while trying to look in the mirror. Staring back at her was a white hung-over face, dishevelled hair she had no time to fix and eyes puffy from lack of sleep.