The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘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. But now that it was baked and eaten and over, she just felt sad. Drained. Drained by the memories and the emotion. Deflated and vulnerable, stripped of every barrier she had in place. She had felt her mum next to her as she had worked the dough, and, while at the time it had felt precious and perfect, now she felt as if she were back to those horrendous few months after she had died. 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, his scarf draped over his shoulders. 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 wanted to apologise. For earlier. I was rude to you.’

‘Oh, no, you weren’t at all.’ Rachel shook her head, pulling off her woolly hat and trying to straighten her fringe. ‘I shouldn’t have gone on about you having a book.’ She laughed. ‘Who’d want a book anyway?’

She saw his lips tilt up ever so slightly at the corners. ‘A lot of people I think would like a book.’ He glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘Just not me, I am afraid.’

Rachel nodded, unconsciously pleating the fabric of her hat in her lap.

‘But it is no reason for me to be rude to you,’ Philippe went on. ‘Why you are here has nothing to do with me, and I should not have made a point of it. Once again, I am not like a gentleman.’

As far as Rachel was concerned no man had ever been quite so gentlemanly with her before. Certainly not Ben and his four a.m. visits and no sleeping over. ‘Honestly, it’s fine. We were both at fault,’ she said.

Rachel watched as he ran a hand over his bottom lip, once more staring straight ahead. She took the moment to study his profile, his wide broad shoulders that seemed to pull on the fabric of his coat, the neat line of his hair at the back of his neck and the smattering of stubble on his jaw. She liked sitting next to him. Liked the feeling of being in the park in the snow with this man on the bench next to her.

‘I have a problem,’ he said after a second.

‘Really?’ she asked, intrigued. ‘What kind of problem?’

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. It was a tradition. She tried not to have favourites but he was so sweet and ever since she’d found him standing alone in the playground complaining of a tummy ache, which after floods of tears he’d said was caused by no one wanting to play with him, she had made it her mission to make sure he wasn’t left out again.

She’d put a cushion in the corner of her classroom with a stack of books next to it and a secret packet of chocolate digestives and said if he ever felt lonely he could go and sit there at lunch break. She’d kept an eye on him, encouraging him to pluck up the courage to ask if he could join in with the games the other kids played and finally knew he was OK when she caught them all tucking into the digestives, Tommy beaming that he’d been the one to show them the stash. Since then he’d always made her presents—for her birthday, for end of term and for Christmas. 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.’ Rachel looked around, embarrassed. ‘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, a huge smile on her face that she couldn’t hide, but as he watched her his demeanour seemed different. It was probably just her being paranoid but he seemed suddenly to regret buying her the bags of fruit—as if in the giving the gesture had turned into something more than he’d intended. ‘They might be good for the baking, you know.’ He shrugged distractedly, staring ahead at the snow-covered canopies of the stalls, then he started to walk on and Rachel had to do a little jog to catch up.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, wanting to go back to the ease between them. Wanting to tell him that she knew it was just fruit, nothing more than that, however happy she’d seemed when she’d looked in the little bags.

‘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.’

‘Mais oui, of course. I forgot. We can go this way.’ He touched her elbow to steer her down a side road and she felt a tiny jolt at the touch.

She thought about Ben saying she’d make someone a good wife one day and she’d known before she asked that it wouldn’t be him. She realised then, as she strolled with Philippe, that it hadn’t been Ben keeping her at arm’s length—well, of course, it had been—but it had been her, too. Who had a relationship that lasted between the hours of four and six in the pre-dawn morning?

Ben was like Tony’s jam tart—looked good but no substance. And she realised, as this French stranger steered her down the street, that she had chosen that.

She had chosen tasteless. Bland.

Tasteless was easier than complexity and flavour. Less work. She had had a boring flan when really she should have been holding out for a coffee profiterole or a violet and blackberry macaroon.

‘Ah, what about this?’

Philippe had stopped midway down the cobbled street. Rachel turned and was caught by the beauty of the window display before she could summon up her usual disdain for anything Christmas.

It was a Russian shop—the window a scene from a fairy tale. Black lacquered boxes, painted with princesses in chariots pulled by fiery red horses and a wake of golden stars, were lined up like presents under huge frosted trees. A snow-capped forest towered high around a figurine of the Snow Queen, decked out in all her silver finery. And hanging from thick satin ribbons along the window were rows and rows of baubles, from big to tiny. There were diamond shapes and twirls or circles and hearts. Some white, some black, some shocking pink, with fairy-tale scenes intricately painted on each.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she whispered.

He clapped his hands as if decided. ‘J’agree. Merci, Rachel.’

‘You found them.’

‘Yes, but I wouldn’t have done without you.’ He started to walk on.

‘Aren’t you going to get one?’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘You have to get back.’

‘Oh, thanks. Yes.’ She glanced at her watch, having, in that moment, completely forgotten about the time. ‘Yes, I do.’

As they stepped out onto the main street she was checking the traffic to cross the road when her eyes fell on his coat. ‘Look,’ she said and pointed to where a thousand snowflakes had caught in the wool.

He paused, then picked one off and held it on the tip of his gloved finger. ‘It is perfect,’ he said, then took her hand and touched it to her glove where it sat tiny and perfect like a gift.

She felt him looking down at her, watching.

After a pause she blew it away, embarrassed by the whole gesture. ‘I can never believe that each one is meant to be different.’

‘Well, we are all different.’ He shrugged.

‘That’s true.’

‘Every one of us unique.’

‘I know, we could be anyone. I mean, if you think about it, I don’t really know you at all, or you me.’

She looked from his white-flecked coat back up to him and he seemed as if he was about to say something but changed his mind. Instead he just smiled and she noticed he had snowflakes on his eyelashes.

They had an hour and a half to make a Christmas-inspired bread.

Marcel was making an apricot, date and nutmeg Panettone. George was muttering about some sort of cherry-brandy yule-log buns. Lacey said nothing, just got to work. Abby looked perplexed—Rachel could see the competition was starting to get to her. She’d cried in the bar last night, weeping that she missed her kids. She’d Skyped them in the morning before class and had come in with red-rimmed, puffy eyes.

As Rachel watched Abby, Cheryl leant across her and picked some coffee grains off the shelf. ‘Sorry, hun, didn’t mean to push,’ she apologised, her cheeks flushing red.

‘No, it’s fine, I was miles away.’ Rachel stared at the ingredients. She thought about Philippe telling her she worried too much about what people thought—she felt it in herself, sticking too much with conventions and not going with her instincts. But her brain was blank. The only thing coming to mind was Easter. Warm hot cross buns that ripped apart like candy floss. She was reminded of the smells in the street today. Of the different spices and the sharp tang as they hit her senses. Of roasting chestnuts, mulled wine packed with star anise, cinnamon and nutmeg, and the brown bags of dried cranberries and candied orange that were stuffed in her jacket pocket.

That was it … Hot Cross Christmas buns. Warm and sticky and sweet. She’d pack them with candied orange zest and slivers of cranberry, raisins, sultanas and glacé cherries. Then glaze them with cinnamon syrup and white icing and when they were opened up she’d have a chocolate and chestnut purée that sank, melting, into the warm, fluffy dough.

They worked in silence, heads down, kneading, flouring, rolling, shaping. As Rachel’s dough was rising she tore the skins from her roasted chestnuts, burning her fingers, popping one into her mouth when no one was looking.

Chef was called down to the pâtisserie as she was melting her chocolate and when he left it was as if everyone had been holding their breath and could collectively exhale.

‘Oh, my God.’ It was Abby who punctured the contented silence.

‘What?’ Rachel turned.

‘I’ve used salt instead of sugar.’

‘No, you can’t have done.’

Everyone paused except Lacey, who just carried on silently. Marcel strode over and picked up the container. ‘She has. She has used the salt.’

‘Shit.’ Abby slumped onto her forearms. ‘How can this have happened? I don’t have time to do more. Oh, God, I’m out. How can I tell my kids that I’m out because of some stupid sodding mistake from being tired? You idiot.’ She smacked herself on the forehead. ‘I’m just so tired.’

Rachel watched as her friend started to cry. Hot, fat tears falling into her failed dough.