Welcome to the most celebrated patisserie competition in Paris – ready, steady, bake!

Watching snowflakes settle on the Eiffel Tower, Rachel Smithson’s cosy English village feels very far way – as, thankfully, does her commitment-phobic ex, probably already kissing someone else under the mistletoe. But Rachel hasn’t come to Paris to mope she’s come to bake. Hard.

Because the search for Paris’s next patisserie apprentice is about to begin! And super-chef judge Henri Salernes is an infamously tough cookie. But Rachel isn’t about to let her confidence (or pastry) crumble. She’s got one week, mounds of melt-in-the-mouth macaroons and towers of perfect profiteroles to prove that she really is a star baker.

As well as clouds of flour, and wafts of chocolate and cinnamon, there’s definitely a touch of Christmas magic in the air… Rachel hasn’t come to Paris looking for a fairy-tale romance, but the city of love might gift-wrap her one anyway…

Not even a dusting of icing sugar could make

The Parisian Christmas Bake-Off a more perfect Christmas treat!

The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
Jenny Oliver

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2013

Copyright © Jenny Oliver 2013

Jenny Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9781472073761

Version date: 2018-07-23

JENNY OLIVER wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.

Since then Jenny has gone on to get an English degree, a Masters, and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). She wrote The Parisian Christmas Bake Off on the beach in a sea-soaked, sand-covered notebook. This time the inspiration was her addiction to macaroons, the belief she can cook them and an all-consuming love of Christmas. When the decorations go up in October, that’s fine with her! Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘Why is Jesus a Buzz Lightyear?’

Rachel came into the school hall carrying two cups of PG Tips, and a packet of chocolate HobNobs that she’d stolen from the staffroom.

‘Purely for my own amusement,’ said Jackie, sitting back, feet up on a nursery-school chair as she took three biscuits out of the packet. ‘And because the arm fell off the normal one and Mrs Norris’s husband is fixing it.’ She nodded towards the stage. ‘The nativity’s good this year, isn’t it?’

Rachel turned to where fourteen five-year-olds had forgotten the words to ‘Away in a Manger’ as they rehearsed. ‘I’d say it bears a remarkable resemblance to last year’s.’

Jackie did a mock gasp of affront. ‘Except for the genius addition of the hip hop WyZe men and One Direction’s visit to the manger. I think I’ll make the school proud.’

‘The head’s going to kill you.’

‘It’s just a bit of fun.’ Jackie flicked open her ancient laptop as the kids on stage continued to sing a motley assortment of words while dressed in a variety of home-made costumes. ‘So fire me. Who else are they going to get to direct this? It’s not as if Nettleton has anyone pre-retirement age left—’

‘Look,’ shouted one of the kids on stage. ‘Miss Smithson’s here,’ he said, breaking off from the song as the others were belting out the second verse.

Rachel waved. ‘Hi, Tommy. Keep singing though—you don’t want to ruin the song.’ She could see the rest of her class starting to get distracted on stage.

‘But I don’t know the words,’ he said, looking as if he was about to cry.

Rachel jogged up to the front of the hall and climbed on the stage, whispering to Tommy as quietly as she could. ‘That’s OK, I never knew the words—when you don’t know them just open and shut your mouth like this.’ She did an impression of a goldfish.

Tommy giggled. ‘Can I go to the toilet?’

Rachel rolled her eyes. She didn’t envy Jackie the task of keeping this lot in order; just her own class were enough for her. ‘Yes, Tommy.’

‘Miss Smithson?’ said Jemima in the back row. ‘My wings keep falling off.’

Everyone had stopped singing now.

‘OK, I’ll have a look.’ Rachel tiptoed round in a crouch trying to be as unobtrusive as she could manage while Jackie tried to cajole them all back into singing.

‘Will you sing with us, Miss Smithson?’ Jemima asked as Rachel tightened her wonky angel wings.

Rachel swallowed, listening as the little voices had started up again on the fourth verse. ‘I erm …’ She found herself caught off guard with no ready answer, a whole heap of memories suddenly stuck in her throat.

‘Sing with us, please?’ Tommy was running back on stage, tucking his T-shirt into his cords.

‘No. I’m just going to watch.’ She shook her head, her voice annoyingly choked as she blocked out images of being on that stage herself with her parents clapping wildly from the front row. ‘I like listening to you,’ she said quickly, before jumping back off the stage.

Around the hall members of the PTA were building the nativity set, sewing costumes and making arrangements for lighting, seating, refreshments etc. Mostly they stood gossiping in groups, however, while one or two put together the bulk of the scenery—checking how well it had fared in the store cupboard since last year. Mr Swanson, Tommy’s father, was standing by the steps screwing together the roof of the manger. ‘Difficult time of year for you, isn’t it?’ he said as Rachel walked away from the stage.

‘Oh, it’s OK.’ Rachel waved a hand. ‘I’ll get through it. Great set this year, by the way.’

‘It’s the same every year.’ He laughed, then went on, ‘No need for a brave face, you know. We’re all here. All of us. Your mum was a great friend of ours and we miss her too.’

‘I know—thanks.’

He nodded and went back to changing the bit on his drill. ‘I was meaning to say, I thought you did a good job at the bake sale last week. Excellent scones. I’ve missed them, you know?’

She smiled. ‘Well, they’re not quite as good as Mum made.’

Mr Swanson thought about it and shrugged. ‘Nearly.’

In the background the children continued to sing out of tune as Jackie called instructions, and the parents chattered away, and Rachel found herself wishing, not for the first time this holiday season, that it could all just disappear. Poof. That she could click her fingers and it would be New Year and she wouldn’t have to shake her head and say everything was all right when people asked if she was OK, said that they always thought of her mum at this time of year and understood how hard it must be for her, and what was she going to do for Christmas. As Mr Swanson locked the bit in place on his drill, he put his hand on the wonky roof and said, ‘You’re a good girl.’

Rachel paused and allowed herself to nod as he watched her and smiled. Everyone was just being kind, she reminded herself. The village was like a family—they had all known her since she was tiny and they all wanted to make sure she was OK. Sometimes, though, she just wanted to be on her own. ‘Not so much of the girl any more though, Mr Swanson,’ she joked, trying to force a lightness into her voice.

‘Don’t say it.’ He shook his head. ‘You stay young, I stay young.’

‘OK, you’re on.’ Rachel laughed as she walked back over to where Jackie was stabbing at the keys of the decrepit laptop.

‘All right?’ Jackie glanced up.

‘Fine.’ Rachel nodded, looking back at the stage and taking a sip of her tea. She could feel her heart beating just a bit too fast.

Jackie was clearly about to say something more, to really check if Rachel was all right, but paused, the look on Rachel’s face making her decide against it, and said instead, ‘OK, look at this—’ Jackie pointed to the screen ‘—check this site out.’

Rachel peered forward to see the display. ‘What is it?’

‘Airbnb. It lets you turn your home into a hotel. Tonya from the hairdresser’s has let her flat out with them to a Swedish couple while she’s away over Christmas. Two thousand pounds she got for a week and a half. It’s amazing. Such a clever idea—your flat actually earns you money.’

‘Yeah.’ Rachel nodded, uncertain. ‘I think I remember one of my dad’s friends used it when he went to New York. Said the pictures weren’t anything like the place.’

Jackie shook her head. ‘Oh, he probably just likes a moan. I think it’s amazing. And especially good for someone like you who doesn’t care for Christmas. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘Not really.’ Rachel sipped her tea.

‘Oh, I think so. It’s a good way to make money,’ Jackie went on. ‘And the perfect opportunity for that person to do what they might always have wanted to do in life but was too scared to try.’

The kids on stage had changed song, coaxed into ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ by Miss Ven at the piano.

‘Jackie, whatever it is you’re driving at, I’m not interested.’

‘But let’s say—’ Jackie rested one hand on the lid of the laptop and waved the other from side to side as she mused ‘—for example, someone else thought you were interested in doing something different. Making a change. Thought maybe you were hiding away and wasting your life with a good-for-nothing waster, working at a tiny—but, let’s not forget, Ofsted highly commended—primary school, which they knew you liked but felt wasn’t quite right for you. Thought that you had other talents that you weren’t making the best use of. I mean, what then? What if they, for example, secretly took photos of your flat and maybe rented it over Christmas to a lovely retired couple from Australia who were arriving on Sunday. What then?’

‘Well, then …’ Rachel put the cup down on the table. ‘Then I’d kill you. But I don’t think you’d dare.’

Jackie’s lips drew up in a wry smile as the realisation of what her friend might have done dawned on Rachel. And as it did, suddenly all the PTA parents popped up from their various positions in the hall where they’d been painting scenery and bitching about the nativity casting, and shouted, ‘Surprise!’

‘What’s going on?’ Rachel looked around as the PTA head honcho Mrs Pritchard, alpha-mother of a girl in Jackie’s class, handed her an envelope with Eurostar stamped on the front and everyone clapped.

‘I kinda dared.’ Jackie looked a little sheepish. ‘You’re going to Paris.’

Rachel took a step back. ‘I’m not going to Paris.’

All the parents were nudging one another, nodding excitedly.

‘Yeah, you are.’ Jackie went on, ‘To bake with Henri Salernes.’

Rachel laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘It’s true.’ Mrs Pritchard nodded, patting Rachel affectionately on the arm. ‘It’s an apprentice competition. The infamous Henri wants an apprentice—well, actually we’re not convinced he wants, it’s possible that it’s more just to make money, but the opportunity is still there. It was a competition on In The Morning, on ITV. For amateurs to compete to work for him for a month. It coincides with a new book or something, I think. Was it a new book?’ She glanced around at the other parents, some of whom nodded, others looked unsure. ‘Anyway, it sounds fabulous. And we all just thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for you. Maybe get you back in the swing of it.’

One of the parents came over with a tray of tea and more biscuits and they all raised their chipped mugs in a toast to Rachel’s impromptu Christmas trip to France, enthusiasm plastered on their faces.

Her colleague, gym teacher Henry Evans, was the only one looking less than impressed. ‘Don’t know what we’ll do without you, though. Who’ll make the cakes for the Christmas Sports Day? And the Village Lights evening?’

‘Shut up, Henry.’ Mrs Pritchard elbowed him in the ribs while sipping her tea and then telling some of the other parents how she’d been the one to spot the competition on the telly.

Rachel wasn’t really listening; she was glaring at Jackie, who was finding the remains of her tea fascinating. ‘How could I have got into that competition? How can I be baking for Henri Salernes when he hasn’t tasted what I cook? I can’t go to Paris, Jackie, this is insane.’

‘We pulled some strings.’ Jackie shrugged. ‘Well, actually, Mr Swanson pulled some strings—he works for the network. It’s all very underhand and not above board at all, but we thought the good outweighed the wrongness.’ Jackie turned to point at where Mr Swanson was still standing by the manger, drilling the roof and looking a little sheepish. He waved a hand as if she shouldn’t have mentioned it and the quieter they kept it all, the better.

‘It’s not a problem. I cleared it with the team. Not a problem at all,’ he said, although he did look a bit shifty and his neck was flushing a similar colour to his Christmas jumper. ‘Wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, mind.’

‘Look, thanks, everyone, it’s really sweet of you, but I can’t go to Paris. And I certainly can’t bake for Henri Salernes. I’m nowhere near good enough. And, Jackie, no one’s going to be living in my flat.’ Rachel thought of all her things just the way she liked them being picked up and broken by a couple of Australian strangers. She thought of her usual Christmas Day hiding out in her bedroom with the six-hour BBC Pride and Prejudice DVD. She thought of the endurance test that went with avoiding the carol concerts, the presents, the festive cheer. Of locking out thoughts and memories of family Christmases that were just too achingly bittersweet to remember. ‘I just—there’s no way I’m going. I have loads to do here. I can’t. Absolutely no way …’

She trailed off when she looked up and saw all the happy little faces of the kids on stage. They’d stopped singing and run off to the wings without her noticing. Now they were holding up a banner saying, ‘Good Luck in Paris, Miss Smithson!’, smiling expectantly. All watching.

But now their faces were starting to droop, like flowers wilting. Little Tommy had pulled off his angel halo, his bottom lip quivering. It was as if she’d stood in front of them and picked all the decorations off the big Christmas tree at the back and smashed them one by one underfoot.

Jackie raised her eyebrows; Rachel narrowed her eyes back at her. She felt the PTA parents start to murmur and others look away, embarrassed, as if it certainly wasn’t meant to go this way. She watched the uncertain faces of her class, who couldn’t understand why their favourite teacher wasn’t laughing with delight. They’d clearly been prepped to expect some sort of party atmosphere. So as the silence fell around her Rachel did the only thing that she could so as not to disappoint: going against her every instinct, she swallowed, took a shaky breath and forced her best teacher smile.

‘Thanks,’ she said, waving the envelope of tickets so the kids could see. ‘Thanks so much. It’s really kind of you all. I can’t wait.’ Then she pointed at the stage. ‘What a fantastic banner.’

Mrs Pritchard took this as an obvious signal to start clapping and as she took the lead the other PTA parents joined in, unsure at first but gathering steam. Mr Swanson put down his drill and punched the air, triumphant. When the kids heard the cheers they tugged the banner as tight as they could so it pulled up high and just their smiling eyes poked out over the top. Then, when Jackie clicked her fingers, they all ran off the stage and swamped Rachel in a hug, so she was trapped in an island of five-year-olds unable to do anything but fake smile so hard her cheeks started to ache.

CHAPTER TWO

No way was she going to Paris. Back at her flat Rachel was stirring coq au vin on the stove with one hand while trying to pull baked potatoes out of the oven with the other. No way. Turning the dial on the oven down, she noted how clean and shiny it was, how she knew which hob worked and which didn’t light, how the cupboard to her left sometimes needed an extra shove to get the door to click shut—strangers staying in her flat wouldn’t know those things. Would she have to write them a list?

‘Do you want wine?’ her grandmother shouted from where she was sitting at the table, her big colourful scarf wrapped multiple times round her neck and the bracelets on her arm clacking together as she raised her hand.

‘I’m only just here, Gran, no need to shout.’ Rachel winced.

‘Sorry, was I shouting? I must be such an embarrassment to you.’ Her grandmother cocked her head and pulled a tight smile. ‘Do you know, Gran is such a terrible term. I’d really rather you called me Julie. What do you think, David?’ She turned to Rachel’s father, who was sitting quietly opposite her. ‘Don’t you just hate the term Dad?’

‘Sorry, what? I was miles away.’ Rachel’s dad had been staring into space and blinked himself back into the present.

‘Dad!’ Julie sighed. ‘Don’t you think it’s a dreadful word? A label. Wouldn’t you far rather Rachel called you David?’

‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ he said with a shrug.

Julie huffed a great sigh. ‘Well, think about it now! For pity’s sake, man, it’s just an opinion. He’s always been like this, darling, used to drive your mother up the wall.’

Rachel swung round too quickly at the mention of her mother, tried too late to shush her gran, and saw her dad visibly shrink back into his cardigan. She’d made it a point never to mention her mother in front of her dad; he always just clammed up immediately. When she caught her grandmother’s eye and gave her a ‘What did you have to say that for?’ look, Julie just shrugged as if she couldn’t see what the problem was.

‘I’m only talking about names, darling. I would just prefer to be known by my own name, not some generic term that half my bloody generation are known as.’

Rachel sighed, pausing with her hand on her hip to look back at her. ‘We’ve been through this. I can’t do it. It just won’t happen. When I try to it feels too weird. You’re my grandmother—that’s just the way it is.’ Julie made a face as Rachel turned away and slid the steaming potatoes from the baking tray into a terracotta bowl and carried them to the table.

Julie took the bowl from her. ‘Well, I don’t think things should always be the way they are. Who says that’s the way it should be? Do you have a mat to put these on? The bowl is very hot.’

Rachel slid a magazine over so her gran could put the bowl of potatoes down without marking the already pretty shabby table and went back to the stove; they had this conversation at least once every six weeks. ‘You know I don’t know the answer. I just can’t call you Julie. It’s weird. And …’ she paused, ran her tongue over her lips as it finally dawned on her why she clung to the name ‘… it reminds me that we’re related.’ She paused.

‘Maybe if your mother was still alive you wouldn’t mind so much,’ Julie said matter-of-factly. Rachel’s dad flinched again.

Rachel smacked the wooden spoon down on the counter. ‘Can we please talk about something else?’

Her gran narrowed her eyes and watched her for a moment, wondering perhaps whether to push this tiny crack in Rachel’s armour so it might widen and they’d all start talking. Rachel had already turned back to the coq au vin. ‘So I hear you’re off to Paris.’

‘Not that. Something other than that.’ Oven gloves on, she picked up the Le Creuset bubbling with stew and set it down in the centre of the table. ‘And by the way, I’m not going to Paris. It’s a ridiculous idea.’

‘Just so you know, I’ve volunteered to keep an eye on the lovely Australian couple.’

‘I’m not going.’

‘Why are you going to Paris?’ her father asked with vague interest.

‘I’m not,’ Rachel said quickly.

‘Oh, you must.’ Julie reached forward and grabbed a potato from the dish. ‘Gosh, this is hot,’ she said, slicing it open, forking up the fluffy insides and slathering it with butter. ‘David, she’s going to bake. Rachel, you must go,’ she said again, her mouth full of boiling potato. ‘This tastes divine. Divine as always. Mine are always so hard and the skin all soft and wrinkly—bloody microwave.’ She scooped up another forkful before carrying on about the impending trip to Paris. ‘Yes, you have to go.’ Then she waited a second before adding, ‘Your mum would have been so proud.’

It was Rachel’s turn to flinch; as she stirred the coq au vin she felt an unwanted lump rising in her throat. She pushed her fringe out of her eyes then redid her ponytail for something to do instead of answering.

She felt her grandmother watching her. ‘She would, you know.’

‘I didn’t think you baked any more,’ her father said, as if he’d missed something along the way, something that didn’t entirely please him.

‘I don’t,’ said Rachel, emphatically.

‘No. That should probably rest with your mother.’ Her father crossed his arms over his chest, and she stared at the holes on the cuffs of his shirt, the ones she remembered her mum darning.

‘Oh, don’t talk such tripe,’ Julie scoffed. ‘The last thing your mother would have wanted is you sitting around refusing to whisk a bit of flour and butter because she was good at it. For Christ’s sake, Rachel, I know you’re a very good teacher, but you were an excellent baker. You need to give it a chance. And, David, I’m sorry, but I can only say that your opinion on the matter is absolute bollocks. Rachel, you go to Paris, and, David, you go back to your bloody dream world and stay there. That’s the best option as far as I can see.’

‘I was only giving an opinion. I was asked for an opinion, Julie.’

Rachel watched her dad as he took his glasses out of his pocket, put them on and picked up the cycling magazine that he’d brought with him—watched him retreat back into his hobby so he wouldn’t have to face any more from her grandmother.

As Julie was about to reply Rachel cut in, saying, ‘I’ve forgotten the water glasses. Gran, can you get them for me?’

Julie flumped up the scarf around her neck with a huff, then pushed her chair back and stood up to rummage in the cupboard. As she clattered about Rachel tried not to think about what her mum would have thought about a trip to Paris to bake with a professional, tried to ignore the fact that her relationship with her father was becoming more and more distant and how his comment just then had affected her. She’d known he might not advocate a baking trip to Paris, but she hadn’t expected such obvious disapproval.

‘These are very lovely.’ Rachel looked up to see her gran holding up three little mottled glasses with maple leaves painted on the sides that she’d picked up from the local antique shop. ‘I’d put them somewhere, if I were you, just in case the Australians are clumsy.’

‘I don’t want people in my flat, and—’

‘Nonsense.’ Her grandmother plonked the glasses down on the table and then sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest, her silver bracelets clicking, her lips pursed. ‘Anyway, it’d do you good to get away from that idiot guitar player. Brad? God knows what you see in him. You should go for that reason alone.’

‘Who’s that you’re talking about?’ Her dad glanced up from the pages of the magazine. ‘Do you have a boyfriend, Rachel?’

‘Of course she has a boyfriend. Really, David, sometimes I wonder where you’ve been. You’ve met him—that plonker from the band that played in the pub the other night. Wore all black. Remember? You thought it was all terribly loud. Brad.’

Her father shook his head.

‘Ben. His name is Ben and you know that.’ Rachel tried to take her annoyance out on her potato, sawing into it with her knife but having to pull back as she burnt her fingers on the crispy skin. ‘And he plays the drums, not the guitar.’

Julie made a face as if it made no difference.

‘And he’s fine. It’s fine between us.’ Rachel could feel the frustration boiling up inside her as her grandmother raised a brow sardonically, clearly questioning that statement. ‘And I’m not going to Paris.’ Rachel huffed as she shoved some potato into her mouth, burning her tongue but trying to pretend that she hadn’t.

There was another pause as Julie shook out her napkin, then held up her hands as if she’d say no more about it. ‘Well, come on, then.’ She nodded at the casserole dish. ‘Are you going to serve this thing or not?’

As Rachel ladled out the rich, thick stew Julie took a mouthful and sighed. ‘I’m going to miss my dinners here while you’re in France.’

At four a.m. the doorbell went, followed by the usual tap on the door. Rachel, had been lying in bed staring at the ceiling while her mind whirred with images of Paris, Christmas, her mother in the hospital bed—a limp garland of tinsel wrapped around the bedstead—Henri Salernes’ face on the flyleaf of the well-thumbed cook book she had on her shelf. She pulled on her dressing gown and tried to do something vaguely decent with her hair as the tapping got louder and louder. She checked her reflection in the mirror by the door, refusing to think about the fact she’d purposely slept in her make-up on the off chance this visit would happen.

‘Rach, honey, darling, beautiful …’ Ben bounded in off the step like a Labrador high on the adoration of his fans. Shaggy black hair, crack-addict cheekbones and eyes that crinkled as if they always knew a secret—her on-again off-again boyfriend was gorgeous and he knew it. He would also baulk at the term boyfriend but if she admitted the transience of their relationship in comparison to the time she’d dedicated to it, it would be too depressing.

‘Hi,’ she said coyly as he twisted her hair round his hand and pulled her head back for a kiss that tasted of cigarettes and beer and the toothpaste she’d just swallowed while running down the stairs.

‘Let’s get rid of this horrible thing, shall we?’ He smirked, pushing her old towelling dressing gown off and sliding his hands round her waist to her arse, then, leaning forward, whispered, ‘Go on, make me something nice to eat. I’m starving.’

As she stood open mouthed at his audacity he patted her on the bum with a wink and a heartbreaking smile and steered her in the direction of the kitchen.

Five minutes later Rachel was standing in her nightie, her banned robe still on the floor in the hallway, whipping up the perfect, smooth, yellow hollandaise and checking the timer for the poached eggs while she watched Ben as he sat back, feet up on the table, flicking through her Grazia magazine.

‘Do you want to sleep here tonight?’ She didn’t know why she said it; she hadn’t said it for months but she suddenly felt the overwhelming need to push the point. He peered over the pages he was holding and watched her for a second before his mouth quirked into its infamous grin.

‘Honey, you know I can’t sleep here. I need my—’

‘Own bed.’ She finished before he could and turned her back to him, scooping out the poached eggs. In the last year she’d woken up next to him once, and that was because he’d accidentally taken a sleeping tablet rather than a paracetamol for a headache when rooting through her bathroom cabinet. He claimed that he couldn’t sleep anywhere other than his bed and alone, and she’d always gone along with it, not wanting to rock the boat. After a moment or two of silence he came over and wrapped his hands around her, pressing himself close against her back. The sensation felt less fuzzy and cosy than normal, more as if he was locking her into place.

‘You smell awesome.’

She turned around in his arms and handed him the plate of Eggs Benedict, trying to ignore the sense of being released when he let her go and took the plate. Her grandmother’s quirk of a brow flashed into her mind. This wasn’t a healthy relationship, one side of her mind said, while the other just stared at his pretty face and argued that it most definitely was.

‘And this—’ Ben took the plate from her ‘—looks awesome.’

As he cut into it, the golden yolk oozing out into the toasted muffin she’d found at the bottom of the freezer and the silky hollandaise dripping from his fork, he paused before putting the first bite into his mouth, as if preparing himself for the bliss.

When he did eat it, gobbling greedily with his eyes shut, he hit the table twice with his fist. ‘Fucking amazing. A-mazing. God, it’s better than being on stage. Well—maybe not but it’s fucking good.’

Rachel couldn’t help smiling. Leaning back against the counter, she watched him, enjoying the sight of him eating the food that she had made giving him so much pleasure. Feeling almost proud.

‘You—’ He pointed at her, mouth full. ‘You are going to make someone a great wife one day.’

She paused for a moment, turning to pick up the mug of tea she’d made herself and taking a sip. Let it go … she told herself. Let it go and it’ll all just carry on as normal. Life can just carry on as normal. But then she found herself asking, ‘Not you?’

Ben laughed into his cup of coffee.

‘I’m serious,’ she said, running a hand through her hair and, feeling suddenly hot, holding her fringe back from her forehead.

‘Hun, come on, it’s too early for this.’

‘We’ve kind of seen each other for nearly a year.’

He made a face. ‘I meant in the morning. It’s fucking four a.m.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ She nodded, glancing down at her haphazard appearance as if to show him just how aware she was of the time.

‘Babe.’ He didn’t get up, but took another slurp of coffee. ‘No one gets married any more. What we’ve got … It’s good. Don’t—’ He shook his head, dark hair flopping over one eye, his brows drawing slightly together as if he was on the cusp of getting annoyed. ‘Don’t spoil it. Just let a man eat. Yeah?’

Rachel opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again.

‘And I don’t know that it’s been a year. I mean, not exclusively,’ he added, his eyes focused back on the plate of eggs, shaking his head as he carried on eating.

Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God, what have I been doing?

Who was he? Who was it that she had been seeing all this time? What had she seriously expected from him?

As she watched him eat, chewing furiously, it was as if the fog lifted and she suddenly saw what everyone else saw. A black hole at her table where her life disappeared.

‘OK, babe?’ He glanced up, checking that she was still there, still waiting for him to finish. He gave her a quick cheeky grin, as if to gloss over anything that might have gone before.

She nodded, her mouth frozen into place.

He pushed his plate away and stretched his arms high to the ceiling. ‘Awesome. Totally awesome, as always. Bed?’

‘I erm …’ But it felt as if her mind had slipped all the way through her body into a pool on the floor. And instead of saying anything else she let him lead her up to her bedroom, where she was suddenly ashamed that she’d changed the sheets because she’d had an inkling he was coming and had put the winter roses her gran had brought for her in a vase by the bed and sprayed Dark Amber Zara Home room spray to make it smell all moody and sexy.

When the front door clicked shut forty minutes later, she lay staring up at the ceiling and wondered what had become of Rachel Smithson, because right now she felt completely hollow from the neck down.

CHAPTER THREE

King’s Cross at Christmas was a nightmare. Giant sleighs and reindeer had been rigged up to float above the platforms from the metal rafters, while Christmas music played on a loop in every shop. Pret a Manger had a queue that snaked out onto the concourse and all the sandwich shelves were picked clean; WHSmith had run out of water, and she’d forgotten her moisturiser but Kiehl’s had sold out of her favourite. Everything seemed to be reinforcing the notion that going to Paris was a bad idea.

With just a lukewarm coffee in hand, Rachel forced herself through the crowds, thinking about how, in the end, she’d finally made the decision to go to Paris purely so she never slept with Ben again. It was heartbreakingly good-looking-boyfriend cold turkey—maybe that should have been Pret’s seasonal sandwich. She squeezed past kissing couples and hugging relatives to track down her train. The platform was packed; the corridor to the train was even worse, blocked with suitcases and big paper bags of presents.

God, she hated Christmas. She could just about admit, only to herself, that it had become like a phobia. And being on this train felt like when they locked someone with a fear of spiders into the boot of a car crawling with them.

‘Erm, excuse me, I think that’s my seat.’ On the train she pointed to the number on the luggage rack above the seat and showed the young blonde girl who had taken her place her ticket.

The carriage was hot and stuffy and smelt of McDonald’s and cheese and onion crisps. Rachel’s boots already pinched and all she wanted to do was sit down and wallow in her bad decision but the blonde wasn’t budging. ‘I really want to sit with my boyfriend,’ was all she said back.

‘Oh.’ Rachel bit her lip. ‘Well—’ Someone pushed past her and she had to hold the table to steady herself.

‘My seat’s fifty-seven,’ said the girl, shrugging before turning back to talk to the guy next to her.

Rachel nodded, wishing her legs might overrule her brain and walk straight off the train, but then she remembered that she had nowhere to live if she did go home—the Australians would be arriving around about now.

She pushed through the people and luggage in the aisle to her new seat. As she lifted her bag onto the overhead shelf and sat herself down a little boy wearing reindeer ears across the aisle started screaming as his sister ate his flapjack.

‘We’re off to Euro Disney. Patrick, stop that,’ said the woman next to her when Rachel glanced across, watching the boy hit his sister on the head. ‘Leila’s going to be a princess. Aren’t you, honey?’ The mother reached over to break up the fight. ‘We always go to Disney at Christmas. It’s so magical.’

Rachel nodded but then turned away to stare out of the window as the train pulled out of the station, wrapping her scarf up round her head like a cocoon to block them all out. But the reflection of the excited kids in the window forced back memories of being little at Christmas—jumping on her parents’ bed and opening her stocking. Hot tea and buttered toast with home-made jam. Her dad always surprised by the stocking her mum had done for him. Rachel’s feet dangling over the bed, unable to touch the floor as she ate chocolate coins and a satsuma and looked at Rudolph’s half-chewed carrot by the fireplace and the signed card from Santa.

She hadn’t thought about that for years.

As the train sped up through the countryside the reflection in the window changed to the memory of the whole village on Christmas morning. Everyone out on the green for a massive snowball fight. Hers flying off at wonky angles because she had such a rubbish throw. Years ago they’d even skated on the pond in their wellies. She vaguely remembered her dad and her winning the prize for best snowman. It had been shaped like a wizard with a pointy hat. There was something about the hat—what had it been made of? It was bark, she thought, curled tree bark her mum had found, and the coat they’d covered in fallen leaves and acorn cups to make the pattern. She saw her dad holding up the prize of a bottle of port, triumphant, then hoisting her up on his shoulders, her wellington boots bashing snow onto his wax jacket.

It was odd to remember her dad with that smile, that buoyancy.

Since her mum had died, he just cycled. Always cycling. A group of them, sixty-five, and cycling. Never smiling. Six months after the funeral he’d gone on a trip and come back with a new bike and all the gear. Kept him busy, he’d said. Out-pedalling the memories, she’d thought. The moment he stopped he’d have to deal with life.

She realised then why she rarely allowed such reminiscences. The thought of them compared to the stark new reality made her eyes well up. She groped in her bag for a tissue; when she couldn’t find one she had to ask the woman next to her.

‘Of course. I always have a pack. Wet-wipe or Kleenex?’

‘Kleenex, please,’ Rachel said, trying to cover her face so she couldn’t see the tears. ‘Winter cold,’ she added, while surreptitiously giving her eyes a quick wipe.

The train pulled into Gare du Nord under grey gloomy skies. Paris was freezing. Much colder than England. People blew into their gloved hands as they queued for a taxi. Rachel wheeled her bag over to the back of the line, rain pouring down in sheets. Her boots were soaked through. People kept cutting into the front of the queue as she was hustled forward, her coat and bag dripping wet. As she waited, rain catching on the hood of her coat and dripping down onto her nose, she clutched the scrap of paper with the road name in her hand, wondering what the place she was staying in would be like.

Jackie had booked her into an Airbnb rental in the centre of Paris. She could have killed her for doing this, Rachel mused as she finally got into a taxi just as the rain fell heavier, like a bucket tipped from the sky. She could actually kill her, she thought while gazing out at a dark, soaked Paris as the taxi whizzed through the streets, horn honking at anything that got in its way. Stab her maybe with her new Sabatier kitchen knives that Henri Salernes had demanded each contestant buy pre-course, plus slip-on Crocs and a white apron with her name stitched on the front. Rachel had failed the sewing part of Home Ec at school so she’d got her gran to do the embroidery this time. Julie had added a flower on either side of her name, for good luck, she’d said.

The taxi pulled up at the end of the road after clearly driving her all the way round the city unnecessarily.

‘One way,’ he said. ‘Your house, at the other end. You walk.’

The rain was unceasing. Rachel, imagining crisp snow-white streets, hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella.

The driver dumped her bag in a puddle and drove away leaving her alone at the end of the darkened road, the streetlight above her fizzing and flickering in the rain.

She hauled her bag behind her down the street, wiping rain drops from her nose and eyelashes with sodden gloves, stopping finally at number 117—a thick wooden door studded with big black nails and a brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head.

Someone buzzed her in with a string of French she didn’t understand. The piece of paper said Flat C. Rachel climbed the stairs, bumping her bag up behind her, holding onto the wooden banister. As she passed the ground floor the steps turned from plain concrete to white and blue tiles and wooden panels became richly wallpapered walls in cream, gold and burgundy. The huge double doors of Flat C were freshly painted glossy magnolia.

A woman opened the door almost as soon as Rachel knocked and immediately warm smells of herbs and cooking enveloped her. Looking into the flat, she saw glistening chandeliers, expensive chintz curtains draped over large French windows, soft cream furniture and paintings of fruits brimming over in their bowls. Wow. It was like looking into the pages of House & Garden magazine. She took a step forward. Maybe she wouldn’t kill Jackie just yet.

‘Je suis Rachel Smithson,’ she said to the woman in the grey uniform and apron. ‘Je reste ici. Airbnb.’

‘Wait,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I get Madame Charles.’

As Rachel waited she saw in the corner of the living room a Christmas tree that wasn’t a real tree but a metal sprig twinkling with white fairy lights and the branches tied with silver ribbons. It was the type of decoration that could be up all year round. Nothing, not even the garlands hanging from the mantelpiece, was too overpoweringly Christmas. Rachel was impressed.

On the sofa, two Siamese cats had wound themselves over the arms like matching cushions. Rachel was staring at one of them, trying to ignore the growing chill from her sopping socks and imagining what it was like to live in such luxury, when a tall immaculate woman, who must have been Madame Charles, appeared in the doorway.

‘Eer been bee,’ said the housekeeper. Madame Charles looked puzzled, as if she had no idea what she was talking about, and tapped ash from her cigarette in its gold holder into the tray by the door.

The woman was a vision in beige: floor-length oatmeal cashmere cardigan, white hair impeccably styled, wide cream trousers and beige turtleneck with a gold Chanel necklace. She was someone who might adopt Rachel and put her to bed in crisp Egyptian cotton sheets with a decaf espresso and a brioche. Someone, Rachel thought, who she might ignore Christmas with and eat oysters with and drink champagne.

‘Airbnb,’ repeated Rachel. ‘Dans le Internet. From England. Je loue the chambre. For a week. Pour une semaine.’ Christ, her French was bad. ‘Till Christmas,’ she added, pointing to the silver branch in the background.

‘Ah. Airbnb.’ As it finally dawned on Madame Charles what was going on she disappeared back into the apartment saying, ‘Un moment.’ One of the Siamese jumped off the sofa after her.

Rachel hopped from one damp foot to the other waiting to be led inside. But, appearing again with jewelled slippers on, Madame Charles said instead, ‘Follow me.’ And as she swept past her, closing the door, all three of them headed upstairs.

Rachel wondered if there was a separate entrance up there. Perhaps the bedrooms were accessed this way. Up they went, spiralling into what felt like the turret of a tower. The dark wood walls began to narrow and the tiles on the stairs were replaced by rough wooden floorboards.

‘Ah, ici.’ Madame Charles unlocked one of four doors at the top of the stairs with a big old dungeon key. Rachel took a breath.

Inside was a small room, separated into two by an alcove. It was grey, bleak and stuffy—as if no one had been in for a century. The housekeeper next to her shivered. Rachel felt her ‘oysters and champagne under the silver sprig’ dream dribble away as the bare light bulb swayed in front of her.

Madame Charles was unperturbed, her cigarette smoke trailing in wisps behind her. ‘This is the kitchen.’ A white rusty gas oven and hob with a grill pan at the top, the type her gran swore by. A mini fridge, two cups, two plates, one glass. ‘The TV.’ Certainly not a flat-screen; Rachel wondered if it even had a remote. ‘The sofa.’ Dark blue, no cushions. ‘And here—’ they walked through the alcove ‘—is the bed.’ A metal frame with a grey blanket folded at the end and pale pink sheets. A threadbare mat on the floor and a faded Monet print on the wall. The metal shutter on the only window was pulled closed.

‘Ça va, oui?’ said Madame Charles, breezing through the tiny space. ‘This was, how do you say? For the help. The servant. Oui?’

Rachel tried to make her mouth move into a smile. Her soaking feet and clothes suddenly freezing cold. ‘Merci beaucoup. It is très bon.’

‘De rien. It is nothing.’ Madame Charles smiled. ‘There is one petite problem. The bathroom, it is outside. In the corridor.’

After checking out the sad-looking shower and toilet in a shared room off the hallway, Rachel let herself back into her flat, sat down on the bed and found she was too tired to cry. Instead she just stared around the grey room, at her coat hanging on a chair dripping onto the floor, the bare walls with cracks up to the ceiling, a fly buzzing round the empty light bulb. What was she doing here? Why had she even considered coming? She didn’t really bake any more; she didn’t want to be someone’s apprentice. She wanted to be at home, enclosed by the safe walls of her flat and surrounded by her stuff and, at the very least, central heating.

She watched the fly weave a path from the light to the top of the oven, to the closed shutters and back again.

Standing up, she opened the shutters and shooed it towards the window with a tea towel, where it finally disappeared into the blackness.

It was only as she was closing the window that she saw the view. The trees lining the Champs Élysées glistening with a million lights strung from trunk to tip, hundreds of them shining a dazzling path that stretched on till the Arc de Triomphe, which glowed a warm yellow in the night sky. She pressed her nose to the glass and stared till the steam of her breath covered the view and then she opened the window again and stuck her head out into the rain and stared some more. Hate Christmas as she might, Rachel had to admit that, even in the pouring rain, this was breathtaking.

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.

‘Non.’ Chantal turned to look around the room, and then with a forced casualness said, ‘We do not speak any longer.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She waved a hand as if it were nothing. ‘She has a strong will.’

Rachel nodded, immediately curious as to what had happened.

‘Anyway, I think of her when I think of you up here, and I would want her to be comfortable.’ The oven timer pinged and Chantal, taking it as a cue to change the subject, wandered over, peered in through the oven door and, smelling the freshly baked bread in the air, she sighed.

Rachel went to place the plastic snow dome on the shelf but changed her mind and kept hold of it as she glanced at Chantal, who seemed suddenly smaller and more alone than she had done when she’d first come in. ‘Would you like some bread?’ Rachel asked.

‘Oh.’ Chantal rested her hands across her waist and stood as if this were what she’d been waiting for all along. ‘If it is not an intrusion.’

Rachel shook her head. If anything it was something of a relief to have someone there with her and Chantal appeared to feel the same way.

A few minutes later the housekeeper was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, smiling through a mouthful of warm, soft bread. ‘C’est très bon. Parfait.’ Tearing off another piece, she said, ‘You make very good bread.’

‘Thanks.’ Rachel hadn’t touched hers; she was somewhere else entirely, overwhelmed by the smell of fresh-baked dough, the sadness in Chantal’s eyes when she talked about her daughter, and distracted by her snow-globe and the red cushions.

‘Yes. It is very good. Très bon. Like the boulangerie at the end of the road.’

Rachel thought again about what her mum would say if she told her she was going to quit the contest: One more chance. For me.

‘You compete, oui? For the bread? That is the competition.’

‘Pretty much. With Henri Salernes.’

‘Oh la la, Henri Salernes. Very grand. Whatever happened to him? I had his book. Very good, a very clever man. And his brother, yes? The two of them, they had a lot of skill. And their restaurant, it was very famous. And now nothing except the pâtisserie, oui? Just a little pâtisserie that no one would know belonged to him. Very sad. Trying to prove too much too young, I think. That is what the papers say if I remember, grew up badly—not a good home, you understand?’

‘I don’t really know that much about the restaurant. Just that he was an amazing baker once.’

‘Oui, once. He was the youngest and the most celebrated. He changed the way we bake. And his brother, he change the way we cook. One was the savoury and one the sweet … Then it all goes, pouf, like that. All the money for Henri on the drink and the drugs, I think. It is always on the drink and the drugs. Silly man. He had a lot of talent. But …’ she held her arms out wide ‘… c’est la vie.’ She popped the rest of her slice of bread in her mouth. ‘Well, if I was the judge, you will win already. You do very well.’

Rachel reached forward and tore a little chunk off the loaf and popped it in her mouth. The power of the taste almost made her crumple on the spot. Soft and warm like a blanket.

One more chance. For me.

‘Very well. Very good bread.’

For me?

OK, Mum. She nearly said it out loud, nodding and holding tight to the globe.

‘You find it better? Yes?’ said Chantal, following her gaze from the snow-globe to the rest of the room.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ Rachel replied. ‘I find it much better.’

CHAPTER SIX

Next morning Rachel arrived at the pâtisserie with all the embroidered flowers that he’d made such a fuss about snipped off her apron, determined to prove to Chef Henri he was wrong about her.

Then she might leave.

The pâtisserie itself was one of her favourite bits about the whole competition. On the ground floor, it was small and unassuming but the counters were piled high with some of the most delicate pastries and tarts she’d ever seen. The glaze on the tart au citron shone as if it’d been freshly polished that morning. The sign on the front of the shop was written in gold and inside an old lino floor was scratched and scuffed where customers had stood waiting in line. To the left of the counter were high stools that seemed to seat the same three old men every day, who came in to drink espresso and eat croissants, and behind the counter was a young woman with bright pink lipstick and wild curly hair pulled into a messy plait, who had introduced herself to Rachel as Françoise the day before when Rachel had been completely lost trying to find the competition kitchen. She’d patted her on the shoulder and wished her good luck in a conspiratorial tone that Rachel hadn’t quite understood until she’d come face to face with Chef.

Now, as she walked in and bought herself a pain au chocolat for her breakfast, when it came time for her to pay, Françoise raised a brow as if to ask if Rachel now understood her words of luck; Rachel nodded, a silent understanding between them about the tyrant boss. Françoise laughed and told her that he didn’t get any better the longer you knew him.

As Rachel left the pâtisserie through the side door that led into the corridor she’d just started to take the stairs up to the kitchen when she came across a man in a suit, who flattened himself against the wall to let her pass.

‘Merci beaucoup,’ she said, not really paying attention, caught up in thoughts about what Chef would say about the fact she hadn’t run back home to England.

‘It is my pleasure,’ he replied as she passed. His perfect English made her glance back. Short, neat black hair, sharp, tailor-made slate-grey cashmere suit, thick, dark eyebrows that drew together now over big brown eyes as he watched her looking at him.

‘Thanks,’ she said again and then felt foolish. ‘I er …’ she started, pointing up the stairs. She felt her cheeks start to get hot and looked away, embarrassed by her reaction to him. He wasn’t good-looking per se, but striking in the kind of way that she just wanted to stare at him for days. Trying to disguise the reddening of her face by pretending she had an itch on her cheek, she turned back and said, ‘I’m going up there.’ A blatantly obvious statement that she couldn’t quite believe she’d just said. She hadn’t been so flummoxed in the presence of a stranger ever. Pull yourself together, Rachel, she thought.

‘So I see,’ he replied with a smile twitching on his lips and before she could reply he held two fingers to his forehead in a salute and turned away, clipping down the stairs.

She watched him leave, pulling on a dark-grey woollen coat as he got to the bottom step before yanking open the door into the icy cold. A lingering smell of expensive aftershave and soap made her close her eyes and consider how well groomed the French were. She breathed in again, trying to catch the scent once more, but it was gone. Running her finger along her bottom lip, she did a flash replay of the momentary conversation in her head, shook her head at her own embarrassingly floundering responses, and found that all she could remember was his eyes. They were espresso dark and dancing with confidence—that last little amused look had knocked her totally off kilter.

‘He is nice, non?’ Françoise had stuck her head out of the doorway and was following Rachel’s gaze.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t know,’ she said too quickly.

‘He is very nice, I am telling you.’

‘Well …’ Rachel shrugged as if it barely mattered because she would never see him again.

‘You are still early, non?’ Françoise said as she wiped her hands on her apron then looked at the paper bag with the pain au chocolat clutched in Rachel’s hand. ‘You should enjoy your breakfast, eat it at the counter with an espresso, mais non?’

‘I shouldn’t really.’

‘Ah, yes, you should. I will have one too. It is quiet. I am bored. I like to have someone to talk to.’

‘But—’ Rachel glanced up the gloomy staircase to the workshop where everyone would soon be gathered waiting to stab each other in the back or wait for the weak to fail. An offer of plain, simple company from Françoise was too tempting to turn down. ‘Go on, then.’

Back inside the pâtisserie, she perched on a stool by the counter as Françoise bashed away with the coffee machine.

‘This thing, it is shit,’ she muttered as she flicked some switches and the thick black liquid poured out into a small white cup rimmed with gold.

‘You sound like Chef.’ Rachel laughed.

‘Fuck no.’ Françoise sneered.

‘And again.’

Françoise laughed. ‘I have worked with him too long. He is a tyrant.’

‘He is, isn’t he?’ Rachel took the espresso cup and saucer from her and declined the two sachets of sugar.

‘No, I am being mean.’ Françoise shook her head. ‘He is OK. I think he suffers from the past.’

Rachel raised a brow in disbelief. ‘I think he’s a tyrant.’

Françoise laughed and then turned her back to Rachel and started doing her hair in the mirrored wall behind the counter. ‘My boyfriend arrives today. From Bordeaux.’

‘Very nice.’ Rachel sipped the coffee, wondering if she should say anything else.

‘I only see him once in the month. He is very—’ She paused, untwisting her lipstick. ‘He is like Chef. He has the hot blood.’ She turned back round to face her, eyes smiling, her mouth pulled into an O as she slathered it with more Chanel Rouge. ‘You just need to learn how to handle the men like Chef. That is all. Do not let them scare you. The anger, the words, it is all air that is hot. Big, hot air.’ She laughed. ‘Underneath is the mouse.’

Coffee finished, Rachel was second to arrive in the workroom. Lacey was already there; she’d watched her stalking up the stairs, and now she was standing alone, polishing her tabletop.

‘Hi,’ Rachel said as she unfolded her knives and put her snow-globe on the bottom shelf of her work surface where Chef wouldn’t see it.

Lacey didn’t reply. Rachel studied her, her loose grey curls pinned into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, apron covering a three-quarter-length mauve dress with capped sleeves that revealed gym-toned arms. Gold studs in her ears, coral lipstick and glasses hanging on a diamanté chain around her neck.

‘Where are you from?’ she asked as Lacey continued to wipe.

‘London.’

‘Oh, whereabouts? I went to uni in London. I’m from a tiny village in Hampshire.’

‘Look.’ Lacey screwed up her cloth and turned towards her. ‘I don’t want to be rude but I’m not here to make friends. This is a competition and I just want to keep it professional. No games.’

‘Games?’ Rachel looked perplexed.

‘I saw you yesterday with your little flowers getting all the attention. Some of us are here to work. Hard. So … let’s just—’ She held her hands up and then went back to polishing her station.

Rachel couldn’t believe it. ‘I’m not—’

‘You came back. Hurray!’ Abby bounded in with George, unaware of the tense silence in the room. ‘We wondered. We made bets. I said you would.’

‘I thought I’d give it one more go,’ Rachel said, hesitant after her altercation with Lacey.

‘Well, I’m really glad you did. We need to stick together.’ Abby patted her on the shoulder and walked over to her bench.

Over the next five minutes all the others trooped in, with Marcel last. He glanced at Rachel and said, with his smooth French accent, ‘Looks like I lost my bet.’ Then he winked at her just as Chef strode in so she was blushing red as he towered over her station.

‘You are still with us? I thought you run back to England? Non?’

Rachel shook her head. She tried to think of him as the great baker who had lost everything. Of the boy who had grown up too fast. Of the genius who revolutionised French pâtisserie. Last night she had crept down the stairs and perched on the bottom step outside Madame Charles’s flat and, tapping in the code that Chantal had slipped her, had surreptitiously logged into her Internet. There she had spent an hour or so Googling Henri Salernes. The restaurant he had set up with his brother that had taken Paris by storm and made them among the youngest three-Michelin-starred chefs in the country. She’d pored over pages and pages of glowing reviews from even the most hardened critics and pictures of snaking queues out of the door and celebrities huddled in darkened corners sipping champagne.

Then the headlines changed to the shock exit of his brother, who walked away at the height of their fame. And then the steady charting of Henri’s epic rise and fall. The temper that had driven away most of his best sous chefs, the arrogance that had banned negative critics from walking through the door and the gradual loss of his Michelin stars, one by one over the years until there were none.

But just as the articles got juicy, she’d heard the click of Madame Charles’s heels on the stairs and, slamming her laptop shut, Rachel had backed up into the shadow of the landing and watched as her elegant landlady swept into her apartment, the lights glistening, the warmth emanating, and as the door shut the soft lull of some classical music and the ring of the telephone accompanied by Madame Charles’s soft, low voice as she answered the call. Rachel had watched the closed door jealously, reluctant to go back up to her room, especially now she was going back for more of Chef the next day. Wishing instead that the doors to this sumptuous apartment might open up and swallow her whole.

What was it Chantal had said about Chef? Not a good home. Rachel had thought of lovely little Tommy back in Nettleton who’d been adopted by Mr Swanson and his wife two years ago. He’d had not a good home. As he stood in front of her now she tried to imagine Chef at Tommy’s age. Looking up at his stern, miserable face, she tried to picture him as a five-year-old, as one of her sweet little class with trousers too big and jam down his cardigan.

She watched him glance at her apron and take in its absent flowers.

‘Well, we’ll have to see if you do better today, won’t we?’ He smirked.

‘Yes, Chef.’ She nodded. No, it was no good. He just wouldn’t shrink to the size of one of her pupils. He had been born a fully fledged pain in the bum, she was sure of it.

‘I have my eye on you,’ he said as he strode away.

Rachel made the mistake of glancing to her right and saw Lacey raise her brows with disdain.

The day started with pastry. Filo, short, flaky, puff, choux. Savoury and sweet.

‘You know nothing about pastry. Everything you think you know, you don’t know,’ hollered Chef.

All morning they sweated over it. Chef coming over and screwing it into a lump, slapping it across the room to the bin, shouting, ‘Too much flour. Start again.’

Abby cried. George had a coughing fit and Tony cut another finger, rendering him useless for the afternoon’s challenge.

‘After lunch you make me something. I spend the day teaching you, now you give it back to me. I want to see what you have. In here.’ Chef bashed his chest with his fist. ‘Now leave, it is lunchtime.’

Rachel walked out with Abby, both bundled into their coats and scarfs ready for the wintry cold that had hit last night.

‘I’ve left my family at Christmas for this guy. He’s a nightmare,’ Abby whispered as they left the room.

‘You have kids?’

‘Two. Little girl and boy. One year apart. Glutton for punishment, me. I’ve told them I’m off meeting Santa—we need to discuss how good they’ve been this year.’ Pulling out her purse, she showed Rachel a picture—a passport-photo strip in a plastic wallet of two bright blond children, aged about six or seven, could have been younger, and a fun-looking surfer-type guy holding them on his knee.

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