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.’
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.’
