The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

by Jenny Oliver

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

  ‘This thing, it is shit.’

  ‘You sound like Chef.’ Rachel laughed.

  ‘Fuck no.’

  ‘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.’ 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 Chanel Rouge. ‘You just need to learn how to ‘andle them. That is all.’

  Coffee finished, Rachel was second to arrive in the workroom. Lacey was already there, 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’re 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.

  What was it Chantal had said? Not a good home. She 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. 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.

  ‘He looks nice.’

  ‘Doesn’t he? Jane from number seventeen thought so, too. He left last year, bought a boat, said family wasn’t for him, he felt suffocated, and he’s sailing round the world now—with her. Have you seen those boats? If anything’s suffocating I’d say it’s them—can’t even stand up half the time. He sends postcards from places like Mauritius and the kids think he’s all exciting and glam. Not like boring old Mum.’

  ‘You’re cooking in Paris. That’s glamorous,’ Rachel said, and they both turned to look back up the stairs at the peeling paintwork and blown light bulb and giggled.

  Marcel was just jogging down the stairs and gave them a funny look when he passed them laughing. ‘It is something about me, no?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Rachel waved a hand to show that it was nothing.

  Marcel shrugged, pushing open the door to the street. ‘You could give a man a complex,’ he said, smiling as he strolled out, lighting a cigarette behind hands cupped against the breeze.

  ‘You could give me anything you want, Marcel,’ whispered Abby. ‘He’s so pretty, isn’t he? Like a model for Gucci.’

  Rachel nodded as they watched him disappear up the road.

  ‘I find him very distracting,’ Abby mused. ‘I have to consciously not look at him during baking, otherwise I’d be all over the place.’

  ‘You have to get a grip—’ Rachel leant on the door, letting in a shock of icy air ‘—or he’ll sense your weakness.’

  ‘Please, God.’ Abby clasped her gloved hands heavenward. ‘Let him sense my weakness.’

  Passing the pâtisserie, Rachel saw the guy she’d seen in the corridor earlier standing drumming his fingers lightly on the counter. No one seemed to be serving. Where was Françoise? Had her boyfriend arrived already? She glanced from the shop back to Abby and said, ‘Do you think I should go and look for Françoise…?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’ Abby shook her head. ‘Stay out of it.’

  They walked on a step but Rachel found herself turning back. ‘I think I should. Look, he’s waiting. And I don’t want her to get into trouble.’

  Doubling back in through the side entrance of the shop, she checked the two cubbyholes to see why there was no one about. The back door to the patio outside was open, cold air was streaming in along with the raised voices of an argument. She ventured forward and, peering round the door, saw Françoise
and a man who must have been the boyfriend from Bordeaux in the middle of an almighty row, arms waving in the air, certainly not the romantic reunion Françoise had been dreaming of earlier.

  ‘Françoise,’ she whispered, but she didn’t turn.

  Rachel coughed a couple of times to try and distract her but she was clearly in her stride, yelling and shouting all over the place, her finger stabbing him in the chest as he huffed out an exasperated breath and ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘Shit,’ Rachel said out loud as she stepped back from the doorway and into the cubbyhole.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ the man asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head and walked forward towards the counter. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anyone to serve you.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t work here.’

  He shrugged. ‘You look like you do.’

  ‘The owner would kill me if he found me here.’

  The man laughed, his eyes crinkling softly at the sides. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want that to happen.’

  Rachel was about to reply but found herself not saying anything, caught instead in his look. He wasn’t particularly good-looking and he certainly wasn’t her type, not at all, yet she wanted him to keep looking at her that way. ‘I er—’ She pointed to the door, without taking her eyes from him. ‘I er—should be leaving.’

  ‘That is OK.’ He cocked his head, slightly puzzled. Probably, she thought, because he was wondering why she was staring at him so inanely.

  She started to walk away but then stopped and asked, ‘What are you going to have?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never know what to choose,’ he said, looking down at the counter.

  ‘Oh, I know. I’m like that too.’ Rachel found herself bending down on the other side of the counter to look at the array of desserts between them. When she glanced up she met his eyes over the trays of pâtisseries and quickly glanced away, shyly, as she felt herself start to blush.

  ‘There is just so much to choose from,’ she heard him say.

  ‘Well, if it was me…’ She gazed over the rows and rows of cakes that sat in front of her. Bright marzipan shapes, chocolate twists dusted with sugar, sticky millefeuille layers oozing with cream, tarts brimming with frangipani, coffee eclairs lined up like fat fingers, red berries piled high and tumbling off crème pâtisserie tarts. And on the shelf above were piles of glistening chocolates. Dark glossy liqueurs with cherry stalks poking out of the top, dusty truffles and striped caramels, fudge coated in ganache. Strawberry creams shaped like tiny fruits perched next to pralines wrapped like presents in gold.

  ‘I always like a Religieuse,’ she said in the end, pointing to the tower of two round eclairs balanced with a ruff of cream piped around the neck. ‘They are my favourite.’

  ‘The little nun,’ he said and she watched him laugh through the glass. ‘Bon choix.’

  Then suddenly a shout from the doorway made her jolt upright, almost banging her head on the top lip of the counter. ‘What are you doing in my shop? Where is Françoise?’ Chef was standing, hands on hips, in the doorway.

  At that moment Françoise came hurrying in pale faced and terrified, mascara streaked down her cheeks.

  Rachel grabbed her arm to hold her back and said, ‘She wasn’t well. I said I’d help.’

  Chef looked between the two of them, disbelieving. ‘You are ill, you come to me. Rachel—out. Françoise, serve the man.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Rachel whispered as Françoise, who’d clearly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall behind them, started scrubbing the black off her face.

  ‘Yes, yes, it is always the same.’ She retied her hair and said hurriedly, ‘We will make up later.’ Then gave her a quick little wink.

  Rachel rolled her eyes and turned to look apologetically at her customer. ‘I’m sorry about this.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Merci beaucoup for your choice, Mademoiselle.’ He tipped his head to her. ‘I’m Philippe, by the way.’

  ‘Rachel,’ she said. She paused for a moment to smile at him and then, remembering where she was, turned and ducked away past Chef to Abby, who was waiting, one brow raised.

  ‘Even I could have told you that wouldn’t go well.’

  Back at the workroom everyone was starting to prepare. There was a sense, as they plucked butter from the larder and scooped up flour from the bags, that they weren’t pretending any more.

  ‘You have an hour and a ’alf. Everything here, it is for you. Use it. I don’t want to see some shitty nothing on a plate. Enjoy. I am here, having coffee.’ Chef took his seat at the front and surveyed them like a headmaster.

  Rachel looked around; it seemed everyone was going sweet. Lacey was cutting figs and straining prunes from a jar. She could see a row of tiny moulds ready to be lined with filo. Marcel had told them on the way in that his chocolate tart never failed. The secret was Armagnac from his family’s distillery.

  Rachel was dithering, her hand hovering over peaches. She watched George pick the fruits for a pear, apple and orange blossom tarte tatin. Cheryl was asking Abby to confirm ingredient weights for a cherry and date Bakewell. And Ali had decided on a basil and white chocolate vol-au-vent, the idea of which had made Chef snort with disgust.

  As she stood panicking, gazing at all the ingredients, her eyes landed on a lump of feta, hard and crumbling into the wooden cheese board on the side, and she had a brainwave. Almost kissed the air and said a prayer of thanks.

  When she reached for the cheese she caught Lacey roll her eyes and mutter under her breath, ‘Oh, here we go. Trying to be different.’

  But she ignored her. She wasn’t trying to be different at all. She was trying to do whatever it took not to be at the bottom. Being last wasn’t a feeling she was used to. And if she was going to cling on and prove she had some skill, then this recipe was tried and tested. She knew because it wasn’t just Ben’s taste buds that recommended it, it was generations. A recipe passed down from her Greek great-grandmother.

  Tiny filo cheese pies so thin and delicate, brushed with glistening egg yolk and packed full of feta, ricotta, blue cheese and parmesan, that cracked and burst on the top like volcanos when cooked. Baked till golden, they were the taste of summers in Greece sitting under vines, Coca-Cola for them, chilled retsina for the adults. Clinking ice cubes, steaming plates of cheese and spinach pies, sizzling prawns, pale pink taramasalata, olives warmed by the sun. Her gran in a hat fussing. Her great-grandmother in a chair, faded blue sundress and Scholl sandals. The waves rolling the pebbles. It was the taste of summer and sunshine and family.

  It was the taste of a time that was perfect.

  She still made the pies, every now and then, but she didn’t go to Greece any more.

  As she rolled out her filo, Chef sat up at the front sipping his espresso, Lacey carved her figs into intricate flowers, Marcel dripped chocolate from up high so it would cool into stars on his baking parchment, Ali started whipping his basil with the blender to make a foam, Tony cut his finger again—Abby said it needed stitches. Chef sighed. Rachel’s pies puffed and cracked in the oven.

  Time ticked away and she ummed and ahhed about taking them out as she watched Lacey make the finishing touches to her tartlets, dusting icing sugar over a flowered cake stand she’d brought from home.

  ‘Five minutes,’ said Chef.

  She needed six.

  Abby was brushing down her counter. Rachel’s was a mess, the sieve poking out from a pan, a baking tray at an angle in the sink, spoonfuls of cheese splattered across the surface.

  ‘One minute,’ Chef yelled.

  Rachel looked at her pies. Almost. Almost. She heard her great-grandmother, Patience, Rachel. Patience in the kitchen. Her timer ticked.

  ‘Fuck it,’ she said in the end as the others stood neatly by their creations. Fifteen seconds to go, she yanked open the oven door, her glasses misted with steam, and tipped her pies onto a white plate she’d found unde
r her counter.

  When the stopwatch beeped, Chef slowly unfurled himself from his chair and walked from stand to stand perusing the goods. Marcel had supplied a crystal glass of Armagnac, Abby had a model Santa and a sherry to go alongside her mince pies. Lacey’s beautiful tarts sat proud and decadent on their tiered platter, as good as anything Rachel had been served for her birthday tea at the Ritz. Slicing a sliver here and a chunk there, Chef announced his verdicts.

  ‘Délicieux.’ Lacey’s tartlets.

  ‘Average.’ Abby’s pies.

  ‘A waste of good Armagnac.’ Marcel’s chocolate.

  ‘Intriguing.’ George’s tarte tatin.

  ‘Disgusting.’ Ali’s basil creation.

  Then he stopped at Rachel’s. She watched as he cast a disapproving eye over her bench. He picked up and dropped her sopping cloth, then prodded her haphazard pile of pies. Their innards were squelching out as they squashed each other without the proper time to cool.

  He took one between finger and thumb, holding it as if he found it as distasteful as the dirty cloth. He blew on it, tore it in half and listened for the crack in the filo. Satisfied by the sound, finally he put it in his mouth. Biting, waiting, smelling, biting again, swallowing, pausing.

  Her palms were sweating. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted to impress him.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said. Paused. Seemed to disappear from the moment for just a second. Took another bite. ‘Your food, it looks like shit. But it tastes… It tastes not bad.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘The drinks are on me.’ Rachel didn’t know if it was happiness or relief but, God, she felt good.

  Most of the group was crammed round a booth table in the corner of the bar; a carafe of white wine and a stack of tumblers were in the centre. Marcel was loping back in after a smoke and Lacey hadn’t come because she didn’t like to socialise with the competition. Poor old Tony hadn’t fared the pastry test well and was pulled aside at the end and told not to come back.

  He was sitting now, head in his bandaged hands, nursing a whisky and soda.

  ‘Bloody hard, wasn’t it? I mean, tough competition. Tougher than I expected.’ Tony was a proper English gentleman. A deputy head at a private boy’s boarding school in Suffolk. ‘I’ll have to lie to the kids. Can’t have them thinking I went out first round. That would never do. I’d never live it down,’ he said, taking a large gulp of his drink and shaking his head as the fire hit the back of his throat.