The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

by Jenny Oliver

‘So?’ she said.

  ‘So he didn’t say he couldn’t see mine, did he? It was that he saw yours. He thought I had no signature. Well, I do. I do have a signature and I wanted him to taste it.’ She wiped her nose with her glove and then thrust her hand in her pocket.

  ‘So show him yours! Make something amazing like you did. That doesn’t mean you have to ruin mine.’ Rachel couldn’t believe it.

  Abby scoffed. ‘You really think that? You really think he’d have noticed mine after tasting yours?’

  ‘Yes, Abby. Yes, I do. If it was that bloody good. You were meant to be my friend.’

  Abby looked away. ‘It’s a competition.’

  ‘Fuck the competition. It’s an excuse.’

  ‘I bake every day, Rachel. Every day I make different pastries, breads, brioche—something. I bake something. I practise and I practise and I’m still not as good as you who doesn’t even try.’

  ‘I try,’ she said, affronted.

  ‘No, you don’t. Not really. It’s there in you. You don’t have to be here. You could just do it. You have it. I needed this. And yet I’m not good enough. I know I’m not good enough.’ Abby scuffed at the snow with her boot, then got out a tissue and blew her nose. ‘I know I shouldn’t have ruined your soufflé. I knew I shouldn’t at the time and I know it more now. I just wanted a taste of it, Rachel. A taste of what you have. Of what Lacey sort of has.’

  ‘A taste of what?’

  ‘Of brilliance.’

  Rachel could see the tears in Abby’s eyes. She turned her head away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have done it. I’ll tell Chef.’

  ‘No, don’t tell Chef.’ Rachel shook her head, still looking at the wall. ‘Forget about it. We’ll just forget about it,’ she said, glancing back.

  ‘I’ve thrown away a friendship.’ Abby wiped her eye.

  Rachel sighed. ‘No, you haven’t. You’ve just bruised it a bit. I’m sure it’ll get better.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Rachel nodded. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ she said and walked away.

  Then, hearing Abby stride off in the other direction, Rachel ducked back into the alley and, pulling off her hat, leant her head against the cool bricks. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Her thoughts were whizzing round like crazy. What was this? How could this be happening? It was all just meant to be a bit of fun.

  She knew her family had a soufflé curse.

  ‘That was very generous of you.’ Philippe appeared in the entrance to the alley. His collar turned up high, hands in his pockets, scarf up to his chin.

  ‘God, you made me jump.’ Rachel put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘I heard, from the doorway.’

  ‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘Baking does funny things to us all.’

  ‘It was still generously handled. Can I buy you a drink? I don’t have long but enough time for one.’

  Rachel considered it for a moment, thought over her disastrous day. ‘Why not?’

  He cocked his head. ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Yep, that’s a yes.’

  They didn’t go to the bar she went to with the bakers. Instead he led her down a side street to a little place that sat on a crossroads. Tables were splayed out on both pavements around the curve of the building, which stood tall like the Flatiron. In the snowy darkness the windows cast an orangey glow, inviting them inside.

  Philippe put his hand on the base of her back as he pulled open the door, guiding her in. She felt the bareness there when he took it away.

  In the corner there was a fire blazing and crackling bright, sparks flying up the chimney in a dance. On the bar top sat rows of plump olives, cornichons and salamis and behind that racks and racks of wine piled high to the ceiling. The little wooden tables flickered with candlelight, the cut glasses glinted, a Chihuahua and a Great Dane lay curled by the fire. People were talking loudly, gesticulating wildly while others read books alone in the corner with a vin chaud or played cards.

  Rachel glanced round, instantly in love with the place. Philippe beckoned her to a table by the fire and then came back from the bar with a small carafe of red wine.

  ‘Have you smelt it?’ she asked as he set it down on the table.

  ‘But of course.’

  ‘OK, I’m going to,’ she said, picking the carafe up and holding it up to her nose. ‘Wow. It’s like erm—’

  ‘The berries.’

  ‘Yeah, blackberries and wood, like a bonfire, you know? That’s amazing.’

  ‘I think you will like it,’ he said as he took it from her and poured.

  ‘What shall we toast?’

  ‘Soufflés?’

  ‘Urgh, no.’ She made a face.

  He paused and then said, ‘Compassion?’

  Rachel blushed. ‘What’s that in French?’

  ‘Compassion.’

  ‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘OK, then. To compassion.’

  They clinked glasses and he watched her over the rim of his drink as she took a sip. His big brown eyes seeming to smile at her, as if he was pleased to have her at the table with him, enjoying the wine he had chosen. She glanced away, looking towards the Great Dane that had its legs stretched out long. ‘That’s the life, isn’t it? Bet no one stabs his soufflé.’

  ‘Yes, but it would be very boring, n’est pas? Lounging around all day. I would want to do something.’

  ‘I don’t know, after the couple of days I’ve had, I’d take curled up by the fire over anything else.’ She sipped her drink; the dog yawned. ‘What do you do every day, Philippe?’

  ‘I work in an office.’

  She smiled. ‘You don’t like the office?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I have no love for it.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  He sat forward, elbows on the table, chin rested in his hands. ‘Because I haven’t got round to getting out of it.’

  ‘I know that feeling.’

  ‘You do? But you’re here.’

  ‘Because I was set up.’

  ‘Set up? I do not know what that means.’

  She twirled her coaster and thought about it. ‘It means that my friends, they arranged for me to come without me knowing.’

  ‘Nice friends.’

  ‘My thoughts precisely.’

  The Chihuahua got up and stretched its legs, did a circle of the Great Dane and then went to lie back down again right up close to the fire, just in front of the other dog’s nose. ‘They’re so cute.’ Rachel smiled.

  ‘They stink.’ Philippe shrugged.

  ‘Oh, God, the smelling again.’ Rachel rolled her eyes.

  ‘You do not find it endearing?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I’m crazy about it.’ She laughed. ‘Come on, then, what do I smell of?’

  ‘Lemons,’ he said without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘That’s my shampoo.’

  ‘And vanilla.’

  Rachel paused. ‘That must just be me.’

  Philippe shrugged. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  The tension suddenly seemed to have upped a notch, crackling like the fire beside her. She turned her head away, trying not to think of lemon and vanilla and the fact he knew immediately what her individual scent was.

  On the rug, the big dog yawned, catching the little dog’s tail in its mouth, making the Chihuahua bark and move again, further away this time out of reach.

  ‘No, I do not love the dog,’ said Philippe, bringing the conversation back to safer territory.

  ‘You like cats?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think in England we think if you don’t like dogs you must like cats. I thought perhaps that was a global thing.’

  ‘I hate cats.’

  She snorted into her red wine. ‘Good for you.’ Then she rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. ‘So what would you do, if you didn’t have to work in an office?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, lots of things. I never had the chance t
o study, you know. I went straight into my job and have a degree from learning after work. We both, Henri and I, we had to go straight out, make some money. But I think if I could do anything I would open a restaurant.’

  ‘Really? With your brother?’

  ‘Non. Definitely not with my brother.’ He laughed as if the idea were ridiculous. And when she raised a brow for him to explain further he sat back in his seat. ‘We had very little growing up. My father, he left when I was maybe seven, and Henri, he was ten. And since then he has been like the father. You know, telling me what to do.’

  ‘I have a friend like that.’

  ‘Mais oui, and it is very nice, very caring. I know he looks out for me, but together we would kill each other. I would maybe kill him.’ He swirled the wine round in his glass and took a sip. ‘But, yes, I would like to open a business that I am in charge of, and my interest is in the restaurant. I think if Henri hadn’t done things a little wrong he would have had a great restaurant. Great. But mine, it would be a small one, you know, with a fire and simple.’

  ‘I like the sounds of that.’

  ‘Me too.’ He laughed. She watched his eyes crinkle as they smiled. ‘So this set-up for you to come here. I am still not sure. You are not a baker?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m a teacher. My mother was the baker.’

  He poured more wine. ‘And this is how you learnt to bake?’

  ‘Yes. She owned the bakery in the village.’

  ‘Well, that would explain it. Very nice,’ he said, stretching his legs out long in front of him. ‘Like Henri’s?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that.’ Rachel was starting to warm up from the fire and, unwinding her scarf, draped it over the chair next to her. ‘It was smaller but it was lovely. There was a big main counter that had baskets of croissants and cakes and trays with brownies and things people could try. Do you have brownies here? Do you know what a brownie is?’

  ‘I know what a brownie is.’

  ‘OK, just checking.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘What else, what?’

  ‘What else did it look like?’

  ‘Oh. Well, there were two little tables and chairs, a bit like these.’ She pointed to the chair her scarf was hanging on. Then she paused. ‘This is weird.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I haven’t thought about what it looked like for a long time. It’s like looking at an old photograph.’

  ‘That’s what memories are, non? Photographs in your head. It’s up to you if you look at them or not.’

  ‘Mais oui.’ She smiled. ‘A photo in my head. I like that. The one I’m looking at now is of my dad, who would usually be sitting at one of the tables. He’d finish work at three and come straight round and read the paper. Or my gran, who was always there, practically every day drinking hot chocolate and eating macaroons. But not like your macaroons. These were macaroon biscuits, like an amaretto with a walnut on the top, as big as your hand.’

  ‘I have no idea, but I am getting the picture.’

  Rachel bit her lip, trying to think. ‘Oh, there were so many people always coming in for a chat that in the end my mum got fed up being in the back room, so she got the guy over the road to build this extra shelf on the end of the counter, so she could stand there and roll out the dough without missing out on any of the chat. Oh, thanks,’ she added as Philippe topped up her wine. ‘And another thing, there were these two big ovens out the back that my dad said he’d put me in if I was naughty. That’s terrible, isn’t it? Like child abuse. I was terrified of them. There was also this huge table where we’d plait the bread and fold the croissants into triangles before school. It was covered in dents from the rolling pin and knife marks and underneath Betsy Johnson had dared me to write my name in silver pen. I spent a lot of time praying to God my mum never found it.’

  Philippe laughed and she liked the sound of it, that she’d been the one to make him do it.

  ‘So what was your job?’

  ‘I did everything. But the thing I always did was cut the chocolate for a pain au chocolat.’

  ‘That sounds like the best job to me.’

  ‘Oh, it was. Imagine, at eight years old it was one for the croissant and one for me.’ She laughed. ‘You know, there were these three glass lights—one yellow, one blue and one red—all painted with tiny flowers that hung in a row above the counter. I have them now. In my kitchen. And I bloody hope the Australians don’t break them.’

  ‘They are not still in the bakery?’

  ‘No.’ She paused. ‘It’s been closed a long time.’

  ‘Ah. And now you are a teacher.’

  Rachel nodded into her wine. Let herself be distracted again by the dogs.

  ‘Why not a baker?’

  She shrugged. ‘I stopped loving it.’

  ‘But now you like it again, maybe a little bit.’

  She looked up at him, and nodded slowly. His amber eyes were dancing in the firelight. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Would you like another drink? Do you have time?’

  ‘There is a little time.’

  She came back from the bar and felt him watching her as she put two little glasses filled to the brim down on the table.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said, ‘that my brother has not trodden on your dreams. He has—how do you say it?—very heavy feet.’

  She laughed. ‘He sure does.’

  The Chihuahua trotted over and she put her hand down to stroke it but it buggered off again back to the fire.

  ‘Why did it close?’

  ‘What?’ She looked up from where she was trying to win the dog back.

  ‘The bakery.’

  ‘You ask too many questions. In England men aren’t renowned for asking questions.’

  ‘Maybe not in France either. But I’m interested.’

  She sat back in her chair, twiddled with the cuffs of her jumper. ‘It was lots of things. Lots of little things that built into big things. My mum got ill. We kept having to close. Another chain bakery moved in nearby. It was all those things, and I think we didn’t keep a close enough eye on it. Everyone in the village, they helped, they did shifts and it was really lovely, but some were better than others, d’you know what I mean? It was a bit of a disaster actually. It wasn’t their fault or anything. It’s just they didn’t love it like us. Nor did the staff we had to take on. They didn’t have the touch of my mum. People loved her stuff. They still talk about it now. “Oh, do you remember those eclairs, or those cheese scones and that bread?” It’s like it was an institution and it had to be her at the helm. I would have tried to do it but I was at school and my mum wouldn’t let me. I’d persuade teachers to let me out of classes early or come in really late because I’d baked the morning’s bread and they’d pretend they hadn’t seen me. People made us food—you know, coming round with casseroles like they do in films.’

  Philippe took a sip of his drink and beckoned for her to continue.

  ‘In the end Tesco made an offer that at the time we couldn’t refuse. Tesco, you know, it’s like Carrefour or E.Leclerc. Our friends tried to offer my dad money to help him out to keep the bakery and stuff but he wouldn’t take it. I think he had enough on his plate looking after my mum and it was all too much for him. Tesco paid way above market value and the money would pay for the best hospitals there were.’

  He nodded. ‘And that worked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It was so long ago. But you know, all of this—the smells, the tastes, talking about it—I’ve hidden it all away for so long that it’s almost a relief. It’s like being given a little bit of it back, you know?’

  He paused. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him, not away at the table or her glass but straight at him. He nodded and they were silent for a moment before she said, ‘You have really kind eyes.’

  He laughed and she blushed, this time looking at the table.

  ‘Hey, Philippe.’ The door bashed open
and there was Chef Henri. ‘We’re waiting. What you doing?’

  Philippe held up a hand and nodded, downing his drink. ‘I have to go. I apologise.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Rachel smiled.

  Chef didn’t stop. ‘Vite, vite. We are waiting. Emilie, she is already there.’

  ‘Emilie?’ said Rachel.

  Philippe paused. ‘My wife.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Rachel realised when she got home that it was the first time in years that she’d told anyone about the bakery. At the time they’d just put their heads down and got on with it, but now it felt like a part of her soul that she’d sold. A part of her mum’s soul.

  She stood at the window looking down at the Champs Élysées, at the myriad trees sparkling like beacons lighting the way.

  My wife, he’d said. And she’d gasped. An actual audible gasp.

  Of course he’d be married. He was a handsome, clever Frenchman. And he was kind. Nothing had happened between them. He’d looked out for her as a friend. He’d coaxed out her secrets and she’d told them to him as a friend. They didn’t owe each other anything. She’d slept with Marcel, for goodness’ sake, but Philippe was married.

  It was impossible how much that stung.

  Her phone rang.

  Jackie.

  ‘Have you won yet?’

  ‘There’s still another round.’

  ‘Chances?’

  ‘Slim. There’s some dirty fighting.’

  ‘You can fight dirty.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I’ve seen you in the staff room. What about with Miss Brown?’

  Rachel pulled the window closed and went to sit on the hard blue sofa. ‘Yeah, but that’s for the kids.’

  ‘Well, I hate to break it to you but this is for the kids too. They’ve made you another banner at Sunday School. They’ve baked special reindeer biscuits with red noses that little Tommy said you’d talked about. There’s a village fund, Rachel.’

  She stopped picking at the thread on one of the cushions. ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure. It’s possible it’s for a bakery.’

  ‘No way.’

  Jackie was silent. ‘I’m nodding. I actually do think that’s what it’s for. Or at least some kind of small caravan with an oven. People miss it.’