The Art of Baking Blind

by Sarah Vaughan

  Oh Charlie, when I think back six years, this all seemed impossibility. Do you remember what she was like when she was born? More bird than baby. Skin translucent; veins bright beneath it. Not an ounce of unnecessary, crucial flesh.

  It seemed so cruel to have a child like this after my other three losses (I still can’t use Caruthers’ phrase: habitual abortion). Not the plump, healthy baby I dreamed of but a sickly scrap of a child born at thirty-four weeks. By rights, she shouldn’t have survived and, at times, in those first torturous weeks, it seemed incredible and, yes I admit it, unkind – to us, but most of all to her – that she did.

  I cannot believe I have just written that but the truth – and you are the only person I can admit this to – is that, for quite a time, I grieved for the child she wasn’t and never would be, Charlie. But she persisted with us. And, as it became clear she would survive, my faltering love for her grew more and more intense. She was our little fighter. Perfect except for the cerebral palsy; untroubled except for the odd fit.

  Talking of which, I know you are still concerned at our remaining down here, far from the teaching hospitals, but you are worrying unnecessarily. There is the hospital at Treliske and we continue to make six-monthly visits to the neurologist in Harley Street. Living in such a remote place allows her a freer life; one in which no one can ever point a finger and whisper about it being a tragedy; or make any reference to my loss of career. I couldn’t exist anonymously in London with a handicapped daughter, or run with her free as a kite through Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens. Can you imagine it? Someone would always notice, a look of pity on their face.

  I’ve just realised that sounds as if I am ashamed of her. You know I am not. But I cannot bear the attention. I always hated it when I had to do all those wretched openings and now, well, it would seem even more intrusive. It’s bad enough that Mrs Eaden – and her naive assumptions about how she can please her perfect family, no, create the perfect family, through baking – still haunts me. I don’t need anyone else to flag up my very public identity. Here, I can just be Kitty, Lily’s mother. I can focus on my daughter and do everything in my powers to make her life, however long it is, happy.

  Enough justification for our hermit-like existence. Every time I breathe in the Atlantic I know we are doing the best for her; and every time we go down to the beach together. Do let me know when we can next entice you down.

  You are a stronger wheelchair sprinter than George, and Lily wants to take the kite to Watergate Bay next. The sands there are three miles long so you had better get in training!

  With very much love,

  Kitty

  xxx

  The script is so familiar: firm, expansive, looping and the voice as clear and vibrant as ever. But the reality conveyed in the letter is all wrong.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Vicki is bewildered. ‘Who’s this Kitty?’

  ‘Kitty was Kathleen. This was a letter from her to her brother.’

  ‘Kathleen? Kathleen Eaden?’

  Jenny nods.

  ‘Then who’s Lily? Kathleen’s daughter is called Laura and she’s only a couple of years older than me. Thirty-five, I think. I remember from that interview. She wouldn’t have been six in 1972.’

  ‘Kathleen must have had another child. A child born very early who she wanted to protect from the public eye. It would explain why they sold the business and moved to such a remote part of Cornwall – or remote then, certainly – and why she didn’t write anything further. She did always put her family first, as Laura said, and, with such a sick child – a child who had fits and suffered from cerebral palsy – perhaps it seemed the obvious, the only choice.’

  The space around Vicki shifts slightly. She feels disorientated as if she has just spun very fast on a roundabout with Alfie.

  ‘She doesn’t like being Mrs Eaden … She doesn’t even think baking necessarily pleases a family.’ Every certainty shatters into splinters.

  ‘No. I imagine that, faced with a very premature child, being Mrs Eaden felt a bit – I don’t know – silly? No, disingenuous. A child with cerebral palsy – and the experience of multiple miscarriages – doesn’t fit in with the serene, controlled, seemingly perfect world she describes.’

  ‘But baking could help? Baking brought her such happiness.’ Vicki clings to one certainty.

  ‘And it evidently did.’ Jenny seeks to reassure her. ‘She made gingerbread men with Lily, didn’t she? And you can see that that still brought her joy.

  ‘But her life wasn’t perfect, was it? At least, nowhere near as perfect as her book and her photos suggest. And, while perfection might be possible in baking, in life, well, it’s impossible.

  ‘The perfect wife, the perfect child, the perfect mother? None of us can be these. They’re mere fancies. For you, for me, for Kathleen.’

  39

  When making crème patissière, whisk the mixture constantly once the hot milk has been added. The custard must boil but not scorch the base of the pan. This is one of those moments when you must pay attention to detail. A moment’s distraction and your custard is ruined.

  It takes Frances only three rings to pick up her phone, not her customary ten.

  Vicki, gripping her mobile, is startled. She had expected a few seconds to compose herself but, suddenly, she has to speak.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Victoria?’ Her mother’s voice is guarded, as if wary of another onslaught from her angry, needy daughter. ‘Aren’t you at the competition? Shouldn’t it start soon?’

  ‘Yes. In five minutes. But I needed to speak to you first. I needed to apologise.’ The confession comes out in a rush of relief.

  ‘Go on.’ Her mother’s voice is low but the tone is calm rather than critical.

  ‘I should be doing this face to face … but I needed to tell you, quickly, so that neither of us brooded on this all day. I wanted to say sorry. For blaming you for the abortion. For implying that you forced me to do it. That I only did it because you suggested it.’

  There is a long pause. Say something, Vicki wills her, but then realises her mother is still waiting. And, yes. There is more to say.

  ‘I suppose it suited me to put all the responsibility on you,’ Vicki continues. ‘I’ve always felt quietly guilty but managed to justify it before I had a child. Then, since having Alf, it’s seemed much more of a momentous thing. I suppose I wanted to share – or to offload – the blame. But I’ve been unfair. I know I couldn’t have coped with having a baby then. I was far too much of a child myself. And I do remember you saying that if I really wanted to go ahead and have it, then you would support me.’

  There is a long pause, during which Vicki lets out her breath in a rush.

  When her mother answers, she is hesitant but measured.

  ‘You do know that it was your decision to go ahead with it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. That’s what I’m trying to say. Yes, I do. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ve only ever wanted what was best for you, my darling. Yes, academically but, far more importantly, emotionally. And I’m very sorry if it hasn’t always – hasn’t often – felt that way.’

  There is another pause.

  ‘I know I’ve never seemed that motherly. Not particularly maternal. I suppose, if I’m honest, having a baby didn’t come that easily to me. I expect these days they’d diagnose it as post-natal depression.’ She gives a sniff, as if suspicious of the diagnosis – or irritated at having to admit to such feelings. ‘Then, I just thought I wasn’t a natural mother, whatever that means.

  ‘There was no lengthy maternity leave in those days. I went back to teach when you were six weeks old, and when I did, I managed to cope better. I was happier. And you seemed calmer. You never seemed to cry with your childminder half as much as you did with me.

  ‘But I did love you, Vicki. I know I must have seemed strict: tough on you over your homework, concerned that you fulfil your potential. Perhaps not very playful. Well, not in the least playf
ul. But I loved you – and I wish I could have shown it in a convincing way.

  ‘I suppose what I’m saying is: I tried my best. And, without wishing to sound trite, that’s all any of us can do. It’s what you do for Alfie. Please don’t agonise about not being a good enough mother, and do what I failed to do: just enjoy him.’

  There is an even lengthier pause while Vicki tries to articulate a suitable response. But she finds her throat is thick and she cannot speak properly. A sound comes out, halfway between a gulp and a cry.

  ‘Vicki? Are you all right? You’d better get to your competition. You don’t want to be late.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She manages to pull herself together. ‘Thank you – for the pep talk. I suppose I ought to be going so, bye, then.’

  Their heart-to-heart seems to have finished, and yet Vicki senses – or perhaps she just hopes – it isn’t quite over; that there is more her mother has to say.

  ‘Thank you for calling and, Vicki?’

  ‘Yes?’ She grips the phone.

  ‘You will remember, won’t you: I do love you, darling.’

  * * *

  ‘So – here we are.’ Harriet, rocking on the balls of her feet at the front of the room, has abandoned any pretence at not being excited. Relief that she has four bakers, even if Karen, the one she had tipped to win, is missing, has made her comparatively skittish.

  ‘A celebratory tea. The fitting finale to a fantastic competition. An over-the-top culinary blow-out – but one that aspires to refinement, not excess.

  ‘Today we want you to create the sort of exquisite afternoon tea that Kathleen Eaden wrote about: a decadent display of choice morsels designed to indulge, to treat. Nothing must be mediocre. There are to be no leaden cupcakes, no wedges of cold bread and butter pudding, no stolid pastries. We want dainty sandwiches from thinly sliced, freshly made bread; French tartlets; millefeuille; a choux pastry, and scones and cream for the most English of guests.’

  ‘Today’s test will be one of timing as much as anything else,’ Dan adds. ‘We are giving you four and a half hours in total. How you divide it up is a matter for your judgement and expertise.

  ‘None of these recipes by themselves is arduous, but getting them all accomplished in under five hours – and ensuring that each baked good is in pristine condition – will be a massive challenge. You have five bakes to complete and you will have to work out a rigorous timetable to ensure each stage is completed in that time.’

  There is a pause. Claire looks sick; Mike shell-shocked. Vicki looks relieved, and exhausted. Jenny smiles: composed, serene.

  ‘So, if we can start?’ Harriet looks at them all and smiles. ‘Let the final stage of the Search for the New Mrs Eaden begin.’

  Four heads bow in concentration, each jotting down timings with a pencil as assiduously as if it were some complicated maths formula. Jenny finishes her timetable first, working with a speed in keeping with her usual efficient pace.

  She’ll start with the bread first, then, while the dough’s proving, move on to the crème patissière for the mini tartlets and millefeuille. The various pastries come next; then the baking and constructing. She needs to pull off a delicate conjuring act, creating the freshest, most exquisite products without risking a manic rush at the end.

  Assessing her timetable, she wonders if this neat rigidity – each time neatly annotated against a baked product and a culinary process – is a flaw in her baking, and her personality. Perhaps she has been too rigid: not daring to be as imaginative as Kathleen Eaden; and not daring – before now – to step outside the familiar role she has colluded in fulfilling throughout her adult life.

  But she knows that this order has saved her. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. But sauces need to be stirred, ingredients measured, precision demanded. The structure of the competition – and the demand that she excel – has forced her to focus; to concentrate on the here and now and not allow herself to be ambushed by a skittering imagination. All thoughts of a writhing Gabby Arkwright are reined in when she over-whisks a bowl of egg whites or snaps a chocolate curl.

  Of course, she knows she will have to face the reality of a marriage that is disintegrating as inevitably as a cooling soufflé after this competition. The phoney war has continued, but Nigel, his interest piqued by a more animated wife, has shown signs of wanting peace talks. She is not so sure.

  The old Jenny, the compliant wife and mother whose world was her Suffolk kitchen, has been subsumed by a revised version: one who has glimpsed an intriguing world outside her walled kitchen garden and thinks she might venture out there. Thinks she is capable of doing so.

  This new, improved Jenny – or perhaps a revitalised version of the original – will walk out of the room if she is described as fat, though the description is no longer completely accurate. To her surprise, the stress of the last few weeks means she has had to buy clothes two sizes smaller for this final: she is still large but no longer obese.

  She will confront her husband about his affair, not feign ignorance in the hope that it will go away. She would like to gain his admiration and respect; she would like to believe that twenty-eight years of a relationship need not be squandered; that marriage counselling – were she to persuade Nigel to enter into this – could provide a balm to soothe the petty grievances and harsher cruelties. But she fears it is too late for that. She does not want to be with someone capable of describing her as fat. She suspects – no, actually, she knows – she will walk away.

  The knowledge leaves her numb, and so she sidelines this idea – putting it on the back burner like a pan of gently simmering pasta – as she kneads the dough for her soft, white bread. Nigel will be in Peterborough tomorrow, running the half marathon, but her girls, her glorious girls, will be here this afternoon to support her. Not her much missed Kate, still in Sydney, but Lizzie – who will come up from Bristol, and Emma, her sometimes spiky, but ultimately steadfast middle child. The thought that she has been willing to leave her new boyfriend and hectic student life in the south of France just to cheer on her mum fills her with happiness, like syrup seeping from warm treacle tart. It floods her veins. I have my girls, she thinks. And I have this skill. Perhaps, at the moment, there is nothing else I need.

  Behind her, Claire is also focusing on the positives, giving herself a pep talk as she forms the puff pastry for her millefeuille, rubbing butter into flour then pouring water into a well at the centre to form a rough dough. It has been a struggle to believe she is good enough to be here but she has the proof: 162,000 people have watched her make Chelsea buns, a gingerbread house and a chocolate soufflé of all things on the net; 162,000 people think she was all right. Or, if she is honest, more than all right.

  She shapes the dough then starts on the crème patissière, infusing milk with vanilla. That vanilla pod cost two pounds, she thinks, as she watches the flecks of black swim through the milk and breathes in the sweetly evocative scent. She would never have used such ingredients before this competition, but would add a drop of essence, strong and synthetic in comparison but a fraction of the price.

  Two pounds. She could get two big bags of pasta; half a kilo of mince; or two packets of fish fingers for that. Ten meals for Chloe or a wizened dark stick that smells heavenly and helps create the most exquisite custard but is still, when all’s said and done, just a flavouring. She is sure none of the others thinks like that. But then none of them, she is pretty certain, has ever worked for £6.08 an hour. And none has ever had to calculate that to spend two pounds on a vanilla pod they need to forgo two loaves of bread; or four pints of milk and a bag of potatoes or packet of cheap biscuits.

  She separates her eggs and whisks the yolks with sugar and cornflour, the orange globes becoming thick, pale and creamy. No one else has ever mentioned the money: the £50,000 contract for being involved in the advertising campaign, for ‘fronting’ the baked product range, and for writing a weekly column; but the figure broods at the back of Claire’s mind.


  Fifty thousand pounds. The sum ker-chings periodically like the ring of an old-fashioned fruit machine jackpot. A figure that is conceivable: more tangible than the Lottery millions her neighbour dreams of winning. That is – just – attainable. That is life-changing.

  The thought winds her. Fifty thousand pounds. Five times her current salary. Enough to put down a deposit on a small flat, if she could increase her salary to fund a mortgage; to be able to put on the heating; to buy Chloe a computer or a DS; to buy her new clothes – not dress her in hand-me-downs. To take her on holiday.

  Perhaps – and, here, she fizzes with excitement – Chloe could be like other kids, and go on an aeroplane? She imagines Chloe’s reaction were she to tell her this: huge eyes widening; freckles wrinkling; long limbs wrapping themselves around her and squeezing her so tight she has to squeal for breath.

  She whisks furiously. She is not going to win if she slides into daydreams. And then she smiles. Not so long ago, she thought she had lost the capacity for them.

  As Claire’s custard thickens, the smell of caramel and then burnt sugar fills the room as, to her right, a mixture catches.

  ‘Oh, sugar!!!!’

  It is Vicki – working at the next station – who looks close to tears. She sweeps the saucepan from the ring and pours its contents into another saucepan, hoping to confound the inevitable and rescue it. The water hits the pan with a mocking hiss, then spews forth steam. The sides have blackened and the bottom bubbles. Lumps of egg and cornflour congeal like sweetened scrambled eggs.

  ‘It’s all ruined.’ Vicki’s voice breaks, and the strain of the past eighteen hours escapes with her cry.