by Pam Rhodes
To Neil’s surprise, there was a murmur of approval, together with a smattering of applause as all eyes looked at him. Before he could answer, Lady Romily spoke directly to him.
“We recognize that your expertise is limited to taste rather than any in-depth cookery skill, and for that reason, we won’t ask you to judge the specialist areas of Victoria Sponge and Rich Fruit Cake. As usual, by popular demand, I will do that myself. That means, young man, that you will have responsibility for judging the most important category of all, Best in Show. Do you think you could manage that?”
“You do realize that I don’t know a thing about baking, don’t you?” Neil pointed out. “Nothing at all. Apart from being sure about what I like to eat, the science of cooking is completely lost on me. Now, if you were to ask me about the winners and losers in the local take-away establishments, then I’m your expert!”
Beryl led the chorus of reassurance.
“An enthusiastic consumer is exactly what we need to judge the skill of the chef. You’re definitely the man for the job!”
“Well, if you’re sure…”
At this point, Lady Romily regained control of the conversation. “So I’m proposing that the Reverend Fisher be officially named as judge of the St Stephen’s Annual Baking Competition. Do I have a seconder?”
Practically every hand in the hall went up.
“Carried, then,” concluded Lady Romily, as Penelope reached for her pen to make an official note that the motion had been passed.
“The event is next Saturday here in the hall,” Lady Romily continued. “Doors open to the public at two for a tea party, plus the chance to taste and hopefully buy not just the competition cakes, but all the other culinary treats our ladies have conjured up. You, Reverend Fisher, must be here at one o’clock precisely. You will observe and learn as I judge the two main cake categories, after which you may make your choice for Best in Show.”
“Does that mean I get a bite of every one of the cakes?” asked Neil hopefully, definitely warming to the idea.
“Naturally, as judge, you are welcome and, in fact, encouraged to sample any entry that seems promising.” Lady Romily’s voice was icily cool. “I stress, only those that are promising. Needless greed will not be appreciated. Remember our bakers are anxious that their offerings remain in good order for public display.”
“But every cook who’s entering cupcakes or biscuits will be trying to tempt you to take a taste,” laughed Beryl. “There’s hot competition here, you know, and none of us is above a little bribery and corruption to get round a judge known to have a penchant for fancies and fairy cakes!”
* * *
Beryl’s words echoed in his mind as he stepped into the hall the following Saturday to find it ringed in beautifully dressed tables covered in cakes and confectionery of every kind. There were scones (plain, sultana and cheese), fruit tarts and flans, fluffy meringue pavlovas covered in cream and strawberries, sticky shining chocolate fudge cakes – and an alarming bright green concoction that Neil read was a Key lime pie. There were cupcakes that were nothing short of works of art standing alongside homely coffee walnut cakes that had Neil thinking longingly of his gran, who’d made them specially for him when he was a child.
“Oh, there you are, Reverend Fisher!” Lady Romily was bearing down on him from the far end of the hall. “You’ve cut it very fine to observe me judging the Victoria Sponge and Rich Fruit Cake categories. Follow me!”
For the next twenty minutes, Neil dutifully stood two paces behind Lady Romily as she inspected and sampled one cake after another. To be honest, they all looked practically identical to Neil, but to a connoisseur like Her Ladyship, every detail of shape, density, jam spread, cream thickness, surface decoration and general presentation was minutely scrutinized and assessed. Finally satisfied, she made a note of the entries that had gained third, second and first place, handing the sheet to Penelope, who also stood at her side ready to organize the appropriate rosettes to be presented later to the winners, as well as the certificates recording the glory of the moment forever.
Once her deliberations were complete, and the results of the Victoria Sponge and Rich Fruit Cake secreted into gold envelopes so they could be dramatically revealed at the opening ceremony, Lady Romily turned to Neil.
“For your eyes only, Reverend Fisher, here is a note of the two winners in the categories I’ve judged. These two cakes are obviously superb specimens, expertly made. It is not unusual for one of these winners to be judged Best in Show. I have no wish to influence your decision in any way, but I thought a word to the wise might be useful.”
“Come on, Neil!” Beryl had suddenly appeared at his elbow. “Let me show you round.”
For years afterwards, Neil was to treasure that meander around the tables as one of his very happiest memories. Beryl guided him towards cakes of every shape, size, colour and level of expertise, pointing out shortcomings on some and glorious finishing touches on others. She wheeled him round plates of cupcakes decorated in everything from Union Jacks to baby’s bootees in delicate blue and pink. There was even one inspired iced creation that had his own photo on the top! When it came to getting the judge’s attention, Neil thought, that probably took the biscuit.
“And I really can choose whatever I like here, can I?”
“Your choice, yours alone,” confirmed Beryl. “Don’t take any notice of Her Ladyship. She’d like you to pick one of the two category winners because it would endorse her own opinion, but honestly, you can award the title to whichever of all these platefuls you most fancy!”
Neil wandered along the tables thoughtfully until he had narrowed his selection down to just three. Which would he most like to eat right now? That question was soon answered in his own mind – and the winner’s fate was sealed.
At two o’clock precisely, the doors were unbolted to reveal a queue of people eager to come in.
“Best day of the year this, Vicar,” trilled Edie Brown, one of the St Stephen’s elderly regulars, as she pushed her way through the crowd. “You’ll never find a spread like the one you get here on cake competition day. Can’t stop! I’m losing my place in the tea queue!”
In minutes the hall was packed with a chattering crowd, all eager to inspect the entries and make up their own minds which should be winners and losers.
“Your attention, please!”
The Ladies’ Guild Secretary, Penelope, had commandeered the microphone, which squeaked into action.
“Silence, please, for our esteemed chairman of the St Stephen’s Ladies’ Guild, Lady Romily, who is ready to announce the first winners of the day.”
A sense of inadequacy swept over Neil as he listened to Lady Romily speaking for some minutes about the qualities of the perfect sponge and fruit cake with the precision of a nuclear scientist. It was a master class in baking after which he was left in no doubt that she was an expert on the subject. Her first announcement of the winner of the Victoria Sponge competition was greeted with approval all round because, as usual, Beryl took the honours on sheer merit rather than any form of favouritism. It was also no surprise when Mary Morris won the rosette for best Rich Fruit Cake, because she reckoned she’d had about seventy years’ experience at making and icing them. In her case, it was generally agreed that practice made absolutely perfect!
“And now,” announced Lady Romily, “I would like to introduce the Reverend Neil Fisher, who’s had the onerous responsibility of selecting the Best in Show winner. Reverend Fisher!”
As Neil climbed the stairs at the side of the stage, he thought again of the choice he was about to announce. Was he certain he’d got it right? Yes, he decided. Of all the plates on show that afternoon, this was definitely the one he’d fight to grab. Tapping the microphone to be sure it was still working, Neil cleared his throat to make his announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the Best in Show prize has come up with an absolute favourite of mine, which makes my mouth water just to think o
f it. The baker is Stephanie Walters, and the winning entry is her plate of cornflake chocolate crispies!”
The silence in the hall was deafening. Suddenly uncertain, Neil stared down at the crowd as they turned to each other in a mixture of surprise and shock. Puzzled, Neil looked towards Lady Romily to see her expression darken to black anger.
“Cornflake chocolate crispies!” she spat at him under her breath. “Cornflake chocolate crispies that any half-witted five-year-old could make! You’ve chosen that as the Best in Show winner?”
As she spoke, a smattering of applause began when a young girl, probably little more than five herself, was guided up towards the stage by her obviously delighted mother. Penelope appeared at his side to hand him a silver cup and certificate, which he bent down to present to her, turning the little girl round to face the crowd as her proud father took their picture.
With the microphone still in his hand, Neil asked her to let the audience in on the secret of making her lovely cornflake chocolate crispies.
Her voice was surprisingly loud and clear as she replied. “Mummy helped me melt down the chocolate, then I stirred in the cornflakes, then put them in cases with Smarties on top.”
“That’s it?” asked Neil. “Nothing else?”
“That’s it.”
You’re right that’s it, thought Neil, as Lady Romily swept past him the moment the prize-giving was over, without even a backward glance in his direction. Feeling a barrage of disapproving looks heading his way from just about everyone in the hall, Neil slipped out to the side of the stage to keep a low profile behind the curtains. Minutes later, that’s where Beryl found him.
“You said I was free to make my own choice!” he wailed. “I love cornflake chocolate crispies!”
“So do I,” grinned Beryl. “Everyone does.”
“She wanted me to pick something really complicated, didn’t she? I should have chosen one of Lady Romily’s winners. Why on earth didn’t she make that clear?”
“Because it wasn’t her place to say such a thing. She’s full of her own importance, that one – and she really doesn’t know much about baking at all.”
“But she sounded so knowledgeable…”
“Neil, if you promise not to breathe a word about this to anyone, will you allow me to tell you a story?”
Intrigued, Neil nodded.
“Years ago, when I was quite new to baking, the Ladies’ Guild organized a Bring and Buy cake sale, and I agreed to make something along with everyone else. Well, I was still working then, and with Jack and the kids to look after, time was tight. In the end, I knocked up a cake really quickly and baked it very late the night before. But you know what they say about more haste, less speed. The next morning when I came to ice it, the cake had sunk so much in the middle that there was just a big round dent in the top of it. I didn’t know what to do, because I had to go to work that morning and didn’t have time to make another one, so I came up with a plan. It still makes me go red to think of it all these years later. I turned the cake upside down, dug out the middle, and stuffed it with screwed-up sheets of kitchen roll. Then I turned it back up the right way, did a bit of fancy icing and decoration, put a ribbon round it – and called my daughter. The cake sale started at ten in the morning, so I made her promise that she would be first in the queue so that when the doors opened, she could whizz in, buy back the cake – and save my bacon!”
In spite of his misery, Neil was chuckling.
“So all was well?”
“My daughter rang me at quarter past ten to say she had been the first in, but the cake was nowhere to be seen! She didn’t want to draw attention to the fact I’d made it by asking anyone outright, but it had definitely disappeared.”
“Well, if no one knew it was yours, you could just forget about it, couldn’t you?”
“That’s what I thought – until the next day, which happened to be our Ladies’ Guild Annual Charter Lunch, organized by…”
“Don’t tell me – Lady Romily?”
“Right! It was a three-line whip that we all had to go, and to be fair it was always a really lovely occasion. She got caterers in to serve up a wonderful spread. The moment I walked into the room, though, I saw it. My cake was the centrepiece!”
“What on earth did you do?”
“Well, one moment I thought I should own up, and the next I just wanted to say I had a headache and get away from there as soon as I could. In the end, though, my conscience started to prick me. Suppose Lady Romily was publicly embarrassed when the cake was cut? I knew I just had to find a chance to own up. I was terrified, I can tell you.”
“She has that effect on me too.”
“So I was just thinking about making my way over to see if I could have a quiet word with her, when suddenly one of the ladies over in the other corner called out across the room to her so that everyone could hear. She said that the cake looked absolutely beautiful, and asked who’d made it.”
“Oh no! What did you do?”
“I had to own up, didn’t I? And I was just trying to work out what on earth I was going to say when, cool as cucumber, Lady Romily stood up and announced that she’d made it herself!”
Neil gasped in disbelief.
“So,” said Beryl with a satisfied smile, “I sat right back down again and thought, There is a God!”
CHAPTER 7
By the beginning of Advent, it seemed as if the shops had been full of Christmas tinsel and gift suggestions for weeks, but for the people of Dunbridge, the highlight of early December was the switching on of the market square lights. In spite of an icy chill in the air, several hundred of them turned out to see the captain of the local football team do the honours and announce that the travelling fairground was open for business. Neil hadn’t particularly intended to be there for the occasion, but he had arranged to join Graham earlier in the evening for a pint in the Wheatsheaf. When they heard the speeches ringing out over the loudspeakers, they wandered out with their pints in time to see the square become a twinkling fairyland as thousands of white bulbs sprang to life.
“Did I tell you Debs and I have decided to get our own place?” asked Graham, emptying his glass.
“You’re not planning to stay in your house after all?”
“Debs says it’s a bachelor pad. She’s not impressed with my motorbike in bits in the back room…”
“No, I can understand that.”
“And she says she’s offended because I’ve had other girlfriends while I’ve lived there.”
“Well, that’s fair enough too. Where are you planning to live?”
“That new estate going up where the old mental hospital used to be – have you looked around it at all? Those places were awful; hundreds of patients kept there sometimes for years, often for no good reason. It’s not surprising they closed it down years ago, but it’s getting a new lease of life now. They’re making a good job of keeping the old style of the building even though a brand new estate is going up around it. Debs has got her eye on a terraced house she thinks will suit us.”
“And you’re quite happy about that?”
“Hmm, I reckon so.”
“Thinking of getting married, then?” Neil added with a twinkle in his eye.
“Debs may be. I’m not.”
“Because…?”
“Because I don’t believe in marriage. I don’t think you need a bit of paper and a ring on her finger to know you’re committed to each other.”
“And Debs is happy to go along with that?”
“Don’t know. I haven’t asked her.”
Neil finished his pint in silence.
“Another?” he asked at last.
“Just a half and a couple of packets of crisps, please. Debs is trying to put me on a diet, for heaven’s sake. She’s got this new cookbook where she measures everything out to make sure I don’t have a calorie over what it says I should have.”
“Hence the crisps?”
“And the bacon butty from
the van just down the road from the school in the morning, not to mention the sandwich and biscuits I have in the staff room at lunchtime.”
“Not doing well with the diet, then?”
“I’m not on a diet at all. I just haven’t told her.”
Neil laughed, and went to fetch the drinks.
“You eating at the Wheatsheaf tonight?” asked Graham when he had returned.
“Honestly, I’d love to, but my mum is still staying with me. Four weeks now, and there’s no sign of her leaving.”
“Nagging you to death, is she?”
“To hear her, you’d think there’s nothing about me at all that she likes. It’s wearing me down.”
“Is she still going on about you being home at the exact time she puts dinner on the table?”
“In my job? I keep telling her that’s just not possible, but I get it in the neck every time.”
Graham glanced at his watch.
“Well, you’ll be in trouble tonight. It’s gone nine.”
“She’s out! She’s gone with Harry to a bridge tournament, so she’s left a casserole in the oven – with butter beans…”
Graham looked at him quizzically.
“I hate butter beans. I’ve always hated butter beans, but they’re her favourite, so they go in just about every meal.”
“Nice not to have to cook for yourself, though.”
“Yes, there is that.”
The two men fell silent for a while as a rather noisy rock version of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” drifted towards them from the fairground in the square.
“Busy time of year for you, eh?”
Neil almost spluttered into his beer. “You could say that. It’s great, though. I love seeing the church used by the whole community. We’ve got seven extra carol services this week. All the schools, of course. Yours is on Friday week, isn’t it? Local businesses too.”
“Sick of singing carols yet?”
