Trudy swallowed and knew she had tasted a winner.
There were three contestants in the final segment of the show. Each had prepared a selection of gingerbread displays. In Trudy’s opinion they were all very impressive although she knew that only one deserved to go through to the final.
The organisation of the show was different from previous weeks.
As the excitement of the final show crept closer the producer had clearly been trying to develop dramatic tension. A testing table had been laid out and Bill sat at the head of it as though he was a presiding king. Trudy sat at his right hand whilst Carlos and Tom were to his left. They were all agreed that, of the three entries that they’d tasted, the gingerbread mansion was the clear winner.
The other two were good.
One showed the story of the gingerbread man in a series of gingerbread tableaux, each laid out on a separate baking sheet. The first scene showed a gingerbread man escaping, fresh from a gingerbread oven, and being pursued by a little old man and a little old woman. The contestant had decorated the scene with sugared icing to give the little old man a white beard and the little old woman white hair. In white lettering across the top of the tableau were the words ‘Run, run as fast as you can…’
The second baking sheet continued the message with the words ‘…you can’t catch me…’ This scene showed the gingerbread man being pursued by a series of gingerbread animals including a pig, a bird, a horse and a cow. Again, there was a lot of artistry in the display.
The final scene was headed ‘…I’m the gingerbread man!’ It showed the gingerbread man clearly escaping his pursuers but heading towards an open-mouthed fox sitting on a sugar-icing riverbank.
Tom marvelled over the inventiveness of the design. He said he was pleased that the contestant’s interpretation stopped before it reached the gruesome end of the original tale. Trudy couldn’t recall how the story finished but she did think a lot of effort had gone into the presentation. It seemed a shame that the gingerbread itself had an overpowering flavour of cloves. Or, as Carlos said, ‘It tasted like hospital.’
Trudy had tried various gingerbread recipes herself and she’d used cloves in a couple of them. But the medicinal tang of the spice had a tendency to dominate other flavours – as had happened here.
The second entry was a disturbing display that Carlos called ‘The gingerbread autopsy’. Bill had chuckled at the comment, and Trudy could understand his amusement. She was always anxious to avoid encouraging Carlos by laughing at his meanness, but, even so, she couldn’t think of a better way to describe the scenario presented to them.
The contestant had created a gingerbread diorama. In the centre of a baking sheet, raised on a sponge bed, lay a prostrate gingerbread man, who was being worked on by a number of standing figures. If the scene was meant to represent something along the lines of gingerbread men creating a gingerbread Frankenstein’s monster, Trudy thought, it was a clever idea.
But she also thought there was too much red icing sugar. The detached arm and the missing leg of the prone gingerbread man made him look tragic and vulnerable – and unappetising. The excess of bloody icing sugar gave the scene an ominous suggestion of brutality and violence that didn’t sit well with the gingerbread smiles.
‘It’s fucking gruesome,’ someone muttered on her left.
Trudy thought the words came from Carlos. Glancing over to that side of the table she was shocked to see that it was Tom who had spoken.
Tom refused to sample the display. He wrinkled his nose and said the whole thing was in very poor taste. Trudy thought he was overreacting a little but she could understand his unease. There was something about the display that was grisly
‘I don’t think it matters whether Tom tries a piece of that one,’ Bill said patiently. ‘I think it’s fairly clear which one of these is the winner.’
He was gesturing at the gingerbread mansion.
The presentation of the piece was superb. A variety of gingerbreads had been used for different features. The roof slates were fashioned from black treacle gingerbread. Scarlet food colouring had been added to the red-brick walls, and green food colouring stained the lawns surrounding the house. There were decorations on the windows and the door, most of them in reds and greens, as if decorating the house for Christmas. The seasonal theme tied in with the trimmings of snow that had been added to the chimney stacks and window ledges.
‘This is too beautiful to eat,’ Trudy murmured.
It was a gingerbread house that looked like it had been taken from the pages of a fairy tale. The fact that a contestant had managed to create such a piece of artistry in the short time allotted on the show made her sure she was looking at the winning entry.
The three contestants were called in and the production team arranged kitchen counters for each of them to stand beside. Trudy recognised Amy standing beside the tableaux of the gingerbread man’s story. Betty, the woman standing beside the gingerbread mansion, had been one of the earlier contestants from the show and had consistently demonstrated remarkable culinary skills.
Standing beside the gingerbread autopsy was the Smurf.
Trudy was not surprised to see him there.
He met her gaze with a smirk that was sly and unpleasant.
It was a disquieting stare and so mesmerising Trudy didn’t realise that she had missed some important moments of the filming. Ted had described the charms of the gingerbread man’s story and Carlos had commented on the artistry of the gingerbread autopsy. When the camera turned to her, the producer prompted Trudy to say something about the gingerbread mansion. She managed to stammer out a few words about the innovative design and stylish conception but she knew she wasn’t giving the creation the credit it deserved.
The camera turned to Bill and the producer asked him to provide a summary and announce the winner.
Nodding agreement, Bill said it had been a difficult decision and it had clearly taken a lot of skill and talent for the contestants to reach this stage. He made a handful of other politic remarks about the cleverness behind each of the entries but Trudy recognised the words as the typical platitudes used by the judges at the end of each week’s show.
There was a long dramatic pause before Bill announced that the winner was Betty. The studio audience were prompted to erupt into applause. Betty looked surprised and delighted that she had won the round. Amy’s smile was slightly bruised but she nodded as though she had expected this development.
The Smurf was scowling with thinly veiled fury. ‘This is bullshit.’
‘Watch the language over there,’ warned the producer. ‘And try to keep this upbeat, would you?’
‘Upbeat?’ sneered the Smurf. ‘Fuck that.’
The producer was pointing at the backstage crew and gesturing for them to take the Smurf aside and help him calm down. Before any of them could respond, the Smurf was already acting.
‘I’ll show you fucking upbeat,’ he snarled. He snatched a blade from his counter and leaped over the judge’s tables – heading for Trudy.
She stiffened. A scream rose in her throat. She could see the wicked edge of the knife looming toward her and, for an instant, she was too terrified to act. She was unable to move or get out of the way. All she could do was sit there and watch as the Smurf bore down on her with his blade held resolutely in his fist.
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘Victor,’ the producer called, ‘I’m not happy with the way you’re –’
Everyone else hesitated, but Bill chose to act. He stepped smartly in front of the Smurf, blocking his way.
The Smurf pulled back his blade as though getting ready to slash at him. Bill snatched the blade from his hand and dropped it with a clatter on the floor. Still holding the Smurf’s wrist, Bill pulled him forward and delivered an impressive head-butt. It was not, Trudy thought, a chivalrous or artistic way of fighting. It was brutal and savage. But, more important than chivalry or artistry, the head-butt proved effective.
The Smurf went down like a puppet with severed strings.
The head-butt must have been hard, Trudy thought, because Bill seemed to stagger from the impact. He blinked twice and then shook his head as though trying to shake away a rush of dizziness.
The Smurf lay motionless on the studio floor.
‘Bloody hell,’ muttered the producer. ‘Tell me someone caught that on film.’
Bill didn’t spare the Smurf a second glance, but rushed to Trudy’s side, clasped her hand and asked if she was OK.
Trudy nodded.
She was trying to tell him that she was fine, just shocked by the Smurf’s threat and impressed by his heroic response. She saw movement in the corner of her eye and stopped.
Donny was there.
Donny had stepped out of the studio audience and was approaching the judge’s tables with cool, calm determination. He paused only to stoop and pick up the Smurf’s discarded blade from where it had fallen to the floor. He glared down at the Smurf and Trudy saw his lips twist into a snarl of disdain. If she’d been closer to him, Trudy knew she would have heard him tutting softly with disgust.
‘You only had one fucking job,’ Donny told the prone figure.
He kicked the Smurf.
It was a vicious and spiteful gesture.
Bill seemed oblivious to Donny’s presence. He was studying Trudy with obvious concern. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked. He waved a hand in front of her face as though worried that she was losing focus. ‘Are you OK? You’re not in shock, are you?’
She had no chance to reply.
Donny chose that moment to step between them. He grinned broadly and slammed the blade into Bill’s chest.