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.’
‘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.’
‘Miss what?’
‘Your mum’s place.’
Rachel didn’t reply, but went back to pulling on the loose cotton and unravelling a strip of cushion embroidery.
‘I’ve sent you something,’ said Jackie into the silence.
‘What?’
‘You’ll see. I paid a fucking fortune for it to get there before Christmas day.’
‘Thanks. I think.’
‘No probs. What are you doing on Christmas day?’
Rachel paused, then said, ‘Recovering from the final.’ And laughed.
‘That’s the spirit. OK, I’m going. This is costing a fortune. Why is there no wifi there?’
She looked around the dingy little room. ‘If you saw it, you’d understand.’
‘That good, eh? Did I not do so well?’
‘I’m like Rapunzel at the top of a tower.’
‘Bon. Well, you’ll have to hope some French hunk comes to save you. I’m really going now. Oh, actually that reminds me, Ben asked about you. I said you were seeing a dashing Frenchman.’
‘Ha, thanks.’
‘OK, bye. Oh and, Rachel… You have to fight. Not necessarily dirty but you have to fight. You’ll regret it otherwise.’
‘De rien,’ Jackie said and hung up.
Rachel pulled off the loose thread from the cushion and felt suddenly a bit sad that her friend wasn’t there in the room with her. It seemed awfully cold all of a sudden. Outside the snow was unceasing. Whopping great flakes like cricket balls were falling past the window, catching on the sill and making an arc across the panels like fake snow in a toy shop.
She thought of Nettleton, of what everyone would be doing. All the kids would be practising for the choir concert, while their parents would be deciding who would bring the mulled wine. People would be stopping each other in the street or as they were walking their dogs and planning what time they’d get to the pub on Christmas Eve. There’d already be queues outside the butcher for turkeys and the fishmonger would be getting ready for lines of people down the pavement in a couple of days. Rachel found herself actually missing the traditions. Especially the annual Christmas play that she usually rolled her eyes at and refused to be any part of. The others would haul out the moth-eaten Santa suit and the rest of the obscure array of costumes, half of which someone had once pinched from a BBC filming in the village, so Mr Swanson was usually a Regency duke and Jackie, without fail, was a serving wench. Last year they’d brought a donkey on stage, which the minutes of the next parish council meeting had noted as a mistake. She found herself wondering what the story was this year, whether there would be any farmyard animals, who would forget their lines and reduce the cast and audience to tear-filled giggles. One year her dad had played Captain Hook. She wondered if by some miracle he might step forward this year. Would her gran be able to persuade him? Probably not.
She went over to the stove and lit the gas under the kettle, trying not to wonder what her dad was up to and imagining instead the village green and the pond decked in twinkling Christmas lights. Hopefully her gran would get him to the pub at least. He could rarely resist a Whiskey Mac. She stood fiddling with the top of the flour bag as she waited for the kettle to boil, pulling the crumpled sides up so they were perfectly straight and then squashing them down again. It was pointless reminiscing, she thought. She was here in Paris, not home. And whatever else was going on she was there to do a job, they’d sent her there, made this all possible, and the least she could do was return home triumphant.
Tea made, she considered finally taking her exhausted body to bed, but, however hard she tried to ignore it, she knew she would lie awake thinking about what Philippe’s wife looked like. So instead she stayed where she was in the kitchen.
Tomorrow was petits fours. Tiny delicate delights served with coffee. When was the last time she’d practised a macaroon—the bright-coloured French kind with its soft, gooey centre? Or a truffle? How were her chocolate tuiles? Her brandy snaps? Her chocolate ganache hadn’t had the shine of Lacey’s on the first day. Nor had her crème pâtisserie been as glossy and rich.
Unrolling the flour bag again, she pulled out a set of rusty scales from under the surface and a sieve with great holes as if a mouse had chewed on it. Chantal had left her a bag of sugared almonds and some candied lemon peel from the market.
The almonds she decided to crush in a praline that she’d pipe between delicate slices of puff pastry for crisp, flaky millefeuille with a chocolate and orange-blossom icing. The leftover almonds she ground into her shortcrust dough, which she rolled into wafer-thin cups and filled with raspberry pâtisserie crème, candied lemon slices and a physalis.
The rest of the lemon became soft Armagnac truffles, from the leftovers of Marcel’s bottle, rolled in sparkly sugar, the sharp citrus heavenly alongside the bitterest dark chocolate. And unable to stop herself, she made some mint chocolate thins that she sprinkled with salted caramel and ate before they had properly cooled.
She worked for hours making perfect inch-square millefeuille, powder puffs of meringue dribbled with cranberry coulis, even mini round Christmas puddings that Chef would think revolting but pleased her. She packed them up in a box to save for her dad—always a favourite of his in the past.
Cars were starting to thunder down the Champs Élysées before she finally crawled into bed. But she had four hours of the most blissfully satisfying sleep.
Her only thought when the alarm went off was…
He has a wife.
It was probably a good thing, she thought next. No distractions.
He has a wife.