Back inside the room was boiling hot. Lacey was up to her elbows in pastry. Chef eyed Rachel dubiously with a frown
‘Decided to join us, Flower Girl?’ he mocked.
But it didn’t affect her now she had a secret. He thought she had talent. And that snippet meant more than she’d ever imagined it would. He believed in her.
She felt her nose where the snow had fallen. She thought she could smell perfume. She thought she could hear her gran’s laughter as she started again on her shortcrust.
‘Yes, Chef,’ she said.
‘Two hours forty-five minutes,’ Chef shouted.
Rachel ripped her neat timing chart off her pad and scrawled a new list. 1. Redo meringues. 2. Redo croissant dough. 3. Scrap all fancy decorations. 4. Scrap swan necks—just do Viennese biscuits.
And it went on to the end of the page. There were no timing charts; it was a free-for-all. Like a Saturday morning in the bakery. She poured all the forest fruits and red berries into a metal pot and started stewing them down for the jam. Then she pushed her raspberries through the sieve for the juices, but it was taking too long so she tipped it upside down and just crushed down some of the lumps with the back of a spoon.
She wiped a raspberry swipe across her forehead. Pulled her hair off her face in an ungainly top knot, accidentally smeared her glasses with flour, and yanked off her jumper, it was so hot. Lacey’s table was calm and precise. Rachel’s was a mess. There would be no sieving, no delicate folding, no pinching, trimming, pinking, dusting, gold-leafing or piping. If this was going to get done it was going to be rough. But it would taste fabulous. That was all that mattered, surely? Was her good luck branch extravagant? Had the church had frills? No. Her candle had been simple white. Her branch tied only with silver bows.
This felt right. It felt comfortable. It felt like going with her instinct.
This would be village bakery. This would be Christmas fair cake sale. This would be Rachel.
So while Lacey was curling tuiles, cutting petals, painting chocolate onto holly leaves and fashioning spun-sugar bundles, Rachel was rolling, kneading, tasting, boiling. She was making miniature quiche Lorraine with crumbly shortcrust. Tiny cornish pasties pinched at the top in waves. Crackly cheese spinach pies that burst and oozed together in the oven so were skirted with frills of burnt cheese—the best bits, her gran would say. Her rosemary and tomato Gruyère squares puffed up so high the topping slid off as if it were drunk. Her crème pâtisserie was so wobbly and thick the cranberries almost disappeared. Her croissants were weighed down with almond frangipani so stayed flat like an envelope, moist and dripping with sweet marzipan chocolate. The choux pastry for her Religieuse puffed up in a mishmash of sizes. Her millefeuille were overfilled with cream and the layers slapped on too quickly so they leant precariously. Her macaroons were shocking purple from a distracted tap of colouring while checking the slow-cooking meringues. The miniature tarte tatins had over-browned with thick, glossy apple syrup. Her Sachertortes were slick with apricot jam and the word Sacher illegibly piped over the chocolate icing.
When she moved her cooling meringues to one side while trying to ice her individual vanilla slices at the same time, she dropped the wire rack and they broke like cracks in icebergs. Chef tutted as she began sticking them together with sweet chestnut purée like miniature Eton Mess. And then there were her little Christmas puddings. Solid brown ugly lumps with a sprig of holly in the top. And tiny chocolate sponge houses, each roofed with three chocolate buttons like a teepee.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ called Chef.
Rachel was sweating, her hair slicked back off her forehead, her apron filthy, her face dusted with flour and raspberry and chocolate, but she was smiling. For the first time in the kitchen. She even winked at Lacey as Lacey placed her delicate gold-leafed macaroons with precision onto a doily at the counter.
Rachel, at the other end of the glass counter, was gulping down the espresso Françoise had put in front of her and piling flat croissants onto a metal tray, dusting them with a generous powder of icing sugar, flaked almonds and grated chocolate in the hope of distracting from the monstrous appearance. Her macaroons she made into a tower that was almost fluorescent. Her pistachio and coffee Religieuse were at the front but their heads kept falling off every time she touched the tray. Her Christmas houses she lined up like a street and the sight of them made her laugh out loud.
‘Three minutes.’
Lacey was artfully arranging holly sprigs and mistletoe while Rachel tied silver bows to a branch she’d found outside on the pavement and rammed into the corner of her counter. Then she chopped up pieces of her cheese pies and tarte tatins for people to taste as they were choosing. Lacey did the same with her hazelnut choux pastry and strawberry buttercream Paris-Brest.
Abby was piling warm baguettes into the racks behind the counter and stopped when she saw Rachel sit back, wiping her hair out of her eyes and sipping her bitter coffee.
‘Everything OK?’ she whispered.
‘Everything is bloody marvellous,’ Rachel replied.
The queue outside snaked round the corner. Word had got around and Henri’s was still a name that could garner attention. This being a competition meant that people could be part of the choices he made, and they liked that idea.
At eight o’clock on the dot the doors were flung open. The click of the espresso machine went non-stop as people peered and picked and pointed.
‘Good luck,’ Rachel whispered to Lacey, who looked frazzled and exhausted, and for the first time she looked Rachel straight in the eye when she spoke to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I want to say good luck to you, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I just want it too much.’
Rachel nodded. When she turned back it was to see all the faces crowding round Lacey’s half of the counter. They were staring at her delicate creations, pointing for boxes of pistachio, cranberry and chocolate Florentines, cassis and cinnamon truffles, crème de menthe macaroons.
Rachel popped a bit of croissant into her mouth as she waited and to her surprise it was like a Hallelujah chorus on her tongue.
So she yanked one out with her tongs and chopped it up, passing the pieces on a plate over the counter for people to taste.
A little wrinkled hand reached out and took it from her and when Rachel looked up she saw it was Chantal.
‘I will hand this down the queue.’ She winked. She was dressed in her usual paisley housecoat and fur-lined boots, her shopping bag was nestled in the crook of her arm and her tea-cosy hat was pulled low over her grey curls. She popped a bit in her mouth before she turned towards the waiting shoppers and said, ‘It is like a little taste of heaven.’
Rachel smiled and watched her as she chatted her way down the queue of customers, pushing the tray of slap-dash croissant pieces at them until they tasted one. She watched their faces transform from disdain and disinterest to sheer delight as they patted each other on the shoulder urging them to sample.
Suddenly her queue was growing. Smaller than Lacey’s still but it had potential.
A moustached man with a cane braved a messy meringue and ate it in front of her. ‘C’est un triomphe,’ he muttered, kissing his fingers, and as he did a granny with a scruffy white dog in her basket asked for fifteen of them in a box.
Next came a young boy who wanted a chocolate house and when he tried it his mother bought three more for all her children who were watching like baby birds in a nest. A chic woman in fur laughed at Rachel’s vibrant macaroons. ‘They will go perfectly with my decorations.’ She smiled and bought them all.
Rachel was having a whale of a time, drinking espresso, eating her own croissants and laughing with people as they ate her food. The appearance of which was no longer an issue; in fact they were loving it all the more for its ugliness. Someone even commented on her silver ribbon twig and she sold it to them for ten Euros.
Lacey however was on fire. Her counter was practically all crumbs. Her stunning brandy cream horns left one man practically on his knees it was so good. Her face was serene as she served; there wasn’t a smear of flour on her—in fact Rachel wondered if she’d actually had time to redo her make-up. Her coral lipstick and pale blue eye-shadow looked freshly applied.
Chef was watching from the far corner of the counter. Tasting morsels as they were passed around and occasionally strolling past and taking a cherry truffle or a pistachio Religieuse. But he spent most of the morning just standing and watching.
Françoise slid past to get more beans for the coffee machine and said about a reindeer biscuit, ‘I will steal one of these.’
As she moaned with delight the three old men who sat every day at the counter sipping espresso ordered their own, chuckling at the little red noses.
Rachel was loving watching them all eat her food, goods that she had baked. However slap-dash and all over the place she’d been, it felt amazing to see the final products being devoured. And she knew she could do better. This had been the first step, the first hurdle, her courage was slowly coming back, and it felt nice. It felt right.