The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. Jenny Oliver
on the counter. When she saw Rachel looking at her she rolled her eyes as if to show she had no time at all for Chef’s behaviour. Next to Abby was Ali, who had introduced himself saying he ‘liked to experiment with flavour combinations’ and Rachel had had to stifle a snort. He was currently holding in a nervous giggle and looking about to see what everyone else’s reactions were. Marcel, a shockingly handsome Frenchman who had immediately caught Rachel’s attention, was raising one brow in disdain at Ali and allowing a sneer to play on his lips. And then there was George: old, bald with a white moustache, he put his hands on the counter in front of him and said, ‘Well, what do you think of that?’ But no one replied. The fierce-looking woman on Rachel’s far right, Lacey, who hadn’t told them anything about herself, shushed him. The only thing Rachel knew about her was from a phone conversation she’d overheard outside where Lacey was telling whoever was on the other end of the line that she didn’t need to be there. She was just brushing up on her pastry skills. She had a Culinary Arts degree.
They all fell silent as soon as Chef strode back in and Rachel stopped looking around and did what everyone else was doing: she rolled out her knives, checked her utensils, peered at the buttons on the oven and pulled on her new apron—the one her gran had embroidered her name on along with the sweet little flowers—fumbling the strings at the back with clammy hands.
Chef was up at the front shaking flour over his bench, which was double the size of theirs and wooden where their little tables were stainless steel. Next to him the walls were lined with bowls and trays and stocked like a greengrocer’s, fresh fruit and veg tumbling out of wooden crates, and huge sacks of flour and sugar leaned against the skirting board like fat men taking a rest.
It had taken Rachel ages to find the place; it was tucked down a side street and someone had graffitied over the road name. On the bottom floor was an unassuming pâtisserie that belonged to Henri and next to it a white door that opened onto a thin carpeted staircase that smelt of air freshener. The school was on the first floor up, a small room with two windows and packed full of work stations. Above it seemed to be another two or three floors of offices; she’d seen people in suits coming and going past the glass wall of their room.
Chef looked up when he was ready. ‘You have your aprons?’ He nodded when he saw them all, named like food on a shelf. Putting his arms behind his back, he strolled between them, peering at the stitching and reading the names aloud, then paused when he got to Rachel.
‘What the fuck is this flower? You think this is the kind of course for flowers?’ He glared at her, his thick eyebrows drawn together behind the rims of his glasses. ‘A sweet course? You think this is British Fucking Bake Off?’
‘No, Chef.’ Rachel swallowed.
‘You think you are Mary Berry?’
‘No, Chef.’
‘Get rid of those fucking flowers. Your name. The name is there so I don’t have to remember your fucking name. Comprende?’ She could feel his dislike emanating from him and immediately wanted to roll up her knives and run out of the building.
‘Oui, Chef.’
He cocked his head. ‘Don’t mock me.’
‘I-I wasn’t. I promise,’ she stammered.
‘I’m watching you, Rachel.’ He narrowed his eyes, leaning close so she could see the faint stubble over his jaw and the lines across his brow. Handsomely terrifying, a journalist had once described him, and she knew then exactly why. ‘Flower Girl,’ he said and stormed back up to the front.
Rachel glanced around, blinking away moisture in her eyes, and saw seven faces pretending not to look at her. George gave her a wink. As she swung back to the front she caught a look from Marcel on her left. Scruffy dark brown hair and wearing a woolly Lacoste jumper, he had bright blue eyes like a wolf’s that were watching her with either disdain or sympathy, it was hard to tell.
‘Flower Girl. This way!’ Chef shouted. ‘You’re here to learn, not look at the men next to you. Oui.’
Blushing scarlet, Rachel fixed her eyes on Chef’s table. He’d put out rows of pâtisseries—fluffy shell-shaped madeleines, rainbow-coloured macaroons, bite-sized lemon cakes, sticky rum babas and teetering piles of profiteroles.
Rachel loved profiteroles. She’d make them for Ben. He would say they were the best he’d ever tasted. Crème pâtisserie piped into the centre of perfect choux-pastry balls drizzled with the darkest melted chocolate she could buy in Nettleton. If Chef was going to say that they had to make profiteroles today then God or the Angel Gabriel was looking down on her. Chef wouldn’t call her Flower Girl after today, she mused as he summoned them up to the front. She’d be Profiterole Girl. Star Baker Numero Uno.
They gathered round the battered wooden bench, jostling to find a place where they could see exactly what was happening, and watched as Chef started to whisk together eggs and sugar. As he started to talk about all his little tricks of the trade everyone around her pulled out their notebooks and scribbled as he spoke.
Rachel felt herself begin to panic. No one had told her that she needed to bring a notebook.
‘Can I borrow some paper?’ she whispered to Lacey when she couldn’t stand it any longer, but Lacey pretended not to hear.
‘What is that? Who is talking while I talk?’ Chef looked up from his tray of madeleine moulds.
‘I needed some paper.’
‘Ah, you think you know everything, Flower Girl? You think you don’t need to write it down?’
‘No, it’s just—’ Rachel started but he’d gone back to his mixture, shaking his head as he spread it into the silver shells.
As she felt her face go red and nausea rising in her throat Abby nudged her on the shoulder and tore off some paper and George gave her a chewed pencil stump while Lacey shook her head and sighed.
It was a long day watching Chef work his magic. Rachel was exhausted; every inch of her scrap of paper was filled with notes. Then at the end of the afternoon he told them to make something from the day’s demonstration—something that best showed off their skills—and she found herself breathing a sigh of relief. He’d take her seriously after he tasted her famous profiteroles and Lacey could wipe that smug smile off her face.
But two and a half hours later the scene was not quite as she had imagined. Instead of savouring the flavour of her delicate creations, Chef was hurling her choux-pastry balls one by one out of the window, sneering, ‘These look shit.’
Rachel fled as soon as she could, stalking down the road, head down, humiliated, hat pulled low, and her coat, still damp from the night before, clutched tight. Her scarf was covering all her face except her streaming eyes. How had her pastry gone so wrong? In retrospect she realised she should have remade her pâtisserie cream because she’d known at the time it wasn’t her best, but she hadn’t thought it was that bad. It wasn’t that bad. Was it? She was out of her depth and the realisation that she hadn’t earned her place, that she wasn’t good enough, shouldn’t be there, was humiliating.
‘Hey, hey—’
She heard Abby call but kept walking. Feet pounding the pavement in her winter boots. Rachel had already decided she was never going back. She didn’t want this anyway. What had made anyone even think she had it in her to be a baker?
Saturdays at the counter standing next to her mum didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t actually baked anything that someone had bought, had she? Just pinched steaming loaves from the rack when no one was looking. Or sifted flour into the bowl for the lightest, softest croissants and whipped the egg white for the stickiest meringues while standing on an old bread box so she could reach the counter. It was her mum who’d done everything. All Rachel had done was cut the shapes of the biscuits. Bunnies at Easter. Ears of corn at harvest time. Ghosts at Halloween. Reindeer at Christmas; always with a red blob of icing on their noses. She’d watch her mum flick the nozzle of the piping gun so it was a perfect red dot. Then sometimes turn around and, when