Jenny Oliver - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

‘Well, we’ll have to see if you do better today, won’t we?’ He smirked.

‘Yes, Chef.’ She nodded. No, it was no good. He just wouldn’t shrink to the size of one of her pupils. He had been born a fully fledged pain in the bum, she was sure of it.

‘I have my eye on you,’ he said as he strode away.

Rachel made the mistake of glancing to her right and saw Lacey raise her brows with disdain.

The day started with pastry. Filo, short, flaky, puff, choux. Savoury and sweet.

‘You know nothing about pastry. Everything you think you know, you don’t know,’ hollered Chef.

All morning they sweated over it. Chef coming over and screwing it into a lump, slapping it across the room to the bin, shouting, ‘Too much flour. Start again.’

Abby cried. George had a coughing fit and Tony cut another finger, rendering him useless for the afternoon’s challenge.

‘After lunch you make me something. I spend the day teaching you, now you give it back to me. I want to see what you have. In here.’ Chef bashed his chest with his fist. ‘Now leave, it is lunchtime.’

Rachel walked out with Abby, both bundled into their coats and scarfs ready for the wintry cold that had hit last night.

‘I’ve left my family at Christmas for this guy. He’s a nightmare,’ Abby whispered as they left the room.

‘You have kids?’

‘Two. Little girl and boy. One year apart. Glutton for punishment, me. I’ve told them I’m off meeting Santa—we need to discuss how good they’ve been this year.’ Pulling out her purse, she showed Rachel a picture—a passport-photo strip in a plastic wallet of two bright blond children, aged about six or seven, could have been younger, and a fun-looking surfer-type guy holding them on his knee.

‘He looks nice.’

‘Doesn’t he? Jane from number seventeen thought so, too. He left last year, bought a boat, said family wasn’t for him, he felt suffocated, and he’s sailing round the world now—with her. Have you seen those boats? If anything’s suffocating I’d say it’s them—can’t even stand up half the time. He sends postcards from places like Mauritius and the kids think he’s all exciting and glam. Not like boring old Mum.’

‘You’re cooking in Paris. That’s glamorous,’ Rachel said, and they both turned to look back up the stairs at the peeling paintwork and blown light bulb and giggled.

Marcel was just jogging down the stairs and gave them a funny look when he passed them laughing. ‘It is something about me, no?’

‘No, not at all.’ Rachel waved a hand to show that it was nothing, that they were laughing at something else.

Marcel shrugged, a lazy grin on his face as he pushed open the door to the street. ‘You could give a man a complex,’ he said, winking as he strolled out and then lighting a cigarette behind hands cupped against the breeze.

‘You could give me anything you want, Marcel,’ whispered Abby dreamily. ‘He’s so pretty, isn’t he? Like a model for Gucci.’

Rachel nodded as they watched him disappear up the road. Marcel was chocolate-box handsome; perfect as if he’d been chiselled from marble and on show in a museum.

‘I find him very distracting,’ Abby mused. ‘I have to consciously not look at him during baking, otherwise I’d be all over the place.’

‘You have to get a grip—’ Rachel leant on the door, letting in a shock of icy air ‘—or he’ll sense your weakness.’

‘Please, God.’ Abby clasped her gloved hands heavenward. ‘Let Marcel sense my weakness.’

Passing the pâtisserie, Rachel saw the guy she’d passed in the corridor earlier standing drumming his fingers lightly on the counter. Same grey woollen coat, same thick dark hair, same instant flutter in her stomach. No one seemed to be serving. She glanced through the window, peering over the gold scrolled lettering that spelt out Salernes on each window, and saw no one except the customer. Where was Françoise? Had her boyfriend arrived already? She glanced from the shop back to Abby and said, ‘Do you think I should go and look for Françoise …?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’ Abby shook her head, pulling her coat round her against the chill and blowing on her hands. ‘Stay out of it. Come on, it’s freezing out here.’

They walked on a step but Rachel found herself turning back. ‘I think I should. Look, he’s waiting … And I don’t want her to get into trouble,’ she added, refusing to acknowledge that her reason for returning had very little to do with Françoise.

Doubling back in through the side entrance of the shop, she checked the two cubbyholes to see why there was no one about. The back door to the patio outside was open, cold air was streaming in along with the raised voices of an argument. She ventured forward and, peering round the door, saw Françoise and a man who must have been the boyfriend from Bordeaux in the middle of an almighty row, arms waving in the air, voices raised, Françoise’s hair all loose and wild escaping from her plait and the boyfriend scowling as he flicked cigarette ash angrily onto the paving stones. It certainly didn’t look like the romantic reunion Françoise had been dreaming of earlier.

‘Françoise,’ Rachel whispered, but she didn’t turn.

Rachel coughed a couple of times to try and distract her but she was clearly in her stride, yelling and shouting all over the place, her finger stabbing him in the chest as he flicked the fag away and huffed out an exasperated breath, running a hand through his hair.

‘Shit,’ Rachel said out loud as she stepped back from the doorway and into the cubbyhole.

‘Is everything all right?’ the man asked, a look of amusement on his face as the insults from out on the patio streamed in through the back door.

‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head and made a face as she walked forward towards the counter. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anyone to serve you.’

He shrugged. ‘Can you?’

‘Oh, no, I don’t work here.’

He frowned. ‘You look like you do.’

Rachel found herself watching, distracted, as his fingers drummed casually on the counter top, mesmerised by his eyes as they glanced over the array of cakes. Then realising she hadn’t replied, said quickly, ‘The owner would kill me if he found me here.’

The man laughed, his eyes crinkling softly at the sides. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want that to happen.’

‘No,’ she said, trying not to stare. He wasn’t her type, not at all, yet she wanted him to keep looking at her that way. Maybe it was just because he was French and exotic and she felt far from home. She was usually all about the rough and ready, love ‘em and leave ‘em types, not the well-groomed, mature alpha males who looked as if they would buy her red roses, talk about current affairs over dinner and shrug unfazed if someone mentioned commitment. ‘I er—’ She pointed to the door, without taking her eyes from him. ‘I er—should be leaving.’

‘That is OK.’ He cocked his head, not bothering to hide his amusement at how flustered she was becoming as he went back to perusing the rows of pâtisserie.

She started to walk away but then found herself stopping and asking, ‘What were you going to have?’

‘I don’t know. I never know what to choose,’ he said, glancing up from the counter. ‘I like the eclairs, but I also think maybe the millefeuille. Or sometimes the tarte Tatin. There is too much to choose from and my eyes they are, I think I heard the phrase once, bigger than my stomach.’ He laughed. ‘It is hard, non ?’

‘Oh, I know. I’m like that too.’ Rachel found herself bending down on the other side of the counter to look at the array of desserts between them. ‘I just want everything,’ she said, then, embarrassed by her own enthusiasm, quickly glanced away when she met his laughing eyes through the glass.