Jenny Oliver - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Tearing her eyes from her solid-looking mixture as it tried to rise in the oven and switching off the grill as her tomatoes bubbled under the heat, Rachel wiped down her surface just praying that her mixture would puff up enough not to be an embarrassment. She only looked up when she saw Abby draw out a white-chocolate stunner. Smooth, fluffy and risen high like a chef’s hat, it was the most glorious-looking soufflé she’d ever seen. Dusted from up high with a snowy shower of icing sugar and sprinkled with slices of sugared lemon rind and circled with a vivid yellow curd sauce, it was a definite show-stopper.

As she glanced across at Lacey’s individual crab towers that were quite pale and George’s burnt crust it was clear that Abby would be the day’s winner.

Rachel hardly dared look at hers. Everyone else was putting the finishing touches to theirs. Ali was spooning his custard into a vintage blue and white Cornishware jug. George was looking dubiously at his very forlorn soufflé, blackened like a scorched Leaning Tower of Pisa. Sucking in a breath, she bent down and peeked through the glass of her oven.

There it was—tall and puffy and risen like a skyscraper, with a tear round the edge where the cheese had pulled like crocodile teeth. She did a little clap. Then yanked the door open and drew out her beauty, bronzed on top and glistening with a deep glazed shine.

‘Wow,’ said Lacey before she could stop herself.

Rachel could only nod, speechless that it had worked.

Abby came round to look at it. ‘That’s amazing.’

‘I know, I can’t believe it.’

They all stood round gazing at Rachel’s cheese tower.

A knock on the door broke the reverie and as Chef went to answer it Rachel pulled off her oven gloves and, turning her back on her prize creation, went in search of a plate.

Philippe walked in, wearing a black cashmere suit, and looked round the room till he spotted Rachel and smiled. She winked back and pointed triumphantly at her soufflé. He did a nod as if humouring her. She raised her eyebrows nodding more, to try and show him how much this risen soufflé meant to her. Even her mum had never been able to make them rise. There was a soufflé curse on her family that had now, finally, been lifted.

Beaming, she looked down to put it on her flowery plate and saw to her horror that it was completely flattened. Dissolved of air and height like a burst balloon. A sunken mush of stringy cheese. An echo of her now deflated heart.

‘How?’ she whispered.

Glancing around, she noticed that Lacey wouldn’t catch her eye. George was fussing with his disaster. Marcel was leaning back against the counter, one brow raised. She made a perplexed face at Abby but she looked down, away from her.

Was it Rachel’s imagination or were her cheeks flushed?

‘And now we taste.’ Chef clapped his hands together and he and Philippe strode forward.

Rachel stared in horror at her sunken mess.

Lacey’s, of course, tasted bloody marvellous. Her bisque, Philippe thought, divine. Ali’s left them silent; beneath the fluffy top was a cloying mass of sticky rice and raspberry jam that fell from their spoons like baby sick.

Chef snorted when he got to Rachel’s. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear.’

Hands clasped behind her back, she looked down, refusing to see the look of sympathy on Philippe’s face. ‘I don’t know what happened. It had risen when I got it out.’

‘A likely story, Flower Girl.’ Chef grinned and stabbed one edge with his fork, beckoning for Philippe to do the same. ‘If you can bear it,’ he added.

It was only when Philippe dug his fork in that Rachel saw it—the slice. A cut the size of a Sabatier knife, stabbed into her right-hand side.

She gasped. Someone had murdered her soufflé.

‘It is delicious,’ said Philippe, surprised.

‘ Mais oui , the girl, she can cook. She is simply a disaster.’ Chef licked the last string of cheese off his fork and they walked over to Marcel.

‘Delicious,’ Philippe said again before leaving, but Rachel could only nod, distracted.

She looked round the room again and she tried to get Abby to look at her so she could mouth what had happened but she wouldn’t.

‘Abby,’ she muttered in the end, but Abby bent down to rummage on her shelf.

And that was when Rachel saw the missing slot on her knife roll. The twelve-inch blade empty. Probably in Abby’s sink, slimy with congealed parmesan and Gruyère.

‘You!’ she whispered.

Abby looked back at her this time, but did a face of pleading innocence before turning away as the men appeared at her station and rhapsodised over her white-chocolate creation.

Rachel stayed in the competition by the skin of her teeth. Luck was on her side as Ali’s and George’s were both dreadful.

Ali stormed out refusing to talk to anyone after he was dismissed. George stayed and cleared up his table. ‘Oh, well.’ He shrugged. ‘Back to my little business. Dreams of stardom over. Too old anyway.’

Rachel watched his back as he walked over to the coat stand and pulled on his tweed blazer followed by his Peter Storm cagoule.

She wanted to stop him and say it was unfair. That there had been sabotage and cheating. ‘You’re not too old, George,’ she said instead.

‘You’re very sweet. It was enough for me. I’ve reached my limit. It’s hotting up. If it had been anyone else I’d have said, no, it’s time for me to go. I can feel it.’ He smiled. ‘And you, young lady, need to pull yourself together. You’re at the end of your nine lives. You hear me?’

She nodded.

‘Good.’ He pulled on his flat cap. ‘I expect you to win.’

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