Julie Caplin - The Little Paris Patisserie - A heartwarming and feel good cosy romance - perfect for fans of Bake Off!

Shelving under the benches held an assortment of bowls, glass, earthenware and stainless steel in a mind-boggling number of sizes, all tucked haphazardly into each other. Sauté pans, heavy-bottomed pans and frying pans were stacked in leaning Tower of Pisa piles, handles pointing every which way like a distorted spider’s legs.

How on earth was she ever going to get this lot sorted in time?

And there was no chance of appealing to Marcel’s better nature, she wasn’t sure he had one. He’d made it quite clear she was on the side of the enemy. She was on her own.

Really on her own. There was no one she could ask for help.

For a minute the panic threatened to swamp her.

No, she could do this. She needed to make lists, prioritise and get some labels to mark up all the shelves and drawers so that everything had a proper place to live.

When she returned to the café area, it was still deserted. Marcel didn’t even look up at her. Mischief prompted her to say. ‘Is Marguerite your only customer?’

‘There are few ladies like Madame du Fourge around. She is old school Paris. Genteel. Elegant. She comes here every day.’

‘She does?’ Again, Nina frowned.

‘It hasn’t always been like this,’ snapped Marcel.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘Yes. You did.’ Marcel’s eyes shimmered with sudden emotion. ‘Once, this was one of the best patisseries in Paris.’ He waved a dismissive hand towards the pale-blue, -painted panels on the wall under a pink-painted dado rail. ‘When I was a child, I grew up four streets away. We would come here for a Saturday morning treat. They made the best mille-feuilles. It was the speciality of the house.

‘But the owner passed it onto his children. They were not pastry chefs. Things changed. We stopped making patisseries here in the kitchen. Everything is delivered now. It is not the same. And soon we will close and your Monsieur Finlay will open his bistro.’ Marcel closed his eyes, as if in pain.

‘I guess if the patisserie isn’t making money…’ Nina gave a tiny lift of her shoulders, trying to be sympathetic.

Marcel glared at her. ‘If it was run properly, it could. No one has cared for fifteen years.’ With a sudden petulant pout, he added, ‘So why should I?’ With that, he flounced away to wipe one of the tables which didn’t even look as if it had been used.

Nina frowned after him. Why was he working here then? Clearly, he’d been at the top of his game once.

With a sigh she looked at her watch and decided that she would come back tomorrow. She had a few days to get prepared and hopefully Marcel would be in a better mood, although she wasn’t counting on it.

‘So what’s Sebastian’s apartment like?’ asked Nina’s mother on her fourth day in Paris.

‘Nice,’ replied Nina, lifting her eyes from the screen where she was Facetiming with her mother, to take a quick look around the flat.

‘Nice. That doesn’t tell me anything,’ complained her mother, with a good-natured frown.

‘OK, very nice. Will that do?’ Nina looked over to the tall French windows with the voile curtains billowing in the slight breeze. Beyond them was a tiny balcony which overlooked the wide boulevard below. Up on the top floor, the corner apartment offered two different panoramas, both with great views including one of the Eiffel Tower. A view she was rather too well acquainted with. Being here on her own was a lot more daunting in reality. It was just as well that she’d needed to spend so much time in the patisserie kitchen getting everything ready. Marcel had flatly refused to help. Every day she told herself she had seven whole weeks to explore the city, and that there was no hurry.

‘I like to be able to imagine where you are, darling.’ Her mother’s plaintive smile made Nina feel guilty. Of course it did. Honed by years of experience and five children, it was her not so-secret weapon. Flipping her phone around, Nina went straight out onto the balcony.

‘What views! And what a lovely sunny day. What are you doing inside?’

‘Talking to my mother,’ said Nina, facing her again.

‘You should be outdoors. It’s a gorgeous day.’

‘I was planning to go and explore a bit later.’ Nina didn’t want to admit that her exploration to date had consisted mainly of prowling around Sebastian’s flat and a char-lady visit to the patisserie, where she’d ended up scrubbing and cleaning the kitchen, and methodically reorganising the utensils and drawers.

‘Well, make sure you’re careful. I’ve heard the pickpockets in Paris are terrible. You should put your bag over your head and across you. Although I have also heard that sometimes they use knives to cut the straps.’

‘Mum, I’ll be fine.’ If this was her mum encouraging her to go out, she wasn’t doing a great job.

‘Well, make sure—’

‘Here, this is the lounge.’ She did a slow motion three-sixty turn.

‘Oh darling, that’s gorgeous. Nice! It’s delicious. You are naughty.’

Nina gave her mum a mischievous smile as she returned the screen to face her. ‘OK, it’s rather sumptuous. I think this sofa is the nicest I’ve ever seen.’ She stroked the pale grey velvet surface and patted the teal wool cushions. ‘I think Sebastian must have got some kind of interior designer in, it’s all very calming, cool colours.’

‘Very summer,’ said her mother, who was a big fan of colour analysis and having your colours done.

‘Kitchen?’

With a sigh, knowing there’d be no satisfaction now until she’d done a tour of every room, Nina walked over to the other side of the room and turned the sharp right angle into the kitchen-diner.

‘Oh my word! Nina, that is lovely.’

Nina had to admit the open plan room, with its view of the Eiffel Tower which at night was all lit up, was rather wonderful. The modern kitchen had shiny glossy cupboards with no handles and had every gadget known to man.

‘Show me that coffee machine. Oh, John, John! Come here and see this.’

Nina could hear her parents cooing over the stainless-steel built-in machine and wondering where they might put one and how much it might cost.

She walked on through, showing her mum the wide hallway with its recessed soft lighting and slate floor and the bathroom with its huge shower and lovely aqua tiles.

‘It all looks so nice, darling. You’re not going to want to come home.’

‘Don’t worry, Mum, Sebastian will want it back as soon as he’s mobile again.’

‘And how is the dear boy? You will send him my love, won’t you? We do miss him. He practically lived here.’ Nina closed her eyes knowing exactly what was about to come. ‘And then … well, I don’t know why he stopped visiting so often. It’s such a shame we don’t see him more often.’

‘Maybe because he went away to university and then onto catering college,’ suggested Nina for what felt the thousandth time over the years.

‘He could have come in the holidays.’

Her jaw tensed and Nina was grateful the phone camera was still trained on the bells-and-whistles, state-of-the-art shower.

‘Well, that’s the guided tour,’ said Nina. ‘So how’s lambing going—’

‘You haven’t shown me the bedroom. Come on.’

‘It’s just a bedroom. It’s got a bed in it—’

‘But it’s so interesting seeing what’s available in other countries, don’t you think?’

Nina paused outside the bedroom door. There was no earthly reason why she shouldn’t show her mother, but even so…

She opened the door, seeing the room for the first time again and feeling that same unsettled sense of voyeurism, of being an intruder into someone else’s life. She felt it more sharply in the bedroom than anywhere else, perhaps because there were so many more personal items in here.