Jenny Oliver - The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

‘You are still with us? I thought you run back to England? Non? ’

Rachel shook her head. She tried to think of him as the great baker who had lost everything. Of the boy who had grown up too fast. Of the genius who revolutionised French pâtisserie. Last night she had crept down the stairs and perched on the bottom step outside Madame Charles’s flat and, tapping in the code that Chantal had slipped her, had surreptitiously logged into her Internet. There she had spent an hour or so Googling Henri Salernes. The restaurant he had set up with his brother that had taken Paris by storm and made them among the youngest three-Michelin-starred chefs in the country. She’d pored over pages and pages of glowing reviews from even the most hardened critics and pictures of snaking queues out of the door and celebrities huddled in darkened corners sipping champagne.

Then the headlines changed to the shock exit of his brother, who walked away at the height of their fame. And then the steady charting of Henri’s epic rise and fall. The temper that had driven away most of his best sous chefs, the arrogance that had banned negative critics from walking through the door and the gradual loss of his Michelin stars, one by one over the years until there were none.

But just as the articles got juicy, she’d heard the click of Madame Charles’s heels on the stairs and, slamming her laptop shut, Rachel had backed up into the shadow of the landing and watched as her elegant landlady swept into her apartment, the lights glistening, the warmth emanating, and as the door shut the soft lull of some classical music and the ring of the telephone accompanied by Madame Charles’s soft, low voice as she answered the call. Rachel had watched the closed door jealously, reluctant to go back up to her room, especially now she was going back for more of Chef the next day. Wishing instead that the doors to this sumptuous apartment might open up and swallow her whole.

What was it Chantal had said about Chef? Not a good home. Rachel had thought of lovely little Tommy back in Nettleton who’d been adopted by Mr Swanson and his wife two years ago. He’d had not a good home. As he stood in front of her now she tried to imagine Chef at Tommy’s age. Looking up at his stern, miserable face, she tried to picture him as a five-year-old, as one of her sweet little class with trousers too big and jam down his cardigan.

She watched him glance at her apron and take in its absent flowers.

‘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.

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