‘Even I could have told you that wouldn’t go well.’ Back at the workroom everyone was starting to prepare. There was a sense, as they plucked butter from the larder and scooped up flour from the bags, that they weren’t pretending any more.
‘You have an hour and a half. Everything here, it is for you. Use it. I don’t want to see some shitty nothing on a plate. Enjoy. I am here, having coffee.’ Chef took his seat at the front and surveyed them like a headmaster.
Rachel looked around; it seemed everyone was going sweet. Lacey was cutting figs and straining prunes from a jar. She could see a row of tiny moulds ready to be lined with filo. Marcel had told them on the way in that his chocolate tart never failed. The secret was Armagnac from his family’s distillery.
Rachel was dithering, her hand hovering over peaches. She watched George pick the fruits for a pear, apple and orange blossom tarte Tatin. Cheryl was asking Abby to confirm ingredient weights for a cherry and date Bakewell. And Ali had decided on a basil and white chocolate vol-au-vent, the idea of which had made Chef snort with disgust.
As she stood panicking, gazing at all the ingredients, her eyes landed on a lump of feta, hard and crumbling into the wooden cheese board on the side, and she had a brainwave. Almost kissed the air and said a prayer of thanks.
When she reached for the cheese she caught Lacey roll her eyes and mutter under her breath, ‘Oh, here we go. Trying to be different.’
But she ignored her. She wasn’t trying to be different at all. She was trying to do whatever it took not to be at the bottom. Being last wasn’t a feeling she was used to. And if she was going to cling on and prove she had some skill, then this recipe was tried and tested. She knew because it wasn’t just Ben’s taste buds that recommended it, it was generations. A recipe passed down from her Greek great-grandmother to her grandmother, her mother and her.
Tiny filo cheese pies so thin and delicate, brushed with glistening egg yolk and packed full of feta, ricotta, blue cheese and parmesan that cracked and burst on the top like volcanos when cooked. Baked till golden, they were the taste of summers in Greece sitting under vines, Coca-Cola for them, chilled retsina for the adults. Clinking ice cubes, steaming plates of cheese and spinach pies, sizzling prawns, pale pink taramasalata, olives warmed by the sun. Her gran in a hat fussing. Her great-grandmother in a chair, faded blue sundress and Scholl sandals. The waves rolling the pebbles. It was the taste of summer and sunshine and family.
It was the taste of a time that was perfect.
She still made the pies, every now and then, but she didn’t go to Greece any more.
As she rolled out her filo, Chef sat up at the front sipping his espresso, Lacey carved her figs into intricate flowers, Marcel dripped chocolate from up high so it would cool into stars on his baking parchment, Ali started whipping his basil with the blender to make a foam, and Tony cut his finger again—Abby said it needed stitches. Chef sighed. Rachel’s pies puffed and cracked in the oven.
Time ticked away and she ummed and ahhed about taking them out as she watched Lacey make the finishing touches to her tartlets, dusting icing sugar over a flowered cake stand she’d brought from home.
‘Five minutes,’ said Chef.
She needed six.
Abby was brushing down her counter. Rachel’s was a mess, the sieve poking out from a pan, a baking tray at an angle in the sink, spoonfuls of cheese splattered across the surface.
‘One minute,’ Chef yelled.
Rachel looked at her pies. Almost. Almost. She heard her great-grandmother: Patience, Rachel. Patience in the kitchen. Her timer ticked.
‘Fuck it,’ she said in the end as the others stood neatly by their creations. Fifteen seconds to go, she yanked open the oven door, her glasses misted with steam, and tipped her pies onto a white plate she’d found under her counter.
When the stopwatch beeped, Chef slowly unfurled himself from his chair and walked from stand to stand perusing the goods. Marcel had supplied a crystal glass of Armagnac, Abby had a model Santa and a sherry to go alongside her mince pies. Lacey’s beautiful tarts sat proud and decadent on their tiered platter, as good as anything Rachel had been served for her birthday tea at the Ritz. Slicing a sliver here and a chunk there, Chef announced his verdicts.
‘Délicieux.’ Lacey’s tartlets.
‘Average.’ Abby’s pies.
‘A waste of good Armagnac.’ Marcel’s chocolate.
‘Intriguing.’ George’s tarte Tatin.
‘Disgusting.’ Ali’s basil creation.
Then he stopped at Rachel’s. She watched as he cast a disapproving eye over her bench. He picked up and dropped her sopping cloth, then prodded her haphazard pile of pies. Their innards were squelching out as they squashed each other without the proper time to cool.
He took one between finger and thumb, holding it as if he found it as distasteful as the dirty cloth. He blew on it, tore it in half and listened for the crack in the filo. Satisfied by the sound, finally he put it in his mouth. Biting, waiting, smelling, biting again, swallowing, pausing.
Her palms were sweating. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted to impress him.
‘Rachel,’ he said. Paused. Seemed to disappear from the moment for just a second. Took another bite. ‘Your food, it looks like shit. But it tastes … It tastes not bad.’
‘The drinks are on me.’ Rachel didn’t know if it was happiness or relief but, God, she felt good.
Most of the group was crammed round a booth table in the corner of the bar; a carafe of white wine and a stack of tumblers were in the centre. Dressed in a black shirt and leather jacket, Marcel was loping back in after a smoke and Lacey hadn’t come because she didn’t like to socialise with the competition. Poor old Tony hadn’t fared the pastry test well and was pulled aside at the end and told not to come back.
He was sitting now, head in his bandaged hands, nursing a whisky and soda.
‘Bloody hard, wasn’t it? I mean, tough competition. Tougher than I expected.’ Tony was a proper English gentleman. A deputy head at a private boys’ boarding school in Suffolk. ‘I’ll have to lie to the kids. Can’t have them thinking I went out first round. That would never do. I’d never live it down,’ he said, taking a large gulp of his drink and shaking his head as the fire hit the back of his throat.
‘It’s not so bad,’ Abby offered.
‘And you had hurt your hands,’ Cheryl chimed in softly. ‘You can’t be expected to do your best if you’re injured.’
‘Yes. Absolutely. You’re quite right. That’s exactly what the wife said. She arrives this afternoon. I told her someone else already went out yesterday. We’ll have a couple of nice days in Paris. Spot of Christmas shopping and all that. Maybe go up the tower. Nice view from the top of the Pompidou, so I’m told.’
‘Where are you staying?’ asked Rachel, taking a sip of her wine while an image of her depressing little flat popped into her head.
‘The Ritz.’
‘Oh.’
‘And you?’ he asked, whisky glass to his lips.
‘Not the Ritz.’ She laughed.
As more drinks were bought, and tiny bowls of nuts and olives plonked onto the table by a moody waiter, round the table people had started talking about Christmas plans for when they went home.
‘I’m flying back on Christmas Eve, straight after the final event. Not that I’ve a hope after