A Spoonful of Sugar (5 page)

‘There’s been a slight mishap with Ronald,’ she said. ‘He’s absolutely fine and in good spirits, but unfortunately he won’t be returning to the competition.’

Peter and Lizzie exchanged a glance.

‘So does that mean no one leaves this week?’ Peter said.

Portia beamed.

‘It does,’ she said, as though that was a good thing.

I looked at my rubbish cupcakes and sighed.

It seemed I would be coming back for another week after all.

Seven

I spent the first half of the week wondering how I could get out of going back to Claddach for another round of the competition.

‘Can’t you write me a note?’ I asked Jamie. He was a GP and I often asked him for notes to get me out of stuff. Not that he ever agreed, of course.

He looked at me, a slight frown on his face.

‘You don’t have to do it, you know?’ he said. ‘It’s not like you don’t have a good excuse.’

We were sitting on the sofa, my feet on Jamie’s lap, waiting for the first episode of
Britain Bakes
to air. I felt sick, but I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or the fact the baby was particularly wriggly that day.

I rubbed my bump.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But you know what Harry’s like. It would be much easier if it was the judges – or a doctor – saying I couldn’t go back.’

‘You’re such a pushover when it comes to Harry,’ Jamie said. He was completely right. I couldn’t ever stand up to her.

‘She’s doing it for the right reasons,’ I pointed out. ‘She does think it’s going to help Claddach.’

Jamie made a face.

‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘But I can’t see many people paying much attention to a baking show. Like you keep saying, it’s not the
X Factor
, is it?’

But actually, Harry was right (of course). Portia’s press release got a bit of attention in the TV pages of the papers and online, with
Britain Bakes
being flagged up as the must-watch show of the day. I kept an eye on social media while the programme was on – it was much easier than watching myself on screen which I found excruciatingly embarrassing – and I was amazed to see how many people were watching and commenting. Harry got a lot of love – not surprisingly because she was so bloody gorgeous – as did Wilf. Amelia seemed to have divided the audience, with people either loving her or hating her. I was both pleased and slightly disappointed to have escaped without much comment apart from a few people saying they hoped I wouldn’t go into labour in the marquee. I resisted the urge to message back and say I still had two months to go.

When Ronald disappeared, everything went crazy, and when he was found again, social media almost exploded. I had to admit, they’d edited it very well. Close-ups of our worried faces and Ronald’s empty bench, a shot of Ronald and his wife walking slowly away from the tent, and Portia explaining what had happened. Even Jamie sat up straighter while it was on.

‘You know where he is,’ I reminded him as we watched.

He laughed.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But they’re ramping up the tension, aren’t they?’

As the credits rolled, there was a brief pause and then my phone went mad. Beeping with texts and voicemail messages, Facebook notifications, emails and everything.

‘Shit,’ I said to Jamie as we got into bed later, exhausted from speaking to excited friends and replying to endless well-done messages. ‘This is much bigger than I thought it was going to be.’

He held out his arm and I curled up against his chest.

‘I can’t back out now, can I?’ I said.

He shook his head.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Looks like Harry was right about how much difference it could make.’

I took a breath.

‘In that case,’ I said. ‘I’d better start practising my biscuits.’

I worked really hard all week, baking batches and batches of biscuits. We’d been told we had to prepare a 3D construction using biscuits and I’d decided to make little wedding cakes by making four different sizes of round biscuits, then piling them on top of each other and icing them to look like wedding cakes. I was pretty pleased with myself by the end of the week.

‘I do really feel like I’m learning,’ I told Harry as we drove up to Claddach on the Saturday morning. ‘You were right. It’s good to get to grips with baking – maybe it’s in my blood after all.’
Harry shot me an amused look as she pulled in to the cafe’s small car park.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It’s good to see you so confident.’

I flexed my fingers.

‘I am confident,’ I said. ‘I’m ready to knead that biscuit dough.’

Obviously, as soon as I got out of the car, my confidence deserted me once more. There were just as many people milling about as there had been last week – more perhaps. The cafe was packed and Millicent Fry grabbed us before we could even say hello to our mums.

‘Darling girls,’ she said, looping her arms through ours. ‘This is all your doing and it’s absolutely wonderful. My bookings are through the roof. We’re even on the home page of Trip Trap.’

I stared at her blankly. Harry nudged me.

‘It’s a travel website,’ she said.

‘Ohhhh,’ I said. ‘Brilliant.’

‘What is it this week?’ asked Millicent as we walked towards the marquee.

‘Biscuits,’ I said dully. ‘We’re building with biscuits.’

‘Marvellous,’ Millicent said. ‘Oh, there’s Portia. I just need to ask her something so I’ll let you get on.’

She disappeared up the path towards the cafe and I clutched Harry’s hand.

‘H, don’t make me do it again,’ I said. ‘What if my wedding cakes fall over?’

Harry grinned at me.

‘You’ve done enough practising,’ she said. ‘And if they do look like they might fall over, we can help them stand up.’

I gaped at her.

‘I thought you said no magic,’ I hissed, thinking of all the time I’d spent slaving over a hot oven that week.

‘No magic for baking,’ Harry said. ‘I’m not averse to giving my decorations a little helping hand. Subtly, of course.’

‘Subtly,’ I said.

‘So if it all lands on the floor, then you’d better leave it. But if it just needs a bit of help staying upright, then waggle those fingers.’

I scowled at her.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll waggle.’

She giggled.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she said. ‘You wanted to use magic in the first place.’

‘I want to use more,’ I said.

‘Now that’s something I never thought you’d say,’ Harry pointed out, not unreasonably.

‘All set,’ Portia came bounding down the path towards us, still clutching her clipboard and with her BlackBerry wedged down her bra. ‘It’s biscuit week!’

‘Yay!’ said Harry, clapping her hands.

I gave her an evil look.

‘If you can’t beat them, Ez,’ she said.

‘Into Make-up then,’ Portia said, herding us in the direction of the gallery. ‘And then it’s off to say hello to the judges.’

Wearily, I let her push me up the path. I just hoped I was a bit better this week.

Eight

‘For your first challenge this week,’ Peter said, looking round at the five of us who were baking in the biscuit round. ‘We want you to make your own teatime favourite biscuits. Custard creams, jammy dodgers or bourbons. The recipes are on your benches. Off you go.’

‘Oh great,’ Amelia said, beaming round at us all. ‘I had an inkling this might be what we had to do. I’ve practised these.’

Wilf raised his eyebrow at me.

‘She’s definitely got a friend on the production crew,’ he said under his breath. ‘How would she know that?’

I shrugged, remembering my strawberries from last week and Harry’s advice about using magic this week if I had to, and not wanting to get into a discussion about cheating.

We’d moved up, Wilf into Ronald’s empty bench, and then me into Wilf’s, so there wasn’t a gap in the middle of the tent and we were nearer Amelia now. I suspected she was going to annoy me massively so I’d made my mind up to ignore her and set about reading the recipes and getting my ingredients together. I loved custard creams so I was quite pleased about making those and it all looked fairly straightforward. It was this afternoon’s challenge I was really worried about because I’d already overheard June and Amelia comparing notes about their 3D biscuits – and boy were they 3D. June had been talking about walls and a roof, while Amelia had mentioned birds and a loft. A LOFT.

But for now, I was going to concentrate on my teatime favourites and not let Amelia get to me.

I mixed and rolled and cut out my dough carefully. In front of me Wilf had covered his whole bench, and most of himself, in flour but he seemed to be getting on okay. He was making jammy dodgers and had jam on his nose and in his hair already. And Amelia was so in control that she had all her biscuits in the oven and was sitting drinking a cup of tea while they cooked. I made a face at her back. She was way too perfect for her own good, I thought. It wasn’t natural for someone so young to be so confident.

‘She’s annoying, isn’t she?’ Wilf had sneaked up beside me.

I grinned at him, keeping an eye on where the cameras were pointing so no one would catch us bitching.

‘So annoying,’ I agreed. ‘She’s just too good.’

I glanced over at Amelia, who was taking trays of perfect biscuits out of the oven.

‘I wish I could be more like that.’

Wilf rolled his eyes.

‘She’s a bit too Hermione Granger for my liking,’ he said. The timer on his bench started beeping and he jumped.

‘Best get back to it,’ he said. ‘Good luck with making custard.’

Oh god, the custard. I hadn’t ever made custard before.

‘Good luck with your jam,’ I said.

Wilf waved his hand as if to say that was no problem at all.

‘I’ve got two jars in my bag,’ he said under his breath. ‘So if it goes wrong I’ll use those instead.’

I chuckled. I liked his style.

I took my biscuits out of the oven and examined them carefully. They were fairly neat, though not as perfect as Amelia’s. I’d seen her measure each one with a ruler when she cut them out so it was no surprise they were uniform. Mine were more haphazard but not a disaster. In fact, I was pleased with them.

‘Take that, Hermione,’ I whispered, stifling a sigh as Peter and Lizzie appeared at my elbow.

‘Custard creams,’ Peter said, his bright-blue eyes boring into me.

I nodded, concentrating on looking serene and in control.

‘How are you getting on?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Not bad actually,’ I said. ‘My biscuits are okay, now I just need to do the filling.’

‘Ah, the filling,’ said Peter, like it was a huge joke. ‘Make sure it doesn’t go lumpy.’

‘It won’t go lumpy,’ I said with far more confidence than I actually felt.

‘We’ll see,’ said Peter.

‘Good luck,’ said Lizzie as they both went to admire Amelia’s perfect bakes.

I scowled at Peter and then regretted it as the camera swooped round to capture my reaction to his ‘advice’. God this baking lark was tricky enough without having to remember not to look like a complete cow on national television.

‘Harry,’ I thought fiercely, hoping she would pick up on my thoughts. ‘You bloody well owe me for this.’

‘Deep breaths, Ez,’ she replied soundlessly. ‘You don’t want to make your custard lumpy.’

I shot a death stare at her back. She had her glossy dark hair pulled back into a bun today and it gleamed in the sunlight streaming into the tent. Her apron was tied neatly round her trim waist and she wore sparkly flip-flops on her perfectly painted feet. I, on the other hand, was wearing maternity shorts – possibly the least-attractive item of clothing in the entire world – a black T-shirt which I’d chosen deliberately to hide any dirt, without considering that in the baking world, it’s flour you have to worry about. Consequently I had floury handprints all over my top, because my apron didn’t really do up round my bump and I kept getting cross with it and taking it off. On my feet, which were not painted because I could no longer reach my toes, I wore Birkenstocks – the only shoes I could get on now the weather and my advanced pregnancy were conspiring against me. And if my hair gleamed at all, it was with sweat.

Annoyed with the world, I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, and stirred my custard.

It was lumpy. Really, really lumpy.

‘Oh bugger,’ I said.

Across the tent, Peter looked up from where he was talking to June.

‘Lumps?’ he said with a wink.

‘No, no,’ I lied. ‘Smooth as silk.’

I mixed it again. Lumparama. I eyed the cameras carefully. One was zooming in on June as she spread jam on her biscuits, and the other was taking a close-up of Peter and Lizzie as they chatted with Harry. I was safe, I thought. I looked at Wilf. He was taking full advantage of the action all happening at the opposite end of the tent from us. He was crouching down behind his bench, pretending to look in the oven, but actually scooping jam out of jars and dumping it into a saucepan. I giggled. That made what I was about to do seem much more reasonable. Keeping an eye on Amelia, and the cameras, I angled myself towards the wall of the marquee and waggled my fingers slightly. There was a tiny shimmer of pink sparks and my sauce turned from a lumpy mess into a smooth liquid. Up ahead, Harry’s back stiffened, showing me she was aware of exactly what I was up to but I knew she wouldn’t object.

Smiling to myself, I stirred my custard again and started smoothing it onto my biscuits. Maybe this baking thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Nine

In the end I was actually pretty proud of my custard creams. They were even, uniformly baked and my custard was – of course – perfect. They weren’t as immaculate as blimming Amelia’s but they were good.

‘Good effort,’ said Peter, biting into one of the crisp biscuits. I beamed at him.

‘You’ve done well, there,’ added Lizzie, turning them over to check they were evenly baked.

Across the tent, Amelia scowled at me. I smiled back. She needed to be more gracious, I thought, particularly as Peter and Lizzie had already tasted her biscuits and pronounced them some of the best they’d ever had.

I watched as Peter and Lizzie moved on to Wilf’s biscuits.