The Art of Baking Blind (25 page)

‘Better than the blackcurrant,' Vicki says, nodding at the discarded dry toast. ‘Oh, wait just a minute and I'll tidy that away.'

She bobs up again, removing all evidence of the rejected breakfast, and returns with a bowl of berries.

‘Have you tried this compote? Here, have a bit with some Greek yoghurt … You're sure? Oh, well, I might have to sample it.' Vicki winks as she plunges her spoon into the blackberries, deep juice spilling over the mounds of whiteness. For a moment, they eat.

Is she going to question me, wonders Jenny, and, if so, can I be honest? For a moment, she considers confiding in her about Gabby and Nigel – and just as quickly dismisses the idea. This lovely young woman has probably only been married for what, five years? Long enough to know that it's not all hearts and flowers but not long enough, she hopes, to understand that a husband might stray.

‘So … Is there anything I can help with? Anything you'd like to talk about?'

Vicki looks embarrassed to be asking and Jenny suspects she is rarely this direct.

The younger woman shrugs. ‘It's all right. You can tell me to mind my own business. I just thought you looked as if you could do with offloading a bit.'

‘Am I really that transparent?' Despite herself, Jenny smiles.

Vicki nods.

‘Gosh … How embarrassing. My girls always say they can read me.'

Vicki smiles once more, sips her coffee, and quietly waits.

Unable to articulate the real cause of her anxiety, Jenny reaches for a more general sense of unease. ‘Well, I suppose that – as usual – I'm just feeling guilty. My husband's in Paris, running the marathon this weekend, and I feel I should be there to support him. It feels hugely self-indulgent to be here, making
pastry,
when he's got that going on.'

‘What about him? Why isn't he here to support you?'

‘Oh, well, it doesn't really work like that…' Her voice trails away, incapable of explaining the balance of power wrought over a quarter of a century of marriage and now firmly tipped in Nigel's favour. She takes another bite of bread to avoid having to talk.

‘If you don't mind me saying' – Vicki watches her carefully – ‘I don't think you've anything to feel guilty about. I know it's something we're good at: I feel guilty every minute I'm not with Alfie, every time I dump him on my friend Ali, or my mum, or Greg, and yet I know it's a complete waste of time.

‘You're fantastic at baking. Head and shoulders above the rest of us, though I hate to admit that! And you deserve to be here, showing off what you can do every bit as much as your husband deserves to be running a marathon. Perhaps you've even more reason. He's not going to win it, is he?' She looks at Jenny for confirmation.

Jenny shakes her head, emphatic.

‘Well, then. Unless Karen or I improve immensely, you could – you
should
– win this. And, then, he should be cheering you on – supporting you in that way.'

‘Oh – I'm not sure that's going to happen.' Jenny's face clouds over and, for one dreadful moment, she thinks she is going to start crying.

‘Well, he should be,' Vicki says staunchly. ‘Please don't cry. What I'm trying to say is that you could win this hands down. You have real talent and you deserve to shine every bit as much as Claire, or Karen or me.'

‘Thank you,' Jenny manages to utter. ‘But I'm not sure that's true.'

‘It is!' Vicki's voice rises in frustration. ‘Of course it is. But you won't win this if you don't recognise that and if you persist in this … it's more than self-deprecation … this self-doubt. You have to believe in yourself. Believe you can do this.'

She pauses. ‘Pep talk over. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be sharp. I just think you're fantastic – we all do – and it's about time you realised it.'

She gulps her coffee and puts the cup back on the saucer with a decisive chink. For a moment, Jenny thinks she has offended her.

‘I wish I shared your confidence.'

To her shock, she sounds almost bolshie. She looks at Vicki, alarmed: she has just complimented her and she has dismissed it.

‘Well, you should. You're the best,' Vicki says simply.

Her eyes are still on her face and Jenny thinks: I wouldn't want to be in her bad books as one of her pupils. For all her warmth, there is a steeliness about her: she is someone with resilience and strength.

Vicki seems to be reading her mind, for she reaches a hand out across the tablecloth. Surprised, Jenny takes the warm fingers and squeezes them, grateful that the whole, uncomfortable conversation can be swept away.

But Vicki isn't finished.

‘Jenny … I don't know if your husband appreciates how fantastic you are. But you look a little bit … cowed, if I can say that? And, here, among us, there's really no need.'

Jenny looks down at her plate and focuses on the floral pattern, willing the welling tears to disperse; embarrassed to admit that Nigel is less than supportive.

‘Thank you,' she hears herself choke.

‘Jenny…'

‘Thank you,' she repeats, and manages a watery smile. ‘You've been very kind.'

‘It's not about being kind.' Vicki sounds frustrated again. ‘Look, I don't want to intrude – or upset you. And I won't go on about this again but please hear what I'm saying.' Her voice softens and she sounds contrite. ‘That you shine. That none of us can match you.'

Jenny looks at her and smiles with just a hint of conviction. ‘Yes, I can see that … Thank you, yes.'

*   *   *

‘Mike.'

Claire is skulking in the entrance hall waiting to buttonhole the only man in the competition as he walks back from breakfast.

‘Claire?' His face lightens. ‘What's with the cloak and dagger stuff?'

She pulls him into the lounge, checking as she does so that no one notices them.

‘Come in a bit further. No, don't close the door! That will look suspicious.'

‘Claire.' He takes hold of her shoulders. ‘What's going on?'

She takes a breath, perches her bottom on the back of a sofa and lets the words flood out of her. Guilt, anxiety, shame: a jumble of emotions cascades so that he can make little sense of it all.

‘Whoa. Slow down. Start from the beginning.' He puts a large hand to the side of each of her upper arms, pats her ineffectually then looks embarrassed by what he is doing.

‘Sorry. I didn't mean to … You just need to start slowly, and calm down.'

And so the story comes out. How she popped into the toilet after their drink the previous night and heard someone retching when she entered.

‘It was Karen. She said it was food poisoning.'

‘And you don't think it was?'

She shakes her head. ‘She was so defensive – like she was hiding something.' She spits out her fear. ‘There was this girl at school. Used to stick her fingers down her throat the whole time…'

‘Bulimia.'

‘Yeah, that's what it's called. I think that's what Karen was doing.'

Her slight shoulders hunker around her and her head dips as if she wishes she could roll into the foetal position. When she looks up, her face is bleak with anxiety.

‘I feel so guilty even telling you this. Like I'm betraying her or something because she clearly didn't want me to know about it. But I needed to confide in someone because the stupid thing is, I was so jealous of her.'

Her shoulders hunch further.

‘She seemed so glamorous and confident and everything. But I've just been a bitch, haven't I? All this time I've been … I don't know, in
awe
of her. And it turns out she was even more fucked up than the rest of us put together.'

He wants to put his arms around her, to give her a bear hug of reassurance as he would one of his children. But she is not his child and his feelings aren't purely protective, if he is honest. He contents himself with sitting alongside her, putting an arm around her slight shoulders. She is so attractive, he thinks with a jolt, as he takes in the curve of her cheekbone, the faint lines creasing from her eyes, her wide mouth, now pinched with anxiety. Her hair smells of citrus shampoo.

‘First of all,' he begins, ‘there's nothing for you to feel guilty about. If Karen has had a bulimic episode then it's probably occurred before. It'll be ingrained – a problem that's perhaps been going on for years. There's nothing you could have done to predict it – or to prevent it. I'm afraid you're not that powerful.'

She half laughs but the sound catches in her throat.

‘Second, you being a bit envious of her – though God knows why you would be – bears no relevance to this. I bet she wasn't even aware you felt like that. And, even if she was, it won't have offended her. She may even have been flattered.'

The half-laugh comes again – and with it a look of tentative relief.

‘Thank you.' She wipes away a tear with the back of her hand; sniffs to stop a bubble of snot.

‘Here.'

He passes her a clean tissue.

‘Thanks.' She blows her nose loudly then tries a joke. ‘You're just as prepared as any mum.'

‘I'm getting there. Done the poo on my arm bit; now I'm doing the girlie pep talks. Going to be completely unsexed at this rate.'

‘Really?' She laughs despite herself, more at the reference to the poo than his neutering though, of course, he doesn't know this. He blushes and withdraws his arm from her shoulders, suddenly self-conscious.

They sit in awkward silence, his hip almost touching hers, the distance between them a centimetre. She must think I'm so straight, so sensible, he thinks.

‘Well, thank you for making me feel a bit less of a bitch – though I still do, of course. Mostly, I just feel so terribly sad for her: that she feels like that. I won't be able to see her in the same way.'

‘Perhaps that's a good thing.' Mike relaxes into the space next to her, the edge of his trousers touching her thigh now. ‘Few of us are as straightforward as we first appear.'

26

The perfect French baguette should have a crisp crust and an airy crumb. It should give a satisfying crunch and then melt into nothingness. Serve warm, if possible, and fresh. This bread is deceptive: outwardly strong yet, inside, as soft as air.

Paris, Avenue Foch. A glorious spring morning, sun searing through skies of cerulean blue.

The marathon has been going for nearly four hours now and Emma is getting impatient as she is jostled on either side of her spot near the finishing line. Excitement at the thought of seeing her father streak past has long since been tempered by boredom at standing in the same position. The woman to her left – chic, French, impervious – steps on her foot: ‘
Pardon, désolée
…' Her eyes behind her shades are vacant. Someone behind her shoves, repeatedly. She has drunk so much water she is now bursting for the loo.

She knows she should be feeling heady on the atmosphere but there is only so much hysteria she can manufacture after being rammed in the same position for hours. Her sporadic cheers – for the first woman to cross the line; for an elderly albeit clearly fit competitor – feel self-conscious. Perhaps she is too British for this, too inhibited, or too lonely. She needs a group of friends – and, ideally, some alcohol – to get in a suitably celebratory mood.

Besides, her excitement is tempered by an unfamiliar sense of guilt: guilt at giving her mother a hard time for not attending, and guilt at standing here, nuzzled against Gabby Arkwright. For Emma, though lonely, is not alone. Gabby, who it transpired is staying in the same hotel as her and Nigel, has attached herself to Emma like a new, inappropriately old, best friend, drawing on fifteen-year-old memories of the days when Emma would play with her hideous son, Robert.

‘You don't mind, do you, Em?' she had asked, and Emma had baulked at her using the name only applied by her sisters and parents. ‘It makes sense our palling up. Peter's going to take hours to make the finish so it would be lovely to wait with you and catch up on old times, and I'd love to cheer on your dad.'

‘Actually, no, Gabby. I don't want to wait with you because I can't bear the way in which you flirt with my father and the effect this is having on my mother,' is what she wants to tell her. Instead, good manners, the result of years of reminders from Jenny and an expensive education, take over. ‘No, of course not,' she had lied, her courtesy to an old family friend automatic. ‘That makes perfect sense. A great plan.'

Now, however, she is regretting not speaking her mind – just as she would to her family and friends, with whom familiarity has bred honesty. Every muscle in her body feels taut as she tries to keep her body away from Gabby, without appearing to do so.

Ever tactile, Gabby misinterprets her distance for concern at not invading her personal space. She gives Emma's arm a little squeeze of reassurance, and cosies up with a conspiratorial grin.

‘Your dad's done so well in his training. He deserves a PB of around three hours forty.' She appears to be speaking a different language; one in which Emma, the linguist, has no hope of being proficient. ‘His weight loss has been extraordinary and his stamina is amazing.'

Emma shoots her a sharp look, attuned to innuendo, but Gabby seems impervious.

‘Peter, on the other hand, has been sluggish. I kept telling him: “You're not going to get a PB below four hours unless you put in more miles – and, frankly, unless you get that, it's barely worth entering.” But, of course, he didn't listen. Quite honestly, I doubt whether his heart's really in it at all.'

‘Why did he enter then?' Emma is aware some response is required, and hearing about Peter's failings is preferable to listening to Robert's successes.