The Art of Baking Blind (38 page)

There is a long pause. Say something, Vicki wills her, but then realises her mother is still waiting. And, yes. There is more to say.

‘I suppose it suited me to put all the responsibility on you,' Vicki continues. ‘I've always felt quietly guilty but managed to justify it before I had a child. Then, since having Alf, it's seemed much more of a momentous thing. I suppose I wanted to share – or to offload – the blame. But I've been unfair. I know I couldn't have coped with having a baby then. I was far too much of a child myself. And I do remember you saying that if I really wanted to go ahead and have it, then you would support me.'

There is a long pause, during which Vicki lets out her breath in a rush.

When her mother answers, she is hesitant but measured.

‘You do know that it was your decision to go ahead with it, don't you?'

‘Yes, Mum. That's what I'm trying to say. Yes, I do. And I'm sorry.'

‘I've only ever wanted what was best for you, my darling. Yes, academically but, far more importantly, emotionally. And I'm very sorry if it hasn't always – hasn't often – felt that way.'

There is another pause.

‘I know I've never seemed that motherly. Not particularly maternal. I suppose, if I'm honest, having a baby didn't come that easily to me. I expect these days they'd diagnose it as post-natal depression.' She gives a sniff, as if suspicious of the diagnosis – or irritated at having to admit to such feelings. ‘Then, I just thought I wasn't a natural mother, whatever that means.

‘There was no lengthy maternity leave in those days. I went back to teach when you were six weeks old, and when I did, I managed to cope better. I was happier. And you seemed calmer. You never seemed to cry with your childminder half as much as you did with me.

‘But I did love you, Vicki. I know I must have seemed strict: tough on you over your homework, concerned that you fulfil your potential. Perhaps not very playful. Well, not in the least playful. But I loved you – and I wish I could have shown it in a convincing way.

‘I suppose what I'm saying is: I tried my best. And, without wishing to sound trite, that's all any of us can do. It's what you do for Alfie. Please don't agonise about not being a good enough mother, and do what I failed to do: just enjoy him.'

There is an even lengthier pause while Vicki tries to articulate a suitable response. But she finds her throat is thick and she cannot speak properly. A sound comes out, halfway between a gulp and a cry.

‘Vicki? Are you all right? You'd better get to your competition. You don't want to be late.'

‘Yes, yes, of course.' She manages to pull herself together. ‘Thank you – for the pep talk. I suppose I ought to be going so, bye, then.'

Their heart-to-heart seems to have finished, and yet Vicki senses – or perhaps she just hopes – it isn't quite over; that there is more her mother has to say.

‘Thank you for calling and, Vicki?'

‘Yes?' She grips the phone.

‘You will remember, won't you: I do love you, darling.'

*   *   *

‘So – here we are.' Harriet, rocking on the balls of her feet at the front of the room, has abandoned any pretence at not being excited. Relief that she has four bakers, even if Karen, the one she had tipped to win, is missing, has made her comparatively skittish.

‘A celebratory tea. The fitting finale to a fantastic competition. An over-the-top culinary blow-out – but one that aspires to refinement, not excess.

‘Today we want you to create the sort of exquisite afternoon tea that Kathleen Eaden wrote about: a decadent display of choice morsels designed to indulge, to treat. Nothing must be mediocre. There are to be no leaden cupcakes, no wedges of cold bread and butter pudding, no stolid pastries. We want dainty sandwiches from thinly sliced, freshly made bread; French tartlets; millefeuille; a choux pastry, and scones and cream for the most English of guests.'

‘Today's test will be one of timing as much as anything else,' Dan adds. ‘We are giving you four and a half hours in total. How you divide it up is a matter for your judgement and expertise.

‘None of these recipes by themselves is arduous, but getting them all accomplished in under five hours – and ensuring that each baked good is in pristine condition – will be a massive challenge. You have five bakes to complete and you will have to work out a rigorous timetable to ensure each stage is completed in that time.'

There is a pause. Claire looks sick; Mike shell-shocked. Vicki looks relieved, and exhausted. Jenny smiles: composed, serene.

‘So, if we can start?' Harriet looks at them all and smiles. ‘Let the final stage of the Search for the New Mrs Eaden begin.'

Four heads bow in concentration, each jotting down timings with a pencil as assiduously as if it were some complicated maths formula. Jenny finishes her timetable first, working with a speed in keeping with her usual efficient pace.

She'll start with the bread first, then, while the dough's proving, move on to the crème patissière for the mini tartlets and millefeuille. The various pastries come next; then the baking and constructing. She needs to pull off a delicate conjuring act, creating the freshest, most exquisite products without risking a manic rush at the end.

Assessing her timetable, she wonders if this neat rigidity – each time neatly annotated against a baked product and a culinary process – is a flaw in her baking, and her personality. Perhaps she has been too rigid: not daring to be as imaginative as Kathleen Eaden; and not daring – before now – to step outside the familiar role she has colluded in fulfilling throughout her adult life.

But she knows that this order has saved her. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. But sauces need to be stirred, ingredients measured, precision demanded. The structure of the competition – and the demand that she excel – has forced her to focus; to concentrate on the here and now and not allow herself to be ambushed by a skittering imagination. All thoughts of a writhing Gabby Arkwright are reined in when she over-whisks a bowl of egg whites or snaps a chocolate curl.

Of course, she knows she will have to face the reality of a marriage that is disintegrating as inevitably as a cooling soufflé after this competition. The phoney war has continued, but Nigel, his interest piqued by a more animated wife, has shown signs of wanting peace talks. She is not so sure.

The old Jenny, the compliant wife and mother whose world was her Suffolk kitchen, has been subsumed by a revised version: one who has glimpsed an intriguing world outside her walled kitchen garden and thinks she might venture out there. Thinks she is capable of doing so.

This new, improved Jenny – or perhaps a revitalised version of the original – will walk out of the room if she is described as fat, though the description is no longer completely accurate. To her surprise, the stress of the last few weeks means she has had to buy clothes two sizes smaller for this final: she is still large but no longer obese.

She will confront her husband about his affair, not feign ignorance in the hope that it will go away. She would like to gain his admiration and respect; she would like to believe that twenty-eight years of a relationship need not be squandered; that marriage counselling – were she to persuade Nigel to enter into this – could provide a balm to soothe the petty grievances and harsher cruelties. But she fears it is too late for that. She does not want to be with someone capable of describing her as fat. She suspects – no, actually, she knows – she will walk away.

The knowledge leaves her numb, and so she sidelines this idea – putting it on the back burner like a pan of gently simmering pasta – as she kneads the dough for her soft, white bread. Nigel will be in Peterborough tomorrow, running the half marathon, but her girls, her glorious girls, will be here this afternoon to support her. Not her much missed Kate, still in Sydney, but Lizzie – who will come up from Bristol, and Emma, her sometimes spiky, but ultimately steadfast middle child. The thought that she has been willing to leave her new boyfriend and hectic student life in the south of France just to cheer on her mum fills her with happiness, like syrup seeping from warm treacle tart. It floods her veins. I have my girls, she thinks. And I have this skill. Perhaps, at the moment, there is nothing else I need.

Behind her, Claire is also focusing on the positives, giving herself a pep talk as she forms the puff pastry for her millefeuille, rubbing butter into flour then pouring water into a well at the centre to form a rough dough. It has been a struggle to believe she is good enough to be here but she has the proof: 162,000 people have watched her make Chelsea buns, a gingerbread house and a chocolate soufflé of all things on the net; 162,000 people think she was all right. Or, if she is honest, more than all right.

She shapes the dough then starts on the crème patissière, infusing milk with vanilla. That vanilla pod cost two pounds, she thinks, as she watches the flecks of black swim through the milk and breathes in the sweetly evocative scent. She would never have used such ingredients before this competition, but would add a drop of essence, strong and synthetic in comparison but a fraction of the price.

Two pounds. She could get two big bags of pasta; half a kilo of mince; or two packets of fish fingers for that. Ten meals for Chloe or a wizened dark stick that smells heavenly and helps create the most exquisite custard but is still, when all's said and done, just a
flavouring.
She is sure none of the others thinks like that. But then none of them, she is pretty certain, has ever worked for £6.08 an hour. And none has ever had to calculate that to spend two pounds on a vanilla pod they need to forgo two loaves of bread; or four pints of milk and a bag of potatoes or packet of cheap biscuits.

She separates her eggs and whisks the yolks with sugar and cornflour, the orange globes becoming thick, pale and creamy. No one else has ever mentioned the money: the £50,000 contract for being involved in the advertising campaign, for ‘fronting' the baked product range, and for writing a weekly column; but the figure broods at the back of Claire's mind.

Fifty thousand pounds. The sum ker-chings periodically like the ring of an old-fashioned fruit machine jackpot. A figure that is conceivable: more tangible than the Lottery millions her neighbour dreams of winning. That is – just – attainable. That is life-changing.

The thought winds her. Fifty thousand pounds. Five times her current salary. Enough to put down a deposit on a small flat, if she could increase her salary to fund a mortgage; to be able to put on the heating; to buy Chloe a computer or a DS; to buy her new clothes – not dress her in hand-me-downs. To take her on holiday.

Perhaps – and, here, she fizzes with excitement – Chloe could be like other kids, and go on an aeroplane? She imagines Chloe's reaction were she to tell her this: huge eyes widening; freckles wrinkling; long limbs wrapping themselves around her and squeezing her so tight she has to squeal for breath.

She whisks furiously. She is not going to win if she slides into daydreams. And then she smiles. Not so long ago, she thought she had lost the capacity for them.

As Claire's custard thickens, the smell of caramel and then burnt sugar fills the room as, to her right, a mixture catches.

‘Oh, sugar!!!!'

It is Vicki – working at the next station – who looks close to tears. She sweeps the saucepan from the ring and pours its contents into another saucepan, hoping to confound the inevitable and rescue it. The water hits the pan with a mocking hiss, then spews forth steam. The sides have blackened and the bottom bubbles. Lumps of egg and cornflour congeal like sweetened scrambled eggs.

‘It's all ruined.' Vicki's voice breaks, and the strain of the past eighteen hours escapes with her cry.

‘Hey, calm down … You're just tired – and nervous.' Claire seeks to reassure while keeping an eye on her own mixture. The custard bubbles: thick, smooth and unctuous. She removes it from the heat.

‘Why not get something else done while your milk infuses.' She darts to Vicki's work bench and glances at her list. ‘Here – the choux pastry. You could make that and put it aside. At least then you could tick something off.'

She takes in the worktop, strewn with broken eggs; cluttered and chaotic. Vicki's bread dough is proving but her burnt custard has put her behind.

‘All right,' Vicki sniffs and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Not doing very well at this,' she says.

‘You've had a crappy eighteen hours,' Claire tells her. ‘Time to put it right.'

‘I guess…' Vicki offers a watery smile.

‘Come on.' Claire tries a joke. ‘Don't make it too easy for the rest of us.'

Her competitor laughs, involuntarily. ‘Oh, Claire. You're brilliant. You don't need me to muck up for you to do well.'

‘Well, so are you. And you're not going to muck up. Come on. Pretend you're psyching yourself up in front of thirty six-year-olds. What was it you said? That you had to put on a show in front of them? That you couldn't let them see you were nervous?'

‘Something like that,' Vicki mumbles.

‘Right. Well, you just need to treat Dan and Harriet like those six-year-olds – and do the same.'

Like a chastened child, Vicki does what she is told, measuring the water, butter and salt for the choux pastry; binding the eggs; weighing the flour. She brings the butter and water to a rolling boil then beats in the flour to form a stolid lump of dough. Then, bit by bit, she adds the eggs – the consistency changing from thick scrambled egg to a smooth, camel-coloured paste. She tastes the mixture and recoils: warm butter, salt and egg seep through her mouth but the effect is unpleasant. Too savoury; too raw. And yet, when baked, this will be transformed into the lightest of pastries: a crisp ball of nothingness to be filled with whipped cream or ice cream, that is integral to some of the lightest, most frivolous of desserts.