The Way to a Woman's Heart (46 page)

‘Asia,’ Ash said, still stroking Roy’s head.

‘Long journey,’ Tom said, looking stunned. ‘Nice snake, though. Are you OK now, Gabby?’

‘No I’m bloody not. I think I’m going to faint.’

No one rushed to catch her so she didn’t bother.

‘Can you grab his tail end?’ Ash said softly to Ella. ‘Like you did before, when we first moved in? Then we’ll get him back upstairs.’

‘OK.’ Ella grabbed.

‘Oooh.’ Gabby took a tottering step forwards and simpered shakily at Ash. ‘My hero! You rescued me from that… that… awful creature.’

‘His name’s Roy,’ Ella said, cross on Roy’s behalf. ‘And Ash didn’t save you – ow!’

‘Yes, I did.’ Ash grinned cheerfully. ‘Which means we’re still in with a shout for the final, I hope?’

‘Well, of course.’ Gabby sat down in the rocking chair. ‘Oh, sorry, I do feel rather wobbly.’

‘That’s because it’s a rocking chair,’ Ella said, shooting ‘smug, slimy, conniving clever bastard’ looks at Ash.

Gabby smiled weakly. ‘We have nothing whatsoever to do with the voting on the semi-finals. That’s solely down to the viewers’ votes this week, but certainly, if I had my way, Ash, you’d not only get to the final but you’d get a bravery award as well.’

Ash was still beaming triumphantly as he and Ella manoeuvred Roy out of the kitchen.

The rest of the week flew by. Again, the temperatures soared, and the east, west and north
Dewberrys’ Dinners
finalists did their stuff.

The recriminations over Trixie’s shenanigans, and Roy’s escape, had been long and loud, with Trixie – who claimed a major part, with the aid of her fairykins, in the rescue of Gabby from Roy – being told in no uncertain terms that if she hadn’t got squiffy on her herbal tinctures and thrown all the doors open for the sodding fairykins in the first place, then no rescue would have been required.

She’d stomped up to her room and sulked for ages.

Ella had almost returned to her former sunny mood.

Almost. OK, so she was getting over being officially single again, and she and Ash were talking again, and friends again, and it was lovely, but it still wasn’t what she wanted.

After Roy’s escape, they’d returned him to his vivarium and stood and watched in relief as he’d hauled himself
happily back round his sphagnum moss and watering holes before subsiding beneath one of his hot rocks. And Ash had thanked her a lot and then they’d left Roy and hurried downstairs, because Tom and Gabby were leaving and she knew Poll would want them there for the farewells.

So, Roy had thawed the ice, which was lovely, but there was still Onyx and the ‘moving in’ thing to deal with.

Ah, well, Ella thought, one step at a time… Let’s see if we get through to the final first, then I’ll sort out the rest of my life. She’d always felt Scarlett O’Hara’s method of thinking about nasty stuff tomorrow, not today, was a pretty good principle to follow.

Everyone who had watched the programme told them they’d been better than ever. Ella’s parents phoned from Majorca and said they’d found a television showing the programme in ‘Eduardo’s English Eaterie’ and, once they’d let it slip that they were related to Ella, they’d been treated to free sangria all night and her gran had had to be carried home.

And George, returning from his sleepover with Doll Blessing’s brood, excitedly told Ella they’d been allowed to watch the show in their pyjamas while eating chips. This latter seemed to have impressed him far more than the fact that his mum had been on the telly.

On Tuesday, the Pink Barbie team had made everything they cooked lilac. It was very clever and exceptionally pretty, although they all decided that lilac ratatouille didn’t look
quite
right. On Wednesday, the fish and chips team from Devon made a fundamental error by doing everything shaped.
Sadly, their pasty-shaped pudding wasn’t quite cooked and flopped into a gloopy pancake with lumps. And on Thursday, the skinny crew from Newcastle deviated from their original Geordie Slap-Up in quite spectacular style. They moved from Tyneside to Thailand and produced a totally stunning selection of beautiful dishes. There was no doubting their culinary ability, but as Gabby pointed out, with eye-watering acidity, curried rice pudding with a pickled lime sorbet was
not
one of her faves.

‘Oh, dear me! I wouldn’t know which one of them to pick, would you? It’s anyone’s guess,’ Poll sighed, as the final notes of ‘Pickin’ a Chicken’ died away in the peaches and cream sitting room. ‘And we won’t know if it’s us until after midnight when the phone lines close for voting.’

‘That’s ages to wait.’ Ella stretched her bare legs out along the sofa. ‘But they said they’d ring whatever happened, didn’t they? They’ll tell us if we’ve won or lost. So it won’t be just if the phone rings we’ll know we’ve won, it could go one way or the other.’

They all groaned.

‘I think,’ Billy said, hauling himself from a deep armchair in search of yet more ice-cold drinks, ‘that we ought to just forget it for the rest of the evening and get an early night and go to sleep and wait and see what happens in the morning, because they’ll leave a message, won’t they?’

‘
Forget it
?’ They all screamed. ‘
Sleep
? Are you joking? We’re going to stay awake and be counting the seconds for the next three hours.’

And they were. Almost. George was put to bed at an
almost unheard of ten, and Trixie gave up the ghost and said a sleepy goodnight at just after eleven.

So, when the phone rang at 1.15 am, the rest of them woke with a jump. Bleary-eyed, hot, uncomfortable and dry-mouthed, they blinked both at each other and round the stuffy sitting room.

‘I’ll go,’ Poll said, yawning and stretching. ‘If it’s bad news I can cope with it.’

They all knew she couldn’t, but said nothing.

Ella suddenly felt very sick. It was all so near now. And it mattered so much to Ash and Poll. And yes, damn it, to her too. To get this far – to have so much fun, to be actually cooking live on television, and to have proper professional chefs enthuse about your creations – had been absolutely brilliant. It couldn’t end now, it just couldn’t…

Oh, but Poll was
ages
…

The sitting room door opened. They held their breath.

‘YES!!!’

They all leaped to their feet and hugged one another and danced round and round.

‘It’s us and the Pink Barbie team,’ Poll said breathlessly. ‘Now let me try to remember everything… Well, they’re sending a car for us tomorrow afternoon. And putting us up in a hotel overnight afterwards, and it’s just us – not Trixie or George or Onyx – oh, and they’ll provide all the ingredients we need. So I said we were going to do a whole new menu this time and –’

‘
What
?’ they chorused in horror. ‘A whole new menu? By tomorrow? Are you mad?’

Poll beamed. ‘I didn’t think it would be a problem.’

They all stared at her.

‘What?’ She frowned. ‘Oh, come on, we’ve got loads of ideas. Things we rejected for the second round. And I thought we could just have a little run-through now and…’

‘Poll, love,’ Billy said softly. ‘It’s two in the morning.’

‘Is it? Oh, well, maybe we could get up early and have a little run-through then instead?’

‘No bloody way,’ they groaned together. ‘And no bloody time.’

‘Well, it’s probably best not to overdo it, anyway. We’ll be perfectly able to go straight in when we’re in the studio.’ Poll beamed. ‘Now, don’t confuse me. What else did they say? Oh, we can wear what we like tomorrow as long as we stick to their guidelines, so I said I thought we might wear assorted pastels this time.’

‘Pastels?’ Ash and Billy looked horrified.

‘Well, yes, because,’ Poll smiled happily, ‘I thought we could put together some of those recipes we tried out, before we settled on the cheesy ones for the second round, that we thought would go well for a country wedding theme, and that pastels would look really pretty, like confetti.’

They all frowned at her.

‘But,’ Ash said, ‘I did the mains when we practised that menu, and you and Billy did the starter, will that be allowed?’

‘Of course it will,’ Poll said robustly. ‘Anyway, you’re the brilliant proper chef, Ash, you should have a chance to show off your talents. So, if Billy and I do the sweet-pea starter,
you can make that incredibly intricate veggie tower with all those different blended layers, and Ella can make that lovely celebration strawberry fluff pud.’

‘But we’ll have to let them know, won’t we?’ Billy said. ‘So that they can get all the ingredients in?’

‘Ella can email them in the morning. Everything will have to be brought in fresh anyway.’ Poll was still unfazed. ‘And we have practised that one loads of times anyway. It’ll all be absolutely fine.’

They sighed. And hoped it would be.

Ash suddenly flopped down on the sofa. ‘God, though, we’ve really, really bloody done it.’

‘We have… It’s going to be sooo incredible – oh, but no!’ Ella groaned. ‘We can’t leave Trixie here alone. Not with George. Not tomorrow.’

‘Why ever not?’ Poll frowned. ‘Not that I was intending to leave George here, anyway. I’d already arranged for Doll to have him again
if
we got through to the final. But surely Trixie will be OK here, won’t she? It’s only one night, after all. I don’t think she’s a nervous person, is she?’

‘It’s nothing to do with her nerves.’ Ella shook her head. ‘It’s her fairy stuff. Tomorrow is CandleKiss Day –’

‘What?’ Ash pulled a face. ‘Don’t you mean Candlemass?’

‘No, that’s what I thought at first. But this is different. It’s a fairy festival of lights. Trixie makes candles and adds herbs and sets them alight and the fairies magically make wishes come true.’

‘Forget the wishes coming true,’ Ash said. ‘And the fact that you seem to know way too much about fairies. It’s the
lit candles and Trixie in the same sentence that scares me. There is no way on earth I’m leaving Roy with an arsonist.’

‘Trixie is
not
an arsonist,’ Poll said firmly. ‘She’s had one little accident in the past, that’s all.’

‘Yes, she has,’ Billy said gently, ‘but will you risk her having her next little accident here, at Hideaway, while you’re miles away?’

‘Oh Lord.’ Poll sighed. ‘No, of course not. Let me think. OK, so George will go to Doll Blessing – that’s not a problem. And Mrs Tyler from the farm next door will see to the animals – Roy excepted, of course – but how do we tell Trixie we won’t leave her home alone, and that she’s got to come with us?’

‘Well, as yet, she doesn’t know we’ve got through to the final or any of the restrictions, does she?’ Ella said. ‘She doesn’t know she isn’t invited? And I’m pretty sure that she’d assume that where we go she goes, so, we’ll just take her with us and keep her out of the way.’

‘But will Gabby and Tom allow her anywhere near the studio, after what she did?’

They looked at one another. They somehow doubted it, but they’d face that problem if and when it arose.

‘Do you think it’s too late to text my mum and dad and my sister and all my friends?’ Ella asked no one in particular. ‘I mean, I know my family are away, but some of my friends might be able to get to the studio to watch us as it’s in London, mightn’t they?’

‘They might,’ Ash said slowly. ‘I bet you can’t wait to see them again, can you? And I’m going to text Onyx now and
tell her the news. Shame she can’t come with us really, she’d have loved it.’

They looked at one another and looked away.

‘Well, forgive me for sounding boringly grown up for once, but I really think any texting can wait. I think we should all go to bed and try to sleep now,’ Poll said diplomatically. ‘Because in case no one’s noticed, we’ve got a
massive
day ahead of us tomorrow.’