‘Fourteen eighty-seven.’
‘It’s a re-enactment, people dressing up and pretending.’
‘Yes, I know that, but can we go? We can go, can’t we? And then we can watchDroid Defendersafterwards!’
Connie looked at Isaac, her eyes asking if he was sure. When he gave a nod, mouth creasing in a coy smile, she took hold of her son’s flapping hand. ‘Sounds like a great day; let’s do it.’
27
On Thursday morning, the last thing I needed was a battle with Wendy over kitchen territory. It was the day of the Great Barnish Bake-Off, and tensions were high even before Ada and May set up in the library. Another team member, Alice, had agreed to keep an eye on them after the Outlaws declared their support for the pair by keeping their names on the sign-up sheet. Veronica and Vivienne, who we’d managed to keep away from Ada and May on the one other day they’d both been at the centre, had decided that the perfect spot for enjoying the sunshine was right outside the library windows, causing May to close the blinds with a sharp harumph.
I’d have chosen the library over the kitchen, any day. We’d had thirty-one applications to partake in the bake-off. One of them from Gregory Whistle, who cheerfully informed me he had never baked so much as a potato, but quite fancied being on television. Another from Caroline Jackson, who asked if she could enter something she’d brought from the village café, as cookery wasn’t her strong suit but she loved competitions.
In the end, I’d whittled it down to twenty, and split them into two groups of ten, one who would bake in the morning, the other in the afternoon. I was outside with Madeline on her favourite bench when Mum told Wendy, and even Madeline’s old ears heard the expletives reverberating through the kitchen windows and across the garden. The offer of a bonus day off, with a local catering company supplying sandwiches instead, was vehemently rebutted. Instead, Wendy slaved away into Wednesday night, long after everyone else had gone home, producing a cold lunch that was, in my varied experience of working in hospitality, far more complex and time-consuming than it needed to be. The first group would bake from ten-thirty until twelve-thirty, giving her an hour to serve up before the second group took over.
A hotchpotch of ten older men and women, who between them were infirm and/or arthritic, short-sighted, partially deaf and ferociously competitive, crammed into a professional kitchen, on a boiling hot day. I was sweating before we’d turned the first oven on.
Two hours later, I was ready for a stiff drink while I typed my resignation letter.
Obviously, with ten contestants and three ovens, some rigorous negotiations had been required. What I hadn’t banked on was Seamus setting a tea-towel alight while heating the oil for his doughnuts, then throwing it onto the floor in a panic, where Harris, trying to be the hero who stamped it out, set his polyester slipper on fire.
Thankfully, the steam tooting out of Wendy’s ears as she crashed into the kitchen and knocked Glenda onto her bottom helped dampen the flames, which along with Arabella Goose’s quick action with a bowl of washing up water negated the use of the fire extinguisher, saving the competition from having to be cancelled half-way through.
I also wasn’t expecting Helen to lose her temper, launching a metal ladle across the room that bounced off the back of Angus’s head, forcing his retirement from the bake-off before he’d had a chance to prick his Earl Grey shortbread.
Nor for Don to drop his raw cake mix all over the floor, which Hetty then proceeded to slip over on, adding her rhubarb and elderflower trifle to the mess splattering her from head to toe.
At 12.20, by some miracle there were six showstoppers still standing, a sprinkle away from being ready for the judges, waiting in the café.
‘Showstoppers? Heartstoppers, more like,’ Wendy muttered as she stomped into the kitchen and announced the ten-minute warning. ‘I don’t care if your bakes are ready. In nine minutes and fifty seconds this kitchen must be cleared of both people and, more importantly, any evidence that anyone other than me and my team were ever in here. Otherwise the first ever Great Barnish Balls-Up will be the last.’
She gave me a look sharper than her best filleting knife, and slammed back out again.
I took one look at the worktops, the hobs and the cupboard doors and grabbed a cloth.
At 12.35, Arabella wiped the last smear off the fridge door and I declared the first heat for group one officially finished.
‘Woohoo!’ Dad hooted as Seamus wheeled the dessert trolley into the café. ‘This all looks spectacular! You’ve had a busy morning.’
‘We certainly have,’ Arabella Goose agreed, making the mistake of wiping a trickle of sweat off her brow with one of Wendy’s tea-towels.
‘Jessie, you must have had a riot in there!’ Mum beamed.
‘It certainly sounded like it.’ Wendy’s sous-chef, James, smirked.
‘It definitelylookslike it.’ Isaac, who’d ventured downstairs with Connie to ogle the entries, grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at me. I glanced down at my dishevelled summer dress, covered in splotches, my favourite trainers spattered with cooking fat and a thick, blue plaster on my forearm from an accidental brush with a zester. I didn’t need a mirror to picture the tendrils of hair stuck to my clammy cheeks, or the inevitable streak of icing decorating my face instead of a cake.
‘And how wonderful that with so many entrants, you get to do it all again this afternoon!’ Mum added, positively beside herself with excitement.
I edged my way to the back of the crowd now gathering for lunch, leant against the far wall and closed my eyes, the faint breeze wafting in through an open window the only thing keeping me from either screaming or sobbing. A (far too short) moment later, something prodded my elbow.
‘Here.’ I opened my eyes to see Madeline, leaning on her walking frame and bumping a silver flask against my elbow. ‘You look like you could do with it.’
‘Madeline, have you snuck alcohol into the Barn?’ I asked in astonishment.
Her dark eyes gleamed with mischief. ‘Go on, just a wee nip. I promise it’ll make you feel better.’
Scanning the room to ensure everyone’s eyes were facing the dessert trolley, I took a wee nip. Of the creamiest, richest, chocolatiest hot chocolate I’d ever tasted. Although I had tasted it, before. Many times, in fact, during that lost summer.
