This would have been an amazing pep talk if she’d actually been at university. “Yeah, but . . . what if the show distracts me too much and I end up, like hypothetically, not becoming a doctor at all?”
“That won’t happen, Rosaline. It’s only eight weeks, mostly over the summer. You’ve already accomplished so much and your whole life is waiting for you, and even if you get eliminated before the semifinal—which I really don’t think you will—it’ll be another string to your bow when you move on.”
Once again. He’d nailed it. For a different person. Because Rosaline’s problem was she didn’t have a bow. And so coming on this show was just giving her a useless pile of string.
“I mean,” he went on, “you’re not like—oh, what’s her name. Josie? The . . . Are we saying plus-sized these days?”
Rosaline gave him a slightly confused look. “I think we’re not judging people by body type?”
“Are we not?” He gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Or are we just politely pretending not to?”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. Because she wanted the answer to be No, certainly not, but she was pretty sure for a lot of people it was Yeah, kinda. And she wasn’t sure if being honest about it was courageous or unhelpful.
Before she could make up her mind, Alain had circled back to his point. “Anyway, for someone like Josie, a vicar’s wife whose entire job is to arrange flowers and keep the Victoria sponge flowing at parish meetings, this competition is basically it. This will be the high point of what passes for her career. For you, me, and Claudia, this is a challenge but a strictly optional one.”
Okay. So not the moment to tell him that she was a university dropout. And the closest she’d got to Malawi was when her parents had taken her on holiday to Florence.
“And then you’ve got Ricky”—his eyes glinted mischievously—“who I’m convinced thought he was applying for Love Island.”
In spite of everything, Rosaline laughed. “You’re kind of shady, you know that?”
“Yes, but don’t tell anybody. I’m only this way with people I like.”
She gave him a wicked little smile of her own. “Well, aren’t you full of secrets?”
“Aren’t I? You’ll have to find some creative way to coax them out of me.”
“All right then.” Remarkably, she was feeling slightly better. Because while she hadn’t been totally honest with him about her life, what they had right now, when they were talking, that connection was . . . real? Wasn’t it? “How about we start with you telling me what you’ve got tucked up your sleeve for tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure that’s coaxing. It feels more like asking.”
“You’d be amazed how far I can get with the direct approach.
So come on. Spoil the big reveal for me.”
“When you put it like that, I’m afraid I might have oversold it.” “Have you cast your own cake tin?”
He laughed. “No, and I’m not sure how that would help.”
“Are you using a weird flour? Is it made from powdered bees and repurposed deck chairs?”
“Actually, it’s made from ground unicorn horn and children’s wishes.”
“Now I happen to know for a fact that you can’t get ground unicorn horn over here because of the 1979 Sale of Goods Act. What are you really doing?”
“Alas.” He adopted a tone of mock exasperation. “You caught me. I’m using ordinary flour like an ordinary person. And I’m worried you’re pushing this closer and closer to an anticlimax.”
Rosaline drew a little nearer and grinned up at him teasingly. “Then you should have told me straightaway, shouldn’t you? Have you trained a marmoset to make French meringues?”
“I think that would violate the 1973 Endangered Species Act.” He looked down at her and Rosaline wasn’t certain, but she thought he might have been blushing. “Actually I . . . I foraged my own mint. Which, now I say it aloud sounds less like a trick up my sleeve and more like some herbs I picked in a woodland?”
“Oh, you’re right. That is a bit of a letdown.”
“And whose fault is that?” he asked, smiling at her through the dapple of fading sunlight.
“Do you want me to try and guess that too?”
He leaned towards her. “I think I’d rather—”
“Drinks in the bar!” yelled Anvita, from a distance that didn’t really require yelling. “Are you two coming?”
“I don’t know?” Rosaline looked up at Alain. “Are we?” “I would,” he said, “but that 4:00 a.m. start is rather taking its toll. Will you think I’m terribly dull if I have an early night?”
“Will you stay up if I say yes?”
“I would try, but then I’d fall asleep on your shoulder and you’d think I was terribly dull anyway.” He gave her another of his effortless cheek kisses. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rosaline-um-Palmer. Enjoy your evening.”
She watched him stride off towards the Lodge. He was doing the sensible, mature thing and Rosaline should probably have done the same. Unfortunately, she’d reached the stage of tiredness that felt like restlessness, and she didn’t especially want to lie in bed, worrying pointlessly about tomorrow.
“Are you coming?” yelled Anvita, still from the same yell-unnecessary distance.
“Give me ten minutes. I just need to—” Rosaline had been about to say “Call my daughter,” but Alain was still in earshot, and while she did need to tell him the truth at some point—probably very soon—shouting to somebody else across a big garden wasn’t the right way to do it.
Feeling far more duplicitous than she would have liked, she hurried over to Anvita. Who was still assessing Alain’s retreat. “Is that the guy you got stuck with last night?”
“Um, yes,” said Rosaline modestly. As if getting stranded at a railway station with Alain had been in any way a reflection of her taste in people to get stranded at railway stations with.
“Win.”
“Thank you.” Of course, it was less of a win, given that he still thought she was a sexy globe-trotting medical student.
“I mean, I wouldn’t call him a stone-cold hottie,” Anvita went on. “But he’s definitely chilly.”
“I’m a full-time mum. Chilly is probably all I can keep up with.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You can have hotties of whatever temperature you want. It’s one of the perks of being a modern independent woman.”
Frankly, Rosaline could have done with feeling a bit more modern and independent. Between child support from Amelie’s father, the insultingly small amount of welfare she was entitled to, and semiregular handouts from her parents, she was painfully reliant on other people. While also, perversely, being completely on her own when it came to the things that mattered. “Well, I mostly want to be a modern independent woman who wins a baking show.”
“Can’t you be a modern independent woman who wins a baking show and also gets together with a delicious mansnack?” asked Anvita.
She gave Anvita a look. “I’m not sure I’d call Alain a delicious mansnack.”