Then Anvita slunk forward with her model of the Houses of Parliament. And, to be fair to her, it had mostly worked. Apart from the giant schlong at the end.
Placing a hand over her mouth, Grace Forsythe turned her back to the cameras.
The judges exchanged glances.
“Now this is interesting,” said Marianne Wolvercote finally. “I can see what you were going for, and if you’d worked it with a lighter hand, you might have given us something really satisfying. But as it is, it didn’t quite come off.”
Anvita blinked.
Marianne Wolvercote did not. Not fucking once.
Then she closed her fist over the head of the clock tower and sawed vigorously through it. Wincing, Ricky crossed his legs.
Picking up the bulbous top of what everyone was still determinedly pretending was Big Ben, Wilfred Honey inspected it closely. “Now this,” he said, squeezing, “has a nice firmness to it. It feels good in your hand. But of course, what matters is if it’s good in the mouth.”
Anvita was screaming behind her eyes as the nation’s grandfather fondled the glans of her giant bread penis.
“Now this takes me back in a way,” Wilfred Honey continued, now chewing, “because when I were a lad you’d only get a loaf like this when the baker’s boy came round your house on a bicycle and gave it to you hot. I will say, it’s a little crusty for my taste. But I like the flavours. It’s subtle, and the salt is definitely coming through.”
“Great,” said Anvita weakly. “Thanks.”
Next came Ricky, who sheepishly lowered the pile of crumbs and filling that passed for his bake onto the judges’ table.
“Oh dear.” Marianne Wolvercote surveyed the carnage like an insurance investigator at a car crash. “What happened here?”
Ricky sighed with an air of soul-deep exhaustion. “What didn’t happen, bruv. It was supposed to be the Great Dragon Smaug on a Chelsea bun horde. But the buns didn’t cook properly, I dropped his wing on the floor, and then his head exploded in the oven. So now it’s the Great Dragon Smaug after he ran into Bard the Bowman.”
“Yes.” Grace Forsythe peered sadly at the wreckage of Dread Wyrm. “He does look a little bit like he’s crashed into Esgaroth, doesn’t he?”
Needless to say, Ricky did not get good feedback. And he was followed by Nora, who presented her frankly spectacular garden scene with the air of someone who knew she’d smashed it. While it felt wrong to wish for the elderly to fail, Rosaline held out a faint hope that it would taste awful. It did not, however, taste awful.
“By ’eck,” cried Wilfred Honey. “It’s gorgeous.”
So that was Nora winning this week, then.
Which meant that Rosaline brought her bake to the front of the room feeling, ironically, disheartened.
“Well, this is very clever,” observed Marianne Wolvercote, in a tone of mixed praise and suspicion. “It’s not what we were expecting from you, but that’s sometimes a good thing.”
Wilfred eased the chambers of the heart apart and started slicing into them, spilling red and blue compote over the plate. “I’m afraid it’s a little bit Halloween for me. I’m quite a traditional man, and I like my hearts on Valentine’s Day or in a nice stew. Not anatomically correct and oozing.”
“It’s not for everyone,” conceded Marianne Wolvercote, which was the closest the judges ever got to disagreeing, “but there’s no denying the taste is excellent. And I, at least, enjoyed the concept.” She fixed Rosaline with an ice-blue stare. “It’s nice to see you coming out of your shell.”
“Oh.” Rosaline, briefly forgetting she was being filmed, stared at Marianne Wolvercote in astonishment. “Really? Thank you.”
She still didn’t win. Obviously, she didn’t win. Because, while one of the judges had quite liked Rosaline’s concept, Nora had created an entire fucking garden—complete with brioche grandchildren and a working swing. Ricky, meanwhile, did not recover from the fall of Smaug and was dispatched with hugs, pats on the back, and genuine tears.
Which left Rosaline as much in the middle as she’d ever been, but it felt different somehow. After all, she’d had a quietly approving look from Marianne Wolvercote, and not many people got those. And for the first time, it seemed almost possible to think of herself as a contender. That whatever Jennifer Hallet might believe, she could do more than look good in a pinny.
She could make a competitively viable sourdough with no warning and barely any recipe.
She could construct an anatomically correct heart out of bread and blueberries.
She could have a flirty friendship with a straight optician and get an electrician to stop calling her “love.”
And there was a hot architect who gave every impression of thinking she was pretty great.
So why couldn’t she go back to medicine? Be a doctor. Live the life she was always meant to.
She finished her debrief—“feeling very positive, actually. Took a risk, and this time, it paid off”—grabbed her bag from her room, and joined the general throng of people saying goodbye to Ricky. Before heading to the car park to wait for her father and, hopefully, say goodbye to Alain before he got picked up.
“Got something for you, mate.” The gravel crunched behind her and there was Harry, bag over his shoulder, Tupperware box in his hand.
“Have you? Um, why? What?”
“Yeah, and I’ve just realised this was probably a bit weird. Only when you were talking to your girl, she was saying she was into fish now, so I thought she might like this.”
He offered the box and she peeked inside. Tucked in a protective layer of kitchen towel was the crab from his rock pool.
“Managed to swipe it before the crew got it.” Harry shrugged. “It’s a bread roll but, you know, sorta cute, init?”
It was, in fact, sort of cute. As was the gesture. As was he but no. Not going there. People like Rosaline were not interested in people like Harry.
“I mean,” he went on, “she’d probably prefer an anglerfish or a goblin shark, but I’m not sure I could make one of them.”
Rosaline wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Thank you. That’s really kind.”
“Anyway, I should go. I’m giving Ricky a lift back.” He kicked dolefully at the path. “I promised if he went out, I’d let him take me up the Emirates.”
“Do what to you?”
“The stadium. We’re going to a fucking Arsenal game. I was drunk when I agreed to it, and he was being sad, so don’t tell my mates.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “Come on, it’s just a football game.”
“Mate, you do not get it. Better dead than red.”
With a Sydney Carton sigh, Harry began trudging back to the house. And nestling the crab safely into her luggage, Rosaline scanned the horizon for any sign of St. John Palmer.
She’d been waiting for ten of what she expected to be at least twenty minutes when her phone buzzed.
We seem to have missed each other, Alain had sent. I very much enjoyed the weekend.
If he’d enjoyed it that much, why hadn’t he managed to see her before he left? Except it was impossible to ask without sounding needy, passive-aggressive, or shrewish. So, in the end, she went with me too. Which, while bland, was impossible to take negatively.