What was she doing? “Panicking. Flailing. Running out of time.”
He beamed. “I love that. Comes across as really normal and relatable. But as if you’re not answering a question.”
“Right now,” she said, too stressed to do anything other than go along with it, “I’m panicking, flailing, and running out of time.”
“Could you tell us why?”
“This ice-cream has taken a bit longer to come together than I thought it would, and I know it takes at least three hours to set. So I might take it out of the freezer and put it in front of the judges and it’ll just”—she spread her hands across the table in a way she hoped resembled melting ice-cream—“blululeuuh.”
Oh God, she was going to be Blululeuuh Girl now. Was that better or worse than Looks Good in a Pinny Girl? And maybe this was her final day on the show. Maybe blululeuuh would be her legacy.
“And the last thing you want,” she heard herself say, “is for your ice-cream to blululeuuh.”
They broke for lunch at a slightly awkward point in the baking process because the puddings had to be served hot and the ice-cream would take a long time to freeze. It was kind of the nightmare scenario—having disasters and being British about it was an integral part of the show, but if your biscuit stack collapsed or a layer of cake fell on the floor, you at least had something to put in front of the judges. With ice-cream, you had ice-cream or you didn’t, and she could all too clearly picture herself standing in front of Marianne Wolvercote and Wilfred Honey, saying, Well, I’ve made you an overcooked pudding served with nothing.
Which mostly killed her desire to sit on the lawn, eating an egg and cress sandwich and trying to make conversation with people who she needed to fail spectacularly if she was going to have any chance of getting through the week.
“It’s all right, mate.” Harry—on his way to grab a sandwich of his own—dropped a hand briefly on her shoulder. “You never know what’s gonna happen with ice-cream. You just have to stick it in the freezer and hope. It’s anyone’s game.”
She appreciated the thought. But accepting that they were all in danger didn’t make her feel much safer.
“I hate to be a can we talk person.” Alain sat down next to her, clutching an avocado wrap. “But can we talk?”
Honestly, she’d rather have brooded in peace. Except having ducked out of sex, she wasn’t sure she should also duck out of a serious conversation about feelings. “I really am sorry about last night,” she tried, hoping to get it over with as quickly as possible.
“You know”—Alain’s eyes were as cold and grey as a car park in October—“you could have said ‘I’m not particularly up for sex this evening.’ Instead of making excuses like I was some knuckle-dragging mouth-breather who wouldn’t be able to stop himself humping your leg.”
She winced. “I was in a bad place and not thinking clearly. I’m sorry.”
“So you keep saying.” He made a slightly exasperated noise. “Perhaps next time you should just tell me you’re going to Malawi.”
Fuck. She’d hoped they were past that. “Alain, I think you’re being a bit unfair.”
“Am I though?” he asked. “Because you seem to have this pattern where you’ll make a totally unfounded assumption about me and then use it as an excuse to lie.”
“It’s not the same thing. I wasn’t lying to you, I was lying to myself. Because I was fucked up and didn’t know what I wanted.” She gave up on her sandwich and hugged her knees. “Which, as you have noticed, is kind of part of the deal with me.”
“Is Harry aware that’s part of the deal?”
“What? No. I meant . . . with my life. I’m very uncertain about a lot of things right now. Like whether I wanted to have sex yesterday or whether I want to go back to university. Or both. Or neither.”
“What’s university got to do with any of this?”
He was looking at her like she was talking utter nonsense. And oh God, she was messing everything up. “Sorry, it’s just a lot. And I know I’m probably a lot right now as well. But—whatever you might think—you are definitely not one of the things I’m confused or uncertain about.”
There was a longish, tense-ish pause.
Then he seemed to relent. “Well, that’s good to know, Rosaline-um-Palmer. And if it’s any consolation, a lot about this is new for me as well.”
“You mean, because of Amelie?”
“You’re not the sort of person I’ve usually been with.”
“You mean,” she repeated, “because of Amelie?”
His mouth turned up slightly. “Because of a great many things. We’re on television together, for a start. But I have been giving some thought to how difficult it must be for you to get to Gloucestershire with your other commitments. And as it happens, I’m going to be in London next week if that’s easier for you.”
Well, not as easy as, say, her house. Or her town. But definitely better than the Venice of the Cotswolds. If nothing else, the way UK transport infrastructure worked you had to go through London to get basically anywhere from anywhere else. The important thing here was that Alain was trying, and given her own recent behaviour, she more than owed it to him to meet him halfway. “Yes, I’d love to.”
“I’m meeting up with a friend so perhaps we can all go to dinner?”
Oh. “That sounds nice.”
“It’s Liv, who I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times. You’ll really like her. You’ve got a lot in common.”
“We do?”
“Yes, she shares your spirit of adventure.” He offered his slightly crooked smile. “Also, she’s never been to Malawi either.”
“Ha-ha. Am I ever living that down?”
He made a show of thinking about it. “Of course not. You promised me a story I could dine out on, and I intend to dine out on it.”
Okay. He was teasing her. That was good, right? It meant they were in a good place again? Unfortunately, she only had about eight seconds to enjoy it because then she was summoned back to the ballroom to finish an unsuccessful pudding and discover the fate of her ice-cream.
“This has just about set,” said Wilfred Honey, delicately nudging at Rosaline’s ice-cream, “and the flavour of the oranges is nice. I like the way you used the lime to add that edge of bitterness to it.”
“But the whole thing,” added Marianne Wolvercote, “lacks joy for me.”
From the back of the room, Anvita drew in a sharp breath. And Rosaline tried very hard to keep her face ungifable. They’d clearly reached the stage of the competition where the gloves were off. Because joyless pudding was frankly no pudding at all.
Although, to be fair, it hadn’t been a particularly joyful week.
Marianne Wolvercote was picking through the rubble of Rosaline’s bake like she was looking for survivors. “Chocolate orange is such a classic combination that I was expecting this to have a real celebratory feel to it. But even with the caramelised orange segments, it’s a little bit lacking.”
“Mmhm,” said Rosaline, “thanks.”