The disdain on Jennifer Hallet’s face was all the answer she needed to give, but she gave a verbal one regardless. “Oh no, disapproval, my one weakness. Just get out.”
“Yeah.” Audrey gave a resigned nod. “Guess we’ve been wasting each other’s time after all.”
She left quietly, because Jennifer was clearly the kind of person who took storming out as a win. Then she very sensibly decided it was a good idea to get an early night before the next day’s competition. And then somewhat less sensibly stayed up until well after midnight having imaginary arguments with an imaginary Jennifer Hallet.
Some of which she even won.
Sunday
The next morning, Alanis woke Audrey slightly later than she had the previous day, although still fundamentally too early for comfort, and hauled her up the hill to breakfast. Once Audrey had actually got to sleep, she’d slept well, but she’d woken up ravenous and was, therefore, very disappointed by the watery sausages, flabby bacon, and undercooked hash browns that she was offered. Although she counted herself lucky that she wasn’t vegetarian since then her options would have been cereal, a fry-up minus any of the interesting parts, or an involuntary fast day.
Since she was focusing more on getting herself fed than paying attention to social cues, Audrey was already sitting down and deciding which of the congealed breakfast products on her plate looked least unappetising when she realised she’d inadvertently sat directly between Alanis and Joshua. Who now seemed to be trying to flirt across her.
“You did well yesterday,” Joshua was saying over his cereal and under his trilby.
“Thanks.” Alanis wasn’t quite looking at him and wasn’t quitelooking at her breakfast. And across more years than she cared to remember, Audrey recognised the awkwardness of a teenager trying to seem like a twentysomething. “You did—yours was good too. They shouldn’t have marked you down for using buttercream.”
“They asked for a Victoria sponge,” Joshua agreed, “and they got a Victoria sponge.”
The conversation continued in this not-exactly-about-anything-but-also-not-really-inviting-Audrey-to-participate vein for long enough that she began to feel acutely uncomfortable but also that she couldn’t leave because she’d somehow positioned herself as unofficial chaperone. Audrey was, therefore, immensely relieved when Gerald rolled up with a plate of nothing but hash browns, sat down uninvited, and immediately butted in.
“Hello, hello, hello.” He speared a hash brown with a fork and took a nibble. “Bright new day and everything. Hope you are all, each of you, shaped like ships and fashioned like Bristol.”
Wordlessly, Alanis looked to Audrey for help.
“We’re all good,” she said. “Just getting ready for the next challenge.”
Gerald nodded enthusiastically and started his second hash brown. “Ah yes.” He adopted an expression of utmost seriousness. Or at least as much seriousness as one could adopt when one still had a notable ketchup stain on one’s shirt. “A cake that shows who you are.”
“I’m making chocolate and chilli,” Alanis volunteered in the exact tone she’d used to explain her bake to Audrey the day before, “because I’m a little bit sweet and a little bit spicy.”
Joshua’s comment was “Like it” in a tone that Audrey tried hard not to cringe at.
“I was going to make something that included my Somaliheritage,” Alanis continued, “but that’s all on my dad’s side and he doesn’t actually cook. So I spoke to his mum—my grandmother— and she was, like, so happy I’d asked that I felt bad sayingactually I just need a cake for TV. So now we do this whole weekly family cooking thing, which is great but doesn’t help with the show.” She took a spoonful of cereal. “Still, might do sambusa if I make it to pastry week.”
The moment Alanis had finished, Joshua stepped in like he’d spent the whole time nodding and waiting for his turn to talk. “I’m going to do”—he put his hands out in a gesture that might, if interpreted generously, indicate something vaguely cake-shaped—“it’s hard to put intowords.”
Gerald fixed Joshua with a look of genuine awe. “Are you making anineffable cake?”
It took Joshua a moment to acknowledge the question, but when he did he nodded, laughed, and said “Like it” again. Followed by, “And kind of. But it’s actually more”—he swirled his hands—“cupcakes.”
“That doesn’t soundveryineffable,” Audrey pointed out. “I mean I’m pretty sure you could eff a cupcake.”
Alanis punched her on the arm. “Audrey, don’t talk about effing cupcakes over breakfast.”
Audrey hadn’t actually intended to eff in the euphemistic sense. “I just meant,” she said, aware that she was drifting back into Alanis’s “me” box, but possibly asthatfriend, “they’re, you know, comprehensible.”
“What I wanted to do”—Joshua’s hands were still spiralling—“was, like, it’s supposed to be a cake that showswho you arebut, like,who are any of us?”
Alanis was giving him theyou’re so deepnod that Audreyremembered giving a few girls herself down the years, Natalie among them. It was not a nod that ever ended well.
“So,” Joshua went on—he was a terminal wenter onner. “I’m doing a range of cupcakes in a range of styles and flavours because I just don’t think one cake can, you know, really encapsulate a whole person.”
“I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought,” Audrey told him. It was how she avoided telling people they were full of shit.
Joshua nodded appreciatively. “How about you?”
Although Audrey privately didn’t think “I’m making ten different cakes because I refuse to be categorised, man” was a great response to the brief, she was starting to wonder if her own was any better. “Simnel cake.”
