“And maybe we’ll have done a nice thing for two old ladies?” suggested Audrey, clinging to the idea that she wasn’t driven totally by ruthless pragmatism.
“Of course,” Jennifer went on, “if it goes to shit it could ruin the whole series and both their lives.” She paused. “Then again, their lives are going to be quite short.”
Audrey squeaked. “Jennifer.”
“I’m sorry, was that uncharacteristically insensitive of me?”
“No…no, you’re right. It’s worth considering. I mean, the possibility of a bad outcome is worth considering. I don’t think we need to be speculating about life expectancy.”
Jennifer gave a sort of sardonic chuckle. “You do you, Lane. Just don’t start anything until you’ve got actual formal consent, preferably in writing. Ethically, this should be up to the granny. Aesthetically, I don’t do ambush bullshit. And practically, I don’t want to get myself fucking sued.”
“Look at us.” Audrey nudged her arm against Jennifer’s. “Talking through our differences. Working as a team. Coming up with a plan.”
Pausing, Jennifer looked down at her. The look on her face was abstract and unreadable. Then the corner of her mouth kicked up very slightly. “Oh fuck off.”
Sunday
Jennifer, it seemed, had the same breakfast every day, which didn’t surprise Audrey at all because for a woman who worked in a creative industry, Jennifer seemed very much to be a creature of habit. And so now, she and Audrey were sitting side by side, their bacon rolls half-eaten alongside smears of ketchup, while through their headsets Grace Forsythe was pouring out another of her mellifluous introductions.
“Bonjour,” she was saying to the half dozen remaining contestants. “And the bonnest of jours it is because today we are asking you to focus on a French classic. We want you to demonstrate your mastery of meringue and your finesse with flavours as you make us no fewer than forty-eight perfectly formed, identically sized, beautifully presented macarons. We’re asking for two dozen sweet and, in a move I frankly consider slightly too trendy—”
“As do I,” added Wilfred Honey.
“—two dozen savoury. You have four hours starting on three.” Grace Forsythe paused for—now Audrey was watchingtimestamps—exactly the same amount of time she always paused. It was actually quite impressive. “Three, darlings.”
Everybody started furiously baking. Well, everybody started furiously baking except for the people who had been collared for the mandatory banter segments.
They began with Meera, who was blitzing almond powder together with something Audrey didn’t recognise. Which inevitably meant that Marianne Wolvercote opened with, “Well, this looks interesting.”
“Freeze-dried beetroot,” Meera explained. “It’s a bit hard to get hold of, but you need the flavour without the moisture.”
“Clever,” Marianne Wolvercote conceded. “And for the filling?”
Meera nodded at a little pile of goat cheese, cream cheese, and dill.
“So what’s the cardamom for?” asked Wilfred Honey.
“That’s for the mango and cardamom sweet,” Meera told him. Then she immediately gave the blender another pulse.
Audrey gave a little preemptive wince. Wilfred may have been the nation’s grandfather, but, like many grandfathers, he sometimes made some very culturally specific assumptions about food.
“Is that not more suitable for a savoury?” he asked.
“It pairs well with mango,” Marianne Wolvercote put in, “which I notice you’re also using.”
Meera nodded. “That’s right. It does mean that I’ll have a tray that’s all purple and orange, though.”
Jennifer had been right about Grace. She had a tremendous instinct for how to deflect an awkward line of questioning onto something frivolous. “Fabulous. Reminds me of a suit I used to wear in the eighties.” She turned to the judges. “Shall we?”
So the three of them continued their circuit, leaving Meera to continue grinding her freeze-dried beetroot into a fine powder. And when the camera operator judged that they’d got all the footage they needed from her, that feed moved away, and Audrey switched her attention to another contestant.
Towards the back of the ballroom, Linda seemed to be having a rough time of it. There was no sound, but she was staring into her bowl of macaron mix looking like she was worried it was going to explode.
Jennifer was occupied elsewhere—issuing a series of instructions through Colin to the camera operators—but, as Audrey watched, the image on the screen in front of her evolved from bit-of-a-bad-day to definite-freakout. The initial stage of the macaron-making process wasn’t exactly frenetic, but it definitely involved doing more than just staring at a bowl of rapidly settling egg whites with a panicked expression on your face.
“Should somebody check on her?” Audrey asked, leaning over a little closer to Jennifer.
“The nervy one?” Jennifer hadn’t so much as glanced at Linda’s feed, but she knew at once who Audrey had meant. “No, she’ll be fine.”
