Chapter 25
T he day of the final round was hot , the country caught in the sticky grip of the promised heatwave.
Even though he was as prepared as he could be, Lucas wasn’t especially looking forward to being cooped up in a tent with a series of ovens switched on, adding to the heat.
It was like nature itself was trying to make things more difficult for them all – turning the air stifling and oppressive.
The coach that would take them to Wray Castle didn’t have air-conditioning, and he was sweating before they stepped out into the car park, his T-shirt clinging to his skin.
He couldn’t help but notice Clem – Dwayne had nudged him on the way here and jerked his head in her direction, as if to say look at what you missed out on .
She was almost shining as she stepped out into the sun.
She was dressed in a forties-style dress with a shirt-like collar, and a row of buttons up the front.
It was decorated with a pattern of pastel-pink and pale-blue cats, and she’d paired it with white sandals.
Her trademark red lipstick was in place, making her lips look as full as strawberries.
Lucas had to fight the urge to go over and talk to her – to tell her she looked absolutely stunning.
He was almost winded by regret, because aside from her being downright beautiful, he’d really sensed something more growing between them.
Had he been wrong, to push her aside like that?
Focus on the contest , he told himself. Focusing on that was the only way he could win.
Across the stretch of grass to the side of Wray Castle, the tent was a brilliant white beacon.
The Whisked Away team had gone all out for this final round.
The area for the mini-audience had been expanded – it now encircled a good portion of the tent, allowing for a grassy space in between, like a stage, where they would announce and film the winner.
The trophies for the winners had been erected on a platform with an archway bursting with brightly coloured flowers rounding it off.
Unlike the other rounds of the contest, which went out to audiences after they were filmed, this final round would be live, every mistake available for scrutiny instantly.
The heat bearing down on them was oppressive, making beads of sweat spring up along his neck. He could almost see the air shimmering. His nerves weren’t helping matters. The cameras filmed them making their entrance into the tent, and he had to keep mopping his skin with tissues in between shots.
‘What a day for it,’ Dwayne grumbled, as they trooped to the back of the tent. It was no cooler in here – in fact, the tent encased the heat, trapping it inside. He shot Lucas a grin and held up his hand, crossing his fingers tightly. ‘Hey, pray that the others are making ice-cream cake.’
Lucas snorted. ‘They had enough warning – the heatwave’s been all over the weather. Plenty of time to change their minds.’
‘We can hope . . .’
There were only three pairings left – Catpurrcino, Muddy Paws Café, and a popular cake shop called Life with Sprinkles. Lucas doubted their reduced numbers would do much to limit the body heat in the tent. It was already so hot in here and would only worsen when the ovens were on full blast.
They took their places at the workstations, where Whisked Away had provided them with bottles of water to keep them hydrated during the heatwave. Lucas was sweating in places he didn’t even know it was possible to sweat.
He glanced across at Clem. She looked calm, collected, which took him slightly aback. In the other rounds she’d often been visibly nervous. A smile played at his mouth. He wasn’t sure if she’d simply got used to the contest now, or if she’d steeled something inside of herself for this final.
The judges had assembled at the head of the tent, lined up in a neat row. Ronan’s curls had turned frizzy, and even Viviana and Laurette looked more dishevelled than usual – Laurette had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt dress to keep cool and Viviana kept fanning her face with her hand.
The filming began. The camera crew looked sweaty, their caps pushed up slightly to give their hair some breathing room. They were all wearing loose-fitting shorts with their Whisked Away T-shirts.
‘Alright, bakers!’ called Ronan, clapping his hands.
As always, he was dressed to rival Clem, this time wearing a pale yellow suit with a garish patterned shirt and tie.
His curly brown hair was extra poufy today, layered with the frizz.
‘We hope you’re ready for this knockout final, where we’ll get to see what wonderful cake dioramas you’ve come up with to represent your businesses!
’ He looked around at them eagerly, hands still clasped together, as if he were addressing a class of schoolchildren.
‘Now, I imagine it’s going to be a little challenging today, with the heat .
. .’ He fanned his face, mock-theatrically, in the direction of the camera. ‘But we’re sure you’ll manage!’
‘I hope nobody had any ice-cream in their diorama plans. That could be a challenge . . .’ Jonathan added, with a sparkly grin.
Dwayne nudged Lucas and they swapped a smirk at the fact he’d echoed Dwayne’s earlier sentiments.
‘We wish you all the very best of luck,’ Laurette said, ‘and we can’t wait to see what you do.’
‘Let’s get baking!’ said Ronan, with a flourish. Lucas didn’t know how he could be so cheerful while wearing a full suit in this heat.
The usual clattering and clamouring ensued as everyone scrambled for their tools and ingredients.
Lucas was boiling and light-headed before the ovens had turned on; he didn’t feel prepared enough for this.
He opened a water bottle and took a long swig.
Shouldn’t they have installed a fan, or something?
It was as if he were about to sit a school exam, and even though he’d been studying for hours, none of the information seemed to have registered in his brain.
He took a deep, fortifying breath. No, he could do this.
He thought of his dad, gritting his teeth, looking sombre but not complaining, and the lines of worry etched into his mum’s features.
Those images kicked him into gear, and he tried to ignore the camera roving around the room, fixating on each of them – but of course he had to answer questions from one of the judges as usual, which came as soon as he was sieving icing sugar for his fondant.
It was Laurette, her hair tucked behind her ears to keep it out of her face.
She was sporting a sheen of sweat over her top lip, and her make-up was slightly cracked in places.
‘What’s your plan today, Lucas? Can you tell us a little about your diorama?’ Laurette asked him, leaning over his workstation.
‘I’m making a vanilla and chocolate sponge cake,’ he said, ‘with chocolate ganache – a mix of white and dark chocolate, and double cream. It’ll be a fairly tall cake to represent the whole Muddy Paws building.’
She gave a low whistle. ‘That sounds impressive.’
‘I hope so,’ he said, measuring out the rest of the ingredients for his fondant.
Dwayne helped him carefully combine them, and melt the mixture on a low heat – which was excruciating in the existing heat of the tent. Dwayne would watch over that while he got started on the sponge, and sieve it into the icing sugar.
When the fondant was finally looking like fondant and had been rolled out – which he exhaled in relief at – he put it aside for an hour and set to work on the sponges and the ganache.
All the while, he avoided looking over at Clem’s workstation, even when he could hear her being interviewed, when he caught the lilting tones of her voice.
He couldn’t afford to get distracted this time, not like in those earlier rounds.
When the sponges came out of the oven and the ganache was ready, he spread thick coatings of chocolate ganache on top, building the sponge layers as he went, until he had something resembling a thick stack of pancakes.
He used some wide straws to hold everything in place, cutting off the tops with precision, before adding a cake drum, and more layers of sponge and chocolate.
His attention strayed to Clem, even though he’d been trying to avoid her.
Her bright red lips were pinched together in concentration and she was working with modelling chocolate, shaping a tree, with a bowl full of marshmallows and something else white and shredded sitting beside her that looked like coconut.
Was she building the cherry tree, for outside the café?
A sharp spike of worry shot through him – her design was going to look beautiful. How could he compete?
‘Don’t pay the others any mind,’ Dwayne advised him.
Lucas was putting the final touches to the top of the cake tower, rounding it off and smoothing out the ganache. ‘I know.’
He worked on some of the decorations until the fondant was ready to go. When Dwayne helped him carefully fold the white fondant over the cake, it looked like a little ghost, dressed up for Halloween. But it was a pain in the backside to smooth into place.
‘No, that’s not right,’ Lucas said through gritted teeth. It was too misshapen. ‘Pull that up . . . Hang on . . .’
‘It can’t have any weird lumps,’ Dwayne added, as they tried again.
In the end, it did look slightly lumpy, but pulling it away again at this stage would only do more harm than good. Lucas tried to smooth it out as best he could using a plastic cake smoother, but this was probably as good as it was going to get.