Page 34 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘I’ve read all of his books and also I have hidden depths,’ Sebastian said gravely.
‘George Eliot was a woman, you fool,’ Posy said and she kissed him again and even the interviewer, who’d looked quite peeved about Sebastian’s interruption, went misty-eyed. But as the kissing went on and on and on, the misty-eyedness turned to irritation.
‘You’re ruining everything!’ announced Nina, standing behind the camera crew with her hands on her hips and as furious as Mattie had ever seen her. ‘God, I haven’t even had a chance to test drive it myself yet!’
‘This is all just too awful to contemplate and yet here we are, contemplating it,’ said Tom’s voice from behind Mattie. Very close behind. Close enough that she could feel his warmth against her back. She wanted to step forward with a warning about respecting her personal space boundaries, but they’d been snappy with each other enough over the last thirty-six hours.
Also, in this rare instance, she and Tom were united in their horror of the scene before them. ‘Too many awful things to contemplate,’ Mattie said sorrowfully. ‘That horrible booth, which I still say brings up some serious consent issues.’ (Though Posy and Sebastian were once again consensually kissing each other while the cameras rolled.)
‘And public displays of affection,’ Tom said with real loathing.
‘And let’s not forget all this Christmas nonsense.’ Mattie reached up so she could give theJoyeux Noelbanner a vicious flick.
‘You’re right, it is all nonsense,’ Tom agreed. He sighed, his breath ruffling her hair, which actually was a bit annoying. ‘We could sue, you know. For being forced to work in a hostile environment.’
‘We could, except technically I’m self-employed and I don’t think either of us want to upset Posy at the moment,’ Mattie said.
‘Because she’s pregnant …’
‘And because she doesn’t expect either of us to pay rent for the flat.’
Mattie turned her head so she could smile at Tom, who smiled back at her and shook his head with exaggerated regret, and Mattie was just about to—
‘Did you make these?’
The BBC London producer was suddenly in front of Mattie with a half-eaten pig-in-blanket roll in her hand.
‘I did,’ Mattie replied a little uncertainly, because the woman was looking at her with narrowed eyes. Was the sausage not cooked all the way through? Worse! Was there ahairnestling between the puff pastry and the bacon?
‘This is the best thing I’ve everevertasted,’ the producer said, eyes still narrowed. ‘You have a great face for television, has anyone ever told you that?’
‘No, I can’t say they have,’ Mattie said, and behind her Tom sniffed slightly and took a step away so his body no longer blocked her from the draught that always whistled through the shop when someone had left the door open.
‘Every day, I have to find an item for a light-hearted, Christmas-related clip to end the show. It’s the bane of my bloody life. Now, I’ve got that stupid Mistletoe Booth and we could do a second piece on your pig-in-blanket rolls. I mean, there is a queue out the door for them.’
‘There is? Oh my goodness!’ All this time Mattie had been standing there and watching the Mistletoe Booth shenanigans, and poor Cuthbert had been left to cope with a sudden run on her pig-in-blanket rolls. ‘I’d better go.’
‘I’ll just need you to sign a release form,’ the producer said, following her. ‘Can you think of something snappier to call them, because “pig-in-blanket rolls” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?’
Alas, nobody could think of anything snappier, but the TV crew still filmed the queue for pig-in-blanket rolls, which was starting to snake across the mews. Then they shot a quick interview with Mattie, who claimed that the pig-in-blanket rolls were an old family recipe (which sounded better than admitting inspiration had struck her when she was having a wee at three in the morning), and several sound-bites of happy punters extolling the delights of puff pastry and two different kinds of pork.
‘And if sweet is your thing, then these red velvet cake-balls disguised as mini Christmas puddings should be top of your festive wish list,’ concluded the reporter, a pale young man who, despite scoffing five pig-in-blanket rolls ‘in the name of research’, looked like he was in dire need of a good, square meal. Then he took an enthusiastic bite of a mini Christmas pudding and, even though it was bad manners to finish a broadcast with your mouth full, said, ‘Mmmm mmmm! Christmas never tasted so good.’
‘I hope you’re about to take on extra staff,’ was the producer’s parting shot as her crew were loading up their equipment. ‘When we did a piece on the first place in London to serve cronuts, they had two thousand customers the next day. Had to set up a wait list.’
‘Two thousand customers?’ Mattie echoed, not in glee but horror. She could manage about two hundred pig-in-blanket rolls by herself if she didn’t have any other bakes, but two thousand?
‘It’s all right,’ said the producer, as she hoisted herself into the equipment van. ‘No need to thank me. In fact, you’ve done me a favour because I had nothing to fill tomorrow’s slot after my Santa Zumba instructor tore his meniscus.’
Thankfully, the only place in London where the tide of Yule wasn’t happening was the flat above the shop. Neither Mattie nor Tom (who was still keeping the lowest of profiles) had so much as stuck a Christmas card on the mantelpiece in the living room or hung a stray strand of tinsel around the butler’s bell in the hall.
Even once she’d finished her evening prep, there was no respite for Mattie this evening. If her pig-in-blanket rolls were about to take London by storm, then she had to be prepared. And so, although Pippa had wanted to try a new pop-up ice bar in Notting Hill, Mattie begged off and, after waving goodbye to Tom, she dragged one of the stools from the tearooms up to the flat so she’d be comfortable as she made industrial amounts of puff pastry.
In between batches, she put an order in to her butcher for a frightening amount of sausage-meat and home-cured bacon and wondered if she had the money and space for another fridge.
As evenings went, Mattie had had much better ones. And as she was on her fifth batch of puff pastry, her mother rang.
‘Mathilde, ma cherie!C’est Maman!’ Sandrine had a voice that could carry roughly the same decibel level as a foghorn, so Mattie barely needed to put her on speaker. ‘How is my favourite daughter?’
