“Paris Daillencourt?” asked a small, friendly-looking man with a clipboard.
“Yes.” That was, Paris suspected, the only question he’d be confident answering that day.
“Colin. Colin Thrimp. And it’s lovely to see you so early.” He smiled at Paris with what seemed genuine relief. “The other contestants are just coming up from breakfast, and Jennifer will be starting the briefing as soon as everybody’s together. Can you find the ballroom yourself ?”
Paris said that he could out of a kind of reflex but realised after he’d said it that he actually could. A pair of vast glass-panelled doors led direct from the ballroom to the gardens at the rear of the house, and for the past six years Paris had watched contestants walk apprehensively through them at the start of the series and triumphantly out of them at the end.
And although he was still in the apprehensive phase and triumph was a fairly alien emotion to him, he felt confident that he could at least find his way through a big hole in a wall into one of the most famous rooms on British television.
So he skirted the house, found the doors, and— having reassured at least three members of the production crew that yes he was a contestant and no he wasn’t a tourist— made his way into the ballroom.
It had always been a bit incongruous now he thought about it, people doing something so homey in a setting so unsuited for it, but that had been part of the magic of the show. Besides, it was an orderly incongruity. Everybody had their own special workstation, arranged in its own special place, and there was something comforting about that. It was, Paris thought, part of what he found comforting about cooking in general.
The contestants gathered together on stools and— shit, they’d all got there the night before, hadn’t they? Which meant they’d already know each other, and if they already knew each other, then Paris would be stuck on the outside looking in again, for the whole eight weeks. Or until he went out. So for the whole one week.
From a certain perspective, ten people wasn’t a lot of people. It wasn’t even a complete football team. But trying to keep track of everyone quickly got overwhelming. There was a nice-looking man in a nice-looking cardigan talking to a willowy woman in earth tones. There was a man in thick-rimmed glasses being largely ignored by an older lady Paris tried really hard not to think of as hatchet-faced while a tall, thickset man— actually he was probably a bloke, there were certain men who looked like blokes— pulled up stools for people who hadn’t already found their own.
Once they were all settled, a woman walked in who Paris knew at once was Jennifer Hallet, the show’s producer and general mastermind. She looked younger than Paris had expected, but then again he’d never been good at judging people’s ages. Or, really, anything else about them.
“Right,” she began, “we’ve got a lot to do so I’ll keep this short. These things”— she pointed at the cameras— “are cameras. Ignore them or you will fuck up all our shots and make yourself look like a fucking weirdo who keeps staring at people. These things”— she indicated several of the people standing near the cameras— “are my production staff. They will ask you questions, and you will answer those questions as if you aren’t answering a question, clear?”
Paris would have been too afraid to admit if it wasn’t, but one or two of his fellow contestants looked like they were about to say something before Jennifer cut them off.
“Good. First aid is there”— she pointed to one side of the room. “Don’t bother them unless you’ve lost enough blood to fill a mixing bowl. Technical is there”— she pointed to a different side of the room. “Don’t bother them unless you’re really certain that whatever problem you’re having isn’t your fault, and, spoiler warning, my little bags of joy and jism, it almost certainly is your fault. Finally my trailer is out there”— she pointed out of the doors and into the gardens. “Don’t bother me at all, ever for any reason. Colin.” She turned to the pleasant man who had greeted Paris when he’d arrived. “Tell Grace we’re ready for her. It’s time to start turning this pack of arseholes”— she waved a hand to indicate the contestants— “into the ten most beloved people in this shitty fucking nation.”
Colin nodded once, sharply, and scampered away. While he was scampering, the contestants were shepherded to their stations, and when he scampered back, it was with Grace Forsythe, the show’s terrifyingly Oxbridge, dangerously ebullient host in tow. She took her place at the front of the room and addressed the contestants, the cameras, and— through the strange time travel of pre-recorded television— the Great British Public with the confidence of a woman who had been showing off in front of an audience since the Thatcher years.
“Welcome,” she began, gesticulating like a tweed windmill, “to the seventh season of Bake Expectations.”
And out of nowhere, it hit him. He was really here. He was really doing this. And it was all a terrible mistake.
“Over the next eight weeks, you’ll be pushed to the limit of your pastriological prowess, you’ll be brought to the brink of your bakerly abilities, and also you’ll probably make some cakes.”
He couldn’t do this. Not on television.
“As always, you’ll be flashing your baps and whipping out your baguettes for the pleasure of our two esteemed judges, the fragrant and delicious Marianne Wolvercote, and the crusty but surprisingly light Wilfred Honey.”
The judges stepped forward, Wilfred Honey smiling like the sort of storybook grandfather who would always remember your birthday. “My advice to you is to stay calm, try to enjoy it, and remember at the end of the day it’s only baking.”
“And my advice,” drawled Marianne Wolvercote, looking less grandparental and more like she wanted to make a coat out of your children, “is to plan carefully, pay attention to detail, and remember that it is a competition.”
Feeling panic rise slowly but inevitably past his intestines and into his chest, Paris glanced wildly around the ballroom. He wanted to see if anyone else had noticed that the judges had just completely contradicted each other— that they’d implicitly suggested that whatever you did, no matter how hard you tried, one of them would be disappointed. But the other contestants were all just smiling and nodding as if everything made sense and nothing was a disaster waiting to happen.
“So the first blind bake of the series,” Grace Forsythe was saying, “is taking us right back to basics. Wilfred and Marianne want you to make two dozen perfect chocolate chip cookies.” She raised a finger. “You have one hour and thirty minutes, starting on the count of three. Three, darlings.”
Okay, that could have been a lot worse. It was chocolate chip cookies. Paris knew how to make chocolate chip cookies. Except, no. Wait. He’d seen this before. It was a trap. They’d give you something really simple and the bakers would all be saying well, this should be all right, I whipped up a batch of these just the other day, and then the camera would cut to Marianne Wolvercote saying, “The thing about chocolate chip cookies is that they’re such a simple bake that there’s nothing to hide behind.” Which meant whoever wound up in the bottom would be there because their chips were at slightly the wrong angle or their cookies weren’t completely circular. But nobody watching the show would remember the context, so if Paris didn’t totally nail this, he’d be going home, and for the rest of his life he’d be the guy who went out in round one because he couldn’t make a biscuit.