Rosaline really wanted to smash something or leave, but since she was trapped in a car, she couldn’t do either. “My sex life is none of your business, Mother. But for your information, I haven’t been with anyone in a very long time, and when I do I’m extremely careful and you know that.”

“Actually, darling, if there’s one thing I know about your sex life it’s that ‘careful’ is not a word that characterises it.”

There was nothing to say to this. There had never been anything to say to this. They fell into a familiar, uneasy silence.

Until Cordelia said finally, “Your father mentioned that there was a very pleasant gentleman with you when he picked you up the other week.”

“Alain?” asked Rosaline warily. Her parents’ approval came so rarely these days that she didn’t quite trust it when it emerged. “Yes, he’s a contestant.”

“Well, he made a good first impression.”

This was beginning to smell like a trap. “You do remember it’s a baking show, not a dating show.”

“Well, I know that. But you so seldom get a chance to meet anyone suitable, and you might as well get something out of this . . . whatever it is that you’re doing.”

At this rate, her mum was perilously close to putting her off a guy she actually liked. “Yes. Winning is what I’m going to get out of it. Didn’t you always tell me to prioritise my career over my personal life?”

“Being on reality television is not a career. A career requires work and qualifications.”

“Oh, you mean because I didn’t go to university I should give up and pimp myself out to the first man with a decent job who looks my way?”

“You’re being unfair,” said Cordelia. “And a little childish. Your father and I just want you to be happy, darling, and while of course we would have been overjoyed if you’d gone back to university and become a doctor like you wanted, you chose not to and”—for a moment Cordelia was silent, as if the topic was more painful for her than it was for Rosaline—“we’re only trying to support you as best we know how. That’s all we’ve ever done.”

Rosaline knew better than to argue the point. “I’m sorry. It’s been a stressful week and I really appreciate you taking care of Amelie for me.”

“Don’t be silly, we love spending time with Amelie. She’s our granddaughter. But you could be a little kinder to your father. He’s worked very hard for you his whole life, and he sometimes feels like you barely acknowledge it.”

There wasn’t much more she could say. Give a conversation with either of the Palmers long enough, and it would eventually deteriorate into a laundry list of grievances. The only way out was to nod, say she was sorry, and promise to do better next time. While privately knowing there was no way she could.

Her mother dropped her off at the station where they exchanged a formulaic back-and-forth of I-love-you-toos, and then Rosaline tucked herself away in a seat on a second-class carriage and tried, for as long as she could, to think about nothing.

“Welcome back, my little Chelsea buns,” said Grace Forsythe. “I’m afraid this is the one you’ve been dreading because it’s the week you’ll be battling with bloomers, fighting with focaccia, wrestling with rolls, and if you’re very lucky, larking about with a loaf or two. That’s right, it’s bread week. And we’re throwing you immediately into our most challenging blind bake yet.”

A pause for reaction shots. Rosaline, at least, found it quite easy to look traumatised, mainly because she felt traumatised. She hadn’t been looking forward to bread week to begin with—she loved baking from scratch, but she really couldn’t justify spending six hours making something she could buy for ninety-five pence from Sainsbury’s—and being met at the gates by a harried technician who’d confiscated her luggage and her phone before rushing her into the ballroom for a surprise filming session had been the hell raisins in her batch of doom scones.

Wilfred Honey stepped forward. “What we’d like you to make this week is a traditional sourdough. And it’s extra specially important because it’s my mam’s recipe. We’ve given you all a little pot of starter that comes out of my own kitchen in Armley from a culture I’ve kept going continuously for forty years.”

Another round of reaction shots. Everyone else seemed to be doing a decent job of conveying how simultaneously intimidated and moved they were. But Rosaline’s face was as tired as the rest of her so most of her effort went into keeping her eyes open.

“Because this bread takes such a long time to rise,” Grace Forsythe continued, “you’ll be making your dough now and finishing your loaves tomorrow. You have one hour for this part of the challenge starting on three. Three, darlings.”

Normally this was everyone’s cue to start frantically baking, but this time the cameras stopped rolling and Jennifer Hallet materialised like the Wicked Witch of the West with further instructions. “Now we’ve got our bombshell shots for the next week on, here’s how this is actually going to work. So pay attention, you bucket of pigs’ cocks, because if any one of you fucks this up for me, I’ll come down on you so hard that Satan himself will take a break from roasting the arses of sinners in the fires of hell and say, Are you all right there, Jenny? I think you’re being a bit harsh.”

The rules, as it happened, were fairly straightforward. Because they were filming over two days, and it was supposed to be a blind challenge, they were effectively on blackout until the end of Saturday.

Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem—Rosaline tried to call home as much as she could, and when she couldn’t, she felt comfortable relying on Lauren to smooth things over with Amelie. But while she knew St. John and Cordelia Palmer wouldn’t let her have a massive freak-out, not that Amelie was really the freaking-out sort, they’d also see it as yet more evidence that Rosaline, having failed as a daughter, was now failing as a mother as well.

“Uh, Jennifer,” she said.

But Jennifer Hallet was already signalling to the camera operators. “Did any part of that suggest I was taking questions?”

It hadn’t, and she wasn’t, and they were filming.

And the clock was ticking

And oh God. The instructions literally just said “Make the dough.”