Rosaline had backed-and-forthed so many times on whether she’d nailed this week or fucked it that she was genuinely shocked.

There was the usual smattering of polite applause and then Grace Forsythe’s face fell. “Of course, it’s also my painful duty to reveal the baker whose cookie has sadly crumbled. And this week it’s Claudia. We’ll be sorry to see you go.”

Claudia was not a hugger but this was television, so she didn’t get much choice.

“The truth is,” she told the cameras afterwards, “I was feeling a little burned out on the career front when I signed up for this show. And I thought that since I love baking so much, I could take a left turn at forty. But I’ve discovered that a big part of the reason I love baking is that I can do it when I feel like it and not when I don’t. So . . . ah . . . I’m very much looking forward to going back to that and also back to work. Which I’ve remembered I also love.”

Rosaline had thought interviews were tricky when all you had to say was “Well, I think it could have gone better,” but they were way worse when you actually had something to talk about and needed to do it in a way that didn’t come across as either false modesty or smugness. “Really pleased,” she tried. “I . . . I’m just really pleased.”

“Aren’t you going to ring your daughter?” asked Colin Thrimp.

“Well, yes. On the way back.”

“Can we get it for the camera?”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about putting Amelie, even Amelie’s voice, into the public domain when she was too young to know what she was doing. But she was already on thin ice after insisting they let her call home mid-sourdough. Besides, she’d signed a bunch of waivers that meant the production company basically owned her life, so she pulled out her phone and called home.

“Fuck me,” cried Lauren immediately. “Your fucking child. She insisted on watching a single episode of Blue Planet on a loop for the past five hours. It’s the one about the spooky fish in the dark and the dead whale. I’m going to have fucking nightmares, Roz, fucking nightmares.”

Rosaline winced. “So you’re on-camera.”

“Oh, bollocks. Other programmes about squoogly fish are available.”

“I think it’s more the saying ‘fuck’ they’re likely to object to.”

“Yes,” put in Colin Thrimp, “if you could both stop saying fuck, that would be helpful.”

“Is Amelie around?”

“She’s still watching Blue Planet.”

“You know, you are allowed to say no to her.”

“I’ve tried,” sighed Lauren. “It doesn’t stick.”

“Is that Mummy?” came Amelie’s voice.

Between Alain and the show, it had only been three days but suddenly that felt like forever. “Yes, it’s me. Guess what—”

“Did you know there are underwater chimneys with worms on them? And crabs that eat the worms. And fish that eat the crabs. And everything is all red and white. And there are fish that go invisible and other fish with big eyes that can see them. And if you want to see the fish you have to go in a special submarine and if you put a cup on the submarine it gets squashed really really small.”

“No, I didn’t know that. That’s nice. So Mummy—”

“And there’s an octopus with big ears called Dumbo like the elephant in the film. And there are fish that tie themselves in knots and sharks that eat big holes in dead whales and go chomp chomp chomp.”

“Darling, Mummy won the biscuit round.”

There was a pause. “With the not-for-Amelie biscuits?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad you won because you’re brilliant. But I think everybody should be able to eat biscuits so I think you made discriminatory biscuits and I don’t think that should have won. Also there are squids that glow and fish with lasers.”

Great. Shamed on TV by her own kid for being a biscuit bigot. “I’ll be home soon.”

“That’s good. Then we can watch the squid programme because Auntie Lauren said she’s not going to watch it with me anymore.”

“Love you to the moon and back.”

“Love you to the bottom of the sea and back, which is closer than the moon, but we know less about it.”

Hanging up, Rosaline turned an anxious glance on Colin Thrimp. “Did you get what you needed?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t think we’ll use absolutely all of that.”

Now that she’d discharged her televisual duties, Rosaline was free to leave—or, in practice, wander around looking for Alain. She still wasn’t sure what kind of label, if any, their relationship needed, but she’d won a thing and she wanted to celebrate with someone, preferably someone who wasn’t more interested in squid.

She found him at last in the car park, where he was waiting for his pickup with his bag at his feet and a slightly brooding look.

“Hi.” It wasn’t the most original opening, but “I won!” seemed, in that moment, childish. As did the fantasy she was definitely not entertaining of his sweeping her into his arms in congratulations.

“Hi yourself. It was nice having you around this week—and I wondered if you wanted to do it again this Thursday?”

She wanted to. She really wanted to. And she was . . . “relieved” was too strong and made her feel a bit pathetic. But glad. She was glad she’d given good visit. “I’m not sure I can. It was hard enough getting the afternoon off work and arranging a babysitter this time. I think if I tried to do it again so soon, I might lose my job and all my friends. Well. My one friend.”

“That’s a shame.” He sounded disappointed and his manner was, in general, a bit subdued. “Obviously I’d love to see more of you, but if it’s not possible I understand.”

“Um . . .” Was this going to come across as pushy? Pushy was not a good look. “I mean, if you’re ever in . . . striking distance of London, we could strike together?”

“My work does sometimes take me that way. But if I’m consulting, I can be quite busy.”

Not quite the answer she was looking for. She tried to stifle her disappointment—after all, it was easy to free up time when you had a shit job no one cared about, but she knew from years of living with doctors that some things would always matter more than her feelings. “Oh. Okay. I’ll see what I can do about coming to you, then. But probably not for a while.”