We shuffle in the gravel, it’s cold, the wind is blowing around our ears and it’s beginning to drizzle.

‘I can walk you home if you like,’ says Ben. ‘Now that I’m here anyway.’

And then I get a brainwave. ‘Actually, I’ve got to go somewhere close by, I promised to pick something up for a friend if you fancy coming along?’

Ben clasps his hands together and nods. ‘I’m intrigued. Any more clues or do I have to guess what you are talking about?’

‘Well, telling you will mean revealing my secret weapon for tomorrow. And obviously, you are the opposition.’

This means trusting him with the extra secret of my menu. But it is Ben after all. Not just any other competitor. And I really don’t want to try and find Martha’s house in the dark all by myself. He’s never let me down before. But then again, the stakes have never been this high before, never have I competed with him so directly or over something so life-changing.

‘Right. Well, to make it fair, how about I tell you my menu?’ he says.

‘You sure? You don’t have to.’

‘Actually, I want your advice on it. I know we are technically in competition, but the menu is only one part of that. Admittedly a big part, but we’ve got to cook, plate and serve the thing too…’ He holds out his hand. ‘So. Let’s help each other do as well as we can and then leave the rest up to the judges, eh?’

If I win tomorrow, I will lose Ben. He will move on to another top job somewhere else or go back to the ship, and our time together will end as quickly as it began.

If I lose tomorrow, I will also lose Ben because I will have to buy my one-way ticket home.

So with everything to lose as well as everything to play for, I shake his hand, curling my fingers around his warm, soft skin. ‘You’ve got yourself a deal.’

---

It’s only about a twenty-minute walk to Martha’s house. We chat the whole way so it feels like no time at all until we turn the corner into Martha’s street, just in time to escape the downpour. This is a lovely part of town, spacious and tree-lined with large double-fronted red-brick houses with beautiful gardens. We reach Martha’s door and I slide the key into the lock, turning it carefully.

It feels like we’re trespassers despite the fact that I’ve been instructed to come here and was given the keys. Nonetheless, we whisper and pad our way through the darkened porch, careful not to disturb anything or anyone. Once inside, we close the heavy door behind us and switch on the hall light.

Oh my, Martha’s house is like a bazaar! She is indeed a magpie. We gaze, fascinated by the bookcases crammed with such a vivid wealth of colourful and curious things. Hand-drawn calligraphy in foreign languages alongside flags and hats and rugs and pottery and little pipes and bright mosaic tea-light holders. And that’s just the hallway!

As we step through to the living room, it’s clear that Martha has picked up and brought home a little bit of every place she’s ever been to. And by the looks of things, she’s trekked across the globe more than once. It is dazzling, utterly impossible to stop your eyes from darting from one curio to another. Glass cabinets of tribal jewellery and intricate beadwork are strewn for display alongside gorgeous lacquered boxes and stocky phallic wood carvings. Ben nudges me at the sight. I cannot help but giggle. Martha, knowing you now, it is no wonder these treasures caught your eye. In my eyes, you’re the treasure.

On the mantelpiece in front of an enormous fireplace, I am drawn to the dozens of framed photographs. Some sepia of Martha as a young debutante, perched on a staircase, legs crossed laughing to the camera with her unmistakable smile. As I walk along the gallery of her life, I see her proudly linking arms with Oskar at the Taj Mahal, then with a lovely chubby baby in her arms, then that chubby baby as a well-groomed smiling school child, a football captain, a graduate. Then that same smiling boy as a young father holding a baby girl of his own proudly in his arms.

I point to the photo of Martha and her son together, laughing as they raise two champagne flutes, and begin explaining to Ben how my relationship with this special old lady began, and how it’s developed, and how she’s managed to turn my life upside down just when I needed it most.

‘Her son looks so much like her!’ I explain to him.

Ben leans in for a closer look. ‘That’s Leo Rosenblatt.’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Sir Leo Rosenblatt.’

‘Sir Leo?’

Ben raises an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know him?’

I shake my head.

‘He’s a famous businessman. A self-made tycoon. He’s got investments in everything you can think of. He’s been on the ship a few times, Captain’s table, obviously. Nice guy, always sends his compliments to the kitchen, which is rare with people as rich and powerful as he is. I heard he went through a messy divorce with a supermodel a while back, it was in the news… you know the one, she did the perfume ads for that scent you used to wear, the one with the silver bottle…’

‘Oh my goodness, you mean Julianna Marquez!’ I exclaim. ‘Wow. She cheated on him with an actor I’d not heard of, I read all about it in a magazine.’ I look up at the mantelpiece and, sure enough, there are no photos of the golden-haired, leggy Julianna. Martha must have edited her eclectic gallery to reflect the changed circumstances.

‘Well, that might explain why her son lives in America now. Martha misses him and her granddaughter like crazy.’ Poor Martha… One moment she lives independently surrounded by all her memories and belongings, has her family on the doorstep, the next they move away, she loses her soulmate and she has to move into a home.

Ben turns on all the lights and opens the doors to have a look around, breathe some warmth into all the sealed, still rooms. It feels like a museum at night, somewhere we certainly shouldn’t be and I’m terrified of setting off an alarm, breaking something or disturbing the house in any way.

‘Right, let’s get what we came for,’ I announce. ‘To the cellar.’ I open the door and look down the narrow dark passage.

A cold, damp feeling descends upon me.

Ben stops and looks at me. He flicks the light switch but it’s not working.

The cellar is completely black; I can’t even make out the second step, it is so dark. And cold. And fathomless. I shake my head. Nope. I can’t go down there. The sherry was a lovely touch, but I know I won’t be able to convince my feet to take one step into that cold underground room.

I begin to imagine all the horrors the darkness may cloak. Spiders, rats, escaped snakes. My mind flits to scenes from horror films that my unsupervised brothers used to make me sit through after Mum died. People being buried alive, scratching at their coffins, dark dungeons and torture chambers where the undead hid until…

‘You okay, Katie? You’re white as a ghost.’

‘I’m sorry, Ben. I can’t go down there.’

‘How about I go first and you follow me down.’

I shake my head again.

‘I’m happy to go down for you but only you know exactly what you’re looking for.’

I clench my eyes shut and take a deep breath. Thank god Ben is with me because if he wasn’t I’d never be able to go down in that cellar all by myself. I would have legged it by now, that’s for sure.

But he is here and I’ve made it so far. Even if I do get startled, he’ll be with me. To either calm me down or be captured and tortured with me.

‘Okay, but I apologies in advance if I scream my head off. Or cling to you too tightly.’

And I wrap my arms around his chest as tight as I can, pressing my face deep in between his shoulder blades as we descend down the staircase into the cellar together.

Ben feels along the wall, and finds a second light switch. This one works, but only just, but a very weak, flickering light is all we need to find the incredible bounty that is before us.

On our left-hand side, there are floor-to-ceiling racks full with at least a hundred bottles. We try to work out Martha’s system, but then give up and decide we’ll have to take a close look at each one until we find it. She’s got everything here; whisky, bourbon, rum, port, cognac and, finally, the inkwell bottle, which I spot and point out to Ben. Versos 1891.

He carefully slides it from its place and holds it towards the light to read the label. ‘This is a seriously impressive gift. They are going to love this, Katie. It’s special, very special. This old lady Martha, she must like you a lot,’ he says, holding the bottle up to the single crackling bulb.

I smile to myself. ‘Yes, I guess she really does.’ And for a second, I don’t feel like I’m in the bowels of the earth, but on top of the world. ‘Come on then, let’s get upstairs and pour ourselves a little taste.’

Once upstairs, we can hear a full-blown storm rage outside, whipping against the windowpanes and making the whole house rattle.

Ben is the one to suggest that we wait till the worst of it blows over. ‘No use us getting soaked to the skin when we’ve got shelter here?’

As I am more than happy to stay inside a little longer out of the cold and wet – and dark – I turn on the gas fire and snuggle up on the couch, trying to warm myself up after our cellar expedition while Ben opens the bottle of sherry, selects two cut-crystal sherry glasses from Martha’s drinks cabinet and pours us a generous share each. I know Martha would certainly want us to take shelter and stay in the warmth for an hour rather than venture out and get drowned in the gale.

He lifts his glass to eye level, swirling the dark red nectar to study the colour and the way the light takes it. ‘Do you actually know anything about sherry?’ I ask, teasing.

‘I do actually. It’s not just for your nan at Christmas, you know, it’s massively underestimated. I agree with your friend Martha. This is great stuff. Great for pairing with food. Superb with Spanish cheeses, Manchego in particular. There’s a range, from super sweet to bone dry. Generally, the darker, the sweeter. So I’m guessing this is going to be very sweet indeed.’

We take a sip. Wow! A sip is about all I can manage, such is the sugary punch. But I like it. I really like it. It’s warm, dark and oaky, with a distinct nuttiness and caramel coming through. Perfect to sip during a storm to warm you right to the core.

I take another sip. And soon another. Each time it’s going down easier than before. If sherry is an acquired taste, then I’ve acquired it. Soon, we are pouring ourselves a generous second glass to ‘warm our bones’ as the wind continues to whistle through the house.

‘So, talk me through your menu,’ I say as we both sit on the couch, huddling to feel the heat from the gas fire. Ben slips his hand into his jeans pocket and hands me a folded piece of paper, his scrawled handwriting instantly recognisable in black pen.

‘What do you think?’ he asks me.

‘Fishy!’

‘Well, that’s my forte now after spending so much time at sea.’

I nod my admiration. ‘It’s fantastic, Ben. I think it sounds like an absolute showstopper.’

We sip away at our sherries as we chat and he raises his glass to mine.

‘After tomorrow, whatever happens, I’m glad that we’re here. I’m glad that we got this chance to meet up again and to hang out, even for just a short time.’

I swallow hard. It is such a short time. And soon it will all be over.

‘It’s good to see you again, Katie.’ Ben finds my hand and squeezes it. ‘To the finals!’

‘To the finals,’ I echo.

But I notice that Ben doesn’t release my hand. He’s still holding it in his.

He furrows his brow slightly and brushes his thumb over the melted skin across the back of my hand, my souvenir from a scalding. Again, he gently brushes over my scar. But he doesn’t ask. And he doesn’t let go. And neither do I. Our hands drop back down between us. Still holding on to one another.

Maybe it’s the adrenalin or the sherry or the exhaustion or the temptation that he is right here in front of me, I don’t know, but I can’t ignore it, I can’t help but look down at my hand in his and wonder what exactly is going on here? Just hours ago he told me all about his glamorous girlfriend? Of course I want him – I’ve never stopped – but what about Francesca? We can’t just pretend that she doesn’t exist. And I can’t just pretend to forget all about her. I drift my gaze slowly back to Ben and immediately, as if we were both having exactly the same thought, at exactly the same time, he snaps his hand back from mine and grabs at the nape of his neck.

‘I’m sorry. I’d better go. Big day tomorrow, so we should both brave it and try to get home. We’ll need at least a few hours’ sleep to make sure we arrive looking bright-eyed and ready to roll.’ He says all this while looking at the ground.

‘Of course. You’re right,’ I agree, more loudly than I mean to. ‘Definitely the biggest day ever.’ I shuffle up in my seat, trying to hide my crimson cheeks from burning.

And so we wash out our sherry glasses, turn everything off we turned on and shut up Martha’s home again, leaving it as dark and empty as when we found it.

We walk in silence now, our hoods pulled tight around our faces to protect us from the wind and rain and giving us a perfect excuse not to talk, not to discuss what nearly did or did not happen. Mercifully soon, we reach the main junction, which is well-lit with street lights and twenty-four-hour petrol stations and supermarkets.

‘You okay from here?’ he asks me.

I nod and point in the direction I’m going in. The opposite way to him.

‘Good luck for tomorrow!!’ I call out as he staggers against the force of the wind.

He smiles and waves me goodbye. ‘You too, Katie.’ And then he turns away and disappears into the distance.

I hop on my bike and ride with the wind to Alice’s. Bloody hell though. That was intense. That was close. That was downright dangerous. But now I need to focus because Ben is right. Tomorrow is the most important day of our lives so far. And he’s gone to catch some shut-eye because he knows what’s at stake. And so do I.

A few minutes later I get home and put my bike away, letting myself quietly into Alice’s flat.

So here it is, I say to myself as I find the mirror in the downstairs bathroom, shaking out my knotty hair and splashing cold water on my face. ‘Everything,’ I say to my reflection. ‘Give it everything.’

I’ve got to put everything that happened with Ben tonight to the back of my mind because tomorrow is as big as it gets.

And I want to go all the way.