Even though the party is in full swing, I don’t feel like staying. I don’t want to watch Ben and his girlfriend laughing and drinking and dancing. No wonder Francesca can’t stop smiling; I don’t blame her. So why hang around and torture myself? I came to win. And that’s what I did.

So I slip out the back, not wanting to draw any attention to myself. It’s late and I’m exhausted, wired as a result of all the emotion and the alcohol, but still I want to pop into Parklands as it’s Martha’s birthday tomorrow. I know it’s pitch black out there now, but I figure that if I could find it in myself to cycle through the darkness for Jean-Michel, then I sure as hell can do it for Martha. And ultimately, I survived. The darkness I imagined took on a life of its own, the horrors lurking in the shadows don’t really exist. I’ve not caught sight of one serial killer. I appear to have escaped the zombie-clown-flesh-eaters. I haven’t been attacked or captured or strangled. I am on the other side of all that now, I’ve pushed through the fear and have managed to live to tell the tale. City streets at night? Not a problem.

Even if Martha’s asleep, I want to leave her something to wake up to. It’s the least I can do. I’m not sure I can ever repay her faith, her advice, or the expensive sherry which made the menu so special, but I can give her a little something to show her how much it meant to me.

In my rucksack, I’ve got her trifle alongside a little cheese plate and a small flask of port for her, which I know she’ll enjoy. I cycle across the street-lit city, the fog so thick that I almost lose my way several times and have more than one close call with angry drivers who don’t see me fully despite my neon vest until they need to slam on the brakes. By the time I arrive and take off my helmet, steam rises from my head, a mix of adrenalin and physical exertion. I feel my cheeks, which are cold and red, and try to comb through my hair – now a damp, sweaty mess – with my fingers. I’m a long way from the fur stoles and tuxedos and the flowing champagne of the Rembrandt now.

I reach the second floor where Martha’s room is, and oddly her door is wide open. I poke my head around and see that Martha’s bed is empty. Perhaps her son has taken her out for her a pre-birthday meal? Can’t think of any other explanation and there’s no one around at this time of night to ask, so I leave the port and cheese plate by her bedside with a note to say I’ll call in again tomorrow with some trifle.

The place is so still and quiet, I decide that I may as well pop down to the kitchen to say hello to the girls and tell them my news.

That I won’t be coming back here to work.

That I’m the new grand chef.

Looking around here, I can hardly believe that it’s true.

A flutter stirs in my stomach. I actually can’t wait to tell them. And my dad. And Alice and Martha of course. I can’t wait to share the news, the good news, of what so many of them helped me achieve.

I take a deep breath and have to stem the tears.

It’s actually happened.

I won. I’m the winner.

---

I spot Zoe through the glass panel of the kitchen door and as soon as I get inside I stretch out my arms and give her a big hug. ‘Hey! how great to see you!’ I say. ‘I won! I’m here to tell Bernie to stick her job!’ but the serious look in Zoe’s eye interrupts me, and there’s a grave tone to her voice.

‘Oh Katie, that’s great news, and I’m sorry to be the one to put a dampener on things but Martha has been taken into hospital.’

‘What? What happened?’

Zoe shakes her head. ‘She collapsed earlier. She’s just really gone downhill. Her son was supposed to come for her birthday, but he had to cancel the trip and then she just got rapidly weaker. They called an ambulance and brought her to St. Mary’s. And Bernie’s been suspended. The cleaner put in a grievance, so the union has taken action for bullying and aggressive behaviour, so I guess you won’t get a chance to stick it to her either.’

I grab my bag and run through the door out onto the street, up the road to where the taxis congregate and I jump in to the first one, with instructions to take me to St Mary’s as quickly as possible. I don’t care about Bernie now. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to get to the hospital and find out where Martha is, how she is. Please God, let her be okay. Please God let me not be too late.

Once I’m there, I run again along the corridors, around the corners, up the stairs until finally I find someone who can direct me to where she is.

At the ward door there is a sturdy nurse, broad and upright in starched navy pinafore, holding a clipboard.

‘I’m here to see Martha Rosenblatt,’ I tell her breathlessly. ‘Where is she?’

The nurse glances down at her pocket watch and knits her bushy eyebrows together. ‘Visiting hours ended hours ago, you’re too late I’m afraid. Family only, we’ve already had Ms Rosenblatt’s son on the phone. He is on his way.’

‘I am family,’ I lie, the words escaping my mouth before I even process the thought.

The nurse looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you her granddaughter?’

‘Yes!’ I tell her.

She regards me a moment longer. ‘Ten minutes. And not a second over,’ she says. ‘My patients need their rest; I can’t have this place filling up at every hour of the night.’ She points with her pen. ‘Third bed on the left and no noise or disruption. Make sure your phone is off, I don’t want you waking the others.’ She turns away, muttering something that sounds like ‘always the way, too little too late.’

I slip between the curtains which have been drawn to make a cubicle. Inside is Martha. She has an oxygen mask strapped over her face, her coloured red hair is pasted back flat from her forehead and her skin is greyish white. This is the first time I’ve seen her without lipstick. She looks so frail, much more so in this large, clinical hospital bed that seems to envelop her.

One eye opens slowly. ‘Katie?’ she mouths from behind the mask.

I can just about make out a smile. I immediately climb onto the bed and put my arms around her. ‘Look at you!’ I say. ‘I turn my back for five minutes and you end up here in the hospital! That’s the last time I leave you again.’

She blinks in a kindly way and puts her damp hand up to my cheek. ‘How did it go?’ she asks, lifting the mask away from her face.

‘All fine, perfectly fine,’ I tell her, ‘but that’s not important, how are you?’

Martha starts to cough and I motion towards the oxygen mask, remembering the nurse’s orders.

‘Actually, don’t answer that. It’s better that you save your breath,’ I tell her. ‘And I suspect your nurse will have a few choice words with me if I tire you out.’

Martha inhales as deeply as she can and lifts her mask again. ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she rasps ‘All this is a lot of fuss about nothing.’

‘It doesn’t sound like nothing. Zoe said you collapsed.’

Martha makes a dismissive flick with her hand. ‘I had a moment of dizziness, that was all. But it’s nothing, a touch of pneumonia they say. But I’ll be back on my feet by tomorrow. I can’t miss my own birthday.’

I squeeze her frail soft hand and remember how much she was looking forward to going out with her family and how, instead, she is here alone and poorly in a hospital bed. I feel a heavy sadness swell in my chest.

‘Actually, it’s after midnight, so happy birthday to you!’ I whisper in a sing-song voice and her hand reaches towards me to stroke my hair.

‘Right. Time up.’ The nurse is suddenly behind me, holding the curtain open. ‘I am afraid I must ask you to leave now, it is the end of my shift and I can’t have any visitors when I hand over.’

But Martha grips me tighter. ‘Does she have to go? Can’t she stay just a little bit longer? We’ll be ever so quiet.’

But the nurse shakes her head. ‘I am afraid not: house rules. And besides, you need to get your energy up.’

I bend down to kiss Martha’s cheek and she seizes me, pulling me towards her and whispering ‘thank you’ into my ear.

‘Ms Rosenblatt!’ the nurse scolds. ‘Put that mask back on! You are a naughty one.’

‘It has been said before,’ Martha nods with a twinkle in her eye. ‘You should have joined the army. Has anyone told you that?’

‘It’s my job to get you better.’ The nurse whips the curtains back and I know it’s time to go. ‘You can come back tomorrow at six o’clock. Visiting hours.’

‘Can’t I come any earlier? In the morning?’

‘No. She needs to rest, that’s why she’s here.’

I nod my understanding. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Martha. For your birthday, we’ll have a treat, something special,’ I tell her and I walk out of the little cubicle and across the ward to the door, where I stop and wave to her from the end.

She lifts her wrist to wave back, her oxygen mask now firmly back in place, and I can see a definite smile in her eyes just before they close.

---

When I arrive the next day, Martha isn’t wearing the mask anymore and she is propped up on some pillows with the newspaper in her lap. She looks a little brighter and snatches off her glasses when she sees me and pats the bed beside her.

‘Quick,’ she says. ‘Draw the curtain before The General returns.’

I pull the curtains around the bed and sit in beside her. She immediately envelopes me in an embrace, summoning all the strength she can muster.

‘I have something for you!’ I say. Out of my bag, I take a small, foil takeaway tray with my now famous sherry trifle inside, covered in gold glitter with an M inscribed in icing on the top. ‘They loved it. And it was all thanks to you!’

She eyes me carefully. ‘Does this mean…?

I nod. ‘It does.’

She places a hand on each of my cheeks and squeals. ‘I knew you could do it! What a girl, Katie! This is absolutely wonderful!’ She claps her hands together and calls out over the drawn curtains to the elderly lady on the other side. ‘Katie here is the grand chef! You know!’

‘Well done!’ chirps back her neighbouring patient. The smiling lady nods and gives me a thumbs up. Martha is beaming and I see a flush of redness in the apples of her cheeks.

‘Here I am in a hospital bed, on my birthday. Just like when I was born, eighty-nine years to the day. And you know what? I only want for the same things, food and love. Give a human being food and love and everything else is joyful distraction. Once I get out of here, I will insist my son brings me to your fabulous new restaurant. If he can ever untangle himself from his business affairs, that is. Now let’s have a cup of tea and some of this beautiful dessert and you can tell me all about it.’

We chat for the next hour. I tell her all about what happened with Harry and then the judges, and the reaction I got to my menu. And then I tell her how I congratulated Ben and left him to party with his beautiful girlfriend.

‘The one that got away,’ Martha smiles gently.

I nod.

‘Life can be so unfair at times. Wonderful of course, but, also unbearably unfair.’

And we sit together in silence. I’m grateful that she doesn’t tell me that ‘there will be another guy’ who’ll sweep me off my feet when I least expect it or that I’ll forget him, that time will heal. We both just sit with it, accepting that it is what it is. A loss that can’t be helped or changed or rectified but deserves to be acknowledged. And then she pats me on the hand. ‘Try not to cry that it’s over, but smile that it happened. Easier said than done, believe me.’

We both sip our tea and Martha dabs a stray dollop of cream from her trifle from her lips.

‘Oh that was glorious. I can’t thank you enough for coming, Katie. It really makes all the difference. I had a dreadful night last night. I don’t know how anyone expects to get well in hospital. Kept awake at all hours by spluttering and snoring and the second you do fall asleep the nurses come to shake you awake again: time for prodding, time for tablets, time for injections. It’s unbearable. I’ve decided that I shan’t put up with it. I’m ready to check out.’

I laugh at her indignation. ‘Martha, you’re getting better all the time. So they are doing a very good job.’

She opens her mouth to protest when she is caught by a coughing fit. Her little chest heaves as she tries to draw breath. I put my hands on her shoulders and help to tilt her forward to ease her chest, something I used to do regularly when my own mother was ill. The fit over with, she lies back on her pillows, biting her lip. Her forehead creased in deep thought. ‘We have been lucky, you and me.’ She takes my hand and folds it between both of hers.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask. Her hands, around mine, are now hot and clammy.

‘To be here. Survivors. When you love something dearly and it leaves you, it’s very hard to let love back in. To open yourself up to that kind of hurt. But look at us, we are here. Knowing full well that we will feel that again one day, still, we are not afraid.’ She looks at me. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of except fear itself. Promise me you’ll remember that.’ She smiles in a lopsided way, as if a full smile requires too much energy, too much strength.

I nod my promise.

‘Good.’ She smiles, turning her neck back and forth as if trying to get comfortable. ‘I was never one for fear.’