Norman Flux was not a happy man. Gathering his books and equipment together, he followed the group out of the training kitchen. Melanie was only a few steps ahead of him, but she was busy talking to Gerald bloody Snodgrass. She was laughing, her nose scrunching up with pleasure at something the obnoxious man was saying. If only Norman had spoken up earlier, he himself might have been the lucky man basking in the glow of her attention. Now, listening to the babble of conversation around him, he felt alone, rejected and miserable.

It had all been planned. Some strategic manoeuvring earlier in the evening had secured him a workstation right next to Melanie’s. He’d made a point of catching her eye and smiling (a stage he had often overlooked in the past due to sheer nervousness) and even offered her his oven gloves when she couldn’t find her own. He regaled her with a few carefully chosen conversational remarks as they prepared their supremes de volaille, and made sure to be effusive in his compliments on the presentation of her finished dish. Then, once the lesson was complete, he was poised to intercept her on her way to the door with the casual (but well-rehearsed) suggestion that the two of them adjourn for a drink at the nearby pub.

But it was not to be. Just as he took a deep breath in preparation for his proposal, Gerald Snodgrass slid effortlessly between them, touched her on the forearm, and offered to introduce her to his favourite French vintage at the local wine bar.

‘But we were…’ Norman swallowed his words, realising he had been beaten to the prize.

‘Why don’t you come too, Norm?’ added Gerald in a tone that clearly didn’t mean it. He glanced around at the others with a look of exasperation. ‘In fact, why don’t we make it a class outing? Is everyone coming along?’

It was always the way. Other people took the lead while he, Norman, would tag along as an unwanted extra. He would always feel inferior to people like Snodgrass, who seemed to have all the advantages. Not only was he devilishly good-looking, but the women all wanted to mother him when they heard about the tragic freak accident that had killed his brother Simon earlier that year.

And he was such a know-it-all. Surely the point of cookery lessons was to learn things you couldn’t do already? But to listen to Gerald bloody Snodgrass rattling on about coquilles and juliennes , you’d think he’d been born with a silver Sabatier in his hand. He knew exactly which sauce should go with which meat and would often correct the teacher’s French pronunciation. He’d even turned out an extra dish in the last lesson, wowing the class with a variation on tarte tatin that he claimed to have picked up from ‘a little place I know in the Dordogne’.

And now he was making a play for Melanie.

Norman usually accepted such defeats with magnanimity, recognising that it was futile to persist in the face of superior weaponry and tactics. But this time it was different. He wanted Melanie and he wasn’t going to let Gerald bloody Snodgrass get in the way.

He followed the group into the wine bar, his eyes boring into the back of his hated rival’s neck. This time, he wasn’t going to take defeat lying down.