Bella's Christmas Bake Off (11 page)

Like mirror images we took a sip of coffee and our eyes met briefly, then we continued to sip in sync and silence. The warmth of the fire was welcome and calming and I sat back among the cushions, the aroma of the rich brew filling my nostrils. Carols played in the background and a beautiful twinkly branch glittered over the mantelpiece, sending shards of light around the room.

‘It took you hours, didn’t it?’ I said, thinking about how Sylvia and I had watched Bella laboriously glittering each branch on TV the previous night.

‘No... it took Crimson hours,’ she laughed. ‘I couldn’t be bothered glittering every bloody twig, life’s too short.’

‘Yes, life is short,’ I said, ‘so why throw away a friendship? Why do you still, after all these years, refuse to forgive me?’ I heard my words land in the steamy coffee silence.

‘Oh Amy, it’s too complicated... you don’t understand.’

‘I don’t understand why you have cut me off and ignored my Christmas cards for years,’ I said.

She looked down, played with the tiny silver spoon on the saucer.

‘You ruined my life when I was a teenager,’ she started, ‘but I’ll be damned if you’ll do the same now.’

I was shocked, she wasn’t looking at me, just stirring her coffee slowly. The words were strong enough to convey her hatred. It had been easy to talk on the telephone and almost satisfying to watch her squirm on live TV, but this was different. We were alone in her home – face to face – and I suddenly saw what she saw. I had caused all that trouble in her past and now I was back to cause more trouble. What sort of person had I become? Neil’s departure had scarred me, and Bella’s betrayal of my mother had hurt me and perhaps hardened me too? It occurred to me that I was now taking all that pain and upset and loading it onto Bella.

‘I’m not a bad person, Bella. I never meant to hurt you,’ I said, a catch in the back of my throat. I feared she may not have forgiven me, but to say I’d ‘ruined’ her life really stung. ‘And me being here now is all so mixed up – I’m going through a tough time and I’m angry because you’ve taken something that belonged to me and... you’ve made me suffer all these years.’

‘I made
you
suffer? That’s funny.’

‘You know I meant no harm, Bella. I thought I was helping you...’

‘Helping? Is that what you called it? Is that what you’re doing now?’

‘No... I’m sorry about what happened... before, and I don’t blame you for believing I “ruined” everything. But I didn’t do it with malice, and if you want to talk about “ruining lives” what you’re doing now, refusing to forgive me for what happened years ago, has ruined mine. I worried about you, I couldn’t sleep...’

‘Neither could I,’ she snapped. ‘I’m glad you know how that feels.’

‘So this is your revenge for what I did – using Mum’s recipes?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Bella, it’s malicious – it’s... it’s theft.’

‘Theft is a very strong word. If you mean that each year you sent me some Christmas recipes in a card and now I’ve adapted them for a book... then that’s different.’

‘It’s not, you’re claiming them as your own.’

‘Did you claim copyright? Do you have lawyers involved? Is there anywhere on those cards or those scrawled pieces of paper that say “please Bella don’t put these in a book”?’

I was shocked at her vindictiveness, the way she was looking at me like I was a bad smell under her nose.

‘I don’t know what kind of world you live in Bella – oh hang on, I think you just gave me a clue. And in answer to your ludicrous question, no, I didn’t think I needed to protect bloody copyright because they were notes to a friend... they were meant just for you and no-one else.’

‘Like when I told you not to tell anyone – that was meant just for you.’

She had me there.

‘Well yes, I understand that you might feel I... betrayed you, I told your secret – but I didn’t put it in a bloody book, did I?’

‘You might as well have done.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry. I don’t know what else I can say. I can’t change what I did and what happened as a result of that – but trust me I’ve lived with the guilt ever since. If you publish these recipes you will live with the guilt too. I know you loved my mother, she was there when your own mother wasn’t – and you are taking something precious from me, but mostly from her.’

‘Don’t be so nasty, I’m honouring you and your poor mother by putting her recipes in my cookery book. Now, everyone can share them....’

‘I doubt you’ll share any of the royalties though,’ I spat.

‘Oh, it’s about money, is it?’ She put down her cup and saucer, sat back and glared at me. ‘Why didn’t you say? So how much do you want?’

‘I... no. I don’t want anything. You’ve got this all wrong...’

‘When I really needed you, when I was lost and alone, you – my best friend – were nowhere to be seen. Then twenty two years later, when you’ve got no money and your husband’s left you for a stripper, you call me up. You threaten to reveal my teenage past, accuse me of stealing something
you
sent to me, and blackmail me into filming in a homeless shelter on Christmas Day. Now you’re complaining that I’m not sharing my royalties with you.’

‘No, it’s not like that. I’m not interested in your money, I don’t want anything for me... it’s about Mum and the shelter. I can see I’ve been clumsy and made myself look bad, but honestly, everything I’ve done has been done in kindness...’

‘Oh stop being so damned pious. I don’t want to hear about you, your mother’s bloody recipes or some awful stint on Christmas Day with smelly homeless people,’ she said, sounding just like she did when she was a kid.

We both sat in silence, I was shaking with rage and anger and hurt and Bella looked shaken too. After a few minutes she started to speak.

‘Look... Ames, about the homeless... thingy,’ she said, her tone suddenly quite different, she was trying to cajole me now.

‘What about it?’

‘Well it’s like this,’ she said slowly and calmly like she was trying to make a violent, insane person see her point of view. ‘No one wants to turn on their TV to watch homeless people drooling over their turkey on Christmas Day. It’s enough to put viewers off their sprouts. My audience want perfect families, biblical epics and beautiful cookery shows, they don’t want this... this homeless... rubbish. It will be a disaster. And the real tragedy in all this... is that your little shelter wouldn’t get any coverage because the viewers would be turning off in their droves.’

‘Don’t patronise me, Bella.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You were – and in my humble opinion, as a viewer – I can tell you they wouldn’t turn off.’

I watched her play with her beautiful nails, and realised that she was still a spoilt little kid putting herself first.

‘Well, you’ve given me no choice in the matter, with your threats to run to the papers with some made-up stories. As I said before, once more you’ve come into my life and wrecked it.’

‘No I haven’t... I still care about you, I don’t want to hurt you or wreck anything... but it seems you’re going all out to hurt me. I miss the old Bella,’ I said, trying to reach her.

‘Well, the old Bella’s gone now,’ she said sadly into the silence. ‘We seem to have no other option here. So, if it will stop your whining, I’ll do it. But trust me, no one will watch it – my viewers want me in my perfect kitchen serving a big Bella Christmas to nice employed people in their own homes with their own teeth...’

‘Oh what a lovely world you must live in, Bella,’ I sighed. ‘You have the luxury of being able to ignore everything that isn’t pretty to look at.’

‘Yes, you’re right, I do. Reality can be a bitch and I hate looking at it – talking of which you aren’t wearing that, are you?’

‘Yes...why?’ I said, looking down at my lovely new autumnal blouse while pulling my new rust cardigan around me protectively.

‘No reason,’ she flicked her long dark hair. ‘I mean, if you
want
to stand in front of several million TV viewers looking Amish that’s fine with me.’

I could feel myself curling up, trying to make myself invisible – this wasn’t the first time this criticism had been levelled at my fashion aesthetic. I’d thought my outfit was perfect, and it was, for my world – but perhaps not for Bella’s more glamorous one. ‘But it’s new... I bought it specially.’

‘It’s horrific.’

‘But I’ve only brought a couple of things with me to wear,’ I stood there, feeling naked, awkward in my new clothes.

‘You need to see Miss Thing in wardrobe, she’ll sort you out.’

‘I thought I was okay... didn’t realise I’d need sorting out,’ I said, feeling quite crushed and looking down at my lovely new cardigan.

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself. All I did was tell you the truth about your sad little cardi – you’ve done far worse to me,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve ruined my bloody Christmas by making me schlep all the way to the Midlands to cook for a load of people on benefits.’

‘They’re aren’t on benefits...’

‘Oh no, that’s a different series, but they aren’t exactly the glitterati either are they? I’m not happy about being forced to hang around with a bunch of losers, up to my tits in tinsel and turkey on the twenty-fifth,’ she snapped.

‘I’m sorry if your perfect Christmas might be blighted by helping other people for once,’ I said.

‘Oh Amy, nothing is perfect – and nothing is ever quite as it seems...’ she started, just as Fliss appeared in the doorway like the avenging Angel.

‘Did somebody mention tits and tinsel? If so I’m your woman,’ she giggled lifting her arms and shaking her ample chest.

‘
N
ow
, my little nest of festive vipers... anything I need to know?’ Fliss was flustered, excitable and obviously keen to stop Bella and I saying too much when she wasn’t in the room.

‘Yes – filming starts in twenty-five minutes.’ Bella stood up, clearly I was now dismissed. Our reunion had resolved nothing at all, my mother’s recipes were still in Bella’s name and she still hadn’t forgiven me – I wondered if she ever would.

‘Fliss, make sure everyone is ready... I don’t like to be kept waiting,’ she said, assertively.

Fliss rolled her eyes. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, I’m your agent – not your assistant, I don’t recall “rolling over and sucking up to Bella” written on the contract. And as much as I hate to break up this cosy little chat about your idyllic childhood spent skipping through suburbia hand in hand,’ Fliss grimaced, ‘YOU need to get dressed,’ she pointed at Bella, then she looked me up and down. ‘And YOU need to... oh God... are you really wearing that?’

Bella sniggered.

‘Why does everyone keep asking me if I’m wearing this?’

‘Because you look like something from “Little House on the Prairie”.’

‘I see it as more “Amish chic”...?’ Bella offered with a giggle.

‘Yes that too,’ Fliss said in all seriousness. ‘Well, whatever you’ve come as, I think we need to get you to make-up and wardrobe – with some urgency.’

Fliss then rushed me through the house like it was a medical emergency, pushing open a door and dragging me into a messy home office.

‘Come on, chop chop, it’s not bedtime yet,’ Fliss said, clapping her hands.

A woman was lying across a sofa and a youngish man was rummaging through the clothes on a freestanding rail in the middle of the room.

‘For god’s sake, Billy, that isn’t your colour,’ Fliss said as we walked in.

He pursed his lips, put down the pale pink dress he’d been clutching and turned dramatically away from the clothes.

‘Now, Ruth, get off the sofa and dress Laura Ingalls here, I’m thinking more Desperate Housewife and less Breaking Amish... sex her up, but not too much,’ she added. ‘And Billy, get out your magic tool box, you are going to need every ounce of make-up artistry you have to get this one off the ground.’

‘I’ll want overtime,’ he sniggered, looking me up and down.

Was I completely invisible to these people or were they really that rude? Billy was in no hurry, took out a nail file and began filing his nails. Then Ruth (who seemed to be the wardrobe department) sat up, hair on end. She was wearing jeans and a jumper – which wasn’t very inspiring considering she was about to ‘dress’ me for television.

‘You’re asking me to turn one of the Waltons into Sarah Jessica Parker?’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘Mmmm unless we can get a Christmas miracle from somewhere, this ain’t gonna happen.
Next
Christmas? Maybe.’

Billy roared at this and gave Ruth a high five, but Fliss wasn’t laughing. ‘There won’t be a
next
Christmas for any of us if you don’t get a grip of this,’ she was pointing directly at me, ‘and turn water into wine.’

I was incredulous. All this time I was standing in the middle of the room feeling completely exposed and they were just taking me to pieces, bit by bit.

‘I’m
here
you know,’ I said, in an attempt to stop any more insults, but no one was listening.

‘I will be back in fifteen minutes and if she isn’t looking like a vodka-drinking gardener-shagging housewife, then heads will roll,’ Fliss barked. She went to leave then turned dramatically, ‘Oh and when I say that – I don’t mean make her look more fabulous than the original desperate housewife out there... remember, no one puts Bella in a corner.’

‘God forbid,’ Ruth muttered while producing a red trouser suit from the rack. I was a little surprised at their comments – I thought everyone loved Bella Bradley.

‘Try this on,’ Ruth said, pushing it at me.

‘I’m not really a red kind of girl,’ I murmured, as she virtually pulled my clothes off and forced me into a pair of trousers that were a size smaller than I was. When we eventually zipped them up, I felt quite uncomfortable but I didn’t have time to think about it because Billy was now coming at me with a big sponge full of foundation.

‘I don’t wear much make-up,’ I said, cringing from the wielded sponge.

‘You do now, love. You’d disappear under those lights...so mousey.’ Then he stood back and ‘surveyed’ me. ‘Have you considered going blonder?’

‘Not in the next ten minutes,’ I said, worried he’d start hurling bleach at me before Fliss’s threatened return. He shrugged, dabbed my whole face with concealer and threw a tonne of face powder over me, which made me cough. He followed this with several layers of bright lipstick and was just spraying a whole can of ‘Bigger Blonder’ on my hair when the door opened and Fliss waltzed back in.

‘Dahling, it’s fabulous – very Jessica Lange circa 1998,’ she gasped. ‘Red suits you, little Amy.’

They were all smiling at each other and I realised that as scary as all their earlier arguing and stroppiness seemed – it was just a pose. These people may not be the on-screen stars but everything they did was for the camera – even when it wasn’t there. And it was clear that Billy and Ruth had timed the makeover for ‘the reveal moment’ as Fliss stepped back into the room. Everything was a performance and they wheeled out a full-length mirror (just like on TV, where the woman gasps at what the experts have done) then waited for my reaction. I knew the script as well as they did and it was expected I’d be pleased – but even I was surprised and delighted and didn’t need to pretend. I looked amazing and not at all like the ‘mousey’ Amy who Fliss had brought in. ‘I can’t believe it’s me,’ I said, looking at a red lipped blonde in a beautiful and flatteringly tight designer trouser suit in scarlet.

Gone was ‘little Amy’ the maths teacher in her best floral blouse and big rust cardi – here was a woman who looked taller, younger, blonder. I hated to admit it, but Bella and Fliss had been right, that cardi and long skirt weren’t doing me any favours. I just had to see this – the lady in red – to realise what I could be.

‘How did you do it?’ I asked, looking from Ruth to Billy.

‘We get a lot of practice,’ Billy smiled. ‘You should see that old hag Bella first thing in the morning,’ and they all laughed. Meanwhile I primped and preened in the mirror like a wannabe supermodel, pursing my lips and wondering what Year Ten would say if they could see me now. My real life suddenly felt a million miles away.

W
alking back
through the house at a more leisurely pace, I was able to enjoy the old-fashioned Christmas Bella had created at Dovecote. Beautiful trinkets and baubles of Dickensian ‘Victoriana’ were everywhere. Vintage, Victorian-style glass and white lace baubles decked the tree, along with hand-crafted, beaded ornaments, white candelabra and gold angels. She’d thought of everything, well, someone had - from tasteful floral arrangements to a huge swag of holly and fairy lights over the sitting room mantelpiece and the air was scented with the most exquisite smell of warm cloves laced with the freshness of pine.

‘
C
hop chop
,’ Fliss shouted, guiding me into the kitchen and seating me on a stool in the corner so I could observe while she bossed everyone around.

Bella was holding a beautiful garland made from holly and Christmas roses entwined with fairy lights. ‘I made this earlier,’ she was saying to Tim, which I doubted because apparently she’d only just got out of bed when I arrived. Looking around me, I found it hard to imagine glamorous Bella with her perfect nails creating the huge garlanded fireplace, and all the glittering lights along the high-ceilinged hallway.

‘My baubles are designer – and I will only allow hand-made decorations into my home,’ she was saying. ‘Can you even begin to
imagine
shop-bought baubles at Dovecote?’

‘Perish the thought,’ Crimson muttered as she passed through with a pile of papers and her permanent frown.

I
watched
as Billy transformed Bella with lipstick and powder and thought how this year would be very different, for Bella, not just for me. There would be no celebrity-peppered glittering luncheon for madam this year, as her programme would reflect a real Christmas with real people. My only worry was whether or not this grown-up Bella did real people anymore and how she would relate to them. Yes I know she’d said she supposedly spent time on Christmas Day at homeless hostels but I couldn’t help feel that this was yet another PR masterstroke. At best I reckoned Fliss had Bella turned up and show her face just long enough to count before being whisked straight back to the glamour of Dovecote. I watched Billy carefully apply foundation then smoky eyes and as he finished off with powder, a drink was handed to Bella with a straw so her lipstick wouldn’t be spoiled. She was treated like royalty, and did nothing for herself, which further worried me – what were the chances of the Queen of Christmas rolling up her sleeves, mucking in and bringing a happy Christmas to the homeless? It might just be a wish too far.

Bella had left the make-up chair and was now talking through her moves with Tim. I stayed on my stool just watching everyone preparing, still unable to believe I was actually here at Dovecote, the place of Christmas fantasy. From watching the programme over the years, I knew the kitchen inside out – which cupboard was where and where everything was kept. I knew if you turned right in the kitchen it would lead into the lovely dining room with its ladder-backed chairs and long oak table, and I knew if you turned left and through the hall you would find the duck-egg blue sitting room.

I gazed through into the conservatory, which was on the back of the house, where last year’s Christmas Eve show ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ had been filmed. I’d watched in awe that night as Bella had prepared a cosy family supper – she’d dressed the conservatory in fairy lights and silver and white baubles. She’d been holding a dry sherry in one hand while giving a turkey internal with the other... without flinching and I gasped in admiration – Bella Bradley always had Christmas nailed. Later that night as I stuffed my turkey, she was, as usual, ten steps ahead and onto the final gift wrapping. ‘Now take the contrasting bow and twist carefully around the paper,’ she’d said as she placed the last present under the tree. Hundreds of other gifts in every shape and size sat under the huge bedecked pine branches in her hallway. The table in the conservatory was set, she had a luxury fish pie in the oven and the family were on their way. It had all looked so beautiful, it had caught the back of my throat when I saw her standing there amid the glitter.

As the credits had rolled we were treated to a montage of lovely soft-focus shots of Bella and Peter playing in the snow. Bella all in white with fur trim; the Silver Fox sporting an expensive blue parka and designer wellies, love glittering in both their eyes. I remember thinking they looked like something from a French fashion magazine, and how I’d love just a taste of what she had.

Now, sitting in her fabulous state of the art kitchen a year later listening to her eulogising about the ‘crisp and plump’ savoury pastries she was making for ‘Boxing Day Buffet’, I had to smile to myself. Somewhere in the early nineties there’d been quite a transformation from cigarette smoking, wild living party girl to kitchen goddess, and the only person I could credit with that was the divine Peter Bradley. As if by some amazing, magical coincidence there was suddenly a rush of cold air, a door slamming shut and someone ‘landing’ in the hall – the Silver Fox was in the building. Everyone was immediately on high alert and judging by the way Bella abandoned her ‘crisp but plump pillows’ and ran from the room, she was very pleased to see him. There was a kerfuffle in the hall and within seconds he was brought into the kitchen, Bella hanging on his arm. She was looking up into his eyes, his handsome rugged face smiling into hers.

If it hadn’t been so crass, I’d have loved to take a picture and send it to Sylvia, because the Silver Fox was even more delicious in the flesh. I was hidden behind cameras and lights, and tucked away in the corner I was able to stare openly without him even being aware of Bella’s prize winning fan. He was tall, with a weather-beaten tan and a whiter than white smile – and the fairy lights seemed to dim in his presence. Now I knew for certain – Bella Bradley had everything.

She fussed around him, preening and touching him in such an intimate way you just knew they were in for a hell of a reunion in the ‘Bella Bradley’ room that night.

After a few minutes of Bella purring and pawing, Tim suggested Peter might like to join in the filming, but Peter shook his head, he clearly wasn’t up for it.

‘Just a few words, a little moment?’ Bella said, making big eyes at him. ‘Oh go on... baby, I
need
you,’ she breathed.

Eventually Peter nodded reluctantly and threw his big, muscular arm around Bella, who positively swooned (along with every other female in the room).

The Silver Fox seemed charming, and though he clearly wasn’t as comfortable in the kitchen as he was in Syria, he did his bit. He made complimentary remarks about Bella’s pastries while gently rubbing her back, while Mike the cameraman closed in and Tim screamed ‘go baby’ for no apparent reason.

Peter had a rugged easiness about him that was charismatic and completely drew you in. You wanted him to notice you, even though you just knew it was futile – he only had eyes for one woman. I was rapt watching him lean on the counter drinking in his beautiful wife as she made love to the camera. ‘You have to be firm but gentle,’ she was saying, never taking her eyes from his while massaging maple syrup and brown sugar into a huge ham. It might have been a Christmas cookery programme but the two of them together were almost pornographic – and if you ask me she was being far too suggestive for daytime TV.

‘Ooh sweet and sticky Christmas yumminess,’ she said, and I wasn’t sure if she meant Peter or the ham, but she was soon going back in for more meat manipulation. She rubbed and oozed marinade with a running commentary that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Playboy Mansion. ‘It makes my hands really soft too,’ she added, gently caressing Peter’s face with syrupy fingers, leaving his neck all sticky. I just knew she was going to lick that off later... hell she might just do it now, I thought, the kitchen was positively sizzling with sexual tension.