Bella's Christmas Bake Off (24 page)

‘I’ll give you eat, pray, love - I’m just praying we get to eat today, so roll up them sleeves missy,’ Beatrice instructed.

‘Look,’ Bella started, ‘I can stuff turkeys, create beautiful mince pies and Christmas cakes, but I’m going to be brutally honest here – I have never really got the hang of peeling a potato.’

Beatrice took a sharp intake of breath.

‘It’s just that the home economists always do stuff like that so I can get on with the “prettier” aspects of cooking.’

Beatrice shook her head and got up from her seat, walked over to Bella and gently took her hand. ‘Did your mammy never show you how to peel a ‘tato?’ she asked.

Bella shrugged. ‘No... I never saw my mum peel a potato – the only thing she ever peeled was a face mask. The stuff I learned in the kitchen was from Amy’s mum, and we were too young to peel potatoes,’ she smiled over at me.

‘Well, you come and sit over here with me, Missy, and I’ll show you how – and all them people out there might just get fed by 3p.m.,’ Beatrice said, taking her hand and leading her to the potato mountain.

I glanced at Mike who opened his eyes wide, waiting for a nuclear reaction from Bella. Fliss looked up anxiously from her script and was sitting with her hand over her mouth, frozen to the spot. And we all held our breath as Bella obediently sat down on the floor between Beatrice and Crimson – all cross-legged – something childlike about the way she was allowing Beatrice to guide her.

‘You have to grip, love – you’ve got hands like bear paws,’ she was saying, as Bella struggled with the peeler. ‘Hold the tato firmly like you do with your man.’

Bella and Crimson looked at each other and giggled. I don’t think any of us were quite sure which part of the man Beatrice was referring to.

So for the next thirty minutes the great Bella Bradley – Kitchen Goddess – sat with Beatrice and peeled potatoes, a sight I thought I’d never see.

Later, Maisie turned up in the blue glitter jumper that Neil had bought me the Christmas before.

‘I’d like to help,’ she said, her frail body staggering across the floor.

‘We’re making mince pies now, come and join us,’ Bella said, introducing herself and beckoning Maisie over to the work surface. She began making pastry and as I mixed the mincemeat with grated carrot, Maisie brought out the trays to put the pies on.

She began to tell Bella the story she’d started to tell me on the first day we’d met about how ‘daddy’ had stopped her from marrying the love of her life.

‘I was eighteen,’ she sighed, ‘and I never saw him again... never loved anyone again.’

‘Oh Maisie that’s awful. I knew on our wedding day my husband was never going to truly love me – but who in their right mind would agree to something like that?’ She sighed. ‘You did it so you wouldn’t get hurt,’ Maisie said, dolloping mincemeat into pastry cases. She sighed, completely unperturbed by the fact that Bella Bradley had just confessed that her marriage was a business arrangement.

I looked at Bella and she raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’d never really thought about it like that,’ she said.

‘That’s just what it was,’ Maisie nodded. ‘I did just the same, I stayed home, didn’t want to face the world.’

‘Oh, Maisie,’ Bella sighed. She was now putting the pastry lids on the mince pies and Maisie’s gnarled arthritic hand reached out to hers and held it.

‘Don’t make the same mistake I did; fall in love again, before it’s too late.’

Bella took Maisie’s other hand so she was holding both.

‘I’ll try, Maisie,’ she said, and kissed her on the cheek.

I looked away, it was a private moment between two very different women who lived in very different worlds – who’d just realised their lives weren’t that different after all.

As we continued to make piles of mince pies, Crimson joined in, mixing the mincemeat and laughing with me at Bella’s messy apron. ‘I bet you’ve never had potato starch and flour on that Christmas pinafore in your life,’ I laughed.

Bella looked down to see the stained red silk and pulled a horrified face.

‘Yeah, Mum’s keepin’ it real,’ Crimson laughed.

‘Mmm I like that... hey, I’m just keepin’ it real,’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t now “real” if it bit you on the butt, Missy,’ Beatrice said with some affection as she handed Bella and me a slice of her home-made Jamaican Christmas cake. It was dense and fruity and delicious but laced with rum and I just hoped we could keep it away from Stanley– who was currently entertaining the troops in the dining hall with a rendition of Frank Sinatra-style White Christmas.

‘Oh Beatrice, I MUST have this recipe,’ Bella was saying. I caught her eye and gave her a look.

‘With full credit of course,’ she added, smiling at me.

A
s we were
tight for time and short of helping hands Tim recruited two more ‘assistants’, along with Maisie and Stanley, who were delighted to be included in filming.

So as we all started working in the kitchen. Bella stayed with Crimson and Beatrice, rolling out pastry and listening intently as the older woman told her stories of her childhood in Jamaica and how she’d been brought to the UK by her parents as a young girl.

‘I missed the food, especially at Christmas,’ she sighed, and paused for a moment to recall how as poor kids in rural Jamaica they never had – and never expected – a visit from Santa.

‘Us kids used to think he didn’t come to us because we didn’t have a chimney... never occurred to us it was about having no money,’ she laughed.

‘So you didn’t have any presents as a child?’ Bella asked, horrified.

‘Nah, but we had our mammy and daddy and lovely food. I loved helping Mammy make our Christmas cake.’

‘Yes – I had lovely Christmases making brownies with Amy and her mum,’ she said, putting a floury hand on my shoulder. ‘We made Christmas cakes and gingerbread and all the scrummy Christmas stuff together, didn’t we Ames?’ she smiled fondly and I smiled back.

‘...We didn’t call it Christmas cake,’ Beatrice continued. ‘It was “Hell a bottom, hell a top and hallelujah in the middle”,’ she roared, laughing, and we all joined in.

‘Oh I say, what on earth was that?’ Tim wandered over, smiling. There was no room in this little kitchen for a chair but Tim was so intrigued he sat at Beatrice’s feet, cross-legged like a little boy, and Fliss moved closer with her tea towel.

‘Well we didn’t have no fancy ovens like these,’ she pointed at the broken-down appliances lurking in the corner. ‘We had a Dutch pot we’d put on a grid over burning coals then more coals on a sheet of zinc on top of the cake, inside the pot. So the cake was in the middle... that’s hallelujah, and the burning coals at the top and bottom were hell.’ Everyone laughed and she smiled at the memory, her face glowing.

‘Did you have turkey?’ I asked, I’d moved on from the mince pies and Bella and I were now about to embark on a million sprouts.

She shook her head vigorously as she put huge trays of mince pies in the oven. ‘Ooh no only them’s that could afford it had the turkeys, but we ate curried goat with rice and gungo beans,’ she smacked her lips at the memory.

‘But surely you decorated your home for Christmas?’ Bella asked.

‘Yes we did... but not with tinsels like here, this is all very fancy. We used coloured papers and plastic flowers and always sparkling windows and a polished floor for Christmas to receive our guests on Christ’s birthday. Christmas is a wonderful reason to all be together... something people seem to have forgot,’ she waved her finger in the air as a warning.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Bella said, thoughtfully. ‘We need to get back to real Christmases... good food, friends and family together enjoying precious times.’

‘Hallelujah,’ I said. ‘So you finally got it, Bella – we need good basic ingredients locally sourced... no fancy hampers and posh champagne...’

‘Aah, that’s not what I said, Amy Lane,’ she waved her finger at me jokingly. ‘Christmas is about friends and family around a table – precious time... which means the best Christmas pudding money can buy and the best champagne one can afford.’

Everyone laughed. Bella was never going to change completely and neither was I, but it was what made us work, our dynamic, both on screen and off. I’d loosened up and given myself permission to enjoy life again and Bella had started to see there was an alternative, there were options in life – different people live according to their means and their choices and she wasn’t judging them.

We all continued to work hard in the kitchen, pulling together as a team. We were all from different worlds, but in St Swithin’s Shelter on Christmas Day we were all the same.

A
s she basted
turkeys and boiled sprouts, Beatrice went on to tell us about early church on Christmas morning, the Christmas breeze that blew across the island, carols on the radio, and pepper lights in the trees. And Bella was transfixed, eagerly helping Beatrice with the cooking, like a child listening to a mother.

Tim had asked Mike to film all this and I was glad Beatrice would get to share her story, she told it with such love and warmth and it mingled with the recipes and baking.

‘I’m tearing up for my childhood in Jamaica and I wasn’t even there!’ Tim screamed, laughing, and Fliss was nodding energetically, both having such a lovely time listening to Beatrice. ‘Let’s have a ten minute break, eat rum cake and reminisce,’ Tim said, clapping his hands together, so Mike put the kettle on and we all drank tea and ate a slice of the delicious fruity confection and listened to Beatrice’s lovely lilting voice – which I imagined sounded just like that Christmas breeze that blew right across Jamaica.

We had made dozens of mince pies, peeled hundreds of potatoes and even Fliss had cast off her glittery kitten heels and they were purring in a corner somewhere. She was dressed in designer glitter, cross-legged, and sitting on the floor with Bella peeling spuds and listening to Beatrice’s Christmas stories – it reminded me of the way Bella and I had listened to Mum reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ on the Christmases she stayed with us.

‘I remember the Christmas cake Amy’s mum used to make,’ Bella suddenly said, mid-mouthful. She looked at me. ‘I remember her baking the cakes and you and I “helping”,’ she giggled.

‘I think we ate more batter than we actually used,’ I nodded, smiling at the memory.

‘And the Christmas tree, Amy... your Christmas tree was always so much lovelier than ours.’

‘No. Our decorations were so old,’ I said. ‘But yours was beautiful – you had a big tree which I loved and you always had new baubles and flashing lights.’

‘But there was never anyone in to put the lights on at my house. We’d go to yours after school and your mum would be there, waiting, the house was always warm and it smelled of cinnamon... it was more like home to me than my own home. I miss those days. I miss you... and I miss your mum.’ Her voice cracked and I knew then that my mum’s death had sent her off the rails, spending time with boys like Chris Burton who used her when all she was doing was looking for love.

I glanced around me at Stanley and Maisie, both working, but listening, Mike was filming, and Tim was sitting with his hands under his chin. The kitchen was silent except for Beatrice’s lovely lilting Jamaican voice, telling of somewhere long ago and far away. And it made me think how our strange group of misfits with nowhere else to go had magically found ourselves here, together on Christmas Day... and as Beatrice spoke and everyone listened I swear I heard my mother singing.

A
little later
, Bella and I were alone in the dining hall, lighting the candles and doing last minute, finishing touches before everyone arrived.

‘Bella, this time together, it’s been important to me,’ I said. ‘I feel like I’ve come through a snowstorm, but it was necessary, to come out the other end.’

‘I know... and we have a lot of time to make up for – we’ll see each other now, won’t we?’

‘I hope so,’ I nodded, knowing that we both meant it now, but who knew what the future would bring. ‘Bella, telling your mother...’

‘Leave it, we don’t have to go over it again... we both know you meant well.’

‘Mmmm that’s the thing. I don’t know if I did and that’s what kills me. Were my motives good? Yes, but not selfless, there was a part of me that thought if you had the baby, I’d lose you. We had plans, you and I, for the following summer and the baby scuppered everything. All these years I’ve felt guilty and questioned if that’s why I went to your mother... perhaps I wanted you to have an abortion too...’

‘We were both kids, Amy. Neither of us knew what to do and nor will any of us ever know why we do the things we do when we’re young – it’s like another life. I’m just glad I found some strength somewhere inside to fight for my baby and stop trying to please my mum. I was always seeking her attention, her approval, but having Cressy liberated me – I didn’t need Jean anymore.’

‘You didn’t need me either.’

‘Perhaps not, for a while – I had to plough my own furrow... but, Ames, I need you now.’

‘Me too... I’m a bit scared about what’s going to happen next, but that’s good isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah... and me. I’ve got some talking to do – to my husband, my agent and the bloody press. To think I never saw the irony of criticising my own mother for worrying what the neighbours thought, when I’ve spent the last twenty years worrying what the bloody nation will think.’

I smiled. ‘We’re more like our mothers than we think.’

I could hear carol singers outside singing ‘Silent Night’, my mother’s favourite Christmas hymn – she’d hum it all Christmas while she floured pastry and kneaded dough. I looked across at Bella now sitting opposite me at the table, black mascara tears running down her cheeks causing cracks in her immaculately made-up face. But she wasn’t calling for Billy and his bag of tricks as she would have done a few days ago. This was the real Bella, her tears were real and she was finally facing her own truth.

‘Amy, you said you felt bad about not being there for me when I had Cressy, but I wasn’t there for you. I left home and I left you and I started a new life – I wasn’t there for your wedding, or your kids – your best friend but never there for the moments of your life a friend should be,’ her voice cracked with emotion.

‘Yes, I could have done with you on my wedding day asking me if I was sure I wanted to go through with it,’ I smiled.

‘Sorry, you didn’t have your mum there either.’

‘I wouldn’t have listened... it was my wedding day and I only wanted good things, that’s been the problem ever since. I refused to hear the voice in my head telling me we weren’t right for each other...’

‘That voice was probably your mum’s – she knew everything, didn’t she?’ Bella was smiling at her memory. ‘I feel terrible about the recipes... I did steal them, technically – of course I did, they aren’t mine to publish. As I told you, I just didn’t see it in those terms, they all represented such lovely memories for me, for us... the gingerbread houses and the Christmas brownies... Rudolph the Red Nose Brownies we called them,’ she smiled wistfully.

‘Yeah... Mum put dried cranberries in the brownie batter and we said they were Rudolph’s noses.’

‘Mmm, I loved the way the sourness of the cranberries bit into the rich sweetness of that fudgy icing.’

‘Bella, you must really have loved those brownies... I’ve never heard you say anything quite so descriptive without an autocue,’ I joked.

‘You’d be surprised what I’m capable of if I feel passionate enough about it,’ she smiled. ‘And I was passionate about your mum’s Christmas brownies... I would get the home economist to bake them every Christmas and Cressy and I would share them watching “Miracle of 34
^th
Street”... just me and my girl and a batch of your mum’s brownies... that’s what Christmas is all about for me.’

I
t was almost
time to serve dinner and despite Fliss running round the kitchen barefoot demanding ‘a Scotch, dahling – for my nerves’, and Tim shouting, ‘this will be the televisual version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the rest of us were working hard. Bella had really pulled it out of the bag and with Beatrice’s guidance had produced several large trays of wonderfully light mince pies and gravy to die for.

‘Bella, that’s gorgeous,’ I said, sampling the rich brown, meaty liquor again and again.

‘Before we start filming and I forget, I’m thinking of making some changes to the programme in the New Year. I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve spoken with Fliss and we have Tim and the TV company on board.’

‘Baking is just so therapeutic,’ I said as we lifted tray after tray of warm mince pies from the oven. ‘Honestly, after a day of battling Year Ten I find there’s nothing more calming than coming home and baking a cake.’

‘Yes, I can see how that would work,’ she smiled, ‘and my New Year’s resolution will be to bake again, and devise some of my own recipes rather than using other people’s.’

At 3.30p.m. exactly we were all ready in the kitchen, and thanks to Beatrice it was a military operation. Tim went into his van in the car park where the outside broadcast unit was now housed and the cameramen, including Mike - who’d been giving me secret smiles all morning - were all ready for the signal.

The dining hall looked amazing, fairylights lit, Sylvia’s table runners shimmering and twinkling tea lights in jam jars clustered on all the tables. Mike filmed me doing a quick demo on the silver foil crackers and we flirted shamelessly. Crimson had directed Beatrice and Bella in making festive paper lanterns with remnants of coloured paper and string. ‘Just like home,’ Beatrice smiled as they strung the lanterns along the walls. ‘You can buy paper lanterns too,’ added Bella, ‘if you don’t have the time and you’re busy, large department stores also stock paper lanterns – but you will have to put them up yourselves,’ she smiled, like that might be an issue. I could see the way Crimson hung the decorations, set the tables and positioned the jam jars in little clusters that she had a genuine eye for style and Beatrice was impressed too. ‘Clever daughter you got there, Missy,’ she nodded, and Bella glowed with pride. Now the secret has been outed (at least in St Swithin’s) it seemed to have taken a weight off both Bella and Crimson’s shoulders. Bella was especially enjoying being around her daughter naturally, openly hugging her and praising her in front of everyone else.

Just before filming started and we stood and admired the finished dining hall, Beatrice looked at Bella; ‘And there’s me thinking you Miss High and Mighty – girl, you worked hard as me today,’ she smiled. A compliment indeed coming from no-nonsense Beatrice – and Bella glowed again – she’d gained a daughter and a mother today.

A couple of researchers had appeared with mics and headphones so Tim could communicate with us, and Bella and I were fitted with talkback so Jody the live producer – or most likely Fliss – could talk to us while we were on air. As I wasn’t used to talkback – which involved someone speaking to you in one ear while you talked at the same time – I was hoping there would be no need for any communication.

‘You know what we have to do, don’t you?’ Bella said, as the titles rolled.

‘Be ourselves?’ I said.

‘Exactly... bitch,’ she said with a smile.

So for the next sixty minutes we were filmed serving lunch. This was interspersed on air with pre-recorded segments of the morning’s preparations – Beatrice, Crimson and Bella making mince pies, me demonstrating a cheap alternative to Bella’s usual stuffing and lots of lovely bits with Sylvia and the residents decorating the hall.

As we produced huge, plated Christmas dinners smothered in gravy, studded with roast potatoes, stuffing and sprouts – the sheer joy on the faces of the diners was a delight. Their happiness was infectious and like them I just couldn’t keep the smile from my face, after everything - this was what it had all been about.

B
ella
, Crimson, Sylvia, Beatrice and I were in a conveyor belt in the kitchen, dishing up and passing each plate along and singing Christmas songs. Mike kept stopping us as we served so he could film each perfect dish, saying he and the other cameramen had so many options of lovely close-ups of food and smiling faces they were in cameraman-heaven. Then Bella did a piece to camera about how this was her best Christmas and I really believed her. ‘I’m missing the champagne and organic bird but I’m loving the taste of this frozen one,’ she said. I pointed out that it was as good as any organic, corn-fed, hot-housed educated bird and an argument ensued about succulence and taste. All the time Fliss was in my ear saying ‘Bella’s talking absolute rubbish!’ This caused me to instinctively repeat this and randomly shout ‘rubbish!’ at Bella. I later learned that Fliss was doing the exact same thing to Bella and shouting insults about me and ridiculing what I was saying so Bella would react. Regardless, it was all part of the fun and we both loved it. Even when Maisie and Stanley were introduced as the judges of the ‘Figgy Christmas Bake Off’ we didn’t get too competitive. And when Maisie chose Bella’s pudding and Stanley chose mine we were very sporting about it, though privately Bella said she’d won really because Maisie’s palette was ‘posher.’

‘Ames, you never had any taste,’ I won the bake off and your loser pudding lost,’ she was teasing towards the end of the show.

‘Go on... say something,’ she said, clutching her figgy pudding in one hand and embracing Maisie with the other. But before I could have a go back, Stanley set off singing; ‘I’ve got a crush on you...’ we both started giggling.

‘Happy Christmas and vive la difference,’ Bella said, hugging me.

I hugged her back as the cameras whirred and she whispered in my ear, ‘Love you, Ames. Happy Christmas.’ It had all been so choreographed until then but Bella’s warmth was genuine.

‘You too, love,’ I whispered.

‘So thank you for joining us here at St Swithin’s Hostel on this fabulous Christmas Day,’ Bella was talking straight to camera now, reading the autocue for the final thirty seconds. ‘I want to thank everyone here – from helpers, volunteers and, of course, the diners, who have been so appreciative of this very special lunch – and such fabulous company. But most of all I want to thank my friend Amy, who made all this possible. She won the competition to have a Christmas lunch of a lifetime made by me – and chose to donate it to St Swithin’s and the poor folk who needed it far more than she does... and that’s what Christmas is all about. Thank you Amy,’ she smiled and started to clap me, followed by everyone else in the hall, and Sylvia started singing ‘Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, joined by the rest of the diners. My eyes were blurred with tears – I looked at Bella and she put one arm round me, the other around her daughter – and to my surprise I could see Crimson crying too... was this another Christmas miracle?