Bella's Christmas Bake Off (5 page)

Thinking about the past again was bittersweet. I still felt so guilty about what happened between us.

Bella refused to talk to me after what I did. I’d called her at home but her mum was always curt and said she’d left the area but didn’t know where she’d gone. The last time I called, she’d been very sharp, saying, ‘look, I’ve no idea where she is – and I don’t want to, I’m getting on with my life. My advice to you is to do the same.’

Then, when Bella had been gone about a year I received a postcard out of the blue. I was ecstatic to see her distinctive handwriting again. I was also pleased because the very act of getting in touch hopefully meant she’d forgiven me. ‘Hi Ames,’ it said, ‘I’m in Watford now, I have a new boyfriend and he’s gorgeous – he’s asked me to marry him. It’s going to be amazing!’

She’d put an address on the postcard and I immediately wrote back with my congratulations and offered to get the train and go and see her. But months went by, I heard nothing and it occurred to me that her postcard was merely a way of showing me that she was doing fine without me. Then a few months later another postcard with a pebbly beach landed on the doormat: ‘Hi Ames, I’m living in Devon now, I met this lovely guy...he’s gorgeous, got loads of money...’ A year went by until: ‘Dear Amy, I’m on holiday in Portofino with my new boyfriend David....’ She wasn’t trying to keep in touch, she was letting me know that despite what I’d done she’d survived and was having a wonderful life of money and glamour and had left me behind. One day, I opened a newspaper to see my old friend dressed up on the red carpet at some TV premiere. She was now apparently going out with a soap actor who played the bad-boy character in
Dalmation Road.
She looked wonderful and I hoped she’d finally found the happiness she’d been looking for. But just a week after she was on the front pages again, this time in tears with a black eye – it seemed playing the aggressive bad boy in a TV soap wasn’t such a stretch for the actor in real life. I sent her a letter to her last known address, I thought she might need a friend, but I heard nothing. Perhaps she hadn’t forgiven me after all?

It wasn’t long after the doomed relationship with the soap actor that Bella finally seemed to have found what she was looking for in Peter Bradley. She announced breathlessly on a TV talk show that the delicious foreign correspondent was her soul mate. A matter of months later they were married and the wedding was everywhere. She wore ecru lace and the ceremony took place in Venice, there were so many photos in the papers and magazines I felt like I’d been a guest. It was just as well, because I never received an invitation.

Marriage was obviously good for Bella, shortly after her nuptials, ‘Bella’s Bake Off’ was launched and she was suddenly the woman we all wanted to be.

I sometimes wondered if she ever thought of me, her best friend, the girl who’d been her confidante through the tough years of growing up. In spite of what happened she’d risen like a phoenix – but I could still never forgive myself. I messed with her life and if she still hated me for it I couldn’t blame her. Watching her on screen, her glorious Christmas displayed around her home while with mine was in tatters around my ankles, I wondered if it was karma.

T
he following evening
I flicked on the TV to see Bella again as she talked about the traditions of Christmas and reminded me of my own tradition of sending her a card and a recipe. This year didn’t have to be any different, I never gave up easily and who knew, this might be the year that one of her lackeys decides to actually pass on the card to the woman herself. My annual ‘Christmas card in vain’ to Bella wasn’t just about our tainted friendship and all the hurt we’d been through, it was about my mum too. It was about our shared memories of her – by writing out her recipes and sending them to the only other person who remembered her as I did I was keeping my mum’s memory alive. The previous year I’d sent her mum’s gingerbread recipe which was very special to both of us, but even that recipe hadn’t prompted Bella to get in touch and I had to conclude Bella wasn’t receiving my Christmas post.

If she’d opened that card and remembered the gingerbread houses she would have been straight on the phone demanding we get together...wouldn’t she? Had I really been such a bad friend that she couldn’t bear to see me ever again? We’d both said things in the heat of the moment, but surely she was ready to forgive me now?

More than thirty years after we’d first iced gingerbread in Mum’s kitchen I was watching Bella ice a gingerbread house on screen. We were grown-ups now, but listening to her voice, her laugh and the way she screwed up her nose when she giggled told me the old Bella was in there somewhere under the make-up and the TV lights. Hearing her laugh I remembered the fun, the sheer innocence of our childhood friendship, bright pink and sweet like the icing on those gingerbread walls.

I sipped on my coffee allowing the sweet gingerbread taste to wash away the residue of sadness and regret still on my tongue after all these years.

O
f course Bella
hadn’t always been this raven-haired baking idol who tweeted daily about her latest recipes and instagrammed her table settings on the hour. As a young girl Bella wasn’t particularly good at ‘Home Economics’ and I had to help her bake the lemon meringue pie for her final exams. But, like me, I think she enjoyed the comfort of baking, and together we’d often spend weekends making cakes and pastries at my house.

Bella would ask her mum for money and when other teenagers were buying drugs and drink, we’d buy jars of mincemeat and paper cases for Christmas fairy cakes. Then, entrepreneurial Bella had the idea to take our bakes into school to sell. She’d worked out how much to charge so we could make a profit and the money we made kept us in sweets and lip gloss throughout our time at school.

Bella didn’t need the money, she just liked making it, whereas I was always the sensible one. By seventeen, Bella was becoming wild, she didn’t want to bake cakes any more, she wanted to chase boys and smoke cigarettes. I didn’t blow my money, I didn’t smoke, I just stood by and watched in awe as she ran through life easily. Bella learned to charm her way out of trouble and get just what she wanted. Despite her wanton ways as she grew up, Bella was a kind friend, who often put me first. She went from a little girl with great toys to a teenager with great clothes and make-up – and she shared it all with me, her best friend.

Throughout my childhood Bella was always there – confident, funny, a bit selfish but you could forgive her everything, because when Bella was around, life was fun. I laughed at her jokes and I think I provided some kind of grounding. She loved spending time at our home with me and my mum – she was an only child and I had two sisters, but as they were both older than me their presence in the house was merely music from a bedroom stereo or a lingering waft of perfume. Bella envied me my sisters as much as I envied her only-child status. I wanted peace and quiet to do my homework but Annie and Gill filled the house with music and hairspray and I remember Bella saying, ‘I just love all the noise at your house’, which I thought was bonkers because sometimes I couldn’t think straight because of the chaos.

Even now, watching her on TV and reading about her wonderful, glamorous life in magazines, I still felt our connection, even if it was only one-sided. I sipped at my spicy coffee, which I liked with gingerbread syrup this time of year and as I swallowed the warm, fiery liquid a wave of Christmas nostalgia ran through me and I was reminded again of Mum’s gingerbread. The kitchen would be filled with sweet, comforting warmth throughout December, and on gingerbread day – as we used to call it – Bella and I would sit excitedly at the kitchen table waiting, just waiting, our legs waggling up and down in anticipation of the gingerbread’s emergence from the oven.

‘No touching until it’s cool,’ Mum would warn, ‘…or you’ll turn into gingerbread men!’ And to avoid turning into gingerbread men, we’d lay off the sweet slabs and Mum would distract us by asking us to select our icing colours while it cooled. Finally, after what seemed like ages breathing in the tantalising scent of warm, buttery gingerbread filling the tiny kitchen, Mum helped us stick the walls together with icing ‘glue’. Mum was always so patient with Bella, who could be quite demanding and needy, constantly interrupting with questions or problems. Sometimes she’d start crying and feigning ‘tummy ache’ if she wasn’t receiving the attention she so desperately craved. She didn’t get much love from her own parents and Mum was the adult she reached out to when she was feeling vulnerable or sad. My mum was always able to calm her down, and if she was ever frustrated with the demands of this child, she never let it show.

Bella’s parents were very different from mine, they were rarely home and when they were they’d argue terribly. Bella told me she would go to bed early with the TV on in her room to shut out their screaming. Mum had taught me to imagine myself in another person’s shoes and said this particularly applied to Bella. I knew Mum did the same when Bella had one of her tantrums.

Within minutes Bella would be calmed and sweet, back to her old self and Mum would be there in the background, like nothing had happened. She’d just gently guide us through the wonderful process of mixing different coloured icing, turning the flat squares of gingerbread into brick walls, tiled roofs and little windows and doors. Sometimes as a special treat Mum would buy a quarter of boiled sweets and we’d melt them in the oven to use as stained-glass windows. Once melted, the vibrant pinks and yellows and greens of the fruity confections created the most beautiful glass-like jewels, which we carefully applied to the houses, tongues out, our faces contorted with concentration and flushed from the heat of the kitchen. I remember Bella once saying she wished she could stop time and stay in our kitchen for ever – I’d laughed at this, but a few years later I wished I could too.

O
f course Bella
wasn’t perfect, she was as flawed as the rest of us and no friendship is without its ups and downs. Bella stole my boyfriends, had temper tantrums, and her dramas always outdid mine because she played them to the hilt. There were times when I think she found my sensibleness quite tedious, ‘Sensible is boring, Ames,’ she’d say, and accuse me of being ‘too straight’. Perhaps I was – even now – but then there wasn’t room in Bella’s life for anyone who might compete for the limelight, so in essence we were the perfect best friends.

On screen, Bella was bringing the tray of gingerbread out of the oven and I wanted to make some too. So I rummaged around and found Mum’s recipe along with the one for leftover dough which made the most divine gingerbread truffles.

I found the truffle recipe at the back of the folder, it was written in long hand on paper stained with coffee and crusty with icing – a well-used recipe, I thought with a smile. I decided to make a gingerbread house and would take it to the hostel. But my real reason was pure selfishness – I hadn’t made gingerbread for years and I wanted to smell that sweet hot gingerbread baking and conjure up that old feeling of pure childish joy for the season – I so desperately needed a Christmas baking fix.

I put flour and butter into a bowl with sugar, thinking how like old times it was, me and Bella making gingerbread together, even if we were in different worlds on separate sides of a screen.

I rewound the TV, I’d missed the beginning, but luckily always recorded Bella and was keen to see how she made her gingerbread. Looking at Mum’s recipe I was surprised to see Bella used the exact ingredients and measurements, even the same method. I rewound the TV again – and to my amazement, Bella was even using the same wording: ‘when you melt the golden syrup, butter and brown sugar in the pan, take a deep breath and be transported back to the Christmases of childhood.’ I’d written that in the Christmas card I’d sent to Bella along with the recipe.

So she had received some of my cards after all. I couldn’t believe it – I’d sent those recipes as a private and personal reminder of our times together, a shared memory of Christmas, an olive branch even. I hadn’t sent them for her to use on her bloody TV programme, word for word like they were her own. I stood in the kitchen mouth open, stunned, and when she then announced that she would be making gingerbread truffles with the leftovers I knew – she’d received every single Christmas card I’d sent over the years. I was shocked and hurt to think that not only had Bella ignored my cards, but she was passing my mother’s recipes off as her own.

I gazed at the TV in shock as she continued to wax lyrical about her ‘idyllic’ childhood. ‘Of course my own family Christmases as a child were spent around the kitchen table with my parents, and aunts and uncles and cousins,’ I heard her say. ‘This gingerbread and these truffles are just a flavour of my mother’s Christmassy cooking. She was an amazing cook – the two of us would make a gingerbread house together on the big table in our kitchen every Christmas,’ the camera moved in, her eyes sprung with tears. ‘Don’t even dream of touching it until it cools, Bella,’ she’d say. ‘If you do you’ll turn into a gingerbread man!’

My heart lurched...this was like some weird culinary version of single white female...she was copying my mum’s recipes and my lines...and adopting
my
childhood. That was bad enough, but at the same time she was erasing me out of it.

But now, I was shocked, unable to take this in and understand what was happening. She was shaking her head at her ‘memories’, stopping a moment for full dramatic impact to wipe away a tear. My shock was now turning into anger, as hot as the gingerbread and I could feel myself beginning to panic. ‘The stained-glass windows from boiled sweets are featured in this year’s Christmas book called “Christmas at my Mother’s Table”, and is the first part of a series of recipes from my mother’s kitchen – available from all major outlets and online. I recently rediscovered Mum’s recipes and though she hasn’t been with us for a long time I want to bring her into the kitchen, and share her recipes with my friends...you,’ she gestured to the camera, a salt tear, a golden syrup smile. She was looking straight at me and as I applied the brown paper bag to my mouth I glared straight back. Mum had always tried to help her, understand her and guide her - why was she doing this to someone who’d been so good to her?

‘I want to share her kindness, her warmth and her wonderful, imaginative ways with food, starting with her Christmas recipes.’ She lifted the book up again to the camera, the cover was a faded photo of herself as a child with her mother holding a Christmas cake. Both were smiling into the camera. I paused the TV to look more closely at the white icing, topped with fresh holly leaves – it was the Christmas cake my mother had baked for them all those years before! I felt the blood rise up through my body, the anger and injustice surging along with it. How dare she?

I pressed play on the TV again, my blood boiling as I watched her make Mum’s white chocolate gingerbread truffles...and telling her viewers; ‘I know white chocolate and ginger isn’t a traditional combination – but try it, it’s a revelation and I promise you won’t be disappointed!’ Again the exact same words I had written on the card.

I felt like I was in some made-for-TV movie – my stolen life flashing before me on the screen.

‘So it’s Christmas – just like Mum used to make...’ she continued, with a little pause. ‘I am so very excited, but forgive me for my tears, by using her recipes again after all these years, I feel like...she’s back here with me, in the kitchen.’ She took out a handkerchief and I wanted to throw something at the screen. The camera came in for a close-up then panned back to her face, tears now trickling shamelessly down that lying bitch’s botoxed cheeks.

Your mother’s table? Really? I thought, all hope of forgiveness dissipating into the spicy gingerbread air. I turned up the volume and listened closely to every single word she said, and whichever way I tried to work it out there were no grey areas here. Bella Bradley had stolen my dead mother’s recipes – and not only was she passing them off as her own, she was selling the book!

Why would she do that?

All these years she’d been receiving my Christmas cards with recipes meant as a shared memory from me, a little aside about Mum, a moment from our childhood to smile about. She’d never acknowledged them, just stowed them away until she had enough to write a cookery book and Bella bloody Bradley was about to make a fortune passing the recipes off as her own. Over my cold, dead body.

‘So in memory of my wonderful mother at Christmas,’ she was saying, ‘I’m inviting all you lovely Mums out there to call in, email, tweet and tell us what Christmas means to you. And wait for it...the best one will win a week of Christmas ...with me! Yes it will be fabulous – I will show you how to cook the most delicious Christmas Dinner, how to set your table, and dress that tree – all in my own home. One lucky lady will win herself and her family a truly Bella Christmas! And that’s not all – on Christmas Eve, when not a soul is stirring, I will come to your home and hold your hand and guide you through the best possible Christmas ever – just like my Mum used to for me.’

Right Bella Bradley – I thought – the gloves are off! I took the brown paper bag from my mouth and as she started on her ‘No Nonsense Bloody Banana Trifle’, I was on the phone.