Bella's Christmas Bake Off: A fabulously funny, feel good Christmas read

by Sue Watson

  ‘So why won’t Bella mention her on the programme? Why doesn’t she have her on screen showing how she makes the stuff?’

  ‘Dahling, you’ve seen Crimson…she looks like something from Lord of the Rings!’ Fliss laughed, slapping her thighs and criss-crossing those beleaguered kitten heels that had been carrying her not inconsiderable weight all morning.

  Then she turned serious, ‘Bella is what people want, rich, glamourous, sexy – the perfect woman in the perfect life – and she knows how to sell it. And make no mistake, she can bake. That woman bakes a mean batch of brownies, so don’t get any ideas about going to the gutter press, saying she can’t. Sometimes we fake the food and we employ a little help off screen… that’s all.’

  ‘On screen she comes over as quite passionate about food and baking so why doesn’t she bake her own…’

  ‘On screen I come over as quite passionate about a lot of things, because I’m the perfect actress, I’ve had to be…’ it was Bella, now hanging in the doorway being handed a flute of champagne by Billy.

  ‘Bella, that’s enough, Amy doesn’t need to know everything,’ Fliss warned.

  What the hell was she talking about? I knew everything about Bella, even the stuff from our teens that she hid from the world, there was nothing else to know… was there?

  ‘Oh chill… have a glass of champagne. I’ve had three this morning and it’s not twelve yet,’ Bella giggled, holding up a wobbly hand before almost collapsing into Tim’s arms. Thank goodness he’d been standing behind her.

  ‘No… er dahling, she’s teasing, aren’t you, dear?’ Fliss turned back to me, wafting Bella away and clearly giving her a meaningful look, but Bella was laughing.

  ‘Have some bloody Champagne, Ames…’ she was very tipsy. She’d been sipping champagne all morning, when she wasn’t throwing hams and having tantrums – I reckon the champagne had a lot to answer for.

  ‘No… thank you, it’s a little early for me,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a little early for me,’ she mimicked my voice while wandering into the room on wobbly legs and stood in front of me, looking directly at me, her head to one side like a puzzled robin.

  ‘Amy, loosen up, why are you being so boring?’

  I stiffened, recalling this phrase from when we were teenagers and I refused to go late night clubbing or said I’d had enough to drink.

  ‘I’m not being boring, Bella,’ I started, like I was talking to a ten-year-old. ‘I’m just a bit disappointed that’s all. I’ll be honest, for years I’ve watched your programme along with the rest of the country. I’ve tried to reach your standards, take your advice, aspire to your life, your Christmas – even though I never had the time or the money you have. Watching you bake and dress the house was pure nostalgia for me because we’d done those things together. And now I discover that Bella Bradley, the brilliant cook, the woman who can dress a room in minutes and make it look fabulous doesn’t exist. Someone else does it for her – and what’s more, they don’t even get credit. Poor Crimson over there does all the decorations, but not once have you ever given her credit. It seems that everyone else is busy making you look good and all you seem to do is put on a red apron every Christmas and have a big tantrum, while selling us all a dream we can’t buy.’ I’d always wanted to meet the new Bella, the fabulous cook, the creative genius, but none of it was real – it was all one big fat lie and I couldn’t even enjoy the fantasy anymore.

  ‘Oh stop it, Amy, you’re not stupid, you know it’s all smoke and mirrors, that’s what TV is,’ she said, flopping on the blue velvet sofa and wrapping herself in a throw.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ I went on. She was closing her eyes and pretending to be asleep but I knew what she was doing, she was still so childlike. ‘I believed in you, but now I feel cheated, betrayed, like every other viewer out there who spent a fortune on the “right” bird, soaked their raisins in expensive gin for a fortnight and did extra shifts to buy bloody gold leaf for a trifle.’

  ‘Oh Ames…’ she said, giving me a jolt from my melancholy. ‘The viewers aren’t interested in what I do, or even if I do it. They love me, they want to be me and they want my wonderful bloody life. You’re right – I’m selling them a dream and if part of that dream is a little cloudy then who cares? They don’t want to see me sweating over a hot stove in my joggers and stained T-shirt because that’s what they do. My viewers want to escape from Coronation Street and visit Bond Street every now and then – and that’s what I do for them.’

  And she was right. I’d been one of those viewers who was seeking an escape from the boredom of my marriage, the routine of my day-to-day life, and I’d found it in Bella’s programmes. I couldn’t even enjoy my own Christmas, because it always had to be ‘a Bella Christmas’. I’d make lists of her preferred ingredients, her tips and advice, and save hard to buy everything she recommended when I was perfectly capable of making my own choices and decisions. But she’d offered me something else… the dream of the perfect kitchen, the perfect marriage and the perfect Christmas. What’s more – I’d bought it, because my own real life had been so unbearable. I started laughing.

  ‘What? Why are you laughing?’ she said.

  ‘You’ve created this business, this whole celebrity persona around food and yet it seems you’ve forgotten what it means to love cooking, to love food.

  ‘Ha, Bella hates food. She hasn’t eaten since 1999,’ Fliss roared laughing; ‘which reminds me – it must be lunchtime.’ With that she headed off down the hall and Bella picked up her phone, becoming engrossed very quickly – I think I was dismissed.

  As filming had finished for lunch and no one was allowed inside Dovecote with hot food (oh the irony), everyone trooped out into the cold to the catering truck. I watched them through the window being handed turkey sarnies with all the trimmings followed by Christmassy cupcakes from the food truck.

  As soon as I could I was going out there for a big hot chocolate and a slice of what looked like very fruity Christmas cake – assuming that wasn’t fake. I had only been here a few hours and already the superficiality of these people and this world was getting to me. Looking at Bella’s skinny frame earlier had made me wonder if I should diet, something I would normally never do. Since when did I tell myself to stop eating because I needed to look right? This world was so infectious, with its unreasonable demands on the appearances of presenters and the thinness of women. I gave myself a talking to; Christmas was not the season to be worrying about me, it was a time for others, and my physical appearance on TV was the least of my worries. I was locked in a house with a mean, drunken presenter, her crazy agent, a stroppy Goth and a director who thought he was working on ‘The Taming of the Shrew’.

  ‘Darling, come over here, I need you to make some notes,’ Bella was saying to Crimson who was reluctantly dragging herself across the floor like a dark-eyed sloth.

  ‘Now we need to do my Twitter feed,’ she said, patting the stool next to her. Crimson’s face was crumpled as she lumbered up onto the stool; she was clearly furious at being asked to do her job. A part of me didn’t blame her, she seemed to have to do everything for Bella off screen.

  ‘Write this down,’ Bella directed, composing herself while waiting for Crimson to do the same, but anyone watching knew this may take some time. Eventually Crimson found a pen from about her person, it had a fluffy top and fangs and it waggled ludicrously as she began to write.

  ‘Now I’m going to say fabulous things and I want you to twitter it out please.’

  ‘Tweet.’

  ‘Yes, darling, that’s right.’

  ‘No… I mean you don’t “twitter” it, you tweet it… OMG who gave old people the internet?’

  I waited for a few seconds to see Bella’s reaction, assuming Crimson’s sacking or beheading would be on the menu.

  ‘That will do, darling,’ Bella smiled sweetly and patted Crimson’s pad indicating she needed to write stuff down. Perhaps Crimson knew where the bodies were b
uried?

  ‘Ate the most divine Prosciutto ai Frutti di Stagione at Como Lario last night… the winter fruits were bellissimo. A taste of summer sunshine on a snowy Chelsea night…’

  How wonderful, I thought – she has such a great life and she visits all these wonderful restaurants, places I’ve only ever read about in Sunday supplements but doubt I’ll ever eat at.

  ‘That sounds nice,’ I tried.

  ‘Yes… my viewers love to know everything about me, and my restaurant tweets always cause a buzz in the twitterati.’

  ‘Twittersphere,’ monotoned Crimson.

  ‘Whatever… it doesn’t matter what you call it, I still cause a stir.’

  ‘Yeah…you could say that. @cheesetits retweeted you twice,’ Crimson said, without missing a beat.

  ‘Really? Can’t you do something about that, darling? I hate when lowlifes get hold of my tweetings.’

  ‘How do you know @cheesetits is a low life?’ Crimson said, looking up from her phone.

  ‘Well, let me put it this way – I doubt it’s the Duchess of Cambridge with a tweeter name like that.’

  ‘Handle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Twitter name is called a handle,’ Crimson repeated, rolling her eyes.

  ‘I’m sure it is, darling, and I want you to keep a handle on it, if you don’t mind. Stop cheese tits and their ilk from following me and tweeting me up.’

  ‘Retweeting.’

  ‘Will you please stop correcting me?’

  ‘Yeah, when you stop getting it wrong and being a judgemental old witch,’ Crimson said this like she was reading a shopping list, not insulting TV’s Kitchen Goddess.

  Bella rolled her eyes affectionately. Yes, affectionately.

  I was in shock. Grown men – well, Tim – were crumbling in Bella’s wake yet this stroppy teen was walking all over her.

  ‘I can’t help being a judgemental old witch, Crimson, I take after my mother. Oh how I hate online social media and the bottom-feeding sock puppets.’

  ‘Trolls.’

  ‘Yes you are – now come on little troll and start hashtagging something trendy on the end of my last brilliant twittering,’ Bella sang.

  ‘I can’t,’ came Crimson’s sulky voice from under black hair and make-up.

  ‘No such thing as can’t – do it.’

  ‘Err, I can’t add any more – a tweet can only be 140 characters and all the crap about snow in the sunshine is too long even before the hashtag.’

  ‘Do the tweeting people know it’s me?’

  Crimson rolled her eyes; ‘No they don’t, but even if you were Lady Gaga it wouldn’t make any difference – it’s Twitter, one of life’s great levellers. Everyone’s the same; it’s not like one of your elitist restaurants that only serve snail porridge with pig foam to famous people with an income over £10m a year.’ She sighed, exasperated, and picked up her phone again to tweet something. I glanced over to see her brow furrowed, her fingers so fast they were a blur. If I’d been Bella I’d have checked my Twitter feed because the mood Crimson was in God only knows what could be tweeted in Bella’s name. I knew only too well the horrors of that situation – when Year 10 boys hacked into my Twitter I was suddenly following porn stars and tweeting pictures of extravagant genitalia to all my followers. The pictures were profane, the details were unnecessary and the hashtags were probably illegal. Then one of the little darlings showed Mr Jones my ‘online activities’ and he invited me into his office, brandished his phone, showing a close-up of a diamante-studded vagina, and demanded to know if it was mine. Completely unaware I’d been hacked, I called him a disgusting pervert and threatened to report him to the teacher’s union. It took several days and ten therapy sessions for him to untangle that Twitter trauma. And looking at Crimson now, poised to send out her boss’s tweet, one could only imagine the darkness she could unleash online in the name of Bella Bradley.

  ‘Mon chéri, did I hear you say you dined at Como Lario last night? Love, love, love the osso buco with saffron risotto,’ Tim piped up in an affected Italian accent.

  ‘No darling… never been, hate bloody Italian… it’s for my twittering,’ Bella frowned.

  ‘Ohhh.’ Tim was crushed, he’d obviously hoped this would mean an orgasmic bonding with Bella to the exclusion of everyone else over the bloody osso buco, whatever that was.

  ‘Amy, come and talk to me,’ Bella was now saying as Crimson was dismissed so wandered over to the fridge to help herself to a snack, she was unbelievable. I watched as Billy applied eyeliner and fake lashes to Bella’s lids. It had never occurred to me her lashes were fake, mind you it never occurred to me that her Christmas ham was fake either.

  ‘We do need to talk, Amy,’ she said as I wandered over to where she was sitting.

  ‘Yes we do. I can’t believe all this time you were receiving my Christmas cards and not even bothering to send one back… or at least an acknowledgement that you’d received mine.’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right, it was unforgivable of Fliss not to respond… she used to be in charge of my Christmas cards but now I have a full-time assistant,’ she said gesturing to Crimson. ‘Everything will be fine now.’

  I wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Bella please can you stop talking – I’m trying to apply Rouge Allure to your lips and my canvas is flapping!’

  I moved away so Bella wasn’t tempted to talk and Billy could finish. As much as I wanted to talk with her I was glad of the chance to walk away and process what she’d become. Bella was now so removed from her own life she couldn’t even take responsibility for a Christmas card and had blamed Fliss. Now Crimson had been handed the job of ‘assistant’ I wondered if anyone would ever see another Christmas card again. However hard I tried I couldn’t see Crimson sitting down to a pile of snow scenes and scribbling ‘Happy Christmas, love Bella’ hundreds of times, she seemed to be permanently glued to her phone, but what did I know. I’d been here for just a few hours and was already missing my life. It might be predictable and small to some – but it was my world and being here made me appreciate it.

  Watching Crimson tweeting away alone in the corner, I suddenly felt sorry for her, she seemed so down on everyone but that was probably because she was under so much pressure from Bella. I wandered over to her, ‘You have a very demanding mistress,’ I whispered conspiratorially.

  ‘Oh, she’s okay…’

  ‘Well, you are very patient – I’m not sure I could handle her the way you can.’

  ‘She’s a pussycat really, and she’d never admit it but she needs me more than I need her,’ she sighed.

  ‘Yes, but you mustn’t throw your future away just because some TV presenter needs someone to boss around. Is this your career?’ I asked.

  ‘Being Bella’s lapdog? No. I want to be an artist someday, but I’ve put it on hold for a while.’

  ‘Why? I know you’re young but time goes by very quickly and before you know it you’ll be forty and still here.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m working on it, but Dovecote’s so big. I stick around ’cos she can’t cope here on her own… she’s hopeless,’ Crimson rolled her eyes.

  I smiled at this strange creature who looked like someone from a horror film with big hair, facial piercings and black lips. She spoke only in mutterings and eye rolling, but underneath the mask I could see that Crimson really cared about her boss. And underneath Bella’s mask, I knew the old Bella was in there somewhere.

  Meanwhile, Billy had now worked his magic with a few flicks of eyeliner, a perfect red lipstick and another cloud of powder. Along with a couple of black coffees, Bella had been rebooted and was almost sober and ready for her public.

  ‘We need to introduce the divine Amy in this next scene,’ announced Tim as everyone took their places. I felt sick, I hadn’t managed to make it to the food truck for lunch but I could manage until later, I could see how Bella stayed so slim, there wasn’t time to eat in this world… make-up and tweeting took priority over Bella
’s lunch. I moved tentatively to the spot in the kitchen where the cameraman was pointing and someone waved a piece of paper in my face to check a light reading or something. I was hoping Bella would do a bit more cooking before I came on screen, but once we’d done the first recipe I was sure I’d be fine. Bella looked like thunder, I heard her say to Billy that she was tired and cold and just wanted ‘to get this crap over with,’ which didn’t help my confidence. ‘It’s just like teaching a class,’ I told myself – but under those lights with people counting and everyone’s nerves jangling it was quite overwhelming. Not for the first time I wondered what the hell I was doing there, but as soon as the camera began whirring and the lights were set for Bella’s face, she changed.

  ‘Today I have a very special Christmas guest in my kitchen,’ she started, the thunderous face gone, smiley red lips everywhere. ‘It’s Amy Lane! Welcome to Dovecote, little Amy, and season’s greetings to everyone in their kitchens rustling up those sweet Christmassy treats. But first – this year’s old bird… ha no, not Amy,’ she pantomimed, rolling her eyes and flapping her hand. ‘My Christmas bird… and this year it’s going to be… drum roll please – an organic turkey!’ All this was delivered confidently, with little ‘humorous’ asides and bucketfuls of Bella’s dubious charm. Her ability to perform was amazing, just over an hour ago she was storming around the kitchen shot-putting hams and drinking champagne by the bucketload. And only seconds before she was complaining about tiredness and the ‘crap’ she had to get through. But here she was, the gorgeous Kitchen Goddess, gleaming from head to toe, her smile lighting up the room. The viewers would lap this up – they couldn’t see what I could, that she was dead behind the eyes, her breath reeked of alcohol and she hadn’t even touched the turkey until the camera came on.

  ‘Ooh, meant to say, don’t hate me if you heard the rumours on naughty Twitter that I was gagging for a goose, or dreaming of a duck,’ she said, her bottom lip down like a mischievous girl. ‘I’m going old-school this year. Yes, I love a good old-fashioned traditional Christmas and that’s what I’m giving you… and if you know what’s what and you care about your loved ones, this is the bird you’ll be giving your family this year. TURKEY! So all you budding chefs and wonderful homemakers out there… let’s get stuffing!’