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

by Sue Watson

  Standing by her like a bridesmaid, I was pretty impressed how she’d turned it on as soon as the camera light was on. She was confident, articulate and… then I noticed… she was reading her words straight from the autocue! It had never occurred to me that she was scripted, she’d always made it sound so real, but as the minutes went on I could see every word as she said it – her passion for the food, her ‘off the cuff’ comments were all written down by somebody else and she just read them! I didn’t think there was anything left for her to fake… then just when I thought it was safe, there she went again. She went on to describe the prize and how ‘lovely Amy’ had won because of her ‘tragic story’, which made me feel slightly guilty because it wasn’t as dramatic as the script was suggesting. So, my husband had left me for a younger woman. That was a cliché, not a tragedy… TV people over-dramatised everything; and it was so different from my world of school and teaching.

  ‘No crackers at Amy’s table this year,’ Bella was saying. Then she leaned into the camera and said in a low voice like she was imparting some dark secret, ‘In fact she’ll be lucky if she has a crust of bread to share with her poor, poor little children. And Father Christmas…’ she paused and wiped a tear, as instructed on the autocue. Scripted tears? I couldn’t believe it, was there anything about Bella’s life that wasn’t a performance? I smiled to myself thinking she probably needed a script for sex with the Silver Fox.

  ‘Father Christmas,’ she pretended to compose herself, ‘is a distant memory for Amy’s little ones.’

  I stood there open-mouthed; not once did she mention the fact that I was a teacher in a big comprehensive school in Birmingham or that my kids were both at university. I was hurt that Bella knew all this and hadn’t even bothered to get the script altered to give some grains of truth to the account of my life. Mind you, I had to admit she was good, I couldn’t fault the delivery as she swept from tragedy to triumph in a moment. Peering into the camera she said, ‘I am going to turn this poor woman’s horrible, drab, tragic Christmas into a sparkly, all-singing, all-eating affair.’

  Tim called ‘cut’ and waltzed onto the set speaking in loud Shakespearean tones about how moved he was.

  I ignored him, I was still contemplating the fact that Bella was giving the impression that thanks to her, ‘little Amy’ and her family would not be ‘tragic’ this Christmas. And all because we’d be eating her overstuffed bird and pulling her designer crackers round the bloody Christmas tree!

  ‘Just say thank you Bella you’ve saved Christmas, you’re amazing… or something like that,’ Bella said, impatiently.

  I nodded, ‘Okay.’ I wanted to tell her where to stuff her turkey, but I had to think of St Swithin’s.

  ‘Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, and close-up on Amy’s sad face – perfect, little Amy you look utterly tragic. I’ll add sad violin music over you in the edit natch,’ Tim said, holding out his arms expectantly, conductor-like directing the end of my ‘performance’.

  ‘Thank you so much, Bella,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘You are amazing, but I want my prize to go to the homeless hostel near where I live…’

  ‘Stop. Stop,’ Bella snapped, pursed red lips, eyes glaring at Tim, one hand on her waist, ‘that’s not in the script…she has to thank me first, then we get to the hostel bit.’

  Tim shifted from one foot to another; ‘Darling Amy, we don’t want to get to the homeless thingy yet. We want the full and frank scene over Bella’s raw bird… I need you to thank Bella from the bottom of your tragic little heart.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh sweetie, but you must. It’s all about the drama, darling, you are so bloody, bloody grateful,’ he was saying loudly, then in an aside, ‘tears would be good here… and channelling Barbara Hershey in Beaches?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tim, I don’t “channel” film stars or cry for nothing. I’m a maths teacher and to my knowledge I’m not dying of a terminal disease, nor am I asking Bella to look after my children when I’ve gone like the woman in the film,’ I added. ‘So let’s just get on with it – no Babs, no Beaches, no tears, just cooking,’ I snapped. I could feel Bella’s eyes bore into me from the side, but she couldn’t intimidate me.

  ‘Amy, do as Tim says and once you’ve thanked me profusely, preferably with tears, you have to be quiet while I come up with the idea,’ she said.

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘The one here… scroll down the autocue,’ she called and within seconds I read how Bella was going to spontaneously suggest that ‘Amy donates her Christmas to her local homeless hostel and we’ll give them lunch instead…’

  ‘Look, here it is, the homeless… thingy,’ she said, sighing in exasperation at my apparent stupidity.

  ‘But it wasn’t your idea.’

  ‘Yes it was.’

  ‘No Bella – you can’t pretend you thought of it, I’m donating my prize.’

  ‘For God’s sake will you both grow up,’ Fliss stepped in. ‘Bella’s quite right, your suggestion was cut, Amy, but not because we won’t do it – we just need to make it look like it was Bella’s idea.’

  ‘Does anyone ever tell the truth around here?’ I suddenly raised my voice. No one answered, except Crimson of course.

  ‘Truth? What’s that?’ she sniggered.

  ‘The homeless thing… it’s my idea according to this here,’ Bella said, pointing to the autocue. ‘You might be holding us all to ransom with your stupid demands but don’t start trying to write the script, Ames.’

  ‘I’m not trying to write anything. I just want to own my suggestion in the same way I want my Mum to own her recipes… you can’t just take anything you want, Bella.’

  Bella nodded and quickly took me to one side as the others repositioned lights and cameras in preparation for filming again. ‘Look, Ames I told you I haven’t taken from you – you gave me those recipes.’

  ‘I gave them to you, but they weren’t yours to take and sell on. Even as a little girl you had everything and now you think it’s your right to have what you want, don’t you?’ I said.

  ‘No. You’re the one who had everything.’

  ‘That’s simply not true Bella, you had the best toys, the best clothes… you even had a brand new car with a bow on it for your 17th birthday – and you couldn’t even drive.’

  ‘I’m not talking about toys and cars - when we were young I envied you – your mum always home after school, watching TV with your Dad in his chair every evening, your sisters always laughing. When I wasn’t at yours I’d go home to a dark, empty house, where my parents were either at work or screaming at each other.’

  I looked at her, I’d never really considered myself someone to be envied, but then I’d never really considered my life from Bella’s perspective.

  ‘Ames, when you wrote to me offering the recipes and reminding me of all the good times I had with your family, I honestly thought you were giving them to me.’

  ‘I was. I was giving them to you not your publisher or your accountant, not for the world to pay for and pore over. They were private memories, Bella…’

  ‘I didn’t think of it like that. Nothing in my world is private, everything I do or have done is open to interpretation, and if it’s not the press it’s social media. When I had something as lovely and innocent as the perfect recipe for Chocolate brownies and Christmas gingerbread along with those memories, I just wanted to share them with the world. I suppose I also wanted to pretend I was you and had the kind of childhood you had. I never really thought about your mum or what it would mean to you – and… I’m sorry.’

  ‘I can kind of see why you might feel like that,’ I heard myself say.

  Bella and Fliss seemed to be paranoid about ‘secrets and lies’ and I knew what it would mean if Bella’s past was suddenly ‘out there’. She’d sold herself as this perfect woman we all aspired to and her whole life depended on that image being maintained. She was as flawed as the rest of us, unable to bake in her own kitchen, unable to even say the
words she wanted to, relying on autocue for her thoughts and opinions. Everything (almost everything) was laid bare, and as much as she was feted by her fans she was open to criticism from every corner and even her happy times must have been tainted. Like me she’d found the cosiness of our childhood a comfort and just wanted to relive the memories through baking.

  ‘I’m sorry too, Bella,’ I sighed. ‘I can see it’s not all mistletoe and fairy lights, but you might think of how other people are affected by what you do.’

  She gave me a look. ‘Seriously? You’re lecturing me on how my actions might affect others?’

  We seemed to take two steps forward and one step back. I had just apologised, acknowledged her life was hard - yet the only thing she took from my words was the criticism.

  ‘Look, I only told your secret because I thought it might help you.’

  ‘Yeah and I only put your mum’s recipes in my book because I thought they were wonderful… and yes, I also implied your mother was my mother, because I wished she was!’

  I suddenly felt deeply sorry for her, the little girl I’d always envied, the one with the beautiful clothes and toys had, all the time, been envying me. I reached out to her and touched her shoulder, but she pulled away and I glimpsed two faint track marks down her face, a single tear perched on her chin, ready to fall.

  ‘My mascara,’ she said, as she went off to find Billy. Even her emotions have to be covered up with make-up, I thought, looking round the beautiful gadget-filled kitchen that suddenly seemed so empty.

  11

  Amy Lane v Vintage Champagne and Lobster from Maine

  ‘Hate to say it, but Amy has a point,’ Fliss said as we reconvened for the afternoon’s filming. ‘It doesn’t make sense if Bella suggests Amy donates her prize to a homeless hostel – it has to come from Amy.’

  ‘But it’s in the script, so I have to say it,’ Bella huffed.

  ‘I’ll change it quickly now,’ Fliss sighed. ‘Tim’s script reads like something from Charles Dickens anyway… it’s a cookery show, not “A Christmas Carol”,’ she said, glancing at Tim.

  ‘I’m wasted in telly. My Dickens doesn’t play well to a working-class audience anyway,’ he snapped back.

  Bella wasn’t happy, and the tears she’d shed only minutes before were now gone and the bitch was back. ‘It’s my programme and we’re going to pay for everything, so why not just give in, Ames. I can’t believe you would risk the chance of those poor, filthy homeless people not being fed, just so you get the credit.’

  ‘I won’t be railroaded by you, Bella’ I sighed. ‘I came here so the hostel would get the dinner… but I also wanted to see my old friend.’

  I swear she softened ever so slightly at this. And Tim wiped an eye, ‘If only I had caught that moment on camera,’ he gasped. ‘Could we go for it again?’

  ‘You can’t, no one knows they’re friends… she won the prize remember, Tim?’ Fliss was rolling her eyes and finishing off the few lines of script. ‘Right – okay the script is loaded in the autocue and we can go now.’

  Bella and I took our positions behind the huge pink turkey and judging by the mottling on her neck, I think she was surprised at how I’d fought back. As a child I gave in to most of her demands. In fact the more time I spent with her, I was beginning to think I had probably remembered our friendship as far better than it really was.

  ‘You’ve got more feisty in your old age,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah and you’ve got more mean,’ I replied.

  We then filmed a scene where she patronised me so much over the simple cooking of a turkey, I couldn’t play nice any longer.

  ‘The turkey has to be organic, bronze… sweet, succulent meat, delicious…’ she tore at the turkey – yes this one was real, apparently the home economist had been up all night cooking in her own home sixty miles away and had driven it down that morning.

  ‘Does it really have to be organic…?’ I started.

  ‘Taste the turkey, Amy,’ she demanded, pushing a lump of white meat into my face. ‘Taste it!’

  The hot meat was at my lips, she was grimacing and thrusting and I had no choice but to taste her bloody turkey. I smiled and chewed as she waited for a response.

  ‘Mmmm it is delicious, but you know, Bella, so many of us watch your programme and listen to your advice about buying the best ingredients, but for those of us who can’t afford a turkey costing upwards of £60 might I suggest a small frozen turkey? When cooked properly, with love and the right seasoning, it can taste just as good – and it’s a fraction of the cost of this one.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Amy, it’s Christmas, you have to have the best at Christmas!’ She was winking at the camera, and fondling her organic bird, confident, beautiful and spoiled – and that was just the turkey.

  ‘You really don’t get it, do you Bella? It doesn’t matter what time of year it is – if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it!’ I snapped.

  ‘Cut! That won’t be going in,’ she shouted to Tim. ‘Don’t want Ames banging on about the bloody poor again – BORING!’ she was pouring herself a glass of champagne.

  ‘It’s not boring, you selfish, self-obsessed Prima Donna,’ I snapped. ‘You’ll see just how far Christmas dinner on a budget can go, and how grateful people are.’

  ‘Yes I’m sure my viewers can’t wait to take a break from vintage champagne and the best Maine lobster this year,’ she snapped.

  ‘It’s not about what it costs or where it’s from – my simple Christmas food tastes better than your expensive, overrated shop-bought rubbish!’

  ‘Oh rubbish is it? You come into my kitchen and call my cooking rubbish now – go back to your little hostel, Amy,’ she slurped on champagne. ‘Oh no, you’re filming this?’ she suddenly said, glass halfway to her lips.

  The camera lights were on. Tim and the rest of the crew were engrossed – they were filming it.

  ‘Keep going, they’ll sort it out in the edit, dahling,’ Fliss was saying.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m loving this salty chemistry – it’s amateur hour but it’s real,’ Tim enthused.

  So we continued to ‘work together’ for the rest of the afternoon. Bella contradicting me, patronising me and telling me how I should cook my sprouts, roast my potatoes and clean my bloody crystal, and me informing her that like most of her viewers, ‘I have no crystal’ and ‘everyone knows how to cook a damn sprout.’

  I wasn’t allowing Bella to boss me about anymore – it might be her show and her kitchen but I refused to be patronised. I wasn’t her assistant or a token ‘poor person’ that she could humiliate – I was Amy Lane, I was a great cook, a brilliant baker and I wasn’t some fake TV chef playing at it – like Bella was.

  By early evening we were both exhausted and extremely prickly. And though I knew much of what I said would end up on the cutting room floor, I had to have my say. Poor Tim would get to the edit and have to cut three hours of Bella and I at each other’s throats – he’d probably need post-trauma therapy.

  ‘That’s a wrap until tomorrow,’ Tim announced.

  ‘Jeez it’s like watching Fanny Craddock and Jonny,’ I heard Fliss remark to Tim when she thought she was out of earshot.

  ‘More like Fanny Craddock and Fanny Craddock,’ Crimson added, and they all laughed and headed for the food truck… where a decent meal awaited them, which was as well, because they wouldn’t be getting anything from Bella’s oven.

  As there were just the two of us left in the kitchen, I didn’t want to walk away leaving her alone so asked Bella if she was coming to supper.

  ‘I don’t eat supper,’ she snapped, banging dishes into the dishwasher, something she would normally leave for the home economist to do, surely. She was obviously annoyed with the way I’d behaved on set and now the cameras were off I have to admit I felt a little awkward.

  ‘Bella, I was just being myself. I love your programme, but if you want my opinion, you’ve been out of touch for the past couple of years…’<
br />
  ‘Out of touch? You came here looking like one of the bloody Waltons – John Boy to be precise – and you tell me I’m out of touch. You want to take a look at yourself in the mirror, love.’

  ‘Yes and you need to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, Bella. You think it’s okay to spend hundreds of pounds on one bottle of champagne, you throw gold leaf around like it’s sprinkles and, Christ Bella, you eat beef that was massaged daily when it was a cow. It probably had a pedicure and a day at the spa before it was chauffer driven to the abattoir. Your food is treated better than some people!’

  ‘Oh do shut up with your sanctimonious comments. Yes, I eat good beef and that’s because I can.’

  ‘No, it’s because you’re selfish and spoilt, always have been,’ I heard myself say. I waited for a snappy response, but instead I was greeted with silence and wondered if perhaps I’d gone too far.

  She closed the dishwasher and stood leaning on the worktops, looking straight at me.

  ‘I have never had the family I wanted, never loved like you, never been able to – I’ve never enjoyed a gaggle of my own children like you have. The only time I have ever had a big, loving family Christmas was when I was at your house, with you and your family as a child. So yes, perhaps I am spoiled and selfish and buy the best beef and drink myself into financial oblivion. I earned it, and I need it – but what I don’t need is you waltzing back into my life reminding me of what I never had and lecturing me on what I shouldn’t have now.’ With that she turned away from me and walked slowly into the conservatory, just watching the snow fall.

  I was shocked. Bella’s feelings ran deep, it seemed she wasn’t as happy and fulfilled as I’d imagined. I’d always been concerned that she couldn’t have children… and now I felt sick just thinking about the agony she must have gone through. I couldn’t imagine a life without Jamie and Fiona – they were everything to me. On the surface Bella had everything, and she kept buying more, wanting more – but I realised now that was just to fill up the hole of sadness in her life. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who had to mind other people’s feelings – and walk a mile in their shoes?