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

by Sue Watson

  Downstairs I delivered Keith to his trainer Milly, who had arrived at Dovecote to chaperone him, having been informed of his nocturnal wanderings by Fliss. She took him gratefully telling him he was ‘a naughty puss puss,’ and off they went for his ra-ra skirt fitting. I headed for the dining room where I sat in the rather stately surroundings and ate the most delicious scrambled eggs cooked by Bella’s personal chef while the rest of the crew froze outside at the truck. Bella’s ‘no hot food from outside,’ rule in Dovecote while filming had meant she hadn’t eaten much and even though she’d enjoyed the turkey bap she had for supper, said she couldn’t face going out there first thing. So it was decided that me, Fliss and Tim (as long as he promised not to be annoying – which was a big ask) were allowed to join her at her varnished oak table for breakfast.

  Fliss was in winter white, enjoying a large plate of waffles and reading the newspapers. I quite liked Fliss, for all her bluster and hair-brained schemes I reckoned she had Bella’s back.

  ‘I was talking to Bella last night – she was telling me about that journalist she met once, Julie, and the male stripper,’ I said, nodding towards the paper.

  ‘It was scandalous,’ Fliss said, slamming down the newspaper. ‘She got Bella incredibly drunk, buying her Rudolph the Red Nose cocktails…vodka, cranberry juice and a big cherry.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I sighed.

  ‘I know… what kind of animal puts a cherry in vodka cranberry?’

  ‘No… I didn’t mean that, I meant how disgusting to get someone drunk and put them in a compromising position.’

  ‘Well yes, but we’ve all been there,’ she sighed.

  I nodded. I hadn’t been there but I could see from her twitch as she returned to her paper that Fliss had – and was now recalling every tortuous second. She lifted her head up and gazed in front of her. ‘I said, Bella dahling you must never let it happen again and if anyone buys you drinks or tries to sit on your face call me immediately,’ she looked at me, ‘and she always has.’

  I smiled politely, wondering just what part of the TV chef’s world would involve regular offers of free drinks and face-sitting.

  ‘I’ve lived through it, Amy,’ she continued, peering at me over her bifocals. ‘As an agent I’ve seen it happen with other celebrities… you can’t let anyone in.’

  I didn’t express my horror at Fliss’s apparent ‘isolation technique’, but finished my breakfast wondering if Fliss’s ‘mothering’ of Bella was even more dysfunctional than Jean’s hands-off, ‘I’ve moved to Sydney’ approach.

  Just as we were finishing, Tim appeared and asked if he could join Fliss and I at the table, presumably he wasn’t planning on being ‘annoying’ as Bella had stipulated this would lose him his pass to indoor breakfast. However, as he was drinking only a vegetable smoothie and making every mouthful a moment of high drama, I wondered how long his breakfast ‘privileges’ would last once Bella arrived.

  ‘The eggs are good,’ I said, like I was on a two-week package holiday and he was a fellow guest at the table.

  ‘I’m sure they are but my body is a contradiction, it would love and loathe them… in fact my body hates me right now. It is torn between being soothed by this emollient fluid and preparing to explode all over this dining room.’

  ‘Oh dear, that is a contradiction,’ I said, wanting to run for cover.

  ‘He suffers with his digestion,’ Fliss said, rolling her eyes and twisting her lips in a ‘believe that one if you will’ gesture.

  ‘Suffer… suffer? That doesn’t even begin to cover it – I am a slave to my digestive system, it is a sheer and profound agony that I live with 24/7,’ he snapped, before slurping the last of the pungent green liquid. Fliss and I watched him in sync and if my face was anything like hers we both looked like we had a vile smell under our noses.

  ‘Is Madame still in bed?’ he asked, putting down his glass.

  Fliss nodded solemnly. ‘Yes and the clock’s ticking. The crew are here, they are being paid an extortionate amount to work over this Christmas period, but, hey, I have my beta blockers, my hip flask and a catering pack of St John’s Wort so what do I care?’ With that, she shovelled a handful of pills in her mouth and swallowed them down with what was left of the dregs of Tim’s green gloop.

  ‘Jesus, that’s bad,’ she said, pulling a face.

  ‘It’s spicy spinach,’ he said. ‘Bella’s chef makes it for me – she’s added a little ginger and cinnamon to make it seasonal… it still tastes like the bowels of hell but with a festive frisson.’

  ‘I reckon she’s added some of her own bile too,’ Fliss was now wiping her tongue with a tissue. ‘Anyway… Tim and I wanted to talk to you about the dynamics between you and Bella,’ Fliss had leaned forward and was now looking into my face, the bifocals now on her head.

  ‘Oh yes, I know – I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry, I know there’s been an atmosphere…’

  ‘Atmosphere? Ha. Icicles are forming inside the house.’ She poured herself more coffee from the Emma Bridgewater coffee jug.

  ‘I understand – you want it all Christmassy and exciting with jingle bells in the background and Bella and I working together, smiling all the way.’

  ‘Mmmm, not necessarily,’ said Tim.

  ‘Shush Tim, let me explain,’ Fliss said wafting her hand in his face and turning back to me; ‘Bringing on one of the working class to work with our star was an act of genius on my part,’ she started. ‘Bella takes herself and her life so seriously that she’s virtually becoming a figure of fun… or worse, hate. You should read the comments on Gossip Bitch! – I have to cover my eyes. Here she is a woman who has everything when lots of her viewers have nothing.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell her, too,’ Tim added, nodding. ‘The internet is awash with these down and outs making dishes on a shoestring… scandalous!’

  ‘Yep, the dreaded “benefit bloggers”,’ Fliss sighed, shaking her head like they were a scourge. ‘These weirdos make supper for six with a home-grown leek and a bin-dipping session at the back of Sainsbury’s. And middle-aged TV Execs think they’ve found their elixir of youth and haul them off YouTube and onto our screens. Trust me they are taking over, like allotment-hogging, carrot-crunching zombies – before long Bella will be yesterday’s breakfast.’

  ‘Yes, I read those food blogs, they’re brilliant…’ I said.

  Tim was shaking his head and clearly feeling energised after his smoothie. ‘Oh but Amy, it’s worse at Christmas when poor desperate souls like you are destitute, on the streets… eking out every last penny. It must be damned near impossible to hear Bella recommending profanely priced turkeys and truffles flown in from Florence. Though I do actually have mine flown in the day before Christmas Eve,’ he smiled. ‘I mean, hell, it’s not Christmas without a few pig-snuffled truffles.’

  ‘I agree,’ Fliss added, ‘I’d walk to the bloody Dordogne barefoot and sniff them out myself before I’d do without my Christmas truffles,’ she nodded, before turning back to me. I pretended to listen while trying to get the image of the very rounded Fliss on all fours in her kitten heels sniffing for truffles under an old French Oak. ‘Thing is Amy,’ she was saying, ‘I’ve also got the damn TV channel breathing down my neck telling me Bella has to change, “no-one’s got any money she must be more low rent,” they yell, banging their desks and issuing profanities.’ She turned to me, ‘I’ll be honest, I’ve been so desperate of late I’ve been looking towards Cameroon and all it has to offer. The king of Cameroon is offering in excess of £3m to make Bella his concubine… I told her, I’d bloody go at the drop of a hat if he asked me… and I don’t care what I’d have to do in the bedroom!’

  ‘Yes… I heard about the Cameroon option,’ I said, diplomatically, as another unwelcome image replacing the truffle-sniffing one pushed at my brain. ‘But I’m not sure Cameroon is the answer.’

  ‘It would make a fabulous reality series,’ she said, her head to one side; ‘
But when I offered it to ITV they said “Cameroon’s a republic, and don’t even have a king.” As I said to the Head of Documentaries, “who cares what he is as long as he’s got money in the bank and a crown on his head?” She raised her eyebrows like she’d just said something profound, before diving into a plate of waffles covered in lashings of severely whipped cream.

  After breakfast, Fliss and Tim rushed off to pack up for filming. Today was our last day at Dovecote, tomorrow would be Christmas Eve, and Fliss had informed us between bites of waffles and cream that St Swithin’s had been confirmed and everything was set. The plan was for us all to go to the shelter tomorrow to start preparing and pre-filming for the live Christmas lunch. I poured myself another coffee and watched the snow, thinking how quickly the season moved, and like the snow it would all soon melt to nothing. It wasn’t in my nature to stand around and do nothing – but for the first time in a long time I gave myself some space to think. I leaned my head on my hands and contemplated my life, my future – and what I would do when all this was over. Would I go back to my old life and continue with the monotony of sleeping, eating and working, carrying an underlying resentment for pole-dancing lawyers? Or was there another fork in the road for me?

  My thoughts were interrupted when Bella waltzed in to breakfast in one of her Christmas red robes and sunglasses.

  ‘Bella, you are such a diva,’ I laughed affectionately.

  I poured coffee from an elegant pot into one of the lovely pottery mugs – today’s was snowstorm, pale blue snowflakes and frolicking deer. It made me feel Christmassy just to look at it and for the first time I felt a frisson of excitement tingling through me – accepting the end of my marriage had, weirdly, allowed me to let a little Christmas in.

  Bella was clearly not feeling Christmassy at all and as someone handed her a cup of herbal tea she curled her lip at me.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Stop being so bloody happy, you’re far too perky considering you drank as much as me and stayed up as late,’ she smiled as she took a sip of the foul-smelling brew.

  ‘I don’t think anyone drinks as much as you,’ I said, teasingly.

  ‘Judge Judy,’ she snapped.

  ‘The scrambled eggs are lovely,’ I commented, ignoring her grumpiness, this was play, it wasn’t real – the resentment had gone from her eyes – and probably mine too. We were rediscovering our old selves.

  ‘I don’t know how you can eat that crap,’ she sighed, making vomiting noises.

  ‘Charming. It’s smoked salmon and scrambled eggs – you make this every Christmas for your family, or that’s what you tell your viewers,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve never made it in my life – I can’t stand smoked salmon, it’s revolting.’

  ‘Oh, of course, it was for the TV, you just pretend to cook,’ I said, with a smile. She didn’t respond so I made like a mother, ‘If you don’t like salmon just have the eggs, you’ll feel better.’

  ‘No I won’t, because if I eat anything I will hate myself. I’m not like you – I’m Bella Bradley, Kitchen Goddess and if I put on a pound I’ll be in the newspapers and magazines as “curvy” Bella – which in magazine speak means “fat bitch”.’

  At this point, Fliss joined us, now in bright blue with the obligatory matching kitten heels. ‘I heard the words “fat bitch”, did someone call me?’ she roared laughing and her tummy wobbled up and down in a rather alarming fashion.

  ‘Ames is trying to sabotage my perfect body with disgusting eggs,’ Bella monotoned.

  ‘God forbid you should put on an ounce, Bella,’ she giggled. ‘I can’t sell you to the TV companies if you get all chunky, can I? You don’t need to worry about your weight, do you, Amy?’ she said, clearly playing us off against one another so we’d be at each other’s throats by the time we started filming.

  Bella gave me a conspiratorial look and winked, she was aware that conflict in the kitchen might be good for ratings and knew what Fliss was doing too.

  ‘Come on, madam, time for your make-up,’ Fliss said to Bella. She was more assertive this time, like she was addressing an unruly teenager, before wobbling off in her trademark tiny shoes. I wondered how the kitten heels were holding up under Fliss’s considerable weight – and if what she was doing to those heels came under ‘animal cruelty’. I heard her greet Tim with a loud squeal of delight and when I looked through into the hall she was doing a little dance – and I swear I heard those kitten heels scream.

  15

  Silver Crackers on a Snowy Night

  After pouring herself a black coffee, Bella sloped off to make-up and I was left in blissful silence once more to contemplate my future.

  Had I ever really contemplated an alternative to the life I’d been given? Had I ever really looked at other possibilities until now? I hadn’t, and yet somehow my conversation with Bella the previous evening (when I’d given advice about facing the truth and changing her future – advice I should have perhaps taken myself) was making me reconsider everything. In its own way, my marriage had been like Bella’s – the snow had covered everything in white and sparkle, then melted to reveal the dark earth and the imperfections underneath. Once the snow had melted and we’d fallen out of love there was no going back for Neil and I – my only regret was not ending it sooner. And the only difference between mine and Bella’s marriage was that she had been lying to the world – and I’d only been lying to myself.

  Filming started slightly later than planned that day, partly due to Bella’s dress dilemma and Tim’s bowels – it seemed the smoothie had ‘ripped through’ him ‘like a tsunami.’ As if that wasn’t enough to contend with on set, Keith – or Pussy Galore II was being ‘un co-operative,’ and very ‘actor-y’ according to Fliss. He was eventually brought on set sporting his ra-ra skirt with matching accessories looking like a disgruntled drag queen.

  ‘For God’s sake isn’t it enough I have my own fresh hell to contend with below stairs?’ Tim announced, referring to his bowels. ‘Now we have an unpredictable pussy on board… you don’t get this with Dame Maggie Smith. Oh let’s just go with it and see what it brings,’ he sighed theatrically.

  Meanwhile Bella was oblivious to it all, she was in character and positively smouldering over her dried fruits.

  ‘Today my lovely new friend Amy and I are going to bake figgy pudding,’ she said, moving towards the camera lens like she was about to kiss it. ‘I have to tell you Amy,’ she said, ‘one year I pounded the streets looking for the right figs… I needed the Portuguese fig, nothing else would do. Its scarlet flesh is so Christmassy plus it’s sweet and rich and so soft it melts in the mouth. I was desperate and at my wits’ end when a specialist grower in Portugal contacted me to say he was flying some over. Crisis averted, and a one way ticket to fig heaven.’

  ‘Portugal? Really?’ I smiled.

  She did a double-take; ‘Yes, and before you say anything – they are worth every penny. Since then only the red Portuguese fig has passed through these lips – there are no other figs, people,’ she said, puckering up for the camera, a ripe fig pressed to those red lips.

  ‘And a word to the wise,’ she beckoned for the camera to come closer, like she had a great secret to impart. ‘If you want your cheese plate to be the best this Christmas, you must get onto that website now and have a crate flown over… worth every penny.’

  She took a deep bite and Tim demanded a close-up. ‘Divine,’ she breathed, coming up for air.

  I gave it a few seconds then said; ‘They look lovely.’ She nodded doubtfully, knowing there would be a caveat.

  ‘But is there an alternative for those of us who don’t have access to a plane to fly figs over for us at short notice?’

  ‘Oh didn’t I just KNOW you’d say that,’ she sighed, hugging a large glass jar of brown sugar. ‘I suppose you would use supermarket sugar too? Not real, sugarcane molasses?’

  ‘Of course I’d use supermarket sugar – probably muscovado… or brown, it was good enough for my
mum’s figgy Christmas pudding,’ I said, pointedly.

  ‘Let’s see,’ she suddenly said; ‘Let’s both bake a Christmas figgy pudding and see whose comes out tops… we’ll let the residents of St Swithin’s decide. ’ This was a bit of a surprise to everyone – most of all me. It was also amazing that Bella wasn’t using the autocue and had come up with this idea herself.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, nodding; ‘bring it on Bella – the oven gloves are OFF!’

  And so we began, various helpers were dispatched by Fliss to buy ‘Amy’s working class’ ingredients, while Bella’s ‘flown in’ ‘organic’ ‘high end’ stuff waited in the wings for its moment.

  Once we had everything we needed we set off – both using breadcrumbs, brandy, sugar, butter, dried and fresh figs – but all with quite different origins and prices. Off camera Crimson worked it out and Bella’s figgy pudding cost ten times the price of mine, and that was without the first class fig flights. Throughout filming we argued and teased, but the atmosphere wasn’t the same icy enmity of the day before. We carried on through our playful taunting on screen and it had gone down a storm, Fliss and Tim were delighted as I made fun of Bella’s extravagance and privilege and she teased ‘little Amy’ about my ‘boring frugality.’ The best bit was – we actually did some baking – and it was just like old times in my mother’s kitchen, arguing about who was the best, and fighting for the top shelf of the oven – which was fun until Bella pointed out she had two! Ultimately we both created what looked like very similar Christmas figgy puddings to be judged on Christmas Day by the residents of St Swithin’s.

  ‘I just know mine will taste better and win,’ Bella trilled as we packed everything away later.

  ‘That’s funny, because I know it’ll be mine,’ I giggled. The truth was neither of us really minded because we’d had such a great time and both produced what looked like wonderful puddings – and I knew mine was the best – and she knew it was hers.