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

by Sue Watson

  Mike and I had only just met, we weren’t an item, we hadn’t even been out together – but I liked him, and I didn’t want Neil ruining everything for me. I’d told Mike my marriage was over and here I was snogging – or more accurately being snogged by – my husband in semi-darkness. Talk about killing something before it’s even begun.

  ‘Hi, er… Mike… this is Neil,’ I offered, like that would help.

  Mike nodded tersely, Neil nodded back, and I was reminded of the reindeer on Bella’s Christmas jumper, though it was less frolicking does, more rutting stags. I watched helplessly as Mike wandered into the hall without making eye contact and began to make notes about camera angles. Meanwhile, Neil and I just looked at each other. All I could think was ‘what did I ever see in you? Why did I give up so much of my life to this man?’ If I hadn’t been adamant before that my marriage was well and truly dead I was now… and that kiss had sealed the deal.

  ‘Neil, what the hell was that?’ I hissed, wiping my mouth. ‘Apart from the fact I’ve moved on - you’re with someone else now, you can’t just fall back into my life and expect a bloody kiss – mistletoe or no,’ I spat.

  I wanted to bat him away like a fly. I was desperate to run to Mike and tell him it was all fine and there were no grey areas, no vestiges of anything left with my estranged husband and I was extremely free to take things a whole lot further. Having slept with him the previous night, then finding me under the mistletoe with my estranged husband, he could already be forgiven for thinking I was a man-eating Christmas nympho. So as desperate as I was to chase him through the homeless hostel in a sparkly blue designer dress shouting, ‘Come back, Mike, I want you,’ I decided to choose my moment.

  ‘I’ll stick around with you and drive you home when it’s over… I was thinking we might perhaps… talk about me coming home?’ Neil was saying. ‘Look… I’m sorry love.’ I just looked at him with incredulity, which, knowing Neil he probably mistook for unbridled passion.

  The woman who’d left this town had been hurt by Neil but might just have fallen for his mistletoe on Christmas Eve. Had I never been to Dovecote or met Bella again I may even have kissed him willingly and been persuaded by his apologies to fall back into my old life. But it would have been out of nostalgia for the past, with him and the children – not a desire to be with him.

  ‘You’re telling me you’re sorry, Neil?’ I said, astounded. ‘No, I’m sorry, because I have no intentions of letting you anywhere near me or my home. You were the one who’d “fallen in love”, Neil, you were the one who left – and I realise now you did me quite a favour. I’m happier now than I’ve been for twenty years.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve been filming in a fancy house for a few days and suddenly you think you don’t need me, that you’re something special?’

  ‘Yeah… I do think I’m something special actually. It’s just a pity that you never thought I was.’

  ‘Oh Amy, calm down,’ he said dismissively which made my blood pressure to shoot up through my body, and I wanted to strangle my husband. I was so angry I couldn’t speak, we just stared at each other.

  ‘She’s dumped you, hasn’t she?’ I said. ‘Or has the pole lost its novelty?’

  ‘I just want you back, I want our home – it’s Christmas…’ he started.

  ‘Yes, and you left me – and our home, just before Christmas and in the short while you’ve been gone I’ve changed, and my life is about to change, for the better.’

  ‘So you seem to think,’ he said, a smirk playing on his lips. ‘Is that a new dress you’re wearing?’ He was trying a different tack and I could see it coming, he was going to try and knock my confidence so I’d feel vulnerable and fall into his arms. He was looking me up and down with obvious disapproval.

  ‘It’s not you is it, Amy,’ he said. ‘I mean, you can’t carry off a dress like that.’ He was pulling a face and shaking his head, attempting to kill what little confidence I’d regained over the last few days. I felt sick. Even though I’d been expecting it, this was still like a punch in the stomach, I didn’t want Neil here with his jealousy and negativity, and put downs.

  Seething resentment rose up through my whole body and I was shaking with rage. How dare he think he could walk all over me and that I’d just lie down and let him wander back in. Since my time at Dovecote with Bella and Mike I felt so much stronger, so much more in charge of my own life – I wasn’t weighed down by my insecurities anymore.

  ‘You know what, Neil? You’re wrong – this dress is “me” actually,’ I heard myself say, putting my hand on my hip and standing in front of him, glowing with new found confidence. ‘And that guy you just met, Mike? The good-looking one? He’s “me” too. But do you know what isn’t “me”? You!’

  Neil stood there clutching his mistletoe, shocked at what I’d just said. I went to walk away, but was so bloody angry I turned back round and with a left hook knocked his mistletoe right out of his hand. ‘And you can shove this right up your arse!’ I shouted, hurling it across the room… just as Mike walked back through with the soundman.

  I stormed off, leaving Neil in the dining hall, open-mouthed and ‘wearing’ his mistletoe bush, and when I told Sylvia what I’d done she clapped.

  We spent the next hour cleaning the kitchen and laughing about flying mistletoe until, finally, Bella, Crimson and Fliss arrived. Crimson immediately offered to do the off-camera cleaning and preparing, but Bella had a look of barely concealed horror on her face at the sight of the decor and Fliss was taking gulps from her diamante hip flask. Sylvia and I showed them the dining hall, but Bella just nodded numbly and Fliss just swigged her drink; ‘They just need to acclimatise,’ I said to a worried Sylvia.

  Fliss said she needed ‘a fag dahling’ and Bella said she needed a lie down, so I directed Fliss to the back doorway to smoke outside and suggested Bella join us in the kitchen to start prepping.

  ‘In a minute,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know if I can do this… here… it’s awful.’

  I left her alone in the dining hall and headed for the kitchen to help Crimson. We were emptying all the cupboards of what little crockery and ovenware we had and even Crimson looked surprised at the lack of equipment. ‘Nothing like Bella’s, is it?’ I said.

  ‘No. But I like a challenge,’ she said and I wouldn’t swear to this, but I think she actually smiled.

  We hadn’t been in there long when Fliss wandered in after finishing her fag. ‘Where’s Bella?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, you didn’t think she was in here working, did you?’ I laughed.

  ‘She’s flirting with some old guy in the dining hall,’ Crimson said in her usual world-weary way, unsurprised by her boss’s behaviour.

  I was intrigued and when I’d finished cleaning the trays I popped my head round the doors to see Bella sitting cross-legged on a table, twirling her hair and heaving her bosom. She was talking to Neil and despite me having told him an hour ago that out marriage was definitely over he seemed to be taking it well enough to smile and flirt. He might have tried a little harder to pretend to grieve for twenty years of marriage and the fact he wasn’t coming back home with me on Christmas Eve. Perhaps he was hoping there’d be room at Bella’s this Christmas?

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about them,’ Mike said as I turned round to walk back into the kitchen. ‘Bella likes to flirt.’ He was standing in the doorway setting up his camera and still avoiding eye contact.

  ‘I’m not worried at all. She’s welcome to my soon to be ex-husband,’ I smiled. ‘Honestly.’

  I sensed a slight awkwardness so felt I should explain. ‘Mike, I’m really not interested in him,’ I said. ‘I meant what I said – my marriage was over a long time ago. He just needs a bed for the night and he thought if he kissed me I’d just say yes and it would all be okay – but those days are behind me.’

  He put down the cloth he’d been wiping his camera with and came close, I could feel his breath on my face and I wanted to grab him and kiss him right there
in the doorway. I thought about how he’d made love to me the night before and was on the verge of throwing myself on the table and demanding we re-enact the sex scene from The Postman Always Rings Twice. But fortunately he spoke before I could do any of that – which was just as well really.

  ‘Look I’ll be honest, Amy, because I don’t play games… I like you, I would like to see you… if you would. But I don’t want to get involved in someone else’s marriage.’

  ‘I like you too, and I’m being honest – it isn’t a marriage. I mean it when I say it’s over… surely the low-flying mistletoe hinted at that?’

  ‘All I heard was you screaming “arse” and the mistletoe shooting across the room, wish I’d filmed it,’ he laughed.

  ‘Oh God, you must think I’m terrible… I just slapped it out of his hands… I’m quite a calm person usually, I’m really not a bunny-boiling-rage-filled…’

  He touched me on my chin and I sort of reached my mouth towards him in expectation, but he moved away and went back to his camera. I was mortified and hid my face in the fridge to cool down for the next five minutes on the pretext of getting out the turkeys. The past few days may have given me some confidence, but I still had some way to go. Eventually I took my face out of the fridge and rushed to the toilet to compose myself before returning to manhandle the giblets.

  When Bella finally deigned to enter the kitchen, the sight before her did nothing to take away the now permanent horror on her face. She’d opened the door, her scarlet smile painted on just in case the press or anyone important was present, but when she saw it was just me, Sylvia, Beatrice and Stanley, her mouth visibly dropped. There was Stanley in his old stained jumper singing… or rather murdering, ‘I’ve got you under my skin’, star struck Sylvia was in mid-curtsey for Bella and Beatrice was ready to show ‘that missy’ the Jamaican way. Bella couldn’t speak, but visibly winced at the sight of the aged kitchen with shelves full of old mismatched crockery, worn out pans and a couple of old camping stoves as back-up. It was looking like Christmas had just been cancelled for Bella.

  ‘Ames, I’m sorry – I know I said I would, but I can’t possibly work here,’ she started, ‘in this.’ She raised her arms and did a twirl to accentuate and emphasise the dreadfulness of what she was facing. ‘I mean there’s nothing to cook with… I am a proper cook, I need proper equipment…’ her face was red, her voice was raised.

  ‘Hang on a minute Missy. And what makes you think you’re so fine?’ Beatrice was waving her finger in Bella’s face.

  Bella looked scared and began looking around like a hi-tech chrome kitchen was about to land from above. In Bella’s world, lavish kitchen sets were built within hours, from nothing, then shiny new top of the range equipment arrived from companies falling over themselves to have her caress their latest gadget on screen. She had lived in this make-believe world for so long she couldn’t cope with this taste of reality, and as annoying and spoilt as she was I felt sorry for her. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen now looking upset and frustrated, on the verge of tears – but more than anything she looked like a lost little girl.

  ‘Bella, we’re getting the turkeys ready,’ I said, trying to distract her as Mum might have done when she was a child. Bella was running her hand along the tired, marked old surfaces, her mouth open in disgust, shaking her head.

  ‘No. I know this is your “thing” Ames and I don’t want to disappoint you, but I can’t cook here, under these conditions.’

  ‘Bella it’s not “my thing”, it’s everyone’s “thing”, we all have to take responsibility for this. I know in your lovely world no one goes cold and hungry, they just order more truffles and add another layer of cashmere – but this is real life. It’s not about disappointing me – it’s about the people here whose lives are damaged, lost souls with nothing and nowhere to go. They want Bella Bradley the big TV star to come into their home and make their dinner, film with them, chat with them, sprinkle a little stardust their way. Bella, don’t you get it… it won’t just make their Christmas, it will make their life.’

  ‘Oh Ames stop making such a fuss. I’ll get Fliss to send them all signed Christmas photos of me, they’ll love that and I can go home and everyone will be happy.’

  ‘So that’s all they are worth? A few signed photos,’ I sighed, disappointed in her reaction, I thought she’d turned a corner, but being at the hostel seemed to bring back the stuck-up Bella I first met at Dovecote. ‘Of course, they aren’t important to you or your career, are they? These people aren’t worth your time and effort,’ and with that I left the kitchen.

  Bella might not care about these people but I did and I was determined to make this one Christmas they would cherish for the rest of their lives. There were people, cameras and food – and I would fight to get this programme made with or without Bella, who did she think she was, taking this away from people with nothing to start with? I decided that whatever happened lunch would be ready and someone had to get the show on the road; ‘Now Fliss,’ I said, ‘I need you to assist Sylvia in dressing those tables – she’ll show you the way, and while you’re doing that we can do a little preparation filming in here.’

  She looked surprised at my new-found assertiveness, but I was a teacher, and used to organising other people – besides we were on my territory now – not Dovecote.

  ‘We’re not used to these kind of studios… we like things to be a little more… how shall I say it… luxurious,’ she sighed.

  ‘You can say it how you like but “luxuuuurious” is not on the menu at St Swithin’s,’ Beatrice piped up. Beatrice was apparently pandering to no one, she wasn’t being walked over by any of these TV bods – go Beatrice, I thought.

  ‘Oh I understand that entirely, Mrs Beatrice, but I like a little more warmth and glamour for my filming,’ Tim added.

  ‘And don’t you think them folk out there want a “little warmth and glamour” for their dinner?’ she said.

  Tim raised his eyebrow, curled his lip and clapped his hands, ‘Chop chop ladies,’ he shouted before leaning into me and whispering, ‘that one’s going to be trouble.’

  He tutted and pretended to study his running order, and Bella, who’d realised that threatening to leave wasn’t getting her any attention was now screaming because the water from the tap was ‘lukewarm’, not hot. Having remembered how she hated it when I was her ‘hand double’ at Dovecote I’d hoped she’d change her mind if she thought the show might go on without her. So far it looked like she was doing just that. Meanwhile I could hear Fliss’s booming voice all the way down the hall complaining to someone about the lack of alcohol in the building.

  ‘Oh but dahling, just a teensy weensy bottle of Scotch,’ she was saying in her girly voice.

  ‘Fliss, aren’t you supposed to be helping Sylvia with the tables?’ I boomed back. She leaped about three feet in the air and rushed off to help, which made me smile, she was a softie really for all her barking.

  As for her drinking, given that some of the residents struggled with addictions there was no way we were going to bring her a ‘teensy weensy’ bit of anything that might cause problems. Sylvia told me that Beatrice had been forced to ban Cointreau-flavoured cream the previous year after Stanley deep-throated four cartons of it – straight. We were already skating on thin ice with this TV programme, without the potential carnage that would ensue if someone brought alcohol in. The result would probably be enough to get the channel taken off air.

  Bella was now arguing with Tim, and instead of adding to the drama I simply took Bella aside and explained that there were no ‘hordes of helpers’ as Fliss had apparently promised her, nor would there be a delivery from various high-end kitchen equipment specialists. It was just us volunteers, a couple of ancient ovens and a lot of hard work.

  ‘Just accept it and get on with it Bella,’ I said, hoping her whingeing was a sign she’d changed her mind about quitting and would stay and present.

  Bella looked like she was about to cry a
nd I ushered her into Beatrice’s office, which was the only empty space I could find. I asked her to sit down and I leaned with my bottom on the desk as I did when I was tackling a particularly difficult pupil at school and spoke directly to her.

  ‘Look, Bella, you don’t understand what it means to have nothing, to be cold with no home and no family. These people have nothing, they are homeless. HOMELESS!’ I raised my voice and she looked shaken.

  She lifted her hand up like it was all too painful to hear. ‘Stop it Ames…’

  ‘NO. I won’t, just because you don’t want to face some of the less beautiful things in the world. Not everyone’s Christmas is filled with vintage champagne and Portuguese bloody figs…’

  ‘I know… I know.’

  ‘You don’t – you haven’t got a clue, you have no idea how it feels to have nothing,’ I spat.

  ‘No… I get it. I get it more than you will ever know,’ she sighed, reaching her hand out to me, touching my arm. ‘Ames… coming here today has been terrible for me, and I can’t take the memories. I’ve lived in a place like this – I’ve walked miles all day, waiting for the shelter to open in the freezing cold. I was seven months pregnant before anyone helped me.’

  ‘Oh Bella, I had no idea you’d been homeless… and you were pregnant?’ My mind was fizzing now, so Bella hadn’t gone through with the abortion but what about the baby? But before I could gently broach the subject she started crying.

  ‘I know you think I judge people, Ames, but it’s all a front – I didn’t want to avoid this place because I hate these people; I just didn’t want to be reminded of the past. It was the hardest time of my life, I had nothing – no future, no family….’

  ‘Oh Bella, I had no idea, I wish you’d told me, I would have understood, this must be awful for you.’