Bella's Christmas Bake Off (4 page)

Looking at my budget, I could still afford to make Christmas cakes for St Swithin’s as I had done in previous years, and that’s what I would do – for them and for me. Whatever was happening in my life, this was going to be the best Christmas St Swithin’s had ever had. The food would be great, but I was also keen to make them feel at home so set about thinking up cheap ways of making that awful dining hall look warm and Christmassy.

When I wandered into Sylvia’s office the following day and said not only would I turn up and serve on Christmas Day but I wanted to get involved with the shelter and had some ideas, she whooped. Locking the door and immediately abandoning her report on ‘upholding the school’s principles and policies with good practice and raised standards’, she took out a notebook and pen.

‘My only worry is I’ve left it too late to make proper Christmas cakes...’ I said.

‘But it’s still a couple of weeks before Christmas Day, Amy, won’t that be long enough?’

‘Oh I can bake them in a few hours, it’s just that Christmas cakes are usually made in the autumn. They need to mature, and during the two or three months before Christmas they have to be fed brandy on a weekly basis.’

‘So do I, love, so do I,’ she said, delving in her drawers. I was expecting her to emerge with a bottle of stashed brandy and was just about to warn of the dangers of secret drinking when she produced a completed silvery table runner with a flourish.

‘You do the Christmas cakes and mince pies and I’ll do the tables,’ she said, with a big smile. She’d obviously given up on school work for the day and was flattening the table runner out along her desk, planning how she’d set the tables. ‘Anyway, Amy – don’t worry about brandy – some of the residents have been feeding on brandy for too long,’ she laughed, ‘and all it takes is one whiff of the barmaid’s apron.’

‘Okay, so we’ll keep alcohol to a minimum. I don’t suppose the budget can afford it anyway – which is why I’ve been delving around in my mind and trying to come up with ideas to dress the hall. Tin foil crackers on the tables ...and jam jars with tea lights in,’ I suggested. ‘I’ve got loads of tinsel I can bring from home too...’

‘Ooh yes – let’s try and bring a bit of glitter into the poor souls’ lives,’ she sighed.

’Shall we have a theme?’ I asked. ‘People like a theme at Christmas, even if it’s just a colour or era.’

‘How about a silver singles Christmas,’ she giggled. ‘You and I could dress in glitter and stick two fingers up to being married.’

‘Mmm, the more I think about being married, the more I realise how unhappy I was. I still am, but that’s about adjustment...it takes a while to get used to being on your own, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. Being with someone you don’t love...and don’t even like, is worse than being alone. I think I fell out of love with Neil a long time ago...I just don’t know anymore how I feel about him.’

‘I do...but it’s not repeatable within the walls of an educational establishment,’ she sniffed.

I was keen to change the subject so I didn’t have to think too hard about Neil and how many years he’d sucked from me, ‘Bella Bradley’s doing a “Dickensian” Christmas this year,’ I said.

‘Oh...Dickensian? Children with rickets, cramped living conditions, pollution and the white plague?’

I laughed, ‘No. Red and green with oldy-worldy baubles.’

‘Ah,
that
Dickensian Christmas,’ she smiled.

Later that day I popped into the hostel to drop off the clothes I’d found in my wardrobe. Maisie was delighted with the warm coat and jumpers, but when I suggested another of the ladies try on a plum knitted dress and the cobalt blue jumper I’d found hard to part with, she turned her nose up.

‘Ooh no, dear, it’s not me – far too frumpy,’ she said, pulling a face.

I hadn’t taken it too much to heart until I offered the same dress and jumper to Pearl. She was an elderly lady wearing mostly layers of old coats and shabby cardigans who I imagined would be delighted with my cast-off knits, but she took great offence.

‘Do I look like the kind of woman who’d wear something like that? I’m not one of them Amish people,’ she snapped. I was a little embarrassed at being turned down, another slap in the face, but a reminder that being homeless doesn’t mean you have to lose your style. And apparently Pearl had better taste than I did.

As the hostel budget was as tight as my own, I knew I would need to box clever with the baking and not be able to create the kind of extortionately priced Christmas confections Bella was conjuring up every day on TV. Growing up, my family had been poor and Mum’s baking and cooking a highlight of our rather stark Christmases. Her recipes were brilliant, a talent borne out of having to develop her own recipes because she couldn’t always afford the ingredients. She’d used beetroot in her chocolate cake and grated carrot in her Christmas cakes – making the most of the veg from Dad’s allotment.

Until now I hadn’t used veg in my baking despite it being quite fashionable, but without the money for all the usual ingredients, this year I would try it out. And who better to help me through this than my mum. So I took out her old box of recipes and started to leaf through all her notes and cuttings. I used Mum’s recipes throughout the year but there was a special folder with Christmas scrawled across and one of Mum’s doodles of a sprig of holly. Every Christmas I’d take the folder out, just enjoying the way it made me feel close to her, like I was bringing her back into my life.

I smiled to myself thinking about how sumptuous our Christmas table used to look, with very little. One Christmas, Mum bought a small chicken instead of a turkey, but none of us realised because she made it look and taste so delicious. She’d added all the trimmings and served it golden and glistening with loads of fresh winter vegetables. I thought about this as I watched the TV, and wondered what Maisie and Stanley would make of Bella’s lips quivering in anticipation behind a flaming pudding. Having been comforted by her ‘plump fruits’ for Christmas in previous years, I was now irritated by her flouncing around the kitchen smugly.

Wouldn’t we all love to have the very best of everything? But then Bella had never had to worry about money, had she? As a child Bella and her family had lived in a big house and her parents both drove expensive cars and went out for posh meals. I remember a rare occasion when her mum took us for tea at a hotel. It was Christmas and as we pulled up outside the turreted building I could barely take in the enormous tree stacked with lights and topped with a huge star. Bella’s mum was so glamorous, and I recall sitting at the table in church-like silence, glancing at her while discreetly fingering the thick, white napkin on my knee. She ordered herself a vodka martini and asked me what kind of tea I would like and as I wasn’t used to such grandeur I innocently said ‘hot’, which made Bella smirk and her mother told her not to be so rude. Then she put her lipstick on and lit a cigarette at the table and I thought she was the one being rude, blowing smoke over our finger sandwiches.

Being with Bella’s mum made me miss mine even more and when a little later she shook a cracker at me with one hand while holding her cigarette with another I wanted to cry. I wanted to pull a cracker with my mum, not this chilly ice queen with bright orange lips and smoke coming out of her nose like a Christmas dragon.

Bella’s mother was dark-haired and voluptuous like Bella – but she was brittle too and as a child I could almost feel the chill around her. She couldn’t have been more different from my own mother. My mum never wore make-up and was usually dressed in her flour-covered apron but she was always smiling – even though she didn’t have much to smile about.

To make ends meet Mum regularly baked and cooked supper dishes for several women in the big houses on Leamington Row. Before she had kids, Mum had been a cook at the Barton-Pratt’s home and Margaret Barton-Pratt – or Mrs BP as Mum called her – had recommended Mum to all her wealthy friends. Mum was reliable and cheap and at the same time she could master any recipe and provide wonderful dishes for dinner parties at half the price of the big catering company in town. The women would also call up and ask for simple suppers like fish pie, lasagnes, curries – and this of course would usually include an order for Mum’s wonderful cakes and pies.

Dad used to say it was daylight robbery and Mum didn’t charge enough. ‘They can afford to pay a lot more, you’re barely covering the cost of the ingredients,’ he’d tell her. But Mum was kind – too kind, she adored working with food and was glad of the money. I realise now she was also flattered by the patronage of these women who always made a big fuss of her food. But looking back she wasn’t really valued for her talent, they knew she was good but she was also useful, reliable and most importantly - cheap. They didn’t see a human being, they saw a way to make themselves look good in front of their husbands and friends without spending any of their time or too much money. One December Mum worked for three days on a Christmas party and when the driver was sent to collect it he said they’d pay after Christmas. Mum was devastated, I remember her sitting in the kitchen sobbing, there were pots in the sink, flour all over the table...the detritus of all her work. Not only had they not paid her for the dishes she’d made, she’d borrowed money from my nan and a couple of friends for the ingredients. Dad had his arm round her, trying to comfort her saying it was all okay, but it wasn’t, his wages barely covered the basics, the money she earned from the cooking was for presents.

‘It’s not just our Christmas, it’s everyone else’s,’ she’d said, devastated that she’d put loved ones in such a situation at this time of year.

‘I can’t buy you that doll for Christmas,’ she’d said to me later through her tears. ‘And I’d left a deposit on our Annie’s hairdryer and Gill’s new dress.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Mum, we’ve got each other – “things” don’t matter,’ I’d said, echoing what she always said to me.

‘Oh love, you’re right,’ she’d smiled, stroking my hair, ‘but there’s nothing harder than not being able to buy your own kids a Christmas present.’

I remembered telling her that one day I would be rich and famous and would buy her a big house.

‘Other people will bake cakes for
you
, Mum,’ I’d said.

‘But I wouldn’t want them to – I love being in the kitchen, darling,’ she’d smiled.

I didn’t understand then, but later I could see there was something calming and comforting about being in a kitchen warmed by an oven full of cakes and creating delicious food to share with the people you love.

Now I was in my own kitchen, going through Mum’s Christmas recipes, remembering her like it was yesterday. I made a cup of tea and began leafing through the folder, each recipe a reminder of a taste, a moment – a time from the past.

Every now and then I’d look up from the recipes at the TV, to watch as Dovecote (always described in voiceover as ‘Bella’s beautiful home in The Cotswolds’) was paraded all over the screen. Each year it seemed more stunning than the last – decked to the rafters, champagne on ice, gifts wrapped in colour co-ordinated paper and bows under the tree.

Christmas Eve drinks parties, girlie nights in with Christmassy cupcakes and cocktails and a backdrop of homemade pies, bread, and cakes were what ‘Bella’s Christmas Bake Off’ was all about. Everything was smothered in icing sugar, and fairy lights – and the shiniest Christmas bauble on the screen was Bella.

Bella’s personal life off screen seemed equally perfect and straight out of a glossy magazine. Except for one thing: she and her delicious husband had never had children and she never spoke about it in interviews, which intrigued me. I knew she’d always longed for children and even if that had changed I imagined she’d be keen to produce a set of perfect ones to match her interiors. She’d often invite ‘friends’ children’ onto the set for the Christmas filming, saying ‘it’s not Christmas without children’, as they ran around her kitchen dipping their fingers in bowls. Bella would scold the children affectionately, rolling her eyes to the camera, her long, luscious lashes brushing perfect cheeks. ‘Kids!’ she’d say, and it all felt so natural and real. For a woman with no children of her own she seemed relaxed in their company and positively revelled in their boisterousness. It made me sad to think she and Peter had never had any children of their own, and I often wondered why.

It was those moments, when she ruffled the children’s hair and played impromptu hide and seek that won over the viewers and touched me too. Apart from her childlessness which was never discussed, Bella involved the media, her viewers and fans in every moment of her life. She often posted selfies with her perfectly risen soufflés her ‘to die for’ meringues which she titled ‘Stiff Peaks.’ She’d also put quite intimate photos of her or Peter – or both - on twitter. I remember one photo she posted was of the two of them in bed, his modesty covered only by a hand towel. Bella had also titled this ‘stiff peaks,’ and there wasn’t a meringue in sight. Yes, Bella shared everything from post coital nibbles to supper plates eaten on the other side of the world on film stars’ yachts. She had recently been described as ‘The Kim Kardashian of Cake,’ because of her constant selfies, tweets and her inability to hide anything from her fans – but I knew differently.

Nevertheless, it seemed to the rest of the world that she was a no-holds barred star who shared every intimate moment. Only recently, Bella had talked in some detail about the Silver Fox’s vasectomy, which put paid to the infertility rumours and increased her TV ratings tenfold. It must have been an oversight on the director’s part, but it wasn’t an easy watch as she shared this revelation while slicing a large Italian sausage.

Bella was now leaning seductively on the bright red Aga, full lips, rounded breasts and rising bakes, telling me what to stuff my bird with. I could barely reconcile this glamorous, sophisticated woman with the girl I’d once known. From being little, we’d played together at school and travelled the bumpy journey through the love and lip gloss of our teens. We were inseparable, slightly competitive, but ultimately very close.