Bella's Christmas Bake Off (19 page)

She shrugged. ‘No, there’s only ever been Peter... and as it was never reciprocated it doesn’t really count.’

I felt so sorry for her but realised in that moment that perhaps I’d never been in love either. My own marriage was almost a parallel with Bella’s. I’d found out I was pregnant just a year after Bella, I was nineteen, I wanted to live my own life – Mum wasn’t around anymore and I wasn’t part of my father’s new home with his new partner.

So in the same way Bella had used her marriage to embrace a bigger, better life, I’d used my marriage to escape my life. I’d been pregnant when I married Neil and spent the next twenty years trying to escape my marriage. I would take on causes, work long hours, help others with their problems – and all because my own life was so unhappy. I’d thought by marrying and having a baby I could create a family, get my mum back – but all I did was become disillusioned. I hadn’t married Neil for the right reason – love. This was the first time I’d realised this fully and faced up to it. Looking at Bella’s marriage was helping me see my own – and it hadn’t been that different to her ‘arranged’ one.

‘The sad truth is,’ Bella was saying, ‘my career has always come first and I’ve never had time for friends and love, I can never get close to anyone because I can’t tell them the truth.’

‘But Bella, think about it – everything is secret because none of you want to lose money or status... but what’s the worst that could happen? You say goodbye to Peter and get yourself back.’

‘Yes, and I’ve thought about it so many times, but it’s just so risky, I’ve sacrificed so much to get where I am – I could lose everything.’

‘Or gain everything?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Oh Ames, I’ve missed you. You always made sense. I’ve had no-one to turn to since.’

I smiled. ‘I was lucky, I’d always had my mum to turn to – she was incredibly wise, as you know. After she died, if ever I was worried or upset about something I would say to myself “what would Mum tell me to do?” I just wish I’d listened to that voice on my wedding day – I think mum would have sat me down and told me I was making a big mistake,’ I said, finally facing up to the truth after all this time.

‘I know it was him who left, but it sounds like you took your own advice there, Ames. From what you say, you didn’t put up much of a fight when he left – you let him go to get yourself back.’

‘Yes, you’re absolutely right,’ I nodded. It was like Mum had just spoken to me through the years and given me the answer and the strength I needed to finally make the break.

Bella poured us another drink and we sat in silence, both pondering our own lives and marriages by the glow of the kitchen fairy lights.

‘Where’s Peter gone?’ I asked in the dimness.

‘Now, you mean? Oh he’s probably gone to a friend’s nearby. He’ll tell them I’ve locked all the doors and gone to bed and he’s forgotten his key, people are used to him turning up out of the blue from somewhere terribly war-like. You see, we even have to lie to our friends. Peter only stays over for filming – just a few months a year – and if there are others staying over he pretends to go to bed in my room. But he’s more comfortable in Nigella.’

I looked at her.

‘The Nigella room – he likes the decor... it’s more him,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye.

‘So you’ve got a system, you’ve managed to keep a lid on things for all these years, and now Sacha wants to get married?’

‘Yes, Peter’s fifty this year and Sacha wants him to marry him, and come out. His timing couldn’t be worse...Christmas, I ask you?’

‘Yeah but if it’s right for Peter perhaps he should come out now, shouldn’t he?’

‘Mmmm it might be the right time for him, but what about me? How will it make me look? The sizzling sex siren of TV has been married to a gay man for twenty years and didn’t even notice?’ she laughed and took another gulp of wine. ‘Or even worse, that being married to me was enough to turn him gay! Can you imagine, the tabloids will have a field day, it’ll all be how I failed to satisfy him and he found real passion and fulfilment in the arms of another man.’

‘You could say you knew?’

‘And I’ve been lying to my fans?’

‘Mmm, I can see it’s a conundrum.’

Bella’s world had made her super sensitive about how things looked and what people thought, but I could see just from spending this short time with her how exposed her life was.

‘Sounds like you’re both ready for him to come out,’ I tried, offering a sane voice in the celebrity wilderness.

She sighed. ‘Perhaps. He says he wants to live his own life, not half of mine, but I need him in my life. He’s lived a double life, a public, family life of cosy Christmases and family holidays with me for his career and a private, loving relationship with Sacha. Meanwhile I’ve put my life on hold.’

I nodded. ‘It might surprise you to know I can relate to everything you’ve told me,’ I sighed. I too had put my life on hold since I married Neil, just drifting along, knowing it wasn’t right or good for me, but hoping for a miracle.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she said, ‘you and me have both given up our lives to the wrong men, to relationships that weren’t going anywhere and would never make us happy.’

‘Yes and now we’re both standing on the precipice, scared to step out on our own,’ I added.

‘But Ames, however bad you think it’s been for you, it’s been so much worse for me...’

‘God Bella, you’re even competitive about whose marriage failed the most,’ I laughed, and she laughed along with me while pouring us both another large glass of chilled white.

‘I live in a cut-throat world,’ she sighed, taking a sip and settling onto her stool. ‘Even my agent wants to sell me off as a sex slave to some African royalty... so I do have it so much harder.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, recently with the ratings dropping, she had this “brilliant idea” of selling me to the king of Cameroon who was apparently looking for ‘another’ wife. As she pointed out, “Dahling you’d want for nothing”.’

‘She’s outrageous,’ I laughed.

‘Oh, you can laugh but you’d be surprised what depths that woman will go to. A Saudi oil baron once offered her £1m for me to jump out of a cake naked and she was all for it – “Dahling, you’re washed up in blighty,” she said. “Let’s go for the big bucks in the Middle East – you’re a tasty European tit-bit and they are simply gagging for a nibble of you”.’

She said this in Fliss’s posh husky voice which made me laugh a lot.

‘There’s me envying your lavish Christmases and imagining your wonderful life being offered TV specials all over the world - when in reality your agent’s telling you you’re a has-been and flogging you to the highest bidder!’

‘Ha ha, yes and I’ve resisted her offers so far. As for my TV specials and “lavish” Christmases you’ve probably gathered by now they are totally faked up. At Christmas we usually film the ‘live’ Christmas lunch the day before, then everyone buggers off to their real families – including my husband.’

B
ella made
some coffee and we drank and chatted and the more time we spent together the more I realised, especially when it was just the two of us, I’d found my old friend again.

‘I appreciate you sharing... everything,’ I said. ‘And I can see why you might find it hard to trust anyone.’

‘Mmmm, I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with so-called friends since becoming famous. I get taken in easily – I’m lonely and vulnerable I suppose? A few years ago I met this woman at a fashion show, and she seemed lovely all “let’s go for girlie drinks, let’s do lunch...” and I was flattered.’

I nodded.

‘Anyway Julie – as she called herself – takes me out for a few Christmas cocktails and I had one too many.’ She sipped at her black coffee, ‘And next thing you know I’m pissed, Julie’s got her camera out and a male stripper’s sitting on my face. Before you could say “Jingle Bells” the whole sordid thing was emblazoned across the front pages of the newspapers – with a link to the four minute video online. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was so hurt.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. ‘Someone who you thought was a friend betrayed you.’ I sighed, thinking about my own actions all those years ago.

‘Bloody journalist... I really liked her. I don’t have many – okay any – female friends, this whole persona that has been built around me has kept the outside world out,’ she sighed. ‘So when Julie came along, I just bought it all. I was drunk and Julie was egging me on – Ames, I was wearing a Santa hat!’

‘From what you just told me I think the Santa hat was the least of your problems,’ I laughed.

‘You’re right... his groin was here,’ she gestured to her chin. ‘He
was
gorgeous though - and only wearing a red velvet thong and a sprig of holly.’

‘He had a Christmas theme going on then?’ I laughed. She joined in, and we both sat there drinking coffee in our dressing gowns and I was back somewhere in the 80s, sitting in our kitchen at home, the two of us in pyjamas chatting about boys.

T
he following morning
I woke up wondering where I was and in my exhausted and slightly hung-over state thought I was at home in my own bed until I saw the regal features of Mary Berry peering down at me from her portrait. I’d been dreaming about Neil kissing me under a Christmas tree – and as I opened my eyes was surprised how disgusted I felt. I climbed out of the huge bed and padded over to the window, to reassure myself I’d not dreamt that I was back at Dovecote with my old friend. I opened the thick gold curtains and looked up into a greying white sky, snow was hurtling to the ground in huge white spirals, adding yet another layer of white to the enormous garden which was already completely covered with snow. Keith the cat meandered around my legs and I gazed for a long time at the falling snow, thinking about Christmas and the previous night’s revelations about Bella and the Silver Fox.

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.

A
fter 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.