Bella's Christmas Bake Off by Sue Watson Page A

morning to tell me it was snowing... and that my mum had died. I’d never imagined this in my worst nightmares, despite Mum being ill for some time, and at first I refused to believe it.
    ‘No, not before Christmas, she wouldn’t,’ I kept saying, refusing to let any more information in. It was Mum’s favourite time of year, and despite it always being about hard work and financial worry, she’d be as excited as us kids on Christmas day.
    My life changed forever the day Mum died and our home was never the same again. It seemed to hold onto the cold of that desolate wintry December morning and I felt as though I would never be warm again.
    I thought about that first Christmas without Mum later as I watched a recording of Bella decorating her own tree at Dovecote. She was threatening to make us all feel very unworthy as she stood by the huge piney fronds threatening to ‘glitter every single one,’ later in the show.
    I was settling down to watch when Sylvia popped round with a bottle of Baileys and some jewellery she’d offered to lend me. She said the prospect of seeing one of her necklaces on TV was just ‘orgasmic’... a very Bella word.
    ‘You’ve been watching too much Bella already,’ I smiled offering her a seat at the kitchen table.
    ‘Yes, I love her – and I always have to watch ‘Bella’s Christmas Bake Off’ with a Baileys at Christmas,’ she said, plonking the bottle on the table and emptying out a million years’ of baubles and bangles.
    I took two small glasses out of the cupboard and turned the volume down on the TV.
    ‘You practising your Christmas with Bella?’ Sylvia asked, pointing to the TV.
    ‘Yeah,’ I smiled, ‘like I need to glitter every branch of my Christmas tree – I ripped it down when Neil left.’
    ‘Ah really? He’s ended your marriage, don’t let him take Christmas from you too, love,’ she sighed.
    ‘You’re right, but I don’t have the energy to reclaim Christmas tonight,’ I said.
    ‘Oh forget about him, just look forward to tomorrow when you’re stood with Bella Bradley telling us how to create Christmas Charlotte Russe,’ she laughed, squeezing my arm excitedly. My stomach dipped, I was so nervous, I knocked back the Baileys in one – it was warming and creamy and delicious and tasted of Christmas.
    I’d drunk Baileys last Christmas with Neil – now just thinking about him sucked away all my Christmas spirit. He had rung me earlier and I’d told him all about my trip to Dovecote and that I’d be on Bella’s programme.
    ‘You?’ he said, like he didn’t believe it.
    ‘Yes, why are you saying it like that?’
    ‘Well, you’re... you’re no Bella Bradley are you, I mean she’s gorgeous?’
    That stung. ‘I’m not trying to be her – and it has nothing to do with looks, I’ve just won the prize to cook with her and then she’s coming to cook for the hostel on Christmas Day.’
    ‘When is it being filmed – at the hostel?’
    ‘Christmas Day... I just told you.’ He never listened.
    ‘Oh... it’s just that I thought I’d come home for Christmas Dinner and see the kids and...’
    ‘Well they aren’t here – and neither am I.’
    ‘But what will I do?’ he said in all seriousness.
    ‘I don’t know, Neil. Maybe you could help Jayne grease her pole?’
    I slammed the phone down, too enraged to talk.
    ‘I’m worried what I’ll look like on TV,’ I said to Sylvia as we pored over her ‘statement jewellery’ and shared the Baileys. ‘Neil said Bella’s gorgeous and it made me think about how I...’
    ‘Stop that right now,’ she said, wagging her finger at me.
    ‘You’re an attractive woman, Amy, and don’t worry, you can hold your own against Bella Bradley anytime. What would Neil know – he lost his taste in women the day he left you.’
    I glanced up at the TV screen, the Silver Fox was now massaging oil into Bella’s baking tins; it was quite distracting. At least Bella had finally found her Mr Right – but then