by Sue Watson
‘Come on, chop chop, it’s not bedtime yet,’ Fliss said, clapping her hands.
A woman was lying across a sofa and a youngish man was rummaging through the clothes on a freestanding rail in the middle of the room.
‘For god’s sake, Billy, that isn’t your colour,’ Fliss said as we walked in.
He pursed his lips, put down the pale pink dress he’d been clutching and turned dramatically away from the clothes.
‘Now, Ruth, get off the sofa and dress Laura Ingalls here, I’m thinking more Desperate Housewife and less Breaking Amish… sex her up, but not too much,’ she added. ‘And Billy, get out your magic tool box, you are going to need every ounce of make-up artistry you have to get this one off the ground.’
‘I’ll want overtime,’ he sniggered, looking me up and down.
Was I completely invisible to these people or were they really that rude? Billy was in no hurry, took out a nail file and began filing his nails. Then Ruth (who seemed to be the wardrobe department) sat up, hair on end. She was wearing jeans and a jumper – which wasn’t very inspiring considering she was about to ‘dress’ me for television.
‘You’re asking me to turn one of the Waltons into Sarah Jessica Parker?’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘Mmmm unless we can get a Christmas miracle from somewhere, this ain’t gonna happen. Next Christmas? Maybe.’
Billy roared at this and gave Ruth a high five, but Fliss wasn’t laughing. ‘There won’t be a next Christmas for any of us if you don’t get a grip of this,’ she was pointing directly at me, ‘and turn water into wine.’
I was incredulous. All this time I was standing in the middle of the room feeling completely exposed and they were just taking me to pieces, bit by bit.
‘I’m here you know,’ I said, in an attempt to stop any more insults, but no one was listening.
‘I will be back in fifteen minutes and if she isn’t looking like a vodka-drinking gardener-shagging housewife, then heads will roll,’ Fliss barked. She went to leave then turned dramatically, ‘Oh and when I say that – I don’t mean make her look more fabulous than the original desperate housewife out there… remember, no one puts Bella in a corner.’
‘God forbid,’ Ruth muttered while producing a red trouser suit from the rack. I was a little surprised at their comments – I thought everyone loved Bella Bradley.
‘Try this on,’ Ruth said, pushing it at me.
‘I’m not really a red kind of girl,’ I murmured, as she virtually pulled my clothes off and forced me into a pair of trousers that were a size smaller than I was. When we eventually zipped them up, I felt quite uncomfortable but I didn’t have time to think about it because Billy was now coming at me with a big sponge full of foundation.
‘I don’t wear much make-up,’ I said, cringing from the wielded sponge.
‘You do now, love. You’d disappear under those lights…so mousey.’ Then he stood back and ‘surveyed’ me. ‘Have you considered going blonder?’
‘Not in the next ten minutes,’ I said, worried he’d start hurling bleach at me before Fliss’s threatened return. He shrugged, dabbed my whole face with concealer and threw a tonne of face powder over me, which made me cough. He followed this with several layers of bright lipstick and was just spraying a whole can of ‘Bigger Blonder’ on my hair when the door opened and Fliss waltzed back in.
‘Dahling, it’s fabulous – very Jessica Lange circa 1998,’ she gasped. ‘Red suits you, little Amy.’
They were all smiling at each other and I realised that as scary as all their earlier arguing and stroppiness seemed – it was just a pose. These people may not be the on-screen stars but everything they did was for the camera – even when it wasn’t there. And it was clear that Billy and Ruth had timed the makeover for ‘the reveal moment’ as Fliss stepped back into the room. Everything was a performance and they wheeled out a full-length mirror (just like on TV, where the woman gasps at what the experts have done) then waited for my reaction. I knew the script as well as they did and it was expected I’d be pleased – but even I was surprised and delighted and didn’t need to pretend. I looked amazing and not at all like the ‘mousey’ Amy who Fliss had brought in. ‘I can’t believe it’s me,’ I said, looking at a red lipped blonde in a beautiful and flatteringly tight designer trouser suit in scarlet.
Gone was ‘little Amy’ the maths teacher in her best floral blouse and big rust cardi – here was a woman who looked taller, younger, blonder. I hated to admit it, but Bella and Fliss had been right, that cardi and long skirt weren’t doing me any favours. I just had to see this – the lady in red – to realise what I could be.
‘How did you do it?’ I asked, looking from Ruth to Billy.
‘We get a lot of practice,’ Billy smiled. ‘You should see that old hag Bella first thing in the morning,’ and they all laughed. Meanwhile I primped and preened in the mirror like a wannabe supermodel, pursing my lips and wondering what Year Ten would say if they could see me now. My real life suddenly felt a million miles away.
Walking back through the house at a more leisurely pace, I was able to enjoy the old-fashioned Christmas Bella had created at Dovecote. Beautiful trinkets and baubles of Dickensian ‘Victoriana’ were everywhere. Vintage, Victorian-style glass and white lace baubles decked the tree, along with hand-crafted, beaded ornaments, white candelabra and gold angels. She’d thought of everything, well, someone had - from tasteful floral arrangements to a huge swag of holly and fairy lights over the sitting room mantelpiece and the air was scented with the most exquisite smell of warm cloves laced with the freshness of pine.
‘Chop chop,’ Fliss shouted, guiding me into the kitchen and seating me on a stool in the corner so I could observe while she bossed everyone around.
Bella was holding a beautiful garland made from holly and Christmas roses entwined with fairy lights. ‘I made this earlier,’ she was saying to Tim, which I doubted because apparently she’d only just got out of bed when I arrived. Looking around me, I found it hard to imagine glamorous Bella with her perfect nails creating the huge garlanded fireplace, and all the glittering lights along the high-ceilinged hallway.
‘My baubles are designer – and I will only allow handmade decorations into my home,’ she was saying. ‘Can you even begin to imagine shop-bought baubles at Dovecote?’
‘Perish the thought,’ Crimson muttered as she passed through with a pile of papers and her permanent frown.
I watched as Billy transformed Bella with lipstick and powder and thought how this year would be very different, for Bella, not just for me. There would be no celebrity-peppered glittering luncheon for madam this year, as her programme would reflect a real Christmas with real people. My only worry was whether or not this grown-up Bella did real people anymore and how she would relate to them. Yes I know she’d said she supposedly spent time on Christmas Day at homeless hostels but I couldn’t help feel that this was yet another PR masterstroke. At best I reckoned Fliss had Bella turned up and show her face just long enough to count before being whisked straight back to the glamour of Dovecote. I watched Billy carefully apply foundation then smoky eyes and as he finished off with powder, a drink was handed to Bella with a straw so her lipstick wouldn’t be spoiled. She was treated like royalty, and did nothing for herself, which further worried me – what were the chances of the Queen of Christmas rolling up her sleeves, mucking in and bringing a happy Christmas to the homeless? It might just be a wish too far.
Bella had left the make-up chair and was now talking through her moves with Tim. I stayed on my stool just watching everyone preparing, still unable to believe I was actually here at Dovecote, the place of Christmas fantasy. From watching the programme over the years, I knew the kitchen inside out – which cupboard was where and where everything was kept. I knew if you turned right in the kitchen it would lead into the lovely dining room with its ladder-backed chairs and long oak table, and I knew if you turned left and through the hall you would find the duck-egg blue sitting room.
I gazed through into the conservatory, which was on the back of the house, where last year’s Christmas Eve show ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ had been filmed. I’d watched in awe that night as Bella had prepared a cosy family supper – she’d dressed the conservatory in fairy lights and silver and white baubles. She’d been holding a dry sherry in one hand while giving a turkey internal with the other… without flinching and I gasped in admiration – Bella Bradley always had Christmas nailed. Later that night as I stuffed my turkey, she was, as usual, ten steps ahead and onto the final gift wrapping. ‘Now take the contrasting bow and twist carefully around the paper,’ she’d said as she placed the last present under the tree. Hundreds of other gifts in every shape and size sat under the huge bedecked pine branches in her hallway. The table in the conservatory was set, she had a luxury fish pie in the oven and the family were on their way. It had all looked so beautiful, it had caught the back of my throat when I saw her standing there amid the glitter.
As the credits had rolled we were treated to a montage of lovely soft-focus shots of Bella and Peter playing in the snow. Bella all in white with fur trim; the Silver Fox sporting an expensive blue parka and designer wellies, love glittering in both their eyes. I remember thinking they looked like something from a French fashion magazine, and how I’d love just a taste of what she had.
Now, sitting in her fabulous state of the art kitchen a year later listening to her eulogising about the ‘crisp and plump’ savoury pastries she was making for ‘Boxing Day Buffet’, I had to smile to myself. Somewhere in the early nineties there’d been quite a transformation from cigarette smoking, wild living party girl to kitchen goddess, and the only person I could credit with that was the divine Peter Bradley. As if by some amazing, magical coincidence there was suddenly a rush of cold air, a door slamming shut and someone ‘landing’ in the hall – the Silver Fox was in the building. Everyone was immediately on high alert and judging by the way Bella abandoned her ‘crisp but plump pillows’ and ran from the room, she was very pleased to see him. There was a kerfuffle in the hall and within seconds he was brought into the kitchen, Bella hanging on his arm. She was looking up into his eyes, his handsome rugged face smiling into hers.
If it hadn’t been so crass, I’d have loved to take a picture and send it to Sylvia, because the Silver Fox was even more delicious in the flesh. I was hidden behind cameras and lights, and tucked away in the corner I was able to stare openly without him even being aware of Bella’s prize winning fan. He was tall, with a weather-beaten tan and a whiter than white smile – and the fairy lights seemed to dim in his presence. Now I knew for certain – Bella Bradley had everything.
She fussed around him, preening and touching him in such an intimate way you just knew they were in for a hell of a reunion in the ‘Bella Bradley’ room that night.
After a few minutes of Bella purring and pawing, Tim suggested Peter might like to join in the filming, but Peter shook his head, he clearly wasn’t up for it.
‘Just a few words, a little moment?’ Bella said, making big eyes at him. ‘Oh go on… baby, I need you,’ she breathed.
Eventually Peter nodded reluctantly and threw his big, muscular arm around Bella, who positively swooned (along with every other female in the room).
The Silver Fox seemed charming, and though he clearly wasn’t as comfortable in the kitchen as he was in Syria, he did his bit. He made complimentary remarks about Bella’s pastries while gently rubbing her back, while Mike the cameraman closed in and Tim screamed ‘go baby’ for no apparent reason.
Peter had a rugged easiness about him that was charismatic and completely drew you in. You wanted him to notice you, even though you just knew it was futile – he only had eyes for one woman. I was rapt watching him lean on the counter drinking in his beautiful wife as she made love to the camera. ‘You have to be firm but gentle,’ she was saying, never taking her eyes from his while massaging maple syrup and brown sugar into a huge ham. It might have been a Christmas cookery programme but the two of them together were almost pornographic – and if you ask me she was being far too suggestive for daytime TV.
‘Ooh sweet and sticky Christmas yumminess,’ she said, and I wasn’t sure if she meant Peter or the ham, but she was soon going back in for more meat manipulation. She rubbed and oozed marinade with a running commentary that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Playboy Mansion. ‘It makes my hands really soft too,’ she added, gently caressing Peter’s face with syrupy fingers, leaving his neck all sticky. I just knew she was going to lick that off later… hell she might just do it now, I thought, the kitchen was positively sizzling with sexual tension.
When she eventually finished the ‘ham scene’, someone off camera offered her ‘a post-coital cigarette’, which made the Silver Fox and Fliss roar with laughter.
But Bella didn’t laugh, she was still engrossed in her performance, holding the huge ham in a tray against her bosom and promising faithfully it would be ‘moist… very…very moist.’
Suddenly, with the ham barely in the oven, the Silver Fox announced abruptly that he was ‘exhausted’ and off to bed.
I wondered if it had all been too much for him. Bella was a beautiful woman and men get lonely in war zones, he was probably very aroused and needed to get out of there before his lust got the better of him.
‘Oh sweetie, stay a little longer?’ Bella asked, eyes wide, pelvis against his.
But he kissed her on the forehead. ‘Too tired, baby,’ he smiled and we all watched as he slowly wandered out through the kitchen. Like a bloody rock star.
‘Dahling, get a room,’ Fliss said when he’d left and the cameras were off.
Tim tutted at Fliss.
‘My husband likes me to be seductive,’ Bella breathed, ‘and so does Tim… on screen anyway, don’t you, Timmy?’
‘Yes, and that last scene was so orgiastic I wonder if either of you listen to anything I say,’ Fliss sighed. ‘Tim, Bella, we’ve talked about this my dahlings…we need to calm it down a little… with the sex,’ Fliss said. ‘I mean all the innuendo, the hedonism. It’s family Christmas dinner on daytime TV not a bacchanalian feast,’ Fliss barked. ‘We need to think about your branding, dahling,’ she said in a more soothing voice.
Bella looked from Felicity to Tim, surprised. ‘But it’s my trademark, sex is my branding, you said.’
‘Yes, but that was in 1998, nowadays people are bored of sex and serious shopping. The damned economic crisis ruined things for everyone and the plebs now want more substance with their cookery shows…it’s less “Bella’s Breasts” and more “Bella’s Benefits”.’
‘Damn the economic crisis!’ Tim suddenly shouted, banging his fist against the nearest wall and making everyone jump.
‘Calm down, Tim, you’re not in panto yet!’ Fliss called over her shoulder. ‘Now, Amy’s suggestion has been a wake-up call and has got me thinking – times are tough out there.’
Finally, someone was agreeing with me, my voice was being heard.
‘Homeless hostels, poor little children starving on the streets and food banks popping up like brothels in Amsterdam. It’s time to think of the bigger picture, the world has changed, Bella, and you shouldn’t be doing… that… with a big moist ham.’
‘Rubbish, people love to see glamour, sex, and moist hams in the kitchen at Christmas.’ Bella was angry.
‘I disagree. You don’t see lovely Mary Berry massaging syrup into meat like it’s a man’s buttock, do you? The evidence is in front of you… look at poor little Amy starving, dressed like one of the Waltons while her husband’s trawling the streets looking for loose women…’
‘He’s not…’ I tried. ‘He left me for a bedroom pole dancer…’ I started.
‘Thank you, Amy, this isn’t about you,’ Bella snapped.
Crimson cackled from her corner, her face lit only by the iPad in front of her, lighting her white make up and giving her black and green hair an eerie glow.
Then Fli
ss started again, ‘Bella, dahling, it was all very well doing sex and soufflés and giving it to us like a page 3 wannabe ten years ago when you were nubile and Nigella was on her throne. But now Mary Berry’s back you’re not competing with sensuality over the salsa any more. Mary’s a grown woman who knows her spices and doesn’t feel the need to share her drives and juices with the world while her dough’s proving. Mary’s coming for you Bella – and brace yourself because she’s baying for blood, and waving her rolling pin.’
I wasn’t entirely convinced by this image of lovely Mary Berry, who I was sure would never wave her rolling pin… or bay for anyone’s blood.
Bella looked close to tears, which I guessed was more to do with the fact the Silver Fox had just gone to bed without her rather than anything Fliss was saying.
In that moment I actually felt quite sorry for Bella. Her wonderful husband was back from a war zone and all she wanted to do was strip off and leap all over him on the stairs leading to a three-day sex and chocolate marathon in their big bed. But while he slept like Adonis upstairs she had to stay in the kitchen and get her kicks from maple roasted ham and pastry pillows. For the first time I could see a drawback to being Bella, she couldn’t even welcome her husband back because she had a houseful of people and a programme to make.
Meanwhile back on planet Bella, Fliss was now holding her by the shoulders and shaking her firmly.
‘Look my love, wake up, smell the coffee, brace yourself and step up to the plate.’
So many instructions in one sentence, no wonder Bella looked baffled. Along with everyone else, I watched, mesmerised, it was yet another performance and I had a front row seat.
‘Stop mooning over Peter and get your pinny on.’
‘Just a few moments… with him?’ Bella said, sounding like some lovesick puppy.
‘No we have no time for that, you have a programme to make – we need you down here raising those ratings, not upstairs raising Peter’s. On screen we need you to be strong and asexual, you’re up against the Queen of cake, the doyenne of doughnuts. Dahling, it’s a case of “operation Christmas Berry”… see what I did there? Mary Berry, Christmas…?’