Ella's Ice Cream Summer

by Sue Watson

  ‘Mum, can you lend me thirty quid?’ Josh was now saying.

  ‘No, because I’m paying for pretty much everything else in your life – so unless it’s a necessity I won’t be adding thirty quid to the financial haemorrhage I’m currently suffering.’

  ‘Okay, take a chill pill, Ma,’ he laughed.

  ‘I will “take a chill pill” when you come up with a phrase that isn’t straight out of the nineties,’ I said in a quick and fabulous comeback. Pleased with this, I leaned over my dinner to give Mum a high five, but not only did she leave me hanging, she cowered.

  ‘Mum, don’t leave me hanging, give me five,’ I was saying, trying to sound like my kids and refusing to be ignored.

  ‘Oh, Ella, we don’t do high fives any more, we do fists,’ she wafted her hand dismissively at me and returned her gaze to her phone.

  ‘I suppose Josh told you that?’ I asked, clearing the plates.

  ‘Yeah, Nan’s been fisting the vicar haven’t you, Nan?’ Josh piped up.

  I gave him a warning look before going into the kitchen, a round the table discussion on fisting was just a step too far, but he was too busy showing Mum something on his phone to notice.

  Being around Josh and Lucie had introduced Mum to a whole new online world, and her interest had suprised me. She had never really been very technically minded, she could barely text before she moved in with us, so her new-found silver surfer status had taken me aback somewhat.

  ‘Online I’m not old,’ she’d told me when I asked her why she was so keen to join Facebook and Snapchat. ‘On here I’m not invisible – I can be anything or anyone I want to be.’

  I understood how she felt, and as being online had given her a new lease of life, I was prepared to put up with any teething problems, of which there were a few. Like when I’d decided to go to the gym and asked Lucie to take a before and after picture of myself in my pants and greying old bra. This was an impromptu idea to give me motivation and obviously for my own use, hence the less than glamorous underwear. But Lucie didn’t bother to delete it and when Mum ‘inherited’ her phone she’d managed to unwittingly post me all over Facebook in cellulite and old underwear. It was days before I noticed – but my ex-husband Richard and his floozy had seen it straight away and ‘liked’ it – the bloody cheek.

  And it wasn’t just the internet she approached with little caution – I don’t even want to think about the time she phoned a live radio show thinking it was her friend Molly. She managed to inform the listeners of Manchester Live that ‘Ella hasn’t had sex since her husband left – and that was seven years ago!’

  What she didn’t explain was that celibacy was my choice (well, mostly). The kids had been disrupted enough by the divorce, so my aim for the past twelve years had been to stay put, keep calm and earn enough to keep us all going. I didn’t want to bring another man into their life and wanted to make sure they were settled and happy before I even considered chasing my own rainbow.

  And despite Mum now adding to my stress, I did owe her big time. Not only had she been a good mother, she’d always been there for the kids, and had been very supportive when Richard had walked out on me twelve years earlier. My husband’s departure had hurt like hell and that hurt soon turned into a bitter, unrelenting rage. But Mum had talked me through those long nights of tears and blame and soothed me as she always had.

  I’d hoped this evening we could have a nice family meal together, share what had happened that day, dip into each other’s lives a little. Life was short, the kids would be gone soon and this would all disappear with them, this life I’d been making for the last twenty years was suddenly slightly defunct. But any hopes I’d had of having one of those perfect family meals I’d witnessed so often on my friends’ Facebook feeds had disappeared somewhere around the moment we’d all sat down.

  Over the years I’d had the privilege of seeing my friends’ amazing meals out, amazing meals in, awesome husbands, spectacular long-haul holidays and stratospheric kids. I’d lived through their new kitchens, holiday sunsets and celebratory cocktails – and I’d had enough.

  ‘I’m fed up with my so-called friends on Facebook rubbing my nose in it,’ I’d complained to my friend Sue. ‘I don’t mind being bombarded by photos of people who’ve achieved something – a degree, an abseil for charity… even a cute new puppy, but who has the arrogance to think anyone is interested in their new Aga? It’s an oven, get over it,’ I’d said.

  ‘Oh the Aga queens,’ my friend Sue had laughed. ‘They might have a shiny new oven but while they’re making toad in the hole, their husband’s doing the same with his shiny new girlfriend.’

  ‘You’re talking about Dick…’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘No I mean The Dick, my ex. He was doing that toad in the hole thing with Miss Perky while I was slaving over a bloody oven. He’s now smeared all over Facebook lying next to her and her fake breasts outside their bloody villa in Spain.’

  ‘Forget Dick and fake breasts. You should start to follow my friends,’ she’d said, ‘at least they’re honest – most of them spend Saturday nights crying into their ready meals about the fertility of life.’

  ‘Futility?’ Sue often got words mixed up.

  ‘Yeah. And trust me, if you saw Lily Johnson’s page filled with loopy cats and lonely dinners it’d really cheer you up – raw baked beans on toast with real moggies. Your life’s a bloody carnival compared to hers.’

  I knew I wasn’t the first person to look at the manufactured lives and touched-up photos of my friends online and feel resentful. No one could have so many holidays, so many meals out and so many ‘awesome’ times with friends in their new sodding kitchen, could they? All I ever did in my kitchen was wash, cook and clean, what an interesting Facebook feed that would make. It wasn’t like I was jealous. I didn’t want ‘shiny things’ – but I’ll admit, those online sunsets gave me glimpses of a world beyond my back door and the little dress shop where I worked. And I felt like I was missing something.

  It all started in the nineties when I was young and carefree, with my life and career before me. I had so many plans: a pastry chef in Paris, a gelato queen in Rome, a sweet shop in London. I wasn’t sure, but I knew whatever I did it would be something sweet. Then I’d met this handsome, charming guy who asked me to marry him. As soon as he gave me the ring, I gave up my dreams.

  It wasn’t Richard’s fault, he was the fork in my road – and I was the one who made the choice. But years later, my fork in the road felt like a fork in my chest when he dumped me and the kids for a life of fake breasts and luxury with his glamorous boss. And as two became one to the sound of champagne corks popping under a hot Mediterranean sun, I just went through the motions of feeding, loving and nurturing our kids – alone. But now the kids didn’t really need me any more, except at meal or money times. And I’d begun to realise that the more you do, the more your kids take you for granted. I’d become invisible, the ghost mother in the house. No, my life wasn’t the kind to brag about on Facebook, unless a photo of a pile of clean laundry and a packet of fish fingers does it for you?

  Then, just when I thought my destiny was decided for me and I was hurtling towards middle age with nothing to show for it, something happened.

  2

  Mad Mothers and Mini Quiches

  After my failed family dinner the previous evening, I woke to scrape fricassee crust from my oven before work when a letter landed on the mat. Mum and the kids were still in bed and when I opened it I squealed loudly, causing Mum to rush down the stairs thinking I’d hurt myself.

  ‘What on earth…’ she was saying, tying her dressing gown cord around her waist.

  ‘It’s Aunt Sophia…’ I said.

  ‘It can’t be, she’s dead…’

  ‘No, I mean, it’s from her solicitors, Mum.’

  ‘Oh, is she in trouble?’

  ‘No she’s left me “a portion of her business” in her will.’

  Mum and I looked at eac
h other and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh no…’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s Caprioni’s Ice Cream Café, Mum… I think she must have left it to me and Gina.’

  Mum pulled her lips tight in deep disapproval. ‘Well that’s not going to work, is it?’

  Mum had never liked my cousin Gina, Sophia’s only child – she’d always said Gina was ‘fickle ’.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why would she leave anything to me?’

  ‘Nothing to understand,’ Mum snapped. ‘Don’t get involved is my advice. Mark my words, Gina will ruin that business. Leave well alone, Ella.’

  ‘Oh Mum don’t spoil this… it’s quite exciting. I’m not going to turn down an inheritance just because you fell out with Sophia and you don’t like her daughter. I loved them, and I loved the café, I had some happy times there.’

  As a child I’d visited Appledore once a year for two weeks – and it was quite, quite wonderful. The only downside had been that my parents had never joined me; Mum and Dad would drive me there, leave me for the fortnight and collect me at the end of my stay. I never questioned this when I was young because it was the way it had always been done; it was only later I realised it was because of the feud between my mum and Sophia. As for Gina she was my beautiful, older cousin who I looked up to from being tiny. One of my earliest memories was of Gina swirling clouds of strawberry ice cream into cones behind the counter. She would have been in her late teens, dressed in a bright pink uniform, lipstick to match – and to me, she had been a goddess.

  Mum was looking increasingly more worried now. ‘Don’t get involved in the café, Ella, you can’t live in the past. And Gina will probably want to sell up anyway – hates hard work that one.’

  ‘It would be a shame to sell it, Mum – this is a family business. I’m sure Gina must have some thoughts…’

  ‘I bet she will, that one. She’ll turn up, cause trouble, take the money and run.’ Her lips tightened. ‘Ella, you wouldn’t go and work there, with her, would you?’ she asked, suddenly seeming very old and vulnerable. ‘We’re happy here, love – it’s not like you could commute is it? And we can’t all move down there, we don’t want to uproot again and…’

  ‘No, of course not, Mum, I’ve got a good job here at the shop, and we’ve got a nice home. Perhaps Gina and I could rent the café out? I was thinking… if we make any money from this we might be able to redecorate, new wallpaper?’ I heard myself say, but I wasn’t really feeling it. ‘I have to go down to Devon next week for the reading of the will. I imagine Gina will be there so we can talk then.’

  I didn’t want Mum to worry. I had no idea what this might mean but finally I felt I had something exciting to tell the kids. And that evening after work, I suggested they all went with me to Devon to find out just what the inheritance involved.

  ‘Wow was she rich, has she left you shedloads of dosh, Ma?’ Josh asked, for once taking more interest in me than his phone.

  ‘No… just a portion of the business – the café.’

  ‘So, you don’t reckon it’s worth a million pounds then?’ Lucie looked at me.

  ‘No, it’s only a little café on the front, we’ll probably just get someone to run it for us… or we could sell it?’ Just saying this made me feel a little guilty – Aunt Sophia and Uncle Reg had worked very hard to build that business and in its heyday it was the meeting place for everyone locally. Selling it to someone else would feel like a betrayal.

  ‘So why don’t we all go together to Devon? We can stay in Appledore,’ I said. ‘I could take next week off work, we’re really quiet at the moment, Sue won’t mind – I can go and see the solicitor about the will and then we could spend a few days there. What do you say… sounds like a plan?’ I was quite excited at this prospect, I might even have some ‘awesome’, family time of my own to put on Facebook. But then I looked at the kids, now both staring at me with identical faces – I wish I could say the look was joy, but it was bordering on repulsion. Mum was adding the sound effects at the side, tutting loudly and making negative sounds under her breath, clearly as unimpressed as the kids regarding a trip to Devon.

  ‘You could get to see Aunt Sophia’s ice cream café,’ I added desperately.

  I’d always wanted to return to the café but told myself as a single, working mum I didn’t have the time or money, which was true. But the main reason was that I knew that Mum wouldn’t have liked me going down there and fraternising with ‘the enemy’. I’d never been back since the last summer I stayed when I was twelve.

  ‘Remember those wonderful ice creams, Mum,’ I sighed, ‘a whole summer of strawberries in every cone.’

  Mum rolled her eyes; she didn’t see the place through the same strawberry-coloured lenses as me. She clearly wasn’t as keen to relive the past and put ghosts to rest either.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing Gina.’ I turned to Lucie and Josh, trying to get them on board. ‘My cousin Gina was a Hollywood starlet,’ I said proudly, to which my mother hissed like a snake.

  ‘Starlet? Hardly. She ran away from home, couldn’t cope, I’m surprised she stayed in America, she never stuck at anything that one.’

  The fact that Gina had fled the country to become a film star in LA had always been the stuff of dreams to me. She was like something out of a Jackie Collins novel to my teenage self and I copied everything she did or said on my return home – which really annoyed Mum. ‘Does Gina chew gum like that?’ she’d ask, or ‘Why is your skirt so short, God forbid you don’t want to end up like Gina?’

  After I stopped going to Appledore I wrote to Gina a few times once she’d moved to LA. She sent the odd postcard back, but it always felt a bit awkward when Mum got to the letterbox first and stood in the hallway with it clutched to her bosom and a betrayed look on her face. She never said anything, her lips were so tight she probably couldn’t – but she glowed disapproval and, quite honestly, it was almost a relief when Gina stopped writing to me. I missed the postcards from Hollywood – but I understood, Gina probably had a life filled with screen premieres and dress fittings with no time to write postcards to her boring teenage cousin. Though I continued to check the post box throughout my teens, just in case.

  We heard snippets about Gina over the years. We knew she’d married a millionaire and lived in a fabulous Bel Air mansion, which I hoped might endear her to Mum, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Mum didn’t want to talk about her and soon changed the subject if I brought her up. But I kept an eye on my glamorous cousin. I’d googled her name and found the odd picture, but after lots of searches I had to conclude that she liked her privacy, and who could blame her? She was living a life of Hollywood royalty in a Bel Air mansion. As a child I’d always thought Gina looked just like Marilyn Monroe – her pale skin and bleached blonde hair was quite different from the rest of the family with our dark hair and Mediterranean olive skin. The only thing that betrayed Gina’s heritage were dark, fiery eyes and, if family folklore (well Mum) was anything to go by, she’d had a fiery love life too.

  When I’d stayed at the café, she’d always been so kind, like a big sister, and as an only child I appreciated that. She would paint my nails and show me how to use a lip pencil and that last summer she’d bought me a bra, which had gone down like a lead balloon with my mother. It was pale pink, frothy lace and perfectly acceptable for a twelve-year-old girl, but seeing the delicate 30AA cups as the gateway to an orgiastic future, Mum confiscated it and I was soon back in my thick, white vest.

  I remember Gina taking me swimming at the beach once towards the end of my holiday, I was sad I wouldn’t see her for a while, as we were both leaving later that day – me back to grey Manchester and Gina back to her glamorous life in the US. It was a warm, sparkly day and Gina was wearing a scarlet bikini, looking every inch the movie star, her hair was full and blonde and everyone was looking at her. I remember feeling so proud that this captivating creature who lived thousands of miles away in a magical place was my cousin, a
nd my friend. We were having a wonderful time splashing each other in the sunshine when Mum suddenly appeared on the horizon. She was supposed to be collecting me later – these pick ups were always arranged with military precision to avoid the feuding sisters crossing each other’s path. But today Mum had arrived early and was storming across the beach, waving and shouting. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so I waved and smiled back – surely everyone was as happy as me that day? It was only as she came closer that I realised she was angry and I was embarrassed and unsure what to do as she hauled me from the sea, wrapping a huge towel around me.

  ‘Gina, she could have drowned,’ she was yelling. ‘Are you stupid? You know how dangerous it is when the tide’s in, you could both have been swept away.’

  Gina protested, but Mum always had the last word. As I looked on, shivering in the towel, I was unable to comprehend my feelings, but now I know I was burning with humiliation for Gina.

  I tried to talk to Mum about it on our return, but the very mention of my cousin made my mother’s chest puff out, so I gave up. I rarely spoke to my mother about my holidays in Appledore, and after that I didn’t say a word – I didn’t want to upset her or get Gina into trouble again. As an adult, I find my mother’s behaviour even more difficult to comprehend. I don’t recall the sea being particularly rough that day, and there were other children younger than me alone in the sea. So why did Mum embarrass us both and admonish Gina like that? As a mother now myself, I’ve often thought how lovely it would be for my kids to have a ‘Gina’ figure in their lives – she was always exciting, so much fun.