by Sue Watson
So I quickly changed the subject and told Lucie all about the ice cream van, my new flavours and the fact it was slowly but surely becoming busier.
‘Mum, you should start using social media if you’re going to be an ice cream entrepreneur,’ Lucie offered.
‘I keep telling her,’ Mum said and I nodded in agreement.
‘That photo you sent me the other day on that lovely beach, Delilah in her little dress, you serving up swirly cones,’ Lucie said. ‘That’s all you need, Mum, just shots of the ice cream and the beach. Delilah’s so gorgeous, she’s pure click bait!’
‘Click bait? That isn’t doggie porn is it?’ I asked, only half-joking, it certainly sounded a bit dubious and I doubted Aarya would approve.
‘So get Nan to take the pictures and she can help set you up on Instagram and Twitter, Snapchat and all the rest,’ she said.
I liked the idea, though I wasn’t sure if Mum was the right operative given her online faux pas to date. But it could be fun and a lovely way to document my summer here. By September it would all have melted like the ice cream, so it would be nice to have a record that I could one day show my grandchildren – my ice cream summer.
‘Who’s the guy in the photo you sent to me?’ Lucie said, referring to Ben. We’d taken a selfie outside the van a few days before and I think subconsciously I wanted to see the kids’ reaction.
‘Oh that’s Ben… he’s just a friend,’ I said, still unsure how to classify Ben in my life, especially as Gina and my mother’s arrivals had meant I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days.
‘Oh, thought you might be hooking up with someone,’ she said.
‘Hooking up?’ I laughed, and wondered again if that’s all it was. But I didn’t dwell on it and Lucie looked sleepy so I suggested we let her go back to bed, and after a quick chat to a very sleepy Josh Mum retired for the night too.
With the apartment now quiet I delved into the old cocktail cabinet and brought out all the dusty spirit bottles and fancy liqueurs. Then I dug out my Dean Martin Italian love songs CD and whipped up a batch of cocktail ice creams with a taste of Italy. I’d found some Italian cocktail recipes in the old magazines I’d discovered in Sophia’s carrier bag and gave one or two of them a go – making notes and tweaking the recipes along the way. I made lots of ice cream and even experimented with a cocktail float; it was delicious and made me feel quite tipsy.
The bag was proving to be quite a Pandora’s box… filled with unexpected things, but I hadn’t yet realised the full impact of its contents. For the time being I was simply delighted with the old magazines with ads and photo features of glamorous women and cigarette-smoking men. It was pure nostalgia, reminiscent of a past I could barely remember, and a 1950s Italy in black and white I’d only heard about. I’d wanted to share my carrier bag discoveries with Mum – she’d always painted such a vivid picture of Sorrento – but I also wanted to keep the carrier bag and everything it contained to myself for just a little longer.
I added the fresh peach purée to the ice cream and poured in a glug of frothing Prosecco to create a ‘Bellini’ ice cream, then ran my finger along the bowl. It was delicious. Fresh summer peaches with cream and a little background fizz, the perfect combination for a summer evening alfresco.
Next was ‘Sweet Sorrento’, limoncello, vodka, sugar and lemon zest combined with the base of eggs and cream, swirling into a tart, yet sweet and creamy ambrosial pillow. I immediately thought of my diet club ladies who had made me promise to stay open after 7 p.m. for them. I would make a batch of ice cream cocktails and see if they liked them, and if they went down well I may stay open a little longer as the nights stayed lighter. I really had to make this work, it had been a rocky start but I had to give it the whole summer and only then would I know if it was worth trying to make a life here.
Later, when all the ice cream was packed away safely in the freezer, I brewed a mug of chamomile tea and took the Italian carrier bag out of the drawer again. I waded through some boring paperwork, official forms, bills paid etc., but what I really wanted to read were Sophia’s letters.
Although I hadn’t read them yet, the beribboned and elasticated bundles of letters had been left in the van I’d inherited as though fate had meant for me to find them. This sounded a bit fanciful, but I would be their caretaker – Sophia’s secrets were safe with me. I wouldn’t be showing anyone, least of all Mum who might discover something else about Sophia to use against her. I was probably being slightly hypocritical keeping the bag to myself when even I shouldn’t have been reading my aunt’s private letters – but I ask you, if you found a bag of unread letters from a family member who’d died would you be able to turn away?
The first was a letter dated 4 September 1973 and I settled down to read. I couldn’t imagine when Sophia had had the the time to write letters, Caprioni’s had always been packed, Sophie red-faced and stressed as she had managed the customers. But looking at the beautiful handwriting I knew that she must have found the time from somewhere, though clearly she’d never actually sent them as they were still in her possession when she died. Around the edges of the tattered paper were little doodles of flowers and butterflies drawn here and there among the words. It began, ‘To my darling,’ and I suddenly felt like a voyeur, an intruder on the past – was this a love letter between my aunt and uncle? I couldn’t help it, I read on. ‘I want you to know that I tried hard for us to be together, but ultimately it wasn’t to be. But I need you to know how much I love you…’
For a moment I thought Sophia had perhaps had an affair, but I immediately looked down to the signature at the bottom of the letter, it said, ‘all my love, mummy’, and I smiled. This was a letter from Sophia to Gina, who always called her mum ‘mummy’. As a child, I’d found it quite endearing and had once called my mum ‘mummy’, wanting to play around with the word on my lips the way Gina did – but Mum said I sounded ‘babyish’, so that was the end of that.
I’d always been fascinated by the fiery Italian women in my family, perhaps that’s because I was one too and I wanted to live like them. I also wanted to avoid their mistakes, get inside their relationship, try to figure out how it worked – and why ultimately it hadn’t, so I picked up the next letter.
‘Take care of yourself while we’re apart. Stay warm and safe and happy – and don’t let anyone hurt you,’ it said. ‘I will get my girl back, it may be a while before we see each other again, but one day.’ There was no date on this one, so it must have been when Gina had gone to America and Sophia was missing her.
Sophia’s ice cream was also made with love and she put so much of herself in it I wondered now if perhaps she’d been pining for a young Gina. She was a working mum like me and she had to be strong and hope her daughter could be strong too, but somewhere along the way it had all gone wrong for Sophia and her daughter. Gina had left her mum behind, never to return.
I wondered if Mum had an old carrier bag somewhere containing letters she’d never sent telling me how amazing I was. I doubted it, and yet I knew she adored me. She loved me so much she couldn’t let me go, even now she was scared I’d be kidnapped or something.
The contents of the carrier bag had reminded me of my own past and offered more questions than answers. So with everything swirling around my head I eventually put the bag away for another day; my heart was heavy, why did the past push so hard to be let in? I felt tormented by memories, and coming back here the pull was even stronger.
The following day I was quite busy. I’d been trying out some new flavours and the customers seemed to love them, from earl grey tea to white chocoIate and ginger, they were going down well. I had all the basic flavours but wanted to expand – I had to offer something different if I was going to succeed. My new cocktail range (for adults only was) being ‘sampled’ by my slimming club ladies and going down very well. I had even thought about getting the café a drinks licence and making cocktail ice cream floats. It was all just dreams until I knew what Gina’s plans were
for the café. So, until then, I was determined to keep developing ideas to make the van a huge success. My smoky whisky pecan was going down very well with some of the dog walkers. Peter, the older man with the chocolate Labrador, said it was just like drinking whisky under the stars.
‘You’re quite the poet, Peter,’ I said, delighted at his reaction to my new flavour.
‘I used to write the odd bit of poetry,’ he said, gazing off into the distance. ‘I used to write it for my sweetheart, many years ago.’
‘Oh how lovely,’ I said, feeling gooey inside.
‘She was… very lovely,’ he said, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what to say, I didn’t want to upset him, but was intrigued.
‘What happened… did you marry her?’ I said.
He shook his head, ‘No, I never married. And she’s not here any more,’ he sighed, ‘oh, I do miss her.’ He was obviously grieving for the love of his life who’d died, how tragic to lose someone like that.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said, which felt inadequate given the amount of pain he’d obviously suffered at the loss. I looked around at the walkers and the couples and the odd teenager kicking stones along the beach thinking how everyone had their own story. Looking at Peter I’d always imagined a settled, married man with grown-up kids and a dog – but it seems his story was different. Who knew the stories and secrets in this place, along this lovely coast of seagulls and foam and long, golden beaches.
I liked Peter, he was kind and gentle, but there was a sadness about him, and now I think I understood that. We’d bonded over the few weeks I’d been here; he’d always lived in Appledore and was happy to tell me the history, the good walks, the scenic drives. He also came from an Italian family – his parents were both from Sicily and, like my mother, he still sometimes used the odd Italian word.
‘Today I’ve got a special cone combination just for you, Peter,’ I said this morning, piling a ricotta strawberry scoop onto limoncello ice cream.
‘Ah, a nod to our Italian heritage,’ he said, tasting it. ‘That’s delicious, it’s absolutely sublime! I think you should call it “Ciao Bello”, which in Italian means, Hello Beautiful.’
‘I love it… Ciao Bello it is!’
We chatted some more and when he’d finished his cone he offered to take Delilah for a walk with him and Cocoa. Delilah had spotted Peter, heard her name and was now twirling around in the front of the van.
‘We love walking with Delilah, but last time her necklace got caught up in seaweed,’ he said, wiping his ice cream hands on a napkin. I took the hint and relieved her of her tutu and tiara before she embarked on her playful run.
‘Ciao Ella,’ he called as he marched up the beach, Delilah and Cocoa racing each other on the sands, happy to be alive in the early summer sunshine. And I took a moment to inhale the salty air, gaze out onto the sea and count my blessings.
A little later, when things were quieter, Gina turned up at the van, smiling in the sunshine and telling me how gorgeous I looked with my new blonde hair.
‘I’m sorry about the other night… about Mum, she has no filter,’ I said, trying to make light of everything.
‘It’s okay, I suppose some things never change,’ she said. ‘They’re written in the past like the sea – they are what they are and it doesn’t matter how far we run. Everything that happened in the past shapes our lives now, doesn’t it?’
I was surprised at this, Gina wasn’t usually so profound, so philosophical. Her face had lost its sunshine now and I wondered where this was going. Was she trying to tell me something?
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Oh your mother… my mother… it’s all too late for people to change.’
I felt like a veil had been lifted briefly then dropped again. Like a detective, I was storing the clues and trying to fit them together. But I was thirsty to know the truth so pushed on. ‘You mean the fallout? Do you know what happened?’ I’d always assumed it was just between the two sisters, but Mum’s reaction to Gina at the apartment had made me wonder.
‘I can’t talk about it… about anything. I chose to live with it, but please know I don’t blame your mum for hating me, Ella…’
‘Why?’ was all I could muster. So many thoughts were in my head it felt like a washing machine on fast spin, the colours and thoughts and ideas all tumbling around too fast to isolate, too entwined in each other to see.
‘I’m not ready to talk about it, please respect my feelings,’ she said, back to the cool, sophisticated actress. I’d lost the honest Gina again.
What had happened between the two fiery Italian sisters had been about more than just pettiness coupled with pride, I realised now. But what could possibly be serious enough to keep two sisters apart for more than twenty years – and what role did Gina play in all this?
19
Sue, Sequins and a Threatening Storm
Later, after a busy day filled with sunshine, ice cream and smiling faces, I caught up with Ben on the beach.
He was leaning into the hatch of the van. The sun was behind him, his eyes were lovely and soft, his arms strong as he rested them on the counter, and I felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him, but managed to control myself.
‘I’m sorry about last night – I just had to be with Mum, don’t want you to feel like I’d stood you up.’
‘No, you didn’t. I mean, we’re mates… no worries. I caught up with an old friend, we had a good night,’ he said.
I kept smiling, but felt a little uneasy at his announcement that we were ‘mates’ and recalled the ‘exclusive’ comment Mum had made a couple of nights before. I wasn’t looking for a husband, but I wasn’t a one-night stand or a hook-up either. For me to sleep with someone was huge, I didn’t do it lightly – this wasn’t a ‘friends with benefits’ situation. Was it? Perhaps for Ben it was?
I went from feeling all gooey and calm to prickly, defensive even.
The sun had gone in, dark clouds were forming over the estuary and it felt like my world was tipping slightly. I missed the kids, was worried about my mother and Gina and the business and now it seemed as if Ben might have put me in the friend zone without me even realising.
He moved away from the hatch as a couple of young women wandered over, and I had to deal with the task in hand, although my mind was still whirring with what he’d just said.
I glanced at him as I squished the thick, creamy ice into cones and my tummy shimmered. He was so handsome, so dependable and yet he was going away soon and I knew I mustn’t get hooked on him. I had to stay single in my head; I had to do this for me. Alone.
Now wasn’t the time to get myself caught up in worries about what my relationship was with Ben, I needed to focus on other things. In the next couple of weeks the schools would break up and I had high hopes for a busy summer. I had to have hope – with the house being sold, a slow start to business, and Gina and Mum at loggerheads I had enough things to cope with. Then there was the tantalising prospect of the café… would Gina make her mind up soon?
‘So… any news on the café?’ I asked.
Ben shook his head; ‘I don’t have access to that stuff, it’s Dad’s side. I don’t think he trusts me to deal with that.’
‘Surely that’s not the case,’ I said annoyed on Ben’s behalf, he might not be the most organised or typical of solicitors but surely his father would give him a chance?
‘I can see his point,’ he said, ‘bit of a vicious circle really – he says I don’t stick around long enough, so there’s no point in handing stuff over. But one of the reasons I get itchy feet is because I don’t get to work on more interesting stuff – there’s absolutely nothing to keep me here.’
I felt another little sting. Was ‘nothing to keep me here’ another way of Ben telling me we were just friends?
‘You around later?’ I asked.
‘Not sure,’ he said, ‘I’ll text you.’
I nodded and he touched my hand, then walke
d away with a backward wave. And in that moment I realised that Ben was a visitor wherever he went, he was almost forty and so far he’d never settled anywhere. I wondered if he ever would, or if he’d always be on the verge of leaving?
My feelings about Ben had deepened, yet I knew I wasn’t his final stop on life’s journey. I loved being with him, but I had to make my own world, not just rely on being part of his. I didn’t want to go through the devastation I had with Dick. This time I would be a strong, independent woman, not the whining, clinging mess I’d been when Dick had left.
The sun finally disappeared that afternoon, taking the remaining scraps of blue sky and replacing the whole canvas with grubby white clouds. The sea and sky were now etched in charcoal and a cool rain-threatening breeze flurried the air.
Peter was walking back past the van with Cocoa, they were on their late afternoon stroll – I could set my clock by him. ‘A storm’s coming,’ he said and looking up at the heavy, swollen sky my heart sank.
I’d been lucky so far, but the weather wouldn’t always be beautiful in my new life, there would be rain. This wasn’t an ice cream day and standing in the little van on that wide expanse of sepia beach I suddenly felt very lonely.
The breeze soon became a stronger, swishing wind and I suddenly felt like I was in a boat cast adrift from life. The wind rippled the ocean into threatening waves and the infinite sky above made me feel very small. I drove inland, aware that even armed with tide times, the sea could sometimes take you by surprise.
Gazing out onto a beautiful, but rather bleak seascape, I decided to cheer myself up and give Sue a call. We’d kept in touch by text since I’d left ‘Fashion Passion’, and I knew she’d closed up and spent a couple of weeks at her place in Tenerife where she’d met a new man. She’d informed me by text the day before that she’d come to the ‘illusion’ that he wasn’t the one for her. She was now back in Manchester, probably a bit down and needed to talk too, so I was looking forward to a catch-up.