by Sue Watson
‘Oh Ella it’s just wonderful to hear from you, love. I’ve had a hell of a time – Pablo turned out to be a wolf in cheap clothing so it’s back to the dating scene for me.’
‘Oh love, I’m so sorry to hear that,’ I sighed, smiling to myself at the ‘cheap clothing’.
‘I was thinking of coming to stay with you for a few weeks,’ she said. ‘I can’t come straight away so don’t get too exhilarated.’
I wasn’t.
‘I’d pay my way – I could help serve when you’re busy, I’d love to spend a few weeks in Devon, such a beautiful place – I miss you, El.’
‘I miss you too,’ I said, but all I could think was Oh God she said, ‘stay with you’ and, ‘a few weeks’. She also offered to ‘help serve when you’re busy’, and as much as I loved her, Sue was the last person you needed when you were busy. If ‘Fashion Passion’ was anything to go by, she’d turn Reginaldo into a party van. She’d be offering my slimming club girls free ice cream and regaling them with her latest love exploits. I already had a ‘mother/cousin/management’ situation, and a lovely but worrying love affair, I didn’t want to add Sue and her madness to the mix.
But instead of trying to gently put her off I heard myself say, ‘That would be lovely, Sue,’ while my insides screamed a very loud, guttural NO!!! What else could I do? Sue had been there for me through the dark days and she was a true friend, I couldn’t turn her away. On the other hand, the whole reason for me being here was the fact that I wanted to be on my own, and take a break from my real life. But however fast I ran, it seemed my real life was catching up with me – one person at a time.
Sue ‘promised’ to come and stay for a few weeks and spent the next couple of hours texting photos of various outfits she might wear. In between customers, I tactfully pointed out her ‘beautiful’ sequins and gold lamé trim may be wasted on the folk of Appledore. I wasn’t sure if there was enough room in the van for all those sequins and frills, Delilah’s outlandish outfits already filled that space.
‘Jeans, Tshirts and jumpers are de rigueur here,’ I replied, but still they came, endless photos of sparkly boleros, satin gowns and patent, decorated heels. I loved Sue, but my heart sank at the prospect of this circus turning up on top of everything else in my once quiet corner of the world.
‘I think she’s great,’ Ben laughed when I showed him the pictures later. ‘She’ll bring some life down to the pub, the old fishermen and the boatyard workers will wonder what’s hit them.’
‘I think I’ll wonder what’s hit me too,’ I sighed. ‘Since I last saw her she’s discovered karaoke – she has her own YouTube channel and her Titanic theme tune has to be heard… to be heard!’
‘Celine Dion?’
‘Not quite, though she makes a fist at it, arms spread out, a wind machine in her hair. Celine may sue.’ We were sitting on the balcony of my apartment after another long day at the van. Mum had offered to spend the evening working on menus with the chef at the hotel she’d stayed at, I was sure he’d be thrilled. But for me it was a wonderful opportunity to see Ben, so I’d invited him over.
‘Funny how we all communicate these days, isn’t it?’ I smiled, still scrolling through Sue’s photo ‘collection’.
‘Yeah, makes you think… wouldn’t it have been amazing if we’d had this kind of technology in the past?’
‘Yes, imagine if we’d been able to film the café in its heyday…’
‘You remember it in the YouTube channel in your head?’ he said, looking into my eyes.
I sighed; ‘Yeah, the pink and green interior, gorgeous ice cream, shakes, fizzy drinks with floats melting on top… Sophia whisking up wonderful flavours.’
‘Good that you can remember it like it was, rather than it is now. The broken-down counter, smashed coffee machine, everything covered in dust.’
I nodded. ‘I’ve told my kids about it, but they’ll never know how magical it once was and if they saw it now they wouldn’t believe me. Mind you, it isn’t just the café, the Caprioni family are broken too.’
‘Ella… I hope you don’t mind me saying this… and tell me to shut up if you like, but you must try and let go of the past,’ he said. ‘I understand how you feel, you cared about Sophia and somehow you feel guilty because the family isn’t together – but it isn’t your fault. When my mother died the one consolation was that I had the chance to tell her how I felt and she with me. I was very young, and it kept me going over the years, that I had told her I loved her and was proud to be her son. But somewhere in my twenties, there came a point when I was crippled by grief and, though it hurt, I had to let her go. You have to do this now, you have to stop living through others and for others and feeling guilty about the past – because the past is holding you back.’
I sighed. ‘I know, but I feel like I’m not complete, I can’t explain it.’
I knew I had to forgive my mum for the past, for all the times she’d stopped me from living my life and doing as I pleased – as a mum myself I knew she did this out of love, but it was still hard to reconcile. Mum wasn’t easy, she could be controlling, jealous and angry, and this had reached a climax now with Gina. The problem was that Gina represented the past for both of us – but it seemed we saw it differently, we saw Gina differently.
For me she was the amazing fun-loving beautiful cousin I looked up to, but for Mum she was a fickle girl with no morals who seemed to let people down. It said a lot for Mum that she’d allowed me to go and spend a fortnight every summer with Gina. She knew I loved spending time in Appledore and I’d often wondered why Mum agreed to it, given the animosity between the sisters. I suppose it was the Italian thing about ‘family’ that made her do it, but sending me off must have been torture for her.
Then the summer I was twelve the visits suddenly stopped. I remember Gina calling our house and Mum arguing with her – ‘Gina I’m sorry, I just can’t keep doing this,’ she’d said. ‘I know how you feel, I’ve been hearing for years how you and Sophia feel, but it’s time everyone considered my feelings in this.’ I didn’t understand what they were talking about, it sounded too grown-up for me to even begin to comprehend, it was about adult feelings, something beyond my comprehension. But later, I noticed that Mum had been crying, and I decided then that even if I was invited the following year I wouldn’t ever go to Appledore again, because it hurt Mum too much. And now it seemed history was repeating itself, and I had no idea what to do.
20
Ice Cream I Do!
My ice cream summer continued slowly, undulating through warm air, a baby blue sky melting into strawberry ice cream and golden syrup each evening. Each day seemed to be a little busier, parents arrived with their children after school, couples wandered past and bought a large cone to share. The brioches were doing well, the kids had christened them ice cream burgers, and I was working on slices of ice cream cake too. I would watch the customers wander off down the beach together, a cherry frangipani piled on top of a pale green pistachio, cold and sweet and creamy with a nutty crunch. I was aware my small successes weren’t going to make me a millionaire, in fact I was only covering costs and my own expenses, but I had goals, I was doing something, and it felt good. I also added bunting, some stripey deckchairs and a pale pink and white striped awning and imagined this was my café.
‘You’re beginning to fit,’ Ben said one day as he joined me for lunch in the van.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your life – you didn’t fit into it at first. It felt like you were lost between oceans, you’d grown out of your old life but you had to settle in this one… and now you just fit.’
I hadn’t really thought about it, but as each day became busier, the making and selling of ice cream and caring for Delilah had begun to fill the gaps my kids had left. Not that Josh and Lucie could be replaced by a tub of Ciao Bello and a tutu-wearing pooch, but I now knew I could survive without them. I also had Mum and Gina around which wasn’t always easy, but I managed to make it work
– even if only by keeping them apart, and as Gina was such a free spirit she wasn’t around much anyway. Mum had decided to stay in Appledore with me while the house sale went through and she came out most mornings and walked Delilah on the sands for me. She also took pictures of everything and anything on her phone and for once I was glad of her mobile obsession, it kept her busy and meant I could get on with working. Sometimes she’d just wander up and down the queue chatting to the customers and often she’d take their photos with ice creams. All the children wanted their photos taken with Delilah, and with their parents’ permission she put these on her blog. To my relief Mum took over Delilah’s ‘wardrobe management’ because I apparently was choosing doggie outfits that weren’t ‘photogenic’. ‘She needs ice cream colours,’ Mum said, ‘to match Reginaldo.’
Mum had become very positive about the whole project and she was always posting pictures of Reginaldo on her blog, ‘Roberta and Reginaldo’. She had originally named it ‘Netflix and Chill with Roberta’, but we googled it and discovered this was basically a euphemism for having sex. This certainly explained some of the online requests Mum was receiving for various exotic sex acts. ‘I mean could anyone physically do that,’ she said, screwing up her face and pointing at a request she’d received from ‘GobbleBox’ via the website.
Each evening she’d sit on the balcony sewing various different doggie items, from tutus to hot-pants for the following day’s activities. After each day’s ‘session’, Mum would email or tweet the photos she’d taken and was gaining lots of followers. But most importantly, she was happy, and from behind a mountain of ice cream and a pleasingly growing queue I enjoyed watching her chat away and charm the customers, and hoped finally we were beginning to get past Mum’s aversion to Appledore.
One day a young guy turned up at the van and asked me to place an engagement ring inside a Summertime Cooler Sundae (orange, melon and lemon sorbet). He’d read Mum’s blog and followed her on Instagram and as his girlfriend loved ice cream so he thought it would be the perfect place to propose. So he got down on one knee by the van, declared his love to his girlfriend, and when she cried and said yes, Mum and I cried too! As luck would have it, a local newspaper journalist happened to be waiting for ice cream, took a picture and did a quick interview. The following week, we were splashed all over the local paper with the headline, ‘Ice Cream I Do!’
It must have been a quiet news week because the story travelled beyond Devon and a Japanese TV company turned up asking for a proposal re-enactment. Unfortunately, and predictably, there was a language problem, but Mum said she understood exactly what was needed and would ‘help’ Akahito the TV director. He just thought she was being friendly so kept nodding in agreement and before we knew it Mum was in charge. Ben and I watched from inside the van as she swept across the sand like bloody Steven Spielberg telling them to ‘feel it’ and ‘go one more time’, while Akahito stood politely by.
Mum was so pleased with her shoot that she announced to all bystanders that she was going to give everyone ‘a little treat’. I immediately worried she was going to start handing out free ice cream cones and ruin me in one afternoon. But no, Mum had something else in mind; ‘I’m going to sing my Rihanna song,’ she said. I wanted to die. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse Akahito decides he’s going to film the whole debacle. I was horrified to think Japan would be sitting down that night to the spectacle of a seventy-eight-year-old Englishwoman singing tunelessly and twerking along to Rihanna.
‘What’s her Rihanna song?’ Ben asked under his breath.
‘God knows. Does it matter? My mother’s not a twenty-four-year-old woman with a voice and body to die for, so it’s going to be mortifying whatever it is.’ I wasn’t familiar with Mum’s Rihanna repertoire but vowed I would never forgive her if she sang ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’. What sort of message would that send to the holidaymakers of Appledore?
But then I heard this voice, it didn’t sound like my mother, and everyone around seemed surprised too at the sound coming from this little old lady, powerful and strong with such a beautiful tone. She was singing Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’ ballad, and I was amazed how beautiful she made it sound. I recalled her telling me about her thwarted career in the opera and how she once was invited to audition for La Scala but had married my dad instead. I’d assumed she’d been teasing, but as I heard her voice ring out, I guessed that this was probably true. I’d never heard Mum sing like this before, and it made me wonder at the hidden depths there were to this woman I thought I knew.
Mum and I were both living a new life happy, spending each day together under a blue sky, drinking hot tea from a shared teapot. I knew it was what I wanted, but now she seemed to want it too – the sun on her face, the sea lapping at her toes – and as she raised her voice to the heavens my heart swelled with happiness and pride.
When Mum finished singing everyone around cheered and clapped and she took huge bows with great flourish, her face flushed with pleasure, her smile lighting up her face. Later as the evening drew in and we began to fold up the deckchairs and close the van for the day I told her how proud I was and she glowed again.
‘Mum, you could have been a singer… opera, ballads, I don’t know, but you could have sung to huge audiences, travelled the world… been rich?’
‘I am rich, I have you and two perfect grandchildren and my only regret is that your dad can’t be here now, with us.’ She carried on wiping down the little tables and folding them, then she looked up at me; ‘Ella, I would have swapped you for all the opera houses in all the world. You know that don’t you?’
I nodded and carried on wiping down the inside of the van, my eyes brimming with tears.
I loved those summer days on the van, they stretched out before me and behind me in a golden light. Seagulls flocked, the tide came and went and the sun kept on, through fluttery breezes and sparkly little showers leaving rainbows in their wake – but I knew it had to end.
‘I really want to stay here,’ I said to Ben one evening as we sat on the beach watching the sun go down. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I have this affinity with the café… and this ridiculous idea keeps coming back that I’ll be able to get enough business from the van to create new customers and reopen the café. I reckon Gina might sell it to me – or perhaps let me rent it from her.’
‘Have you spoken to her about this?’ he said, he was doodling in the sand. He’d seemed a little quiet and I wondered why.
‘Yes, she knows it’s what I’d like. She said she’ll talk to me before she makes any decisions, but I haven’t seen her for days. Someone said she was in Westward Ho!… she’s always been like that, never stays around. A bit like you,’ I smiled.
He looked at me and paused; ‘Ella, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say anything, but you asked me about the café the other day, and what was happening, so I had a root around and…’
‘What?’ I thought my heart had stopped.
‘I’m sorry – but Gina’s about to sign the papers to hand the café over – looks like she’s sold it.’
I felt the breath taken from me like I’d been punched in the chest. I was devastated, how could she do this without even telling me.
‘But she promised… she said she wouldn’t do anything without speaking to me first,’ I said, my voice catching with emotion. Is that why she’d gone awol because she didn’t want to tell me what she’d done, she knew it would devastate me and possibly ruin any chance I had for a future here. ‘I thought that she genuinely hadn’t made up her mind and… all the time she’s been planning to sell but hasn’t had the balls to tell me.’
I was angry, but then my chin wobbled and I had to stop myself from crying. I could tell from Ben’s expression that he knew what this meant to me and he’d hated giving me this news.
‘When?’ I asked, my voice breaking.
‘I’m so sorry, Ella… I don’t know the timeline, but I know it’s imminent.’
I gathered myself toge
ther and thought through my options, I was hurt and angry with Gina, but that wasn’t going to help.
‘I should try and talk to her before she signs…’ I said. ‘If she knows how much I want to keep the café in the family, she might let me rent the property. I could give her some of the money from the house sale if that helps, it won’t be much but…’
He was shaking his head; ‘Ella, it’s too late.’
‘No… no,’ I said, my voice breaking into a sob.
I knew I was being stupid and naïve and that it was an impossible situation that I couldn’t change. I felt like I did when Dick had left, with no control of my own life and once again someone else pulling the strings and wrecking everything. But I’d never have expected it of Gina.
‘Mum was right,’ I said, a spark of anger mingling with the well of hurt. ‘Gina’s all about compliments and kisses, but she doesn’t really care. She’s always telling me how much I mean to her, but she knows how important this is to me… and she didn’t even have the guts to tell me.’
‘Yeah, she should have told you. But look at it from her perspective, she probably needs the money.’
‘No she doesn’t, she’s rich, she has a big house in bloody Bel Air,’ I said, my face wet with tears, my voice rough with hurt and anger. ‘Without the prospect of the café – even a portion of it – there’s little point in me working the van. I’m slowly building customers but it can only make so much money even if I’m really busy.’ I realised then that for me this had always been about the café, and now I felt I had nothing to aim for.
‘It was always going to come to an end in September, wasn’t it?’
‘Maybe, but the goalposts have changed, I don’t have a home up North any more and… I love it here. I wanted to make it my home. I wanted a business that could at least pay me enough to live on and support me and Mum. I wanted to make a go of this, Ben, it was important to me.’