The Picture House by the Sea

by Holly Hepburn

  Gina called in to see Gorran first, to let him know she’d be sending some builders his way to quote for the refurbishment funding application, then walked through the town to her grandparents’ house.

  Elena greeted her warmly when she arrived at the Old Dairy. ‘Look at you, with such roses in your cheeks!’ she cried, standing back to observe Gina with evident satisfaction. ‘Our fresh Cornish air agrees with you.’

  Gina smiled. ‘I did have a lovely walk across the cliffs today.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ Elena said. ‘Maybe the land is casting a spell on you – next you will be telling us you don’t ever want to leave.’

  Gina thought about Max again; Sarah was right, he seemed further away with every day that passed. She’d put everything on hold to come and help Ferdie run his ice-cream business, including Max. When she’d first arrived in Polwhipple, she’d referred to London as her real life but now she wasn’t so sure; the city and its relentless stream of busyness seemed like a dream she’d once had, distant and hard to fathom. Life in Polwhipple felt more tangible; obviously, it was quieter and less pressured – although it still had its moments – and the things she’d disliked about the town when she’d been a teenager, such as the friendly interest she had interpreted as nosiness back then, she appreciated now. She supposed she’d just adjusted to living outside the capital – it was going to be a shock when she went back. Perhaps it was time to try and integrate her two lives sooner rather than later . . .

  ‘Mmm,’ she said as she took off her coat. ‘Maybe.’

  Elena led her into the kitchen. ‘Ferdie has gone to meet a friend for brunch, although if you ask me it is just an excuse to drink coffee where I can’t tell him off.’

  Gina thought of her stolen cappuccino and kept her face as straight as she could.

  ‘But it means we have the place to ourselves at least,’ Elena went on, firing a mischievous glance Gina’s way. ‘Shall we do some experimenting?’

  She meant with gelato flavours, Gina realised instantly; her grandmother had been trying to persuade Ferdie to update the range of flavours Ferrelli’s sold for years, without much success. But now that Gina was helping out in the dairy, Elena had seen an indirect route to achieving her goal and had recruited Gina to help her create some new recipes. They’d already perfected a tiramisu-flavoured gelato, which Gina was waiting for the perfect opportunity to test on Ferdie, and Elena was now keen to find another recipe to challenge them. Gina was enjoying their experiments – it was fun to spend time with Elena and to hear her stories about her family back in Italy – but she couldn’t help feeling a niggle of guilt about sneaking around behind Ferdie’s back.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked her grandmother.

  Elena waved a hand at the recipe books she had laid out on the kitchen table. ‘How about something typically English? Do you suppose we could create an Afternoon Cream Tea gelato?’

  Gina narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. ‘We could add some clotted cream to the custard base, although strictly speaking it’s too heavy for traditional gelato, and drizzle strawberry puree over the top. But that’s just strawberries and cream.’

  ‘How about crumbling plain scones through the mixture?’ Elena suggested. ‘That way, we’d have all the elements of a traditional cream tea.’

  ‘That could work,’ Gina said, picturing a tin of glistening red and white ice-cream dotted with tiny morsels of sweet scones. ‘In fact, it could be delicious.’

  Elena whisked two aprons from the back of the kitchen door and handed one to Gina. ‘Then what are we waiting for? Let’s begin!’

  Using a recipe from a Mary Berry book, Gina and Elena whipped up a batch of scones. The smell of baking filled the kitchen as Gina told her grandmother all about her plans for the Singin’ in the Rain event at the Palace.

  ‘Ah, I loved that film,’ Elena said, sighing. ‘Gene Kelly was so very handsome. I’m sure this event will be even more successful than the last one – who could resist all those magical dance routines?’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Gina said. ‘A big audience will help to persuade the town council that the Palace is worth investing in.’

  ‘And has my stubborn husband agreed to let you serve a special gelato at the event?’

  ‘He has,’ Gina said, smiling. ‘In fact, he wants to develop it himself.’

  Elena threw her hands up in the air in mock astonishment. ‘Praise be to God, it is a miracle! Call the Pope immediately – Ferdie Ferrelli has agreed to try a new recipe!’

  Gina laughed. ‘I suppose it is kind of a breakthrough. It sounded delicious, anyway – I can’t wait to try it.’

  Which reminded her, she needed to call in at the Scarlet Hotel and collect the Spanish oranges they’d kindly agreed to supply. And it wouldn’t hurt to increase her publicity efforts too; if the meeting with the town council went well, this could be the last event the Palace ran for a while. It seemed more important than ever to make it a success.

  ‘And how are you and Ben getting along?’ Elena asked. ‘It must be nice to be spending time together again after all these years. He was very upset when you stopped coming to visit, you know, back when you were younger.’

  ‘Was he?’ Gina said, blinking. She didn’t think Elena had ever told her that before.

  ‘Oh yes. He was quite heartbroken and pestered the life out of Nonno, asking when you’d be back and whether we had an address for you.’ Elena paused. ‘But of course we had to say no, because we had no idea where you had moved to.’

  Her tone was neutral but Gina sensed the undercurrents beneath the last sentence: this was less about Ben and more about her parents’ sudden decision to move to Los Angeles, not long after Gina’s sixteenth birthday. There’d been an almighty argument, mostly between Ferdie and Gina’s mother, and terrible things had been said on both sides. Sophia Callaway had been so angry and hurt that she’d immediately taken a job across the Atlantic, where she and Gina’s father had stayed ever since. Gina had left them there shortly after her twenty-fifth birthday, taking a job in a London-based events company, and although they’d visited her from time to time, she doubted her parents would ever come back to the land of their birth.

  But Elena’s revelation about Ben stunned Gina. Had he really been heartbroken when she’d vanished from his life, she wondered, or was Nonna exaggerating? They’d been close friends, it was true, but that was all they’d ever been. Apart from one night on the beach, just before she was due to leave Polwhipple, when she and Ben had been sat around a fire with a small gang of his surfer mates, watching the sun dip below the horizon. Gina and Ben were side by side and there’d been a moment when their eyes had met; their heads had been so close together that it seemed to Gina like the most natural thing in the world to close the distance and brush his lips with hers. But something had happened – a shout from one of the surfers or perhaps a friendly scuffle – she couldn’t remember what it had been but it had broken the spell. Neither of them had mentioned it and Gina was never sure that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Elena’s comment suggested that she hadn’t.

  ‘I wish Mum and Nonno weren’t so stubborn,’ Gina said aloud, pushing the thought of kissing teenage Ben out of her mind. ‘I know they were both hurt, but it’s been fifteen years.’

  And time might be running out, she thought but didn’t say. Nonna and Nonno were generally in excellent health for their age but they were both well into their seventies. There was a very real danger that they might succumb to a sudden illness and then it would be too late to resolve the feud that had ripped the family apart.

  Elena sighed. ‘The trouble is they are too alike – both strong-willed and headstrong. There were faults on both sides – your grandfather handled things badly but what he did was only born out of love and concern for you – he was worried that your mother’s obsession with her career was causing her to neglect you. She felt that he was interfering in her life, not for the first time. And now neither of them wa
nts to admit that they were wrong.’ The older woman’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘It breaks my heart sometimes.’

  Gina lowered the strawberry she’d been hulling and gave her grandmother a fierce hug. ‘We have to make them see sense,’ she said. ‘There must be a way.’

  After a few seconds, Elena pulled away and dabbed her eyes. ‘I’ve tried many times. But perhaps between the two of us, we can think of something.’ She smiled at Gina. ‘We are a good team, after all.’

  ‘We are,’ Gina replied, thinking of the last time she’d spoken to her mother on the phone. Sophia hadn’t directly asked about her parents but she had wanted to know how the business was going, whether Gina was coping okay as she learned the ropes at the dairy and how she was enjoying life back in Polwhipple. And Gina had answered carefully, dotting in little references to Nonna and Nonno that told her mother they were fine without her ever needing to ask. Maybe – just maybe – there was hope for reconciliation.

  The conversation turned back to the recipe. Gina left her grandmother to finish the strawberries and crossed the courtyard to the dairy, where she borrowed some of the vanilla-based custard Nonno had made the day before. He’d be sure to notice it had gone, so she’d have to whip up another batch before he returned, but it meant she and Elena wouldn’t need to wait for their own custard to cool before they combined it into their Afternoon Tea gelato.

  The scones – golden-brown and smelling divine – were out of the oven when she returned. Elena was wafting a baking tray back and forth over the top, trying to cool them, and she’d opened the window so that a spring breeze was drifting into the warm kitchen. Adding clotted cream to the chilled custard, Gina whisked it hard before putting the mixture to one side. She took one of Elena’s heavy copper-bottomed pans and began to create the strawberry drizzle.

  Once the scones were cool, Elena crumbled them into small chunks and filled a bowl. Gina sieved her strawberry puree and set it aside to cool.

  ‘Ready?’ Elena asked, lifting the lid of the ice-cream maker she’d bought so that she could test the tiramisu recipe she and Gina had worked on before. The machine was usually kept hidden in one of the kitchen cupboards, where Ferdie never looked; the kitchen was Elena’s domain, just as the dairy was his.

  ‘Ready,’ Gina replied.

  She folded the crumbled scones into the cold custard and tipped it into the ice-cream maker. Elena switched it on and the machine began to churn. ‘And now it is time for coffee and a freshly baked scone,’ she announced.

  Gina smiled; Elena was convinced her granddaughter was too thin and was on a mission to fatten her up, something Gina was combating by long walks along the cliffs and membership of a gym in Mawgan Porth. ‘Let me make a batch of custard to replace the one we used first. Nonno will know what we’ve been up to if I don’t.’

  Elena nodded in approval. ‘Of course. First rule of subterfuge: always cover your tracks.’

  Forty minutes later, the replacement for the missing custard was chilling and the kitchen was immaculate. Once the machine had finished churning, Gina had scooped some of the resulting ice-cream into two bowls and drizzled the strawberry sauce over the top. She held her breath as Elena took a mouthful.

  ‘Delizioso,’ she announced, digging her spoon into the bowl for another mouthful. ‘Perfect first time – we are getting better at this.’

  Gina took a spoonful of her own and savoured the sweet, crumbly texture of the ice-cream. It really was like eating a strawberry and cream scone. ‘Do you think Nonno will like it?’ she asked, once her bowl was empty.

  Elena’s gaze narrowed in thought. ‘He’ll need some convincing. Let’s see how he gets on with the recipe for your picture house event. Maybe we can find a way to make him think it was all his idea.’

  Gina couldn’t help laughing. When it came to handling Ferdie Ferrelli, no one was better than Nonna.

  Chapter Four

  Max called Gina as she was walking along the cliffs back to Mawgan Porth.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked once she’d said hello. ‘It sounds like it’s blowing a gale.’

  ‘I’m on the South West Coast Path,’ she told him. ‘It’s not actually very windy – maybe it sounds worse than it is. Shall I call you back?’

  ‘No,’ Max said immediately. ‘I’ve got back-to-back meetings and it feels like ages since we’ve spoken.’

  Gina mentally spooled back over the last few days. She’d last talked to Max just before the Easter weekend – six days ago. Back in London, that had been unheard of but there hadn’t been such a distance between them then. ‘It has been ages,’ she told him, thinking of Sarah’s comments the night before. ‘So, what have you been up to?’

  He started to describe the party he’d been to the night before. Gina knew most of the people he mentioned – they had a wide circle of mutual friends – but she had to interrupt more than once to ask about an unfamiliar name.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? Dexter split up with his wife – Izzy is his new girlfriend,’ Max said. ‘He asked after you, by the way.’

  He went on, filling her in with titbits of gossip along the way until her head started to spin with the names of the people he’d seen and the glamorous places he’d been to. It wasn’t that she missed the parties and dinners, exactly; more that she missed being at them with him. And at the back of her mind, Sarah’s suggestion that underneath it all Max was lonely . . . The last thing she wanted was for him to sit moping around at home but the sense that his life could reform itself without her was unsettling.

  ‘Come down,’ she burst out, cutting into his story about lunch at the Oxo Tower with a new business associate. ‘And not just for a weekend – come for a week.’

  Max laughed. ‘I’d love to but you know it’s impossible – my diary is booked solid for months. Why don’t you come up here? Surely your grandparents can spare you for a few days? You must be bored silly down there in the arse end of nowhere – come up to London and let me remind you what you’re missing.’

  She probably could, Gina thought; no one would begrudge her a weekend away. But the funding application needed to be completed by Friday and there was a lot to do for the Palace screening. She couldn’t get away for at least two weeks.

  ‘I’m not bored,’ she said, doing her best to keep her tone level. ‘It’s actually good to be out of the city. I don’t miss London especially – I miss you, Max.’

  He was silent for a moment and she pictured him half-dressed, standing beside the window of his riverside apartment, running a hand over his morning stubble. ‘I miss you too. Look, leave it with me; maybe I can shift a few things around. I’ll see what I can do, okay?’

  Gina felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘Okay. Thank you.’

  The call ended shortly after that, with Max promising to call her in a few days, once he’d had a chance to look at his diary. Gina put her phone away and walked slowly, trying to ignore the heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she’d agreed to come to Cornwall, she had been sure that her relationship with Max was solid enough to survive the three-month break. But now it felt as though the ground was shifting underneath them; she’d be happy to be reunited with Max, of course, but the thought of going back to her frenetic, whirling lifestyle filled Gina with a strange reluctance. The trouble was, there was nothing long-term to keep her in Polwhipple, apart from Nonna and Nonno; Ferdie wouldn’t need her once his leg was mended and providing they got the funding to go ahead, the refurbishment of the Palace would be finished by the summer. She’d made friends she’d be sorry to leave – Carrie and Ben – but she’d still be able to see them when she visited, which she suspected might happen more often now she’d tasted life in Polwhipple again. And she had friends in London – Sarah and Tori and plenty of others – although they all had young families now, plus there was her career as an events planner; her clients were waiting for her to come back. Gina shook her head – maybe it would do her good to go up to London for a weekend, as Max had suggest
ed, to remind herself of everything she loved about life in the capital. It wouldn’t do her any good to get too comfortable in Cornwall. Her future was in London. Her future was with Max.

  Up for walking today?

  The text message from Ben arrived at 7:23 a.m. Gina stared blearily at her phone and it took her a few seconds to remember that they were due to visit one of the properties he’d worked on restoring, although she had no idea which one.

  Blinking the last vestiges of sleep away, she tapped out a reply.

  Of course. What time did we say?

  Will be there at 10:30 – wear boots and bring a change of clothes.

  Frowning, Gina got out of bed and padded across to the window. The sun was bright as she twitched the blind aside, forcing her to shade her eyes. Where exactly was Ben taking her?

  He pulled up in his van exactly on time. Gina was waiting outside the entrance to the small block of holiday apartments she called home, and waved as he drove up.

  ‘Morning,’ Ben said, smiling as she climbed into the passenger seat. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Intrigued,’ Gina said, stowing her rucksack in the foot well and glancing around the immaculate interior of the van. For some reason she’d expected it to be cluttered and untidy. ‘I thought we were going to visit an old building – why do I need a change of clothes?’

  ‘Because I’m of the opinion that the best way to arrive at this particular property is on foot,’ Ben said. ‘And it’s a lovely walk but it might be a bit muddy after all the rain. The change of clothes is for disaster management.’

  The penny dropped. ‘In case I fall head first into the mud, you mean?’

  Ben glanced swiftly sideways, his blue eyes dancing. ‘Or in case you have to come and rescue me. Remember that time I got stuck in sinking sand over at Watergate Bay? You had to come and pull me out.’