Letting out a long sigh, Gina turned from the sea to trudge back towards the cliff steps that led to her apartment building. It wasn’t life or death – in practical terms, Rose might have her feelings hurt when Ben ended things, but she’d get over it. The sooner he was free from her clutches, the happier Gina would be.
‘You’re quiet,’ Gina’s grandmother observed over Sunday lunch, passing her the gravy with a concerned look. ‘Everything all right?’
The question caused Ferdie Ferrelli to study her too, prompting Gina to summon up a reassuring smile. ‘Of course,’ she said, glancing back and forth between them. ‘A little tired, but that’s no surprise.’
Her nonna sniffed. ‘Between the cinema and the dairy, you are working too hard. Look at how thin you are.’
Gina hid a smile. Nonna never missed an opportunity to offer her food.
‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ Gina said. ‘Never better.’
Elena seemed unconvinced. ‘What you need is a break,’ she went on, as though she hadn’t heard, adding another roast potato to Gina’s plate. ‘Why don’t you go to London for a weekend and see Max? Let your hair down for a change, instead of working all the time.’
Gina concentrated on chewing her mouthful of beef, trying not to eye Elena with suspicion. Nonna had never been Max’s champion before – why was she trying to push them together now? Although given that it had been weeks since Gina had seen her boyfriend, she supposed Elena could hardly be accused of that. And the truth was that Gina did miss Max. They were both so busy that even catching each other on the phone was difficult; if Gina went to London then Max would automatically make time for her.
‘Maybe I will,’ she said. ‘Once the refurbishment work is more under control. But I’ve got a new project to work on now.’
She explained about the screening on the beach, taking care to leave out the reason behind it: Gorran’s financial situation was his own business.
‘It sounds wonderful,’ Elena said, her eyes gleaming. ‘And of course you will need to invent a new ice-cream flavour for the event.’
Ferdie’s salt and pepper eyebrows beetled together. ‘Another one? Gelato recipes are not like your London buses, you know – they don’t come along every ten minutes.’
Elena ignored her husband. ‘I can just imagine sitting beneath the stars, watching a wonderful movie with the sea lapping gently at the shore. Will there be dancing?’
‘I hope so. Ben and I are going to check out some classes to see if we can find someone to run a group lesson on the beach.’
‘How romantic,’ Elena said, and Gina wasn’t sure whether she meant the beach lesson or the classes with Ben. Then her grandmother winked. ‘There’s nothing like dancing with a handsome man to put a spring in your step.’
Ah. Gina turned hurriedly to Ferdie, anxious to change the subject. ‘So what do you think, Nonno? Is there any chance you might whisk up a Dirty Dancing Ferrelli’s exclusive?’
He grunted. ‘I’m not sure I have ever seen the film. It doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.’
‘I thought you might say that,’ Gina said, reaching down to the handbag next to her feet. She pulled out a DVD. ‘So I brought a copy with me – we can watch it after lunch and you can make your mind up then.’
Ferdie gave her a look that suggested he’d rather poke needles in his eyes but he didn’t argue. After they’d cleared the table, they settled into the soft leather sofas in the living room and started to watch the film. Elena’s toes tapped throughout every song and Gina thought she spotted her grandfather swaying along to the music once or twice, although she was sure he would deny it if she asked.
‘All this wonderful music brings back memories,’ Elena said, glancing fondly across at Ferdie. ‘Do you remember the dances we used to go to?’
‘I remember how terrifying it was to ask a girl to dance,’ he grumbled. ‘You never knew if they would laugh in your face.’
Elena arched a dark eyebrow. ‘So it’s a very good thing I took the initiative and asked you. Otherwise I might still be waiting for you to pluck up the nerve.’
Ferdie shook his head. ‘Never. You would have been worth the risk.’
They shared a smile then and Gina felt a rush of love for her grandparents; they really were soulmates. If she and Max were half as happy in forty years’ time they’d be doing well.
As the end credits rolled, she glanced over at Ferdie. ‘So? What do you think?’
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘It’s no Casablanca, of course.’
Elena let out an impatient sigh. ‘Nothing is as good as Casablanca, according to you.’
‘But did you have any thoughts about an ice-cream flavour?’ Gina pressed her grandfather, crossing her fingers that the film had inspired him.
Ferdie was silent for a moment. ‘Watermelon is the obvious choice,’ he said eventually. ‘But it’s too liquid for gelato and the flavour is too subtle – it would be lost amongst the sugar. A sorbet would work better but you know how I feel about those.’
Gina did. She’d made the mistake of suggesting an orange-flavoured sorbet for the Singin’ in the Rain event she’d organised a few weeks earlier and Ferdie had made it clear that Ferrelli’s was above such things. ‘What about a dance-themed gelato? A Passionfruit Pachanga, maybe?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Not bad, except that good-quality passionfruit would need to be imported.’
‘I’m sure the Scarlet would help us out again,’ Gina said, thinking of the way the hotel had sourced the Seville oranges Ferdie had needed for his Good Morning gelato for the last event.
‘Cherries would work well and they should just be coming into season,’ Elena suggested. ‘How about a Cherry Cha-Cha?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ferdie said diffidently. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Elena and Gina exchanged a covert look; they both knew that the best way to get Ferdie to do anything was to allow him the time to feel as though the whole thing had been his idea in the first place. By tomorrow, he’d have come round completely and would amaze them both.
‘Enjoy your dance classes,’ Elena said as Gina kissed her goodbye on the doorstep. ‘If I was thirty years younger, I’d be joining you.’
Gina glanced over her grandmother’s shoulder to where she could just see the edge of Ferdie’s plaster-encased leg propped up in the living room. ‘You’d have to find a new partner.’
Elena’s eyes twinkled. ‘If I was thirty years younger, I’d make a beeline for Ben Pascoe – young, muscular and good with his hands. What more could you ask for?’
‘I think Rose Arundell might have something to say about that,’ Gina said, laughing.
‘I think you might have something to say about it too,’ Elena said with a knowing look as she slid the door closed. ‘Ciao, bella. See you in the morning.’
Gina spent most of Monday morning working through the council’s Temporary Event Notice paperwork with Gorran, and drafting a request for permission to screen Dirty Dancing on the beach. They’d settled on the second Saturday in June as the best date; as long as the council didn’t drag their feet, they’d have just enough time to build up some interest and make the event a smash-hit.
‘Jory says we can use the toilets here, so that makes life easier,’ Gina said, tapping her pen against the edge of the table in the beer garden of the Mermaid’s Tail. ‘In return, I’ve said he can look after the beer and cider drinkers and the Scarlet would love to run a pop-up cocktail bar on the night.’
‘I suppose we’re going to need some kind of perimeter,’ Gorran said. ‘Be hard to check tickets otherwise.’
Gina nodded. ‘It’s all going to be a bit harder to manage outdoors.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We could wait a few more weeks and do it after the grand re-opening.’
Gorran looked as though he wanted the ground to swallow him up. ‘Except that I need to pay my employees. I can’t afford to wait.’
She felt a wave of sympathy for him; i
t couldn’t be easy to admit he was struggling. ‘Then we’ll make it work,’ Gina said briskly. ‘Ticket sales can go live as soon as we get the go ahead from the council. You’ll drop the forms off this afternoon?’
He gathered up the paperwork. ‘I’ll head over there now.’
‘Good,’ Gina said, checking the time. ‘And I need to go and see a man about some cherries.’
The crate of glistening crimson fruit that Gina collected from the farm looked so tempting that she couldn’t resist testing a few on her way back to her grandparents’ house. Ferdie gave her a knowing look when she lowered the crate onto the stainless steel work top in the dairy and he saw her red-stained fingertips.
‘Tasty, are they?’ he asked, plucking one and rinsing it briefly underneath the tap.
‘Very,’ Gina admitted. ‘They’ll make an amazing gelato.’
Ferdie popped the fruit into his mouth and chewed for a moment. ‘Eccellente. So, mia bella, how do you think we should do this?’
Gina blinked in surprise. She wasn’t used to Ferdie asking for her opinion where ice-cream was concerned; he was more usually barking instructions and frowning when she failed to follow them to the letter. ‘Uh, stew them with some sugar? Then remove the stones and add them to a traditional vanilla gelato base.’
Her grandfather tilted his head. ‘We could do it that way – it would create a perfectly acceptable flavour.’ He paused and fixed her with a stern stare. ‘But we do not settle for acceptable where Ferrelli’s gelato is concerned. We want intensity – an explosion of flavour in the mouth to give a tiny moment of ecstasy.’
She thought hard. When Nonna was making a tomato base for her own hand-made pizza, she roasted the tomatoes to give them more flavour. Could that be the answer here?
‘Exactly!’ Ferdie cried, when she suggested it. He held up a bottle of clear liquid with a bright red cherry on the front. ‘And we’ll add a splash of kirsch for richness – the alcohol will evaporate in the oven, leaving us with a flavour that is pure heaven.’
So he wasn’t averse to using alcohol in his recipes, Gina observed, thinking of Manda’s gin and tonic flavour idea. Making a mental note to try an experiment or two when she had time, Gina concentrated on washing and destalking the fruit, while Ferdie hobbled over to the oven set in one of the walls and switched it on to warm up. His mobility was much better than it had been when she’d first arrived in Polwhipple, although he continued to need crutches and still burned with a sullen fury at the restrictions his injury placed on him. Thankfully, however, his attitude to Gina’s presence had softened and he even seemed to appreciate the way she’d quietly reorganised the stock-management and ordering systems. It was a far cry from the mulish resentment he’d displayed when she’d appeared out of the blue, at Nonna’s request, to save him from his own stubborn refusal to admit he needed help.
The cherries were roasted for around fifteen minutes, during which time Gina whipped up a batch of the vanilla custard they used as a base for most of the gelato Ferrelli’s sold, to replace the already chilled mix they were about to use. Once the cherries had cooled, Gina removed the stones and chopped the fruit.
‘Keep the juice,’ Ferdie instructed, from his perch at the end of the work top. ‘We’ll add that into the gelato mix for flavour.’
At last, the cherries were cool enough to go into the ice-cream machine. The dairy had two industrial-sized machines – one to pasteurise the mix and the other to turn it into ice-cream, but for sample batches, they used a much smaller machine. Gina left it churning while she cleaned up and put together a fresh batch of salted caramel gelato to go out to one of their restaurant clients.
By the time she’d finished, the cherry mix was ready. Tentatively, she scooped it out into two bowls and held one out to Ferdie. Then she dipped her spoon into the pale pink ice-cream and put it into her mouth.
The sweet taste of the ice-cream mingled with the tartness of the cherries to produce a mouth-watering flavour that was so good Gina almost groaned. She let the frozen goodness melt across her taste-buds and reluctantly swallowed. Beside her, she saw Ferdie dig his spoon in for another mouthful.
‘I can’t believe how good this is,’ she said, after a few more spoonfuls. ‘I think it might be our best yet.’
Ferdie pursed his lips, frowning thoughtfully. ‘A touch less kirsch and perhaps a hint of salt next time,’ he said, once his mouth was empty. ‘But I agree that it is good. You see how roasting the fruit brings out the intensity?’
Gina nodded. ‘Absolutely. So what do you think? Does it get the Ferrelli seal of approval? Have we found our Cha-Cha Cherry recipe?’
Ferdie took another mouthful of gelato and nodded. ‘I think you’d better get on to the fruit farm. We’re going to need a lot more cherries.’
Chapter Three
Rose was late.
Gina fiddled with the napkin under her glass of wine, resisting the urge to turn around and peer at the door again. They’d arranged to meet on neutral ground, at a wine bar in Newquay, and the longer Gina waited, the more she became certain she was making a horrible mistake. It was Wednesday evening, three days since Ben had dropped the bombshell that Rose wanted in on the Dirty Dancing screening, and Gorran had heard nothing back from the council. That in itself wasn’t unusual – local government often worked at speeds that made glaciers look fast. Then Ben had told Gina that Rose wanted to meet her and the penny had dropped; the council’s permission depended upon how the meeting went. Maybe this was Rose’s way of showing Gina who was in charge, she thought. Maybe she was going to stand her up.
Pulling out her phone, Gina tapped out a message to Ben: Are you sure it was 7.30 p.m.?
That’s what she said. But punctuality isn’t one of Rose’s strong points.
‘Now he tells me,’ Gina muttered under her breath, checking the time again. She’d give it ten more minutes and then she’d leave.
Eight minutes later, Gina felt a gust of wind wash over her as the door of the wine bar opened. She glanced over her shoulder and was simultaneously pleased and disappointed to see Rose in the doorway, looking as effortlessly elegant as ever. Plastering what she hoped was a conciliatory expression on her face, Gina waited for the blonde-haired woman to remove her jacket and deign to notice her.
Gina’s jaw was starting to clench by the time Rose glanced around and spotted her. She gave a cool smile and threaded her way towards the bar.
‘Gina,’ Rose said, air-kissing both of Gina’s cheeks in a way that reminded her of The Godfather. ‘How nice to see you. I’m so glad you didn’t go to the trouble of dressing up.’
Clamping her lips together, Gina counted to five; it had taken her almost an hour to decide what to wear. ‘It’s nice to see you too,’ she managed after a long few seconds, praying the words didn’t sound as false out loud as they did in her head. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Rose ordered a gin and tonic. There was no sign of an apology for keeping Gina waiting – no sign that Rose even realised one might be necessary. Saying sorry was something that other people did, Gina thought. Swallowing a sigh, she eyed the half-drunk wine glass in front of her. Would it be enough to get her through the meeting? she wondered. Was there enough wine in the whole of Newquay for that?
‘So,’ she said, once Rose had her drink and was seated on one of the nearby bar stools. ‘What can I do for you?’
Rose smiled, with no trace of humour. ‘It’s really quite straightforward. As I imagine Ben told you, my family has been an important part of the local community for centuries. That’s why my mother and my uncle do so much for the town council – we like to feel as though we’re giving something back.’
Gina took a deep swig of wine; Rose’s Lady Bountiful tone was grating on her nerves already.
‘And of course, the Palace is one of Ben’s pet projects, which makes me even keener to help out,’ Rose went on, her peach-coloured lips curving into a faint smile. ‘I’m not one of those women who try to undermine their p
artners.’
What was that supposed to mean? Gina wondered, battling to keep her face impassive. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I’d like to help out with the next screening,’ Rose replied. ‘Dirty Dancing has always been one of my favourite movies so it seems like the perfect time to jump on board. And I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I think you’ve been a little unambitious with your efforts so far.’
Gina couldn’t help it; she bristled. ‘Oh?’
‘Now I’ve made you cross,’ Rose said, looking very much as though that had been her intention. ‘I mean, obviously you’ve done a good enough job. I’m just not sure you have the contacts to take things to the next level. Have you thought about sponsorship, for example?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘You could approach a drinks brand or an upmarket holiday company,’ Rose continued, ignoring Gina. ‘I’m sure there’d be plenty of takers, if the right person was asking, and all they’d need in return is some product placement and advertising space.’
‘I know how sponsorship works,’ Gina managed to grind out. ‘It’s part of my job back in London.’
Rose smiled. ‘Of course it is. But my family happens to have excellent links with the drinks and hospitality industries – why don’t you let me see what I can rustle up?’
Gina hesitated. On the one hand, sponsorship seemed like a great way to reduce Gorran’s overheads and bring in some much-needed cash. But it meant giving Rose the satisfaction of being right, and Gina wasn’t sure she could bear it.
‘Of course, all of this depends on whether the town council is able to grant the temporary event notice and give permission to use the beach,’ Rose said. ‘My mother says they’re meeting tomorrow to discuss it.’
The implication was obvious. Gina pictured Gorran’s worried expression whenever the subject of money came up and squashed her rising irritation. ‘Of course. But providing the council gives us the go ahead, I’d be happy for you to chase up some sponsorship leads.’ She managed a strained smile. ‘Thank you.’
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