by Daisy James
Their seafood risotto arrived. The fragrance of the rice and the garlic was too much to resist and Emilie shovelled up a few forkfuls straightway, careful to avoid the prawns, clams, squid and other fruits of the seas that dotted the dish. She had only managed a third of her meal when Matt smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with the serviette and tossed back the remainder of the wine.
‘I truly believe that food is one of the pleasures in life to be appreciated with gusto – as well as a taste for adventure. What do you think of the risotto?’
‘Erm, well, it’s okay.’ She stabbed a couple of the prawns and a tiny bit of squid and shoved them defiantly into her mouth just to show Matt that she was indeed adventurous enough to try anything as he advocated. They tasted okay, but a little like salty rubber. Give her a plate of steak and chips any day.
Matt let out a belly laugh. ‘Your face is a mirror, Emilie Roberts. Your expression has told me exactly what you think of your meal. Come on. Let’s call it a night of culinary exploration. I’ll make you a coffee back at the camper van and maybe I can even find you a packet of your beloved salt and vinegar crisps. Actually, whilst you were away I took the liberty of stocking up the cupboards. I hope you don’t mind but I also crashed out in the van instead of pitching the tent.’
‘No, of course not.’
A frisson of desire sparkled through her veins as she thought of Matt stretched out across one of the dual-purpose beds in the back of the Satsuma Splittie, his long limbs poking over the end, his arms flung wide. She shook her head to clear the enticing image. ‘So, what else did you do while I was away?’
‘Well, as I missed out on visiting the whisky distillery in Falmouth, after I dropped you at the station I drove over to the coast at Mullion and parked up for the night. The view from the cliffs is spectacular. There’s nothing between you and the east coast of America. I spent Saturday afternoon mooching around another family-run distillery, except this one specialises in premium gin and vodka. It’s a husband-and-wife team and they are really competitive. Harriet is in charge of distilling the gin and Charles oversees the vodka. Would you believe they use only rock samphire foraged locally to make their gin?’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ Emilie whispered, deeply regretting her decision to choose Italian Prosecco with her friends over a glass of Cornish gin and tonic.
‘They were both very generous with their time and consented to an impromptu interview. Harriet waxed lyrical about the natural ingredients they insist on using as well as the fragrant botanicals. They have devised a list of delicious cocktails too – you would have loved it. Inevitably the interview ended with a tasting, one of the best vodkas I’ve had the pleasure of testing in a long time: pure, smooth, almost creamy in texture. I have to admit to spending a couple of hours sleeping off the indulgence before getting to work on writing the article. I took some photos too, but they weren’t in the same league as yours.’
Matt paid the bill and, arm in arm, they sauntered through the narrow streets until they reached the campsite where they’d parked up for the night. Emilie’s heart gave a jolt as she saw the Satsuma Splittie waiting patiently in the shadows, its silhouette like a child’s drawing. Matt leapt into the back to set the kettle to boil.
Having slept in her own bedroom that weekend, Emilie felt a little claustrophobic as she climbed in behind him and slumped down at the table. She had also forgotten how bright the décor was. The curtains almost zinged at the windows. She scrunched up her nose as she watched Matt assemble the coffee. She felt strangely light-headed, a little fuzzy around the edges, but she put her disorientation down to the two glasses of wine she’d swallowed in quick succession to disperse the taste of the seafood risotto.
She sipped at the scalding coffee, smirking over the rim of her mug at the incongruous sight of Matt settling down on the chair-cum-toilet behind the driver’s seat. Thank God she’d never had cause to use it on the trip. Her eyelids drooped heavily and a wave of exhaustion crashed over her.
‘Okay, I’d better pitch my tent and let you get some sleep. What’s Lucinda got lined up for the shoot tomorrow? What epicurean delights has St Ives contributed to the world of culinary excellence?’
‘I’ve not had chance to study the itinerary in detail, but I know it’s the Cornish pasty stop.’
She had intended to indulge in an hour of bedtime reading before she went to sleep so she would be well prepared for the next day, but her forehead felt like she was wearing a hat made of concrete.
‘I think I’ll set my alarm for an hour earlier and I’ll read Alice’s notes through before breakfast. I’m so looking forward to this shoot. I adore St Ives. Did I tell you that’s where my parents live? They relocated from Bristol when Dad retired so they could do the self-sufficiency thing. It’s been a dream of Mum’s for years.’
Matt rinsed out their coffee mugs and returned them to their allocated space in the overhead cupboard before turning to face her. ‘You have to follow your dreams too, Emilie. Life is what happens to us whilst we’re fussing with the mundane. You have to make every moment count. For instance, have you thought any more about whether to go freelance? Have you even invoiced Lucinda for the extracurricular photo shoot in Truro?’
‘No, I haven’t but…’
‘Well, you should. If you are going to run a successful business you have to follow up every opportunity, every lead. And you have to respect your talents enough to demand fair remuneration.’
‘I will, I will.’
Emilie felt a squirm of discomfort at the prospect of having to sing her own praises to prospective clients. She preferred to leave that to the marketing team at Dexter Carvill. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for freelancing after all. But then a thought occurred to her. If Matt was prepared to champion her future business enterprise by talking up her talents and urging her to shove her self-doubt over a cliff, then she should return the favour.
‘I admit you have a point about my lack of self-reliance but I am working on it and I happen to think I’m making some headway. But what about your microbrewery? Do you intend to leave it mothballed for ever? Don’t you think you need to find a way to return to what you clearly still love? When you were telling me about your visit to the distillery just now, your enthusiasm shone from every pore!’
Matt remained silent, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed on the flat blackness beyond the windscreen. She immediately realised she had gone too far. All she had to overcome was the effect her boyfriend’s constant snide, belittling comments had had on her self-esteem over a few months and it was her fault that she put up with it for so long. Clearly Matt’s reasons for closing the brewery were something else entirely. She wished he would open up to her about them.
‘Matt, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…’
‘Goodnight, Emilie.’
She peered out of the window, her heart contracted in sorrow, as Matt pitched his tent in the lee of the camper van and crawled into its shelter. The night was clear and crisp with a dense velvet-black sky dotted with tiny pinpricks of ivory light watched over by a silvery moon. She knew the temperature would dip towards freezing and toyed with the idea of asking Matt to come back so she could apologise again and suggest he take the adjoining bunk, but her courage deserted her as she experienced another wave of bone-crushing tiredness. She decided to snuggle into her own sleeping bag and get some sleep.
Within a couple of hours, she was wide awake and using the toilet for the first time. As nausea rose in an unstoppable surge she arched her back over the bowl and retched until she had nothing left to deposit into the pristine bowl. Her stomach continued to spasm but could produce nothing except a harsh acidic taste on her tongue. Her head throbbed and tears collected along her lashes.
She grabbed a bottle of mineral water and sipped slowly, allowing the liquid to dribble down her raw throat as perspiration prickled at her forehead, temples and beneath her breasts. Her palms were clammy and trembling but she pressed the cool bo
ttle to her cheeks to reduce her temperature.
After a while she collapsed back onto her bed and reclined slowly, terrified of having to shoot back to the toilet, thankfully only a couple of feet away. She groaned as she thought of the seafood risotto and knew for certain it was the culprit. How stupid was she? She knew seafood was her mortal enemy.
As the image of the offending dish floated across her mind’s eye, she was jettisoned back to the toilet where she spent the next half hour contemplating its depths before mustering enough energy to return to her bed. She glanced at the luminous dial on her watch. Four a.m. – so much for getting up early to study Alice’s notes and select a list of props for the St Ives shoot. When would she learn to prepare in advance just in case of disaster – which in her life seemed to be lurking around every corner?
‘Hey, Emilie, I thought I heard movement. Is everything okay?’
Oh my God, she panicked. She really didn’t want Matt to see her in such a state. She knew her face would be the colour of overworked pastry. ‘I’m…fine. Oh, actually…!’ The need to utter words instigated a further round of dry heaving.
‘Obviously you’re not.’
She could do nothing to prevent Matt from sliding back the door of the Satsuma Splittie and leaping up beside her, gathering her hair from her face and holding it at the nape of her neck. He allowed her to lean heavily onto his arm as she attempted to settle her stomach.
His reassuring presence proved the catalyst for calm. He carried her back to the bed and fed her with droplets of water whilst sponging her brow with a dampened tea towel. A small part of her conscious brain knew she should be mortified, but the overwhelming sensation was one of gratitude as he dragged the blanket over her and whispered to her to get some sleep.
She must have slept late because when she woke the sun was streaming in through the gaps in the curtains, washing the little camper van with soft copper light. She twisted her head to her right and saw Matt asleep on the floor next to her, his face serene in repose. The antics of the previous night came flooding back and she took a few moments to explore her feelings.
Physically her stomach and head were tender and her limbs weakened, but she couldn’t even begin to dissect her emotions. Matt had seen her in all her indignity and heat flushed through her as she composed her profuse apologies and expressions of gratitude along with promises to make amends.
‘Hey, you’re awake. Feel up to a mug of fruit tea?’
‘Erm, okay. Look, Matt…’
‘Don’t say anything. This is all my fault. I should never have made you try that risotto. Let’s agree never to mention this again and move on. As repentance, I’d like to offer my services, if you’ll let me, to help set up the shoot in St Ives. We only have an hour to drive there before Lucinda arrives with the desserts.’
‘Oh God!’ Emilie groaned as she realised that without Matt’s help she was staring at her career in the rear-view mirror. The last thing she felt like doing was being harangued by an irritated Lucinda that day and she wasn’t sure in her current delicate state she would be able to hold her tongue. She sipped the tea Matt handed to her and surprisingly it helped calm her stomach and inject a buzz of energy into her veins. She reached for Alice’s notebook and scanned the instructions.
‘That’s very kind of you, Matt, and I definitely need to take you up on your offer even though it really is beyond the call of duty. The St Ives shoot is the most important of the whole trip – it’s the showcasing of the eponymous Cornish pasties – but Lucinda’s will be stuffed with locally foraged blackberries and apples and damsons instead of the usual meat and potato.’
‘I know. I studied the brief when you were in London. Even to my unprofessional eye, the set is a little predictable. How about we design something with a bit of a twist like Lucinda has with her pasties? Are you up for a bit if adventure, Emilie Roberts?’
‘Erm, what exactly do you have in mind?’
Matt laughed as he zipped up Alice’s trunk. He grabbed Emilie’s trusty prop box and, with a handle in each hand, made his way from the car park towards the stretch of sand where the shoot was taking place – on the beach with the Atlantic Ocean and the stunning Godrevy lighthouse as a backdrop. The morning breeze had morphed from gentle to hair-raising, lifting Matt’s straggly locks, the same colour as the sand beneath his feet, before slapping them back against his cheeks.
Emilie smiled at her very own twenty-first century knight in shining armour, gratitude ballooning through her body as she slammed the door of the camper van shut and trudged off in his wake, fighting against the wind to secure her wayward curls in a ponytail.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Emilie!’ cried Marcus dashing across the sand to greet her, his ubiquitous mask of perfection and calm slipping ever so slightly. ‘It’s all going horribly wrong. Lucinda’s going to freak.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Well, me and a couple of the pastry chefs from the hotel thought we’d get down here early to set up the gazebo and dress the tables in this gorgeous white damask linen for the shoot. We mustn’t have secured the pegs or something and well, look!’
Marcus pointed towards the lighthouse and there, floating like a huge deflated balloon amongst the rocky outcrops was the remnants of the flimsy gazebo with a bevy of birds bobbing up and down on its flanks like a fairground game. Emilie’s hand shot to her mouth but instead of panic, she felt a curl of hilarity start in the pit of her stomach, which blossomed into a full-blown bout of laughter when she saw the expression of abject horror on Marcus’s face.
‘I don’t know what you find so funny. This is the most important shoot of the whole trip and the centre stage is now a home for soggy seagulls!’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Marcus. Look, why don’t we…’ But she couldn’t continue as another swell of giggles engulfed her. The expression of earnest confusion on Marcus’s face only served to fuel her mirth.
‘Okay, okay. That’s enough,’ said Marcus, hugging his clipboard to his chest as the pastry chefs arrived with huge oval platters piled with a selection of perfectly formed Cornish pasties with a Lucindaesque twist. ‘We need to come up with something else fast.’
Emilie composed herself and offered Marcus a reassuring smile. ‘Sorry, Marcus. I think it’s the nerves getting to me.’
‘So what are we going to do?’
Emilie glanced across to where Matt had parked the camper van. After dragging out her prop box for the shoot, he was taking a few moments to appreciate the scenery, his hand shading his eyes as he leant against the front of the van and looked out to sea. She could almost feel his yearning to get out on the waves on his surfboard. She couldn’t resist it. She raised her camera and snapped a few shots in quick succession. Nothing said the Cornish coast better than an orange vintage camper van and a surfing enthusiast, especially one as gorgeous as Matt Ashby.
‘Emilie? Whilst I would totally agree with your taste in subject matter if we were shooting for a beach boy calendar, this is a cookery book shoot that has just gone horribly wrong. Draw in your tongue and help me come up with a solution.’
‘Oh ye of little faith, Marcus. I might just have had an idea that would solve all our problems,’ she said, turning on the sand and jogging along the beach towards Matt.
‘Where are you going?’ called Marcus, his face a picture of dismay. ‘You can’t just leave me here to face my gruesome fate alone! Oh, God! Here comes her ladyship.’
Lucinda’s high-pitched laugh tinkled brightly on the breeze for the benefit of her audience.
‘Ah, there you are, Emilie. Is everything ready for the shoot? I’ve been telling Pierre here all about the wonderful new photographer and stylist on my Lucinda Loves…Desserts shoot. He’s considering updating his website now that he’s added spa facilities to the hotel and so I took the liberty of recommending that he tries to obtain your services. Did I hear Marcus say you were thinking o
f going freelance?’
Before Emilie could utter a word, Lucinda leaned towards her, taking the time to scrutinise her face. The waft of her exotic perfume hung heavily in the air between them and caused Emilie to swallow hard to stop her knees from crumbling.
‘Are you quite all right, dear? You look like you’ve just stepped off of a pathologist’s slab. Haven’t you heard of make-up? Standards must be maintained, even though this isn’t a televised shoot, don’t you think?’
‘Erm, yes, yes, I do.’
‘I admit that at the beginning of this great baking voyage I had my doubts about using an untested food photographer for my cookery book. And then when Alice became indisposed, and you performed that impromptu comedy routine in front of us all, I seriously considered cancelling the whole assignment. But that would have meant discarding months and months of preparation and hard work. You have no idea how much organisation it takes to co-ordinate diaries with some of the most talented chefs in the whole of Cornwall. Pierre, for instance, is due to fly out to Bahrain next week to cook for the royal family!’
‘That’s…’
‘And then there are the ingredients for the recipes that have to be sourced and delivered to each individual venue. Arrangements had to be made for every single one to be weighed out and ready to use for when I arrived as time was always of the essence. The schedule couldn’t be allowed to slip. It has been a stressful couple of weeks, but I’m pleased to say that together we have managed to produce something special, don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, Lucinda, I do.’
Emilie felt her confidence leap up a notch and she knew the idea she had come up with to rescue the shoot would work.
‘Then why don’t you show me what you’ve done for the St Ives shoot? You seem to have an aptitude for enhancing everything we have planned.’