The Picture House by the Sea

by Holly Hepburn

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ Elena said. ‘And perhaps I can tempt you with some fresh biscotti. We may as well start as we mean to go on.’

  ‘Nonna plans to fatten me up,’ Gina said, settling onto the butter-soft leather sofa as her grandmother left the room.

  ‘So she should,’ Ferdie replied. ‘You’ll never get that young man of yours to propose when you look like a stick insect.’

  And so it begins, Gina thought, half in amusement and half in resignation. If anyone wondered why she’d booked into a hotel, here was at least part of the reason. She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want him to propose, Nonno. I like things the way they are.’

  Ferdie gazed at her with unhidden reproach. ‘Of course, I forget that you modern couples don’t agree with the sanctity of marriage. It’s all speed-dating and bed-hopping these days.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Hardly that – Max and I have been together for more than two years now. We just don’t see the need to get married.’

  ‘So you don’t love each other.’

  ‘We do,’ Gina insisted, then heard the defensiveness in her voice and softened her tone. She didn’t want to have the same well-worn argument she’d had the last time she’d visited her grandparents, and the time before that. Not when she knew there was another, more important battle looming in the very near future. ‘We do love each other,’ she repeated, as an image of her razor-sharp, immaculately groomed boyfriend popped into her mind. ‘But we don’t need to prove it.’

  He gave her a searching look. ‘And yet here you are alone.’

  She hesitated. Max was a very driven, highly successful property developer who’d invested in some of the most iconic new buildings that were flying up along London’s waterfront; he wasn’t a freelancer like Gina, so he couldn’t simply fly away to Cornwall at a moment’s notice. Especially not for three long months. But Nonno had no idea she’d be staying that long. ‘Max is busy,’ she said carefully. ‘He sends his love.’

  ‘Huh,’ Ferdie grumbled. ‘I don’t suppose he even remembers what we look like. How long is it since he came – a year?’

  It was nearer two, Gina thought, but she didn’t say so. She’d brought Max for a visit a few months after they’d started seeing each other, wanting the approval of her grandparents, and of course he’d charmed them the same way he’d charmed her. And then he’d never come back, despite frequent invitations, and Gina had ended up travelling down without him. It was another reason she’d found it so hard to get back to Cornwall since – there always seemed to be an important party to attend with Max or dinner with his business associates. Between her relationship and her work commitments, she’d barely had any time to call her own for months.

  ‘Something like that,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m sure he’ll come to visit me once I’m—’

  She stopped, feeling colour creep up her cheeks. It wasn’t the right time to tell Nonno why she was there – she needed her grandmother to back her up. But a glance at Ferdie told her it was too late.

  ‘Visit you?’ he said, frowning. ‘Why would he visit you when you live on each other’s doorsteps?’

  Gina gathered herself together and sat up straight. ‘I’m going to be staying in Polwhipple for a few months.’

  Her grandfather stared at her, his bushy white eyebrows beetling together above his deep brown eyes. ‘Why? Is there something wrong? You’ve lost your job, is that it?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ Gina shifted uncomfortably. She was going to have to come right out with it. ‘Nonna and I thought—’

  She broke off as the living-room door swung open. ‘Here we go,’ Elena said, walking through it with a tray of steaming coffee and a plate piled high with biscotti.

  ‘Gina says she’s staying in Polwhipple for a few months,’ Ferdie said, as Elena placed the tray on the low coffee table.

  ‘I know,’ she said, passing him a cup. ‘It will do her good. In fact, it will do us all good.’

  Ferdie glanced back and forth between his wife and granddaughter. ‘What does that mean?’

  Elena nudged the plate towards Gina with a significant look. ‘Come now, Ferdie, isn’t it obvious? She’s come to help you with the business.’

  Gina managed a smile. ‘That’s right. We thought I could do some of the running around, take some of the pressure off you until your leg is better.’

  ‘I don’t need any help,’ Ferdie said, his expression growing thunderous. ‘And I especially don’t need people conspiring behind my back to organise it.’

  ‘Nobody is conspiring, you old fool,’ Elena said, taking a measured sip of her coffee. ‘In case you have forgotten, your leg has six metal pins holding it together. It needs time to heal. Didn’t they tell you in the hospital to get some rest?’

  Ferdie snorted in derision. ‘Doctors – what do they know? I have work to do. I can’t laze around all day. Gelato doesn’t make itself, you know.’

  ‘So let me help,’ Gina said, leaning forwards. ‘The way you used to when I was little.’

  Not that he’d allowed her to do much more than dip a spoon into the creamy mixture before it went into the freezer, Gina thought, but every little helped.

  ‘Your stocks are running low,’ Elena said. ‘It will be Easter soon and the weather will start to get better – what then? Are you going to disappoint the restaurants – your customers – because your pride won’t allow you to accept some help from your own family?’

  ‘There’s plenty of stock,’ Ferdie said, glaring at his wife. ‘Enough to see us through several weeks, at least.’

  Elena’s eyes flashed. ‘I know exactly how much there is – twelve tubs of raspberry ripple, ten vanilla, eleven chocolate and eight honeycomb. You have no strawberry, salted caramel or mint choc chip left and they’re the ones the restaurants are crying out for, not to mention the biggest sellers at the ice-cream stand.’ She sat back and took another sip of her coffee. ‘You need Gina’s help, whether you like it or not, and you’d better accept it before she changes her mind and goes back to London, thinking you don’t want her here.’

  It was the last sentence that did the trick, Gina thought, admiring her grandmother’s almost Machiavellian genius. Nonno still looked furious but she could see he was wavering. ‘It would be a lovely way to spend some time together,’ she said, widening her eyes in unspoken appeal. ‘I’ve cleared my diary until June.’

  There was a long silence. Gina’s instinct was to continue to persuade him but she followed Nonna’s example, drinking her coffee and waiting. Eventually, Ferdie let out a short, irritable sigh. ‘I suppose I could use some help.’

  Gina resisted the urge to cheer as Elena nodded. ‘Of course you could.’

  ‘You’d have to do exactly as I say,’ he went on, firing a meaningful look at Gina. ‘My recipes have stood the test of time for sixty years; they need to be followed to the letter. A Ferrelli’s gelato is like a Puccini aria – it needs no tinkering or improvement, it’s perfect as it is.’

  This time she did smile – Ferrelli’s had served the same flavours of ice-cream for as long as she could remember, although the caramel had become salted caramel after a clandestine campaign by Elena the previous Christmas. Gina had sent a box as a gift and Elena had promptly asked her to get five more so that she could persuade Ferdie to change his recipe. It had instantly become their best-selling flavour.

  ‘No tinkering,’ she promised, relieved that the war seemed to have been won.

  Elena leaned towards her with the plate of biscotti. ‘Maybe just a bit of tinkering,’ she whispered, a mischievous smile on her face. ‘I’ve been trying to get him to make a tiramisu flavour gelato for years but he’s always refused. Now you can do it for me!’

  Gina glanced at her grandfather’s determined expression, then back at her grandmother and her heart sank. She’d been wrong to think the war was over – from what she could tell, it was just about to begin. And she was caught right in the middle.

  Chapter Three
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br />   Gina finally got back to the hotel just after eight o’clock, stuffed full of Nonna’s porcini mushroom risotto. She spent a few moments on the balcony, listening to the crash of the Atlantic against the rocks on the beach below and letting the wind whip through her long dark hair. The air was cold and biting; it almost took her breath away, but at the same time it felt so clean that she couldn’t get enough of it, gulping down deep lungfuls even though it made her shiver. Gazing upwards, she saw the moon glimmering through the clouds above; it danced across the tips of the waves as they rolled in. Gina let out a long, heartfelt sigh; she felt a long way from London in more ways than one.

  The buzz of her mobile interrupted her musing. She glanced down and saw Max’s name on the screen. Pulling open the sliding glass door, she slipped back inside the spacious bedroom.

  ‘Hello, Max, everything okay?’

  ‘Of course, I just thought I’d give you a call and make sure Ferocious Ferdie hadn’t eaten you alive.’

  Gina laughed. ‘He’s not ferocious. Well, maybe a little bit, but his bark is definitely worse than his bite.’

  ‘I know,’ Max replied, a wry note behind the words. ‘I’ve met him, remember? I think I’ve just about recovered now, although I still have nightmares about him sometimes.’

  His voice was warm as he teased and Gina knew he’d be smiling.

  ‘So how’s the hotel? Is it as gorgeous as it sounded?’

  Gina gazed around her luxurious room, with its king-sized bed, velvet chaise longue and blissfully subdued lighting. ‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘I haven’t explored the hot tubs yet but I have a feeling I’m going to need them after today’s conversation.’

  She filled him in on most of Ferdie’s reaction to her offer of help. Max let out an incredulous laugh when she’d finished.

  ‘You’d think you were launching a hostile takeover, not getting him out of a potentially disastrous hole,’ he said. ‘Honestly, you need a degree in United Nations peacekeeping negotiations to deal with your family.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Gina objected, although she knew he had a point. One of the reasons she’d known she couldn’t refuse Nonna’s plea for help was that Gina’s own mother had disagreed so violently with Nonno that she and Gina’s father had moved to an entirely different continent to avoid him. ‘All families fall out.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  Gina reached for her glass of Prosecco. ‘First thing tomorrow, I need to contact the restaurants we supply, to smooth over any issues Nonno’s accident might have caused. I also need to visit the Ferrelli’s concession at the Palace Picture House and speak to Gorran Dew, the owner, to see what he thinks he’s going to need in terms of stock over the next few weeks—’

  ‘That can’t be a real name,’ Max interrupted. ‘It sounds more like an exotic fruit.’

  She summoned up an image of the cinema owner, who’d always reminded her of a ruddy-cheeked version of Doc Brown from Back to the Future. ‘They’re both traditional Cornish names – the Dew family tree goes back centuries in Polwhipple – but there’s nothing exotic about Gorran. Eccentric is a better word.’

  She shook her head and smiled, picturing Gorran presiding over the lobby of the Art Deco cinema, with its plush ruby and gold carpet and gilt-laden décor. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the old place, actually, it’ll be a real blast from the past. I wonder if you can still sneak in through the fire exit to watch the film for free.’

  ‘How long is it since you’ve been there?’ Max asked.

  ‘Years,’ she answered. ‘I spent half my summers there when I was a teenager. There was this surfer kid I used to hang out with and Nonno used to give us free ice-cream to make sure we stayed out of trouble.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  She laughed. ‘Not really. I was Bonnie to Ben’s Clyde – he was the one who taught me how to sneak in through the fire door.’

  Gina paused, a sudden image of fifteen-year-old Ben Pascoe popping unbidden into her mind, all tangled blond hair and sunscreen as he stood grinning on the beach. He’d been her best friend for summer after summer; during her last visit there’d been a moment or two when she’d idly wondered if he might be more but nothing had ever come of it. She felt her cheeks grow warm at the memory. ‘Wow, I haven’t thought about him for ages.’

  ‘Does he still live in Polwhipple?’ Max sounded curious now.

  ‘No idea,’ Gina said, pushing the image away. ‘I don’t think he can. My grandparents would have mentioned it. Nothing so much as breathes in this town without one or both of them knowing about it. But enough about my mildly criminal past, how was your day?’

  She listened as Max told her about the meetings he’d had, and the new contract he’d signed for twenty-five new luxury apartments overlooking the Thames at Battersea. ‘It sounds like you’re busy.’

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘But not busy enough to stop me missing you.’

  ‘Ha, I bet you hardly even noticed I was gone.’

  ‘I noticed,’ Max said quietly.

  Gina imagined him perched on the edge of his pristine double bed and felt a sudden wave of homesickness. ‘It’s only three months – honestly, I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘I know.’ His sigh sounded deep. ‘But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.’

  His words filled her with bittersweet warmth; it was rare for Max to acknowledge how much he cared about her, although she had never doubted that he did. It would be hard being away from him and her life in London but at least she had plenty to stop her from pining. Max did too, although she had to admit she’d found a measure of comfort in knowing he was missing her.

  He stayed in her thoughts for the rest of the evening; throughout her dip in the free-standing bath, as she towel-dried her hair and when she flicked mindlessly through the television channels in search of entertainment. When it became clear that the only thing worth watching was An Affair to Remember, she slipped between the cool cotton sheets and lay there trying not to cry as Cary Grant realised why Deborah Kerr had stood him up. Eventually, she gave in and sobbed out loud, not caring that her nose must be red or her eyes puffy. Once the film had finished, she dried her tears and settled down for the night. I wish Max was here, she thought, staring into the darkness as the sound of the sea lulled her to sleep. And then, just as her eyes drifted shut, another name popped into her mind: Ben Pascoe. A faint smile curved her lips as unconsciousness came to claim her; now there’s another blast from the past. I must remember to ask Nonna if he’s still around.

  It was just over a mile and a half from Gina’s hotel to the seafront at Polwhipple. Back in London, she was used to hopping on the Underground for much shorter distances, but her transport options were much more limited in Cornwall. It seemed wrong to call a taxi for a four-minute journey, especially on such a glorious spring day, and there wasn’t a bus from Mawgan Porth to Polwhipple. It was, however, walkable – Google told her she could take the South West Coast Path along the cliffs. Determined to enjoy the sunshine and scenery, Gina pulled on her waterproof coat and brand-new walking boots and set off.

  The breeze was stronger than she’d anticipated as she reached the clifftops but the view was worth the wind-chill. The sea sparkled in the mid-morning sunlight, an even deeper blue than she remembered, and the sky seemed to be trying to compete. Gulls whirled overhead, shrieking into the wind. Gina stopped, letting the wind whip her hair across her face. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,’ she murmured to herself with a contented smile.

  Gina snapped photo after photo on her phone as she walked, making a mental note to upload the best ones to her work Instagram account later; being away from London didn’t mean she had to be off the grid, and she needed to have some clients to return to once Nonno was back on his feet.

  Polwhipple itself was exactly as she remembered; nestled in a rocky cove, with a golden beach and a seafront full of quaint shops, it was a sleepy seaside town that h
ad never quite lived up to its gorgeous location. The jewel in Polwhipple’s crown had always been the Palace, its gracious Art Deco curves towering above the other seafront businesses. Gina could see it long before she reached the promenade that ran along the length of the beach, and shining like a rainbow-coloured gem beneath the giant red-lettered sign was the window of Ferrelli’s ice-cream concession. It was almost as though time had stood still.

  But a frown creased Gina’s forehead as she got nearer and realised the Palace wasn’t quite as she remembered it. Up close, she could see the white paint of the building was yellowed and peeling, and several of the many lightbulbs that lit up the sign at night were either missing or smashed. The row of rectangular casing that used to hold enticing movie posters was empty; in fact, there was no way to see which films were showing at all. Gina’s heart began to sink – it didn’t appear that the last few years had been kind to the Palace; what was Gorran Dew playing at? The only bright spot was Ferrelli’s – the push-pull window beneath the faded gilt cornices held a mouth-watering mix of pastel-coloured ice-cream waves. A tower of crisp-looking golden cornets leaned drunkenly from one side and bottles of sticky chocolate syrup stood beside jars of multi-coloured sprinkles on the other. And presiding over the sea of tasty treats was Manda, who’d worked for Gina’s grandfather for as long as she could remember.

  ‘Gina!’ the older woman cried, sliding back the window and straightening her blue and white Ferrelli’s apron. ‘I didn’t know you were in town.’

  Gina smiled. Manda must be in her late fifties and was one of several stalwart employees whose chief passion in life seemed to be serving Ferrelli’s to Polwhipple’s public. ‘They came for a job and stayed for the ice-cream,’ Ferdie told Gina, when she’d asked how he had kept the same staff for years on end.

  ‘I only arrived yesterday,’ she said to Manda. ‘I’m here to help out for a few months, while Nonno recovers.’

  Manda raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh really? And what does Ferdie think of this plan?’