Brief Encounter at the Picture House by the Sea

by Holly Hepburn

  ‘You could come for the cinema event. If I decide to pitch it, that is.’

  ‘Ha – I think we both know you’re going to pitch it.’

  Gina smiled again – he knew her too well. ‘Okay. Listen, I have to finish drying my hair. I’ll call you soon and we can confirm the date for your visit.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ Max said, his voice warm and full of anticipation. ‘I’ll even turn on the famous Max Hardy charm, see if I can make Ferocious Ferdie like me.’

  Gina laughed and ended the call. But something was niggling at her: should she have told Max exactly who she’d been to see the film with last night? Ben was just a friend and she was fairly sure Max wouldn’t be able to name Sarah or Tori or any of the other friends she hung out with when she wasn’t with him – why should she start naming names now, simply because she was a few hundred miles away? And Max had nothing to fear from Ben in any case – he was someone she used to know, that was all. Max wouldn’t expect her to stay in every night, anyway – he’d understand she’d need friends in Polwhipple too.

  Even so, Gina felt the tiniest bit guilty. If Max really had nothing to fear from Ben, then why hadn’t she told Max his name when she’d mentioned her trip to the cinema? And why couldn’t she stop glancing towards the beach?

  Gina headed to the picture house just before midday on Monday, hoping to see Gorran. She was in luck; she found him tucked away in the little office, wearing what looked suspiciously like the same shirt as the week before, although she couldn’t be absolutely sure.

  ‘I came to see Footloose on Saturday,’ she told him, once she was sitting in the leather swivel chair again. ‘It was a lot of fun.’

  Gorran nodded gloomily. ‘Good. I suppose you know that no one showed up for the pigeon film. Such a shame – it really is an amazing story.’

  Gina leaned forwards. ‘It doesn’t matter how good the film is if no one knows it’s on, Gorran. Surely you understand that?’

  ‘We put a poster on the door,’ he said, firing a defensive look her way. ‘That usually does the trick.’

  ‘For the people who know where to look,’ she argued. ‘You don’t have a website, there are no online tickets and screenings are erratic. I’m amazed this place is still running at all – you can’t be making any profit.’

  ‘We’re not,’ he admitted. ‘I’m doing my best, Gina, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.’

  He looked so dejected that she felt sorry for him. ‘Look, why don’t you let me help you? I’d be happy to organise an event for you, try some new ideas to see if we can bring in more punters.’

  ‘Oh?’ Gorran said, his eyes wary. ‘What kind of new ideas?’

  Gina ran through the thoughts she’d had about Footloose the night before; everything from fancy dress suggestions to her idea for a bespoke ice-cream flavour. By the time she’d finished, Gorran was staring at her as though she’d just thrown him a lifeline. ‘You’d do all that?’

  ‘Of course,’ Gina replied, crossing her fingers that she could convince Nonno to let her try her hand at some new flavours. ‘You might need to invest a little upfront, although I’m confident the increased revenue will repay your investment. Why don’t we start thinking of a few films that might attract a crowd?’

  Gorran’s face lit up and Gina knew – just knew – he was going to suggest some obscure art house flick. ‘Something well-known,’ she said, lightning fast. ‘A classic movie that also has broad event appeal.’

  His expression fell. ‘Oh. I don’t think I even know what event appeal means.’

  She smiled. ‘Think of it as added value – so the film itself is at the heart of the screening but I can add extra details to tempt people to come along. Things like a themed cocktail, maybe?’

  ‘We are allowed to serve alcohol on the premises,’ Gorran said. ‘I still have my licence.’

  ‘Okay, that’s good,’ Gina said encouragingly. ‘All we need to do is find the right film. Do you have a mailing list?’

  ‘Not as such, no.’

  Gina couldn’t say she was surprised. ‘Any advertising space anywhere, like the local paper? Or the shops along the seafront? There’s a vintage clothes boutique that could be the perfect partner for the Palace.’

  He sighed, as though he knew she would be disappointed. ‘No.’

  ‘So we’ll need to get some flyers and posters printed.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Which brings me onto the budget. You’re going to need to spend some money if you want to make this a success.’

  ‘Of course.’ Gorran threw her an apprehensive look. ‘How much money?’

  Gina did a few quick sums in her head and named a conservative figure. He blanched. ‘Really?’

  ‘If you want to get bums on seats. And speaking of seats, you should look at getting those replaced – they’re not what I’d call comfortable.’

  ‘New seats would cost a fortune,’ Gorran said morosely. ‘Everything is so expensive these days. Tash wants a new projector – or at least one that doesn’t break down once a week – and she keeps leaving brochures for digital projection systems around, although she’s got no hope there. I’m not selling my soul to the digital devil – no way.’

  His lip curled as he finished speaking. Gina paused, wondering whether to ask what he meant; digital sounded good – better picture and sound quality, and the films were probably easier to get hold of, although she wasn’t naïve enough to assume any of that translated into cheaper. ‘Sorry, I’m not sure—’

  ‘We show analogue film here,’ Gorran interrupted, the fire of the zealot burning in his eyes. ‘The old school, traditional 35mm celluloid that the entire movie industry was built on. It comes in reels from the distributor and it runs through our admittedly creaky projector, the way film was meant to be shown. But a lot of the chain cinemas have moved over to digital projectors, so the movies don’t come in big reels and they don’t suffer from wear and tear. And some of the studios aren’t even releasing movies on film any more, but that doesn’t mean digital is somehow better.’ He angled his chin stubbornly. ‘Look at how people rushed to embrace music on CDs – now they’re realising that vinyl has more soul and record players bring something to the table that digital can’t.’

  He stopped abruptly as he noticed Gina’s raised eyebrows and his already rosy cheeks turned redder. ‘Sorry. I got a bit carried away. What were you saying?’

  ‘The seats,’ she said, checking her notes. ‘Maybe we could tell people to bring a cushion, or find a way to make the bad seats part of the experience. It might be better to choose a short film, so they don’t have to sit for as long.’

  ‘The older the better, in that case,’ he replied. ‘A lot of the classic black-and-white films are less than ninety minutes long.’

  Gina thought for a moment. ‘Okay, why don’t you draw up a list of possible choices and get them over to me? Then I can have a look and see which one has the most potential.’ She smiled. ‘And then we decide on a date and the hard work will really begin. But I think it will be worth it. Imagine a full house for once.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gorran said, his gaze far away. ‘We’ll give it a go.’

  ‘I can’t believe you persuaded Gorran Dew to part with some money,’ Nonna said, when Gina told her about the meeting. ‘He’s famous for having the tightest pockets this side of the River Tamar.’

  They were in Nonna’s kitchen, going over ideas for new gelato flavours while Nonno had lunch with his local Rotary club cronies.

  ‘I think Gorran realised that the more tickets he sells, the more chance there is that the Palace will be able to stay open,’ Gina said. ‘And I don’t plan to spend a fortune, either. It should pay for itself eventually.’

  ‘It all sounds marvellous – you will work magic over the place,’ Elena said, her eyes twinkling. ‘So, what flavours do you want to start with – biscotti? Tiramisu?’

  ‘I don’t know. Such a lot depends on the film we choose . . .’ Gina hesitated. ‘You don’t think Nonno will b
e angry, do you? I mean, I’ve only been here a few days and already I’m sneaking about behind his back, meddling with his recipes.’

  Elena gave an elegant shrug. ‘We are only experimenting – you haven’t meddled with anything. Besides, you need to understand how to combine flavours. This is simply part of your gelato education.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘And Nonno doesn’t need to know. Not yet.’

  Gina couldn’t help smiling. ‘When you put it like that . . .’ she said, tilting her head. ‘All right. I love your tiramisu. Let’s try that one first.’

  Elena stretched up to pull a thick, old-looking notebook stuffed with extra pages and faded clippings from the high shelf over her head. ‘This belonged to my mother, and her mother before that. It has every family recipe in it, including our legendary tiramisu.’

  She pushed it towards Gina so that she could read the spidery handwriting. There was plenty of detail – all Gina and Elena had to do was work out how best to recreate the flavour of the dessert in an ice-cream. Chocolate, cream, sugar, mascarpone cheese . . . to get the flavour exactly right would involve a considerable amount of tasting, Gina thought with a suspicious sideways glance – maybe this was all part of Nonna’s plan to fatten her up. Her jeans were already feeling a little tighter and she’d only been in Polwhipple for a few days. She’d have to start taking more walks along the cliffs, or join a gym.

  ‘So I heard you and Ben Pascoe are getting on well,’ Elena said, as she made an espresso to add to the recipe. ‘I always thought he was such a nice boy. Hard-working, polite and very pleasing to look at. Proper handsome, Manda calls him.’

  Her tone was neutral but she sent a mischievous glance sideways that made Gina laugh. ‘Don’t get any ideas, Nonna. I’m sure Ben has his pick of the girls and I’ve got Max, remember?’

  The older woman sniffed. ‘Barely. I have only met him once. What does he do again?’

  ‘He’s a property developer,’ Gina replied. ‘He’s worked on a lot of very important buildings in London – he was involved in the Shard and several of the other new properties along the Thames.’

  ‘So he takes old things and breaks them apart to make way for new ones, yes?’ Elena handed her the golden caster sugar to measure. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

  Gina checked the recipe and concentrated on tipping the sugar into the scales. ‘Not always. If there’s an older building that needs some TLC then he’ll buy that and redevelop it as sympathetically as he can.’ She tried not to think of the Palace as she gave her grandmother a pointed glance. ‘He is also hard-working, polite and very pleasing to look at.’

  ‘But does he make you happy, Gina?’ Elena persisted. ‘It breaks my heart to see you so thin and pale—’

  ‘I’m not—’ Gina began but her grandmother ignored her.

  ‘You need some sunshine and laughter and joy in your life,’ she went on. ‘Why isn’t Max giving you these things?’

  Gina stared at the golden sugar crystals in the bowl beneath her. Max did make her laugh but it was true that most of their dates seemed to revolve around business these days. And she couldn’t remember the last time they’d spent a day sitting in the sun – some corporate event or another in the summer, probably, schmoozing his clients. But they both worked hard and she knew Max loved her, the same way that she loved him. They weren’t unhappy. Nonna didn’t understand, that was all.

  ‘We’re not the same as you and Nonno,’ she explained in a quiet voice. ‘You met and fell in love in a different era, when you had time to really focus on each other – modern relationships aren’t like that. Max and I don’t spend every waking moment having fun but that doesn’t mean we’re not happy.’

  Elena was silent for a long moment. ‘I don’t want to interfere, bella mia. You know your own heart and if you say Max makes it whirl and sing then I must believe you.’ She squared her shoulders and smiled. ‘Perhaps when you go home and cook for him he will appreciate you more, yes?’

  Gina laughed – her grandmother’s belief that food could fix everything was unwavering. ‘I’m sure he won’t have a problem with that, Nonna.’

  ‘Good,’ Elena said, with some satisfaction. She flexed her fingers and reached for the Marsala wine. ‘Now, let me teach you the secret of the perfect tiramisu.’

  Chapter Seven

  Gina spent the rest of the afternoon in the dairy, creating batches of gelato using Ferdie’s traditional recipes. She was getting the hang of the process now and her mind wandered as she combined the ingredients and set the machines to do the hard work. What film should they choose for the Palace screening? Star Wars was popular and topical but she didn’t feel it was different enough – she needed something that would appeal to Polwhipple’s older generations as well as tempting the younger ones with cosplay; if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that people loved an opportunity to dress up. An Eighties classic, maybe? Or perhaps they should look even further back – Gone with the Wind? Or was that too much too soon?

  She was mulling it over as she walked home after another waistline-busting supper with her grandparents. Gina had watched nervously as Nonno had tucked into his tiramisu, wondering whether he’d be able to tell that she had made it rather than Nonna, but he seemed to enjoy it in the same way that he always did and didn’t appear to have made the connection between that and her comments about new ice-cream flavours. Elena had given her a tiny wink and had whispered as Gina left that they should meet again soon to decide how to make their ice-cream. The trouble was that Gina couldn’t think of a classic film set in Italy that would have the impact she wanted – there was Roman Holiday, of course, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, but it didn’t really have the wow factor she wanted for the Palace’s first event. So although the tiramisu ice-cream might make an appearance at some point at Ferrelli’s, it wasn’t the flavour she needed first. She had no idea what that might be.

  The next morning, she woke up early and sought inspiration on the beach at Mawgan Porth. She had the place to herself; the sun was just peeping over the clifftops as she unfurled her rug on the pale sand and settled down to watch the sky change from navy blue to pink and gold, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. The breeze off the sea was chilly – she was glad of her warm coat – but there was also a hint of spring amid the salty fresh air and she didn’t think the day itself would be cold. March was often drizzly and dull in London, although it had its fair share of spectacular sunrises, but in Cornwall it seemed as though someone had applied an Instagram filter to the view; everything looked brighter and prettier. Gina remembered Nonna’s comment about needing some sunshine and smiled; she was sure her grandmother would approve of her early morning excursion.

  The surfers began to arrive, only two or three, but enough to tell Gina it was time to climb the stairs that led to the top of the cliffs. She stood up, shaking the sand from her rug.

  ‘Gina!’

  The shout made her look up and she saw Ben coming towards her, a surf board in his arms. Once again, her thoughts flitted back to Nonna the day before and she couldn’t argue – Ben was very pleasing to look at. Had he been this good-looking as a teen? Surely she would have remembered; when she thought back to the summers they’d spent together, all she could picture was his untidy blond hair and freckles. But there had been a hint of attraction during that last summer, hadn’t there? There’d been a moment one day on the beach when she’d been sure he was about to kiss her but something had interrupted them – she couldn’t remember what – and the moment had vanished. She’d forgotten all about it until now . . .

  ‘Good morning,’ she called, burying the memory once more. ‘Another day, another wetsuit.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah, I sometimes feel as though I live in these things. Although you should see me the rest of the time – I’m mostly covered in dust and paint. And sometimes coal dust, if I’ve been working on the trains.’

  ‘The trains?’ Gina echoed, blinking. ‘How many j
obs do you have?’

  ‘The steam trains,’ he explained. ‘The ones that run between Bodmin and Boscarne. They’ve been a passion of mine for years and I’m a volunteer driver, although there’s a lot of competition so I don’t do it as often as I’d like.’

  So he was a steam enthusiast as well as everything else, Gina thought, with an incredulous shake of her head. But hadn’t he mentioned something about restoring Polwhipple’s old station building? That made a lot more sense now. ‘Were you always a train spotter?’ she teased.

  Ben shook his head. ‘I’m not a train spotter – they take their hobby very seriously. I just love the elegance and history of steam trains. Did you know that the Bodmin and Wenford railway used to come to Polwhipple after Boscarne Junction? British Rail closed the passenger line back in the Sixties but it carried on as a freight route for years. And then the Bodmin Railway Preservation Society restored the track to run steam trains in the 1990s but decided not to run it all the way to Polwhipple.’

  Understanding dawned on Gina. ‘Is that why you’re restoring the building? So that the steam train can come back here?’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Ben said. ‘Although there’s no guarantee – I think it would be great for the town, but the preservation society doesn’t agree and they own the trains and the track. I’m hoping they’ll change their mind once they see how good the restored station looks, but in the meantime it’s really a labour of love.’

  Gina frowned. Business alarm bells were starting to ring at the back of her head. ‘But they know you’re doing it?’

  He pulled a face. ‘Sort of. My dad was a driver on the freight line, carrying china clay, and he bought the station not long after the Great Western Railway closed it, hoping to turn the building into a house for us to live in. But he died before he could put his plan into action and it’s been sitting there ever since, growing more and more derelict.’