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‘I’m glad you see it that way,’ she said.
‘There’s no other sensible way of seeing it, and I’m not that selfish.’ He hoped. Though he knew he’d already been selfish enough in the past and he needed to make amends. He needed to sort that out in his head before he talked about it, though, so he switched the subject. ‘I noticed you had a new shop on the quayside.’
‘The ice cream parlour. I opened it last year. It’s for people who don’t want to walk all the way down to the beach to get one of our ice creams,’ she said, ‘or maybe they just want to pick up a half-litre tub to eat at home that evening.’
‘Your idea?’
‘Another new direction for Scott’s,’ she said. ‘Yes. Mum and Dad want to take it easier and—’ She stopped and winced. ‘Sorry. That wasn’t tactful.’
‘Spend time together in semi-retirement? It’s what married couples of that age do,’ he said. ‘What my parents would’ve done, if Dad had been more sensible with his medication and looked after himself better instead of leaving it all to Mum.’
She said nothing, simply looked at him.
‘You were right,’ he said softly. ‘Everything you said about Dad, last night. He was stubborn, he didn’t listen to anyone—and I really ought to learn from his mistakes.’
‘Does that include looking after yourself better, rather than spending twice as many hours as you ought to in the lab and living off sandwiches and microwave meals?’ she asked.
It was how he got by.
But he was saved from answering by the arrival of their first course: heritage tomato salad with pesto and burrata, all soft and wobbly and creamy.
‘This is fabulous,’ he said.
He managed to keep the conversation going about food during the second course, too: monkfish wrapped in Parma ham, served on a bed of lentils with samphire, plus a cauliflower and saffron purée.
‘I’m a bit disappointed not to see your Parmesan ice cream on the menu today,’ he said to Abigail after the waiter brought the dessert menu.
‘If you really want to try it, I can always make you some,’ she said. ‘It was very popular in the eighteenth century. Though one glass of ice cream cost about the same as the average daily wage, so really it was only for the super-rich.’
‘Have you thought about making historic recipes?’ he asked. He remembered she’d always loved history. It had been her favourite A level subject.
‘I do sometimes. I have an ancient brown bread ice cream recipe. But I’m experimenting with a few “free-from” options at the moment. Mum’s been diagnosed as having coeliac disease, so that led me to source gluten-free wafers. And I’ve been making non-dairy ice cream with oat milk or almond milk for people who have dairy allergies. Or vegans—you know Ruby’s thinking about taking the next step from being a vegetarian.’
He didn’t. And he felt another twinge of guilt that he really hadn’t paid enough attention to his sister.
‘She’s my main beta tester.’ Abigail smiled. ‘I get people to fill in comment cards in the shop and the café, too—if they do, they go in a monthly draw to win a voucher for Scott’s. Plus then I have their details for our mailing list when we release a new product.’
He wasn’t surprised that Abigail had moved the business forward. Or that she’d turned out to be a savvy, thoughtful businesswoman. That had been so obvious in their Cambridge years; she’d been bubbling over with ideas and it was easy to see that she had what it took to grow Scott’s. Only now he was seeing that potential actually realised, and it was a bit of a jolt to see that the naive, shy teenager he’d married was now well on the way to becoming a tycoon.
‘And everything I sell is made from local ingredients, as much as possible,’ she said. ‘The local dairy supplies my dairy products; the farm shop supplies my fruit and veg; I have an arrangement with the local fishmonger and butcher; my flour’s stone-ground from a local watermill—actually, they supply my bread as well—and even my coffee’s roasted locally.’
