Prologue - The Secrets of Ice Cream Success

     

        The teenager hopped onto the bonnet of the car and lounged backwards, her top pulling tight across her chest as she spread out on the warm metal and let the sun caress her body… 

…Carlo coughed violently and dropped the ice cream cone he was filling as his heart skipped a beat, leaving a flow of Leodoni’s Vanilla Ice Cream to pour leisurely onto the floor as he scrabbled to pick up the cone and switch off the ice cream machine at the same time.

‘Oh, damn… damn, sorry. I’ll get you a new one.’

As he stood up and reached across to get the customer a fresh cone, he noticed that the vision of young loveliness he had been watching; the vision that had only moments earlier made a complete fool of him; had got into the car with her boyfriend and vanished, leaving one rather exasperated customer and quite a large mountain of his father’s best ice cream melting happily on the floor of the van.

‘Bloody hell, Carlo! What are you doing?’ his father asked, turning in the driver’s seat, where he had been lightly snoozing, to see the mess on the floor.

‘Sorry Dad, I wasn’t concentrating. I’ll clean it up.’

‘No, no. You just serve the gentleman, I’ll get that.’

After the customer had departed and the spillage cleared, Luigi Leodoni climbed back into the driver’s seat, undid the latch that locked it and swivelled around to swing his legs onto the dashboard.

‘So what were you thinking about?’ he asked his son, closing his eyes and settling back in the seat.

Carlo finished wiping down the counter and hopped up onto it. ‘What, when?’ he said, stifling a yawn.

‘When you decided to waste some of my best merchandise.’

‘Oh, right. Nothing really.’ he said, glad his father hadn’t noticed him become so flustered because of a girl.

‘Well, next time you get distracted by nothing, do me a favour and switch the machine off first.’

Carlo grunted and pulled his legs around to stick them out of the serving hatch. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet. He was extremely bored and it was starting to get very hot. He looked out over the moors stretched before them, the odd walker scattered here and there on the paths that ambled their way through the bracken and heather. ‘Why couldn’t we go to the beach? All the other vans went to the beach. It would be cooler there.’

‘Because,’ Luigi replied in the tone of a frustrated teacher talking to an intelligent but wilfully awkward child, ‘that’s where all of the other vans have gone.’ He nodded as if his point could not be more final.

‘That’s what I said!’ Carlo laughed.

‘Exactly! Look, if all the other vans from town have gone to the beach as well they’re all going to be competing for the same customers, whereas here…’ he waved his hands to take in the entire vista of the moors, ‘we have the customers to ourselves.’ Luigi grinned at his own shrewdness and gave a quick burst of “You Are My Sunshine” from the speaker on top of the van to emphasise his point. Carlo just looked around at the entirely customer free landscape.

‘Besides,’ he continued, settling himself down in his seat, ‘Neil sent John and the other vans to the beach today. I’m not stupid. We’ve got the coast covered from Redcar to Whitby.’

‘I should have hopped on Uncle Randy’s van when I had the chance.’ Carlo muttered quietly enough so his father wouldn’t hear him.

After a few minutes he heard slightly deeper breathing from his father signifying that another nap had commenced. Carlo pushed himself out of the serving hatch and landed with a soft thud on the gravel of the car park. He began to wander around aimlessly; occasionally kicking at pebbles and watching the dust swirl up around his feet merely for something to do. This was the fourth day of Carlo’s summer holidays and he was probably the only twelve-year-old already wishing for the monotonous familiarity of school. Even double history lessons with Mr Short-Bottomley, the Terror of First Period Fridays; an ancient man widely regarded as having solely prevented the invasion of the Nazi army through bellowing alone, would be better than this.

To make matters worse he knew that right now every one of his friends would be enjoying themselves more than him. Newton was in Egypt with his parents, who considered it more of a cultural education than a holiday, and had spent the previous 2 months reading every book on Egyptology he could find. Norton had been disappointed to discover through Newton’s research that the Egyptian Pharaohs did not, in fact, have a crack squad of Ninja Jedi Mummies at their disposal, though even Newton had to agree that just because they weren’t mentioned in the books did not mean they didn’t exist. But Norton’s already slight interest in all things pyramid shaped disappeared and he declared Egypt a “boring” country full of dust and bones that didn’t even show his favourite show “TechnoThunderBots” on TV. Carlo had left the room to avoid the onrushing argument just as Newton had started to wave the books around incredulously under Norton’s nose.

Norton himself was in France visiting his grandmother. Carlo had already received a text complaint decreeing France to be “pants”, the issue stemming from not being able to plug in his games console as France’s power sockets were “weird and wrong”. That Norton’s father had resolved the problem within the hour by buying an adapter hadn’t seemed to calm his ire. Carlo hadn’t replied to the text. He never did. His father had bought him a mobile so they could stay in touch, but he barely used it as he was always with the only people he was ever likely to contact.

‘You always know where I am, Dad. It’s not as if I go anywhere other than Abi and Ben’s, Newton’s or Norton’s house.’ he had said.

‘Humour me.’ Luigi had replied.

Carlo wished he was at Abi and Ben’s house instead of in the van. Even though they hadn’t travelled anywhere for the summer holidays, he knew that they would most likely be splashing in the fields behind their home; perhaps fixing the tree house, playing in the stream or generally getting muddy enough for their parents to raise comment.

‘Customer, Dad.’ Carlo sighed wearily, seeing a man and young boy emerge from a newly arrived car. ‘Dad! Customer!’ he said again more loudly as he clambered back into the van through the passenger door.

‘I’m up, I’m up.’ Luigi answered, stifling a yawn. Standing, he gently pushed his son out of the way as the man and boy reached the van. ‘Good morning. What can I get you?’

‘Erm… two 99’s please and… Harry, what did you want kiddo?

‘A twister. God! I just told ya’ Dad!’

‘Ah, of course, and a Twister please.’

‘No problem.’ Luigi said, his hands moving with the speed and grace of someone who had been filling ice cream cones for over thirty years. ‘Pass me a Twister please Carlo, thank you. Right, that’ll be £2.50 please.’ He said handing over the ice creams. ‘Thank you very much. And remember, there’s a reason Leodoni’s is the creamiest!’ he finished primly.

As the customers returned to their car, Mr Leodoni resumed his place at the driver’s seat whilst Carlo hopped back up onto the counter, trying not to grimace too much at the awful catchphrase his father used at the end of every sale.

‘Why Ice Cream Dad? You could have done anything, why this?’

‘Your Grandfather made Ice Cream, Carlo. You know that.’ his father answered without opening his eyes.

‘Yeah, but you left Italy to get away from him. You called him a tyrannical maniac with an iced confection obsession. YOU… said that he would have given Mussolini a run for his money!’

‘But that’s no reason not to take up the family business.’

Carlo threw his dad a disgusted look as another car pulled up in the lay-by. Carlo knew that his father had set his heart on him joining Leodoni’s after leaving school. He wasn’t exactly thrilled by the notion; being twelve any thought of work seemed an awfully distant event, he certainly didn’t want to upset his family, it was just… ‘Let me just survive the summer first.’ he mumbled under his breath, letting his thoughts drift away.

‘Hmm, what was that?’ Luigi asked

Carlo looked around and noticed a pretty young girl about his own age leave a group of walkers and set off towards the van. ‘I said, customer, Dad.’ he improvised as the familiar sense of dread that arose every time he was faced with talking to a girl began to surface. Luigi stretched out and theatrically pulled his cap further down to cover his face.

‘You get it, son. I’m going to have a little kip. Ooh what a tyrant I am, ‘must get it from my Dad!’ he said, smirking to himself.

‘Dad!’ Carlo whispered as loud as he could, ‘Dad!’ But it was too late; the girl was already at the counter. Having humiliated himself in front of a member of the opposite sex once already that morning, he had no intention of doing it again. “Relax, Carlo.” he thought before turning around with a rather queasy grin fixed in place to find a face staring back at him that had not so much been dusted with freckles as dipped in the freckle pot.

‘Err, excuse me. Can I have two cones please, one with a lemon-top?’ she said whilst fiddling in her pocket to find some money.

Carlo nodded and started to fill two cones from the ice cream maker whilst trying not to look directly at the girl. ‘Th… That’s £2.10 please.’ he stuttered, passing over the ice creams.

Handing over the money, the girl looked up and smiled sweetly at him. She smiled at him. AT HIM! He had to take the chance; he had to talk to her. For once in his life he must take a risk. “The Motto” he thought. It may be stupid, but it always worked for his Dad. “Do it, Carlo. Do it…”

‘There’s a reason I’m creamy, you know.’ he garbled, regretting it almost as soon as the first word had left his mouth. The girl gave Carlo a puzzled glance and turned hurriedly back towards the car, looking dubiously at the ice creams.

THUD…

THUD…

Luigi woke up at the noise and turned to find his son beating his head against the ice cream maker.

‘…reason’ THUD

‘…I’m Creamy’ THUD

‘…you know.’ THUD

‘Stupid’ THUD

‘…bloody’ THUD

‘…idiot!’ THUD

‘If you break that machine, you’re paying for it!’ Luigi muttered nonplussed, before turning back to get comfortable once more.

As the morning turned slowly to afternoon and the heat of the day climbed considerably, a steady stream of customers visited the van until by three in the afternoon both Luigi and Carlo were beginning to feel like they were covered head to foot in grime. As usual the approach of teatime saw the pace slacken as everyone started to make their way home. Taking the opportunity to rest, Carlo jumped into the driver’s seat as his father wiped down the counter after saying goodbye to the last of the customers with his traditional motto.

‘Why do you say that dad? It makes no sense.’

‘It’s the motto. We always say that. It’s our tagline.’ Luigi answered, taking up his son’s usual position on the counter.

‘I know that. But why?’ Carlo persisted.

‘Well, I suppose it’s all down to your Mother.’

‘What? She made it up?’

‘No. It’s about her.’

Carlo sat up straight in the seat and turned to face his father. ‘What are you talking about, Dad? It’s about the ice cream. Do you mean it’s about how she used to make it?’

Luigi turned to stare out of the window over the moors laid out before them. The afternoon sun was stretching the shadow of the van towards the distant peaks. ‘Your Mam loved this job.’ he said, almost to himself. ‘She always loved watching the smiles on the kids’ faces as she handed them a raspberry ripple or lemon top. When she became ill, she told me that she would like to go on being a part of this business after she passed away.’

Carlo shifted in his seat. He had never heard his Dad discuss his mother like this. Though his father had told him many things about his mother, they had never really talked about her death beyond the fact that she had died only days after Carlo had been born, having been diagnosed with cancer during the pregnancy.

Luigi turned back to look at his son. ‘Your mother and I came up with this plan just before the end. It’s why she was cremated and not buried like the rest of the family. I suppose I had to tell you at some point.’

‘Tell me what, Dad?’ Carlo asked, still lost.

‘Well, do you know those speckles in the Vanilla ice cream?’

Carlo nodded and waited for his father to carry on, but Luigi just looked back at his son with a strange expression on his face. Slowly comprehension began to dawn on the young boy.

‘They aren’t vanilla seeds?’ he tentatively asked as if afraid to hear the answer. Luigi slowly shook his head before turning again to look out of the window, saying ‘Most are, but not all of them, no.’

‘Ugh! Dad that’s sick! You’re sick! I don’t believe it!’ Carlo shouted, jumping up and gesticulating wildly. Remembering the cute girl he had tried to talk to that morning, he opened the door and jumped out of the van. ‘Aww, Dad! That poor lass is eating Mam!’

‘Vanilla was always her favourite.’ Luigi added wistfully, but sensing that that probably wasn’t helping, he climbed out of the van after his son and carried on. ‘It’s only a pinch in each batch Son. We have to make it last after all.’

‘Dad! Just shut up will you!’ Carlo slumped down on a large rock by the side of the car park and put his head in his hands. This was a joke, it must be. ‘So let me get this straight.’ he said trying to keep his voice calm, ‘Every time I’ve had an ice cream in the past I’ve being eating bits of Mam?’

‘No, of course not. Don’t be silly!’

Carlo breathed out and felt his body began to relax. ‘Thank God for that…’

‘Only if it was vanilla.’ Luigi added before his son could continue

‘Eh? Dad, no!’ Carlo looked like he was going to be sick.      

‘It’s what she would have wanted, Carlo.’ his father said rushing over to put an arm around his son.

‘It’s not I want Dad! You’ve got to stop it. It’s horrible, plus if anyone else finds out you can go to jail!’

Luigi sighed. ‘I know. I know, son. I wouldn’t expect you to continue when you take over the business. And I’ll probably have to stop soon anyway, the way it’s going.’

‘What was that?’ Carlo asked, taken aback. ‘Take over the business? Dad, I doubt I’m ever going to have an ice cream again after this news, never mind run the bloody company! I’m twelve; I don’t want to be part of feeding my mother to horrible sticky kids! I’m going to need counselling for life after this.’

Stepping away Luigi turned back to the van, a tear forming in his eye, heartbroken at his son’s words.

‘But it’s what we’ve always dreamed of…’ he whispered.

‘We? We who? You and Mam? Are you nuts?’ Carlo screamed running to get in front of his Dad. Luigi pushed past him as more tears began to roll down his face.

‘Right, if that’s how you feel. Don’t you worry about it!’ he sobbed. Covering his face with his hands, Luigi climbed back into the van. Feeling a lump begin to form in his own throat Carlo followed him. What on earth was going on? His Dad was in floods of tears; his Mam was in the ice cream; this was not how the summer holidays were supposed to go. Climbing back into the van Carlo thought of the usual start of term question that every young student was given as their first assignment. “Please describe what you did during your summer holidays.” How on earth would he begin?

Wiping a tear from his own face he jumped into the passenger seat next to his father. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry, Dad. Really, I just…’

‘It was your mother’s last wish.’ Luigi interrupted, starting the engine and pulling into the road, swerving wildly as he tried to wipe tears from his eyes. ‘Your mother’s last wish that you grow up to be a proper Leodoni and you’ve dishonoured her.’

‘Me dishonour her? Dad, you’ve put her in the dessert!’ Carlo shouted whilst reaching across to grab the seatbelt.

Moving down the road at over 60 miles over hour, Luigi automatically stretched to the dashboard and switched the van music on. With “You Are My Sunshine” garbling out of the tiny speaker on the top of the van at full volume they hurtled towards a steep bank that lead back down towards the town.

‘All I wanted was for you to take over after I’m gone…’

‘I’m not putting you in the chocolate ice cream, Dad! Forget it!’

‘I just wish my son loved me enough to do this.’

Carlo started to answer but found himself having to cling on as the van swung wildly around a corner, careering from one side of the road to the other as motorists screeched to a halt only just avoiding a collision. Behind the wheel Luigi had become so upset that he barely seemed concerned about driving anymore. ‘Dad, slow down. You’re going to kill us!’

‘Die? We might as well all die now! We might as well all join your mother.’

‘Don’t be so bloody dramatic, Dad! Err, Dad? What are you doing?’ Carlo dove across the seats as his father released the wheel to cover his face, wailing, too distraught to continue driving.

‘My poor love, my sweet love… I’m coming to you Sweet Helena… I can’t live without you.’

Kicking his father out of the way, Carlo fell into the driver’s seat and tried to slow the van, but it was too late and they missed a turn, plunging off the road and down a steep bank, staying on four wheels until the van hit a tree and flipped onto its side. Sliding down the rest of the incline, the van slowly came to rest with “You Are My Sunshine” still blaring from the speakers.

Carlo opened his eyes and to his surprise found himself still sitting in the driver’s seat holding tightly to the wheel and leaning against the door underneath him. Looking through the windscreen at the outside world he was rather curious to see that everything seemed to have shifted ninety degrees.

Looking up to where the passenger seat was now hanging above him, Carlo tried to find his father but couldn’t see him.

‘Dad? Are you all right, Dad?’ he shouted, slowly pulling himself upright so he could stand on the door. Getting no response, he clambered over the seats to the back of the van, but nearly threw up in shock as he found his father slumped awkwardly against the counter whilst the Ice Cream machine, now hanging from the ceiling, slowly dripped the tainted vanilla ice cream onto his head where it began to mix with blood from a large gash across his temple. The liquid flowed over his still open eyes, past his nose and down into his mouth. Unable to take in what he was seeing, all Carlo could think about was the music still playing. Climbing onto the counter and up to the hatch, he hoisted himself through and onto the side of the van before gingerly dropping to the ground. From above him at the top of the bank he could hear voices as motorists, having witnessed the accident, called out, some slipping down the bank as they rushed to help.

But all Carlo could concentrate on was the music; the music from the van; the van that now contained his dead father as well as serving his dead mother. The music that was a call to all the sweaty, horrible, whining children to attend the Ice Cream Van of Death!

Carlo ignored the shouts and questions as the would-be rescuers neared the crash and instead walked over to the tree the van had hit during its descent and grabbed the biggest branch he could. As the first of the motorists reached the accident, Carlo returned to the van and began to repeatedly thrash the speaker with the branch, each blow accompanied by a steadily growing scream from the young boy.

Eventually the music stopped as the speaker broke free from the roof under the onslaught, dangling on a wire like a chicken with a broken neck. Carlo looked at the speaker with a strangely satisfied smile on his face before he turned to the crowd of people who were now staring at him in confusion.

‘Apparently, there’s a reason.’ he said, before slumping to the floor unconscious.