Ice cream DREAMS
THE STORY SO FAR: It’s the 1960s, and Rosa comes home from work to find her mother Maria furiously talking about a woman called Lucia. But who is Lucia? Maria, who is of Italian descent, is so upset she develops a headache. So Rosa goes to get her pills and finds a letter in Italian from Lucia. Rosa gets the letter translated by a work colleague, and it turns out Lucia is ill and begging to make amends with her old friend Maria. But Maria won’t go to see Lucia, who lives on a Scottish island and has an ice-cream business, so Rosa decides to visit instead. Once on the island, Hamish the taxi driver takes her to Lucia’s house. Only, when she arrives, Lucia is being lifted into an ambulance because of her high blood pressure. When she sees Rosa, she becomes agitated. She has something important to tell Rosa and says it won’t wait.
As I walked out of the cottage hospital two hours later, Hamish’s taxi was still waiting.
And what Lucia had just told me was still spinning round my head. Had I heard right? The whole situation was so unlikely, I was beginning to wonder if I’d dreamt it.
‘So, what’s the news?’ said Hamish.
I thanked him for waiting before sinking into the passenger seat. My mother would have told him to mind his own business. But I was
