Daisy James - There’s Something About Cornwall

‘But it’s…it’s a camper van!’

‘Yes, what were you expecting? A Winnebago? I know it’ll be a bit cosy, but we won’t be spending a lot of time inside – only to sleep and have a quick breakfast before joining the crew for the shoot. Come on, don’t stand there like a soggy treacle pudding. Climb in. We need to get over to the hotel in Padstow to get the shoot set up so we can start the photography as soon as Lucinda’s bakes are ready. There’s lots to organise. Today is an indoor shoot in the hotel’s conservatory, thank goodness, but I’m sure you’ll want to have everything wrapped up before we lose the natural light.’

Alice leapt up into the driver’s seat but Emilie remained motionless on the footpath, clutching the handle of her beloved prop box so tightly her knuckles had bleached white. Confusion and a myriad of questions ricocheted around her brain. Why hadn’t she thought to check where she would be staying for the Cornwall-wide journey? If she were honest, she had assumed she would be in the same hotel as Lucinda and loyal her assistant, Marcus Baker – but how presumptuous was that? She was a lowly photographer, not a celebrated TV chef and bestselling cookery book writer. But still, two weeks in a VW camper van? Squashed into a makeshift bed next to neat-freak Alice? It was a recipe for verbal fireworks.

The passenger-side window scrolled down and Alice peered over from the other side, her slender body hunched over the steering wheel, her mahogany bob swinging around her chin.

‘Earth to Emilie! What are you waiting for? We have a very tight schedule to keep to. I wouldn’t recommend risking Lucinda’s wrath so soon in the proceedings. Surely I don’t have to remind you that upsetting her would be professional suicide?’

Alice’s words of warning somehow sliced through Emilie’s armour of denial. She grasped the silver handle and slid back the van’s side door to stow her precious trunk in the back, and then jumped into the seat beside Alice. With a stomach-churning crunch of the gears, Alice leapfrogged away from the kerb, revving the engine and crashing the clutch until she reached the junction outside the station. There she pulled into the path of a BMW Roadster, earning herself an indignant blast of a horn and a one-fingered salute. She graced the gesticulating driver with a bright smile and a wave and headed for the road to Padstow.

‘So, how exciting is this?’ Alice gushed. ‘Chocolate-box Cornwall – nine stops, a selection of local and traditional desserts in each. What a blast we’re going to have! Come on, Em, there’s no need to look so horrified. It’s only a camper van. Would you have preferred a tent?’

‘Good grief! No way! I haven’t camped in the great outdoors since I was in the Brownies and even then I was evicted from the tent and made to sleep in the kitchen hut for prolonging a midnight feast.’

‘Don’t you think it’s the perfect solution? It’s mobile, it’s comfortable and it’s a stylish way to travel. I bet we get lots more comments about our mode of transport than Lucinda does in her blacked-out limousine.’

Emilie glanced across at Alice to check if she was being sarcastic. Sadly she wasn’t. She truly believed they had drawn the long straw in the vehicle stakes!

‘We can make our own breakfast and eat on set at lunchtime. After all, there’ll be plenty of delicious cakes to sample.’ Alice laughed, gracing Emilie with a show of her movie star teeth. ‘And when the daily shoot is over we can drive to the next location, park up and party all night without having to check into some grotty B&B or worry about waking everyone up when we tumble in at two a.m.’

Emilie turned her head to look over her shoulder into the back of the camper van – her Home Sweet Home for the next two weeks. No, wait a minute, half of her home as she would be sharing the space with Alice. There was a tiny kitchenette with a stainless steel sink, and a dual-burner hob with under-bench grill. There was even a minuscule fridge and a microwave built into the bright orange Formica units. Padded ivory leather seats, piped in matching orange, surrounded an orange table and, to complete the feeling of being imprisoned inside a satsuma, orange-and-yellow checked curtains were drawn neatly back at the windows.

Emilie wished she’d thought to bring her sunglasses. Much as she liked Alice, she had an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach that their daily struggle to five o’clock was not going to be plain sailing.

‘Take a look behind my seat!’ Alice smirked.

‘Why?’ asked Emilie, straining her neck to take in a nondescript square seat topped with a matching ivory cushion piped in the ubiquitous orange.

‘Guess what that is?’

‘Oh, God, don’t tell me.’

‘It’s a porta-potty.’

‘If you think either of us is going to use that then you’re living in a hippie-dippie dream world!’

Alice smiled but knew when to change the subject. However, her new line of attack was no less uncomfortable for Emilie.

‘You might not think it at the moment but this trip is exactly what you need right now. Don’t look at me like that. You and Brad might have been the perfect couple when you started out, both amazing photographers in your own fields, but I did warn you that he wouldn’t be able to stomach the fact that you have acres more talent than he has and over time it would cause problems.’

‘He’s a great photographer, Alice. And he taught me loads!’

‘He’s good, yes. But you’re better. Ever since you clutched that golden trophy for Best Food Photographer of the Year to your sequinned chest in July, he realised that your star was in the ascendant whilst his was on the wane and he was jealous. Plain as that. That’s why he suddenly became so disparaging about food and product photography. Why he was always saying that it’s the agency’s poor relation, and by extension so were you. He should have been singing your praises from the rooftops, proud of your achievement and of his hand in it, but instead he’s constantly pulling rank and it’s destroyed your confidence. It’s just plain professional envy and it’s not attractive. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when he went to Dexter and snatched the Venice job. When did he leave?’

‘Last Friday. I gave him a lift to the airport.’ She cringed when she saw Alice roll her eyes so she hurried on. ‘Even though we’re not seeing each other any more, there’s no reason why we can’t still be friends.’

‘He cheated on you with a clothes horse! Reason enough in my book.’

‘And we do still have to work together at the agency, especially now that the freelance venture is off the table.’

‘It doesn’t mean you can’t do it on your own, Em. Nothing’s changed as far as your awesome talent is concerned.’ Alice smiled.

Emilie swiftly averted her eyes but it was no use; Alice Jenkins was an emotional X-ray machine.

‘What? What else did he do?’

‘He borrowed my new camera.’

‘What? Not your prized Nikon?’

‘Yep.’

‘I take it you’ve protested in the strongest terms!’

‘You could say that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We had a blazing row over the phone when he was at the airport. He accused me of sour grapes about his trip to Italy and I told him where I’d like to stick my bunch of squashed fruit. It wasn’t pretty, but it felt good to get it off my chest.’

‘And?’

‘Okay, you’re right. Brad did change after I won that award, but I’m not sorry I got it. That night at The Dorchester was one of the best of my life!’

‘Attagirl!’

She was saved from Alice’s further analysis on the appropriateness of Brad as good boyfriend material as they had pulled into the car park of an imposing hotel on the seafront at Padstow. She glanced through the windscreen at the pewter-grey stone exterior and the almost subtropical foliage that surrounded it. The grand cornices above and around the entrance had been painted a brilliant white, but the undeniable grandeur of the hotel’s architecture receded into the background when she caught a glimpse of the view of Padstow’s harbour and the pretty fishing boats bobbing next to their larger, sleeker cousins.