Freja didn’t mean to stop for ice cream. The plan was to walk until she could think of nothing but sore feet, walk a bit further, turn around and limp back to the hotel. She reckoned she could lose a good couple of hours, from the seafront at Las Ramblas all the way to—what was it called? She’d know when she saw it. She hadn’t factored in the sheer number of people flocking to Barcelona in July, nor the sheer lack of quality of her sandals. She made it forty minutes before seeing a bright pink awning and large umbrellas. The pavement sign showed a woman beaming at a Magnum. The sign above the awning said, Oasis Ice Cream Parlour. Freja’s feet said, sit down. Her stomach said, sorbet.
She walked right in.
The shop was gently air conditioned, with a cluster of metal tables and a counter the length of the back wall. A drinks cabinet sat next to a ceiling-height wallpaper photo of Audrey Hepburn eating an ice cream. Once the door swung closed, all Freja could hear was a hum from the appliances and the whirring of overhead fans. It was the sort of place that existed so deliberately on a blazing summer’s day in Catalonia that Freja felt that somehow, when the winter came, it must fold up into nothingness.
‘How can I help you?’
Standing behind the counter, tidying paper tubs, was a woman who looked nothing like an ice cream proprietor should look and everything like a sorceress should look. Firstly, she was tiny. Not ‘slim’ or ‘dancer’s body’. Her head only just reached over the glass countertop, and she looked like she could fit inside the counter, stretched out, with room to spare. An ebony plait, the sort that started the morning neat and spent the rest of the day rebelling, reached over her shoulder and past her waist. Enough curls had escaped to warrant application of their own postcode. Finally, she wore a colouring book of arcane, spidery tattoos. An eye of Horus on one thumb. An evil eye on the other thumb, which should’ve looked wonky but didn’t. Runes and symbols Freja didn’t recognise on her knuckles. Those twin snakes—Urnes snakes?—peeking out of a cotton shirt sleeve and down the inside of her forearm. Feathers and flowers and trees, all in black ink, took up her other arm. Her skin was the sort of dark amber that Freja and her friends could only achieve with cement-like layers of fake tan. She could have been twenty five with a lot of attitude or fifty five with a great skin care routine.
Freja felt strongly that this woman should be reading fortunes in a tent somewhere desert-like, or at a stove brewing a curse to ruin the life of an unfaithful corporate banker.
‘Oh, I…’ Freja took in the containers inside the counter. Lavender swirl. Brown sugar and cinnamon. Lemon curd. Ooh, pistachio. Butterscotch. Cherry and almond—gross. Whisky and vanilla—grosser. Chili chocolate. Blueberry and banana. Others she didn’t know: Cloud Nine: something pink and blue, like a sunset. Midnight Musings: coffee or chocolate, maybe, with dark chocolate swirls. Tropical island: something orange with sprinkles. The handwritten blackboard on the wall offered sundaes, banana splits, cones, tubs, oysters and wafer sandwiches. Toppings included hot fudge, hundreds and thousands, millions and trillions (that was a new one), cold fudge, five types of alcoholic liqueurs, marshmallows and, of course, hot chocolate. This was literal hot chocolate, the sign clarified, not drinking chocolate. Drinking chocolate was also available, with a kind of mini dessert option if one wanted to make an event of it.
Freja had seen many beautiful things in Barcelona so far, but the sheer number of options on the board was by far the most awe inspiring.
Another handwritten sign on the counter said ‘sample before you decide!’ with a little smiley face. ‘Could I please try—’ The door clanged as another family burst inside, multitudes of children clamoring in Dutch or German. ‘Actually, what would you recommend?’
‘For you? Maybe…’ The woman’s obsidian eyes flickered from Freja to the counter to the loud family back to Freja. She wore a name tag, fighting to get out from underneath the plait: Alexandria, manager. ‘If you have time to wait, I could make you a sundae?’
Freja’s stomach grumbled. ‘That—that would be lovely. Thank you.’
‘Any allergies or intolerances?’
‘It’s not an allergy per se, but walnuts make me vomit. And I really don’t like ginger.’
Alexandria smiled. ‘Grab a drink, have a seat and I’ll bring it over.’
Freja selected a lemon Fanta from the fridge, accepted a glass and retreated to the table nearest the window. The Dutch placed orders for cones and screwballs in the sorts of luminous colours Freja’s little brother, Felix, would covet and their mother would call ‘e numbers on cocaine.’ They took up most of the remaining tables, slurping Sprites and arguing over something Freja could tell was trivial without knowing a word of Dutch. Alexandria moved about behind the counter, assembling something into a tall glass.
By the time Alexandria brought the sundae over, the Dutch children had used the toilets, complained loudly—possibly of stomachaches, as their parents hurried them back into the toilets—and run outside to investigate something on the pavement. The adults sat back, chattering. As Alexandria returned to the counter, long skirt swishing, Freja noticed a pair of jeweled sandals (far better quality than the ones currently ripping her toes to shreds) and a calf wrapped with a flock of ravens. She wondered where Alexandria was from. Spain, maybe, or somewhere further south. Freja was awful with accents. She hid her own as much as possible.
Freja couldn’t remember the last time she had people watched—not that sitting in a crowded café had been an option until recently. It was almost as fun as admiring her sundae, which resembled a colour swatch. Dark blue and purple at the bottom. Pinks and yellows in the middle. It was topped with something white and fluffy, like spun marshmallows, except when she tried some, it tasted like white chocolate.
Alexandria began to tidy up as the Dutch family wandered out, replacing serviettes and removing glassware. A stack of change sat on the empty tables: enough in tips to buy an ice cream.
The shop felt cosier, somehow, now it was quiet again. Freja supposed that this was really the siesta: more customers would come in later on, when it cooled down. Only tourists were mad enough to step outside at one o’clock in the afternoon. Freja wondered how much money the parlour took each day just from sweaty holidaymakers seeking reprieve from the heat.
Alexandria moved a chair that backed onto Freja’s table; Freja pulled her own chair as far back as it could go.
‘You don’t like to take up space.’
Freja blinked. Didn’t she? Also, a small voice pointed out, she took up more space than this munchkin lady.
‘Your bag is in your lap even though there’s a chair to put it on. You hurried your order when you saw people come in.’
‘It’s because I’m British,’ Freja said automatically. ‘We’re used to queuing. Being at the front unsettles us.’ She tried a spoonful of yellow sorbet. It tasted like ripe lemons, just like the legendary lemonade her grandmother made. Almost bitter enough to hurt, but not quite. This’ll put whiskers on your chin, Sigrid would say whenever she served it up. Freja heard a loud, brash laugh and, a moment later, realised she was the one who made it.
‘Something… tastes bad?’ Alexandria asked, eyebrows raised in that polite are you feeling quite sane way.
‘No, no.’ Freja swallowed. ‘It’s fantastic. It’s just… I ran a half marathon last year. Didn’t eat junk food for six months in preparation. I assumed I do another this year, so I’ve been on a diet since Christmas and going to the gym four times a week. I can’t remember the last time I ate a sundae.’ Or the last time I ate something and enjoyed it, she added silently. Alexandria didn’t need to know that she ate most meals at a computer.
‘That is good for you.’ Freja got the impression that she meant it in the literal sense, exercise is beneficial to you, not in the standard oh, good for you sense.
‘Yeah. I suppose it is. It’s just… I did the half marathon through work, for the company’s chosen charity. And, um, before I came out here I was made redundant, so… no more half marathons.’
The flock of ravens rippled as Alexandria moved about. ‘You cannot do a marathon without the company?’
Freja had another spoonful of ice cream as she considered her answer. This one tasted a little bit like, oh, something she’d eaten as a child. She’d realise what in a minute. ‘I suppose I could. It’s just—God, this is embarrassing—my manager and I did it together, with a couple of other people from our team. And I thought, I don’t know, he was kind of a mentor to me. It felt like a social thing… and I don’t have many social things.’
‘Ah,’ Alexandria’s eyes glinted. ‘You like the boss?’
‘No! Not like that. Maybe a tiny bit of a crush. But not really properly. It’s just that I felt like we were a good team. And on Friday evening he sat me down with the director and told me that cost-cutting has to happen and targets need to be met and I should clear my desk as there’s no point in coming back after my holiday.’
Alexandria nodded, like, that’s a good reason to be laughing manically in an ice cream parlour. She produced a spray bottle from behind the counter and began wiping down tables.
‘It’s not just the marathon.’ Freja stirred a piece of ice cream not melted enough to eat. ‘I’ve worked there since I was twenty-one. They gave me a job straight out of uni and I’ve learnt so much. There’s a kind of training programme that I did really well on. When Corona hit, I worked from home with four other people in the house using the Internet and an appalling camera and loads of technical issues with my ancient laptop. Mandy went on maternity leave at the same time, so I covered her work because they changed their mind about hiring someone else during the crisis. I worked on Saturdays before, during and after Corona. Whenever we had appraisals I knew I’d really earnt every pay rise, and we only had them six months ago. And,’ Freja realised she was rambling but found she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—turn it off. ‘And the other day my cousin sent me a job advert that they put out the week before I was made redundant. It’s for my exact job, but a third better paid. Oh, and most of my friends are my colleagues, and only one of them messaged me back when I said I was leaving.’
Alexandria was scrubbing a piece of gum from a table, so Freja wasn’t sure she was really listening, but she looked up and met Freja’s eyes. ‘That is their loss.’
‘Thanks.’ Freja had another spoonful of sundae. ‘It’s just… I’ve been there four years, and it feels like it was a waste of time.’
Freja looked down at her glass. What was that she could taste? Definitely raspberries. It reminded her of the cocktail her dad bought her on her eighteenth. She’d never been able to recreate it at home. She should bring the rest of her family here. They were exploring the beach today—or exploring how many water sports her brothers could try without risking bankruptcy—and she felt suddenly bad that they hadn’t all discovered this place together. Even her I-don’t-do-sweet-foods mum would find something to enjoy.
Thank you for reading! Read part two here (this is one of those pieces that wasn’t initially in two parts but got quite long). Please consider sharing this with anyone you think might enjoy it.
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Copyright © 2020 by Francesca Astraea.
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