Ice Creams at Carrington’s by Alexandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

trolley to transport the bags to their car in the designated VIP parking area in the Carrington’s car park adjacent to the store. We provide the complete shopping experience.
    After pulling back the metal concertina cage door, I make my way along the narrow, winding staff corridor; it’s like a time warp with its original 1920s faded floral wallpaper. I have to step around a couple of stock trollies piled high with flattened cardboard boxes, to push through the double security doors that lead out to the shop floor.
    And wow!
    The display team has done a brilliant job with this year’s summer interior – the shop floor has been transformed into a nostalgic, halcyon, vintage beach scene. I love it! There is real sand mixed with gold glitter scattered on the display podiums, and each one has its own theme – mini-mannequins in floral retro-style swimwear courtesy of the Cath Kidston concession, fluffy towel bales from Homeware, a candy-striped deckchair decorated with a pair of Fifties sunglasses and a tartan blanket. A glorious red Decca record player and an old-fashioned picnic hamper complete with post-war utility-style plates, cutlery and a Thermos flask are strategically placed next to a modern funky range of Orla Kiely outdoor living items – flowery patterned radios, melamine plates and divinely scented candles.
    There is even a row of Neapolitan-ice-cream-coloured wooden beach huts lining one of the cherry-wood panelled walls. Strawberry. Vanilla. Chocolate. I peep inside the vanilla beach hut and immediately feel transported – there’s a speaker in the ceiling through which I can hear the sound of the seaside on a busy summer’s day. The swooshing of waves back and forward over pebbles, seagulls caw-cawing overhead and the sound of children laughing as they play in the sun. What a genius idea. It’s just like being on an actual beach. And I swear I just got a whiff of sun cream – almond and coconut. It’s so evocative of long lazy hazy summer days on holiday. It makes me want to race upstairs to the special pop-up beachwear shop in Womenswear to find the perfect bikini with matching sarong, big floppy sunhat, beach tote, flip-flops and shades, which I guess is the whole point. Ducking out, I dip into the strawberry beach hut and I’m at a fairground now, I can hear the music from the carousel and a sweet sticky aroma fills the air. Mm-mmm. Sugar doughnuts. Candy floss. It reminds me of going to Mulberry funfair in the school holidays, and I absolutely love it! This is summer right here. Brilliant.
    Grinning from ear to ear, I head over to Women’s Accessories and spot Annie behind my old counter.
    ‘Hello stranger! What are you doing here?’ I ask, giving her a hug. Last I heard of Annie she had left to get married, the whole works – a big-fat-gypsy-type wedding. Annie is a Traveller who lives in a caravan on the permanent site up near Mulberry Common, and when she first came to work here, she was the only girl in her family to ever have a paid job.
    ‘Couldn’t keep away.’ She twiddles her nose stud and smiles wryly.
    ‘And the wedding?’ I ask, spotting her bare ring finger.
    ‘Oh, he turned into a complete knobber – started mouthing off about how after the wedding my place would be at home cooking and scrubbing up after him, so I dumped him. I’m nobody’s chalice.’
    ‘Chattel.’
    ‘Whatevs. If that’s another word for slave, then that too,’ Annie says, placing her left hand on her hip, and making me smile. I’ve really missed her. ‘So, I got on the phone to HR and got my old job back. Well, your old job, to be exact.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Anyway, I’m the supervisor now. My first day, too, and it’s going really well. I’ve already shifted two Marc Jacobs top handles and a Juicy Couture crossbody bag. And I remembered all the little tricks you taught me, like surreptitiously sweeping the cheaper bag along to the end of the counter so as to focus the customer’s