Mrs Whippy by Cecelia Ahern

Author:Cecelia Ahern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: GemmaMedia
Published: 2009-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Six

Mr Whippy’s ice-cream is not gourmet and it’s not expensive. He’s appealing to children playing out on the road on spring and summer days. His customers are not people like me that end up with more ice-cream in their mouth than on their faces and on the ground. His ice-cream has none of the richness of more expensive ones. But the lack of exotic flavours is made up for by its preparation.

I can tell this by the look on his face when he opens the window of the van and serves the children with his biggest, brightest smile. I can tell that his ice-cream was made with love. I know it was prepared with patience and pride. I know that this man’s love for ice-cream is his livelihood. I can tell even by one brief meeting that that man has passion.

Later that night, I imagined him preparing his special ice-creams for the next day. I pictured him whisking egg yolks with sugar and salt and moving around the kitchen like he was performing on stage. I could see him splitting vanilla pods and scraping out the seeds. I saw him softly, yet firmly, pressing raspberries and stirring smooth, milky chocolate.

I could imagine the thick, heavy cream gushing into the saucepan and being brought slowly to a simmer. I could hear the small bubbles rising to the surface and bursting with a light popping sound.

I could see him whisking the warm cream into the egg-yolk mixture. I could smell all the aromas in the kitchen. I could feel his excitement as the mixture thickened, the heat of the hob built and his stirring became faster and more constant. All this while he remained calm and didn’t allow it to boil. No over-acting; no steps out of place. There was a rhythm to his work.

And then the music would slow as the performance neared its end. He would take the mixture off the heat and pour it into a churn. It would be churned until lovely and thick, the fruit and flavours added right at the end. Then he would transfer it to the freezer, where it would sit until the next day. Work done, song finished and dance completed. It was time to take a bow.

I closed the curtains in my bedroom late that Saturday night. And I felt that Act One certainly had closed in my life. Tomorrow was a new day.

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