The Chocolate Promise

by Josephine Moon

  Over the month, they continued the process, taking day trips up the Tamar Valley and wandering through the raspberry and lavender farms and the wineries (where they found the usual pinots and chardonnays, but also the unusual gewürztraminers), and passed apple orchards and strawberry farms, soaking up the frosty sunshine, and relaxing beside fireplaces in pubs and restaurants.

  Gradually, smiling got easier. Laughter and silliness too. Christmas began to venture out on her own and took a pottery class one week, a dance class the next, and a one-day workshop in chocolate making the week after that, falling in love, instantly, with the aroma and sensuality of chocolate. She had experienced the power of self-healing and nurturing firsthand, and now she wanted to share it with others. She no longer wanted to help people look good, as had been her role in PR, but to help them feel good. One day, she picked up a copy of O magazine and found her idol: Oprah. Now there was a woman who’d overcome hardship and tragedy and gone on to make a bigger and better life not just for herself but for others too. She’d always loved Oprah, and now she wanted to be like her.

  Christmas declared a day of decision-making. Fuelled by stories in O magazine about people who’d changed their lives, she resolved to do the same. She searched real estate sites for a new place to live and phoned several agents, making appointments for viewings. She decided to build a new life, one dedicated to nurturing and healing herself and others. She wrote a list of rules to live by.

  That evening, she handed Emily a glass of pinot and a plate of chocolate-coated raspberries. ‘My lovely friend,’ she said, raising her glass, ‘I’m moving out.’

  12

  A Tuesday morning seemed as good a time as any other to get the ball rolling, so Elsa met with Rita Blumberg in her room at the end of the corridor inside the main building of Green Hills Aged Care. She parked her wheelchair next to Rita’s at the small table in the corner. The Chinese dragon lantern—a gift from Rita’s grandchildren for Mother’s Day—that covered the bulb above them cast a red glow across the metal safety rails of the narrow bed. It was one of the few cheerful things in that room, and Elsa was once again grateful that she didn’t have to rely entirely on the government to sponsor her care as Rita did. Those Canberra administrators were certainly of the no-frills mentality.

  Other spots of colour in the austere room came from the purple woolen blanket on top of the uniform white one they were all issued; children’s drawings of people, cats and rockets; and one of Rita’s own paintings, of a young girl in a sunflower field. The rest of Rita’s unsold artwork, Elsa believed, was being held onto by family members, probably in the hope that its value would increase after Rita’s passing, rather than selling it now to improve her care today. Then again, maybe Elsa was looking at Rita’s circumstances through her own mud-coloured glasses, supplied by Tom’s recent misbehaviour. After all, Rita’s family did visit her regularly, often on a Friday night as was the Jewish custom.

  ‘So you want to be shadchan,’ Rita said, with a knowing smile. ‘A m-matchmaker?’

  Elsa suddenly felt foolish and began to pick at the knitted shawl around her shoulders. ‘Well, I’d like to try. I’d like to see my grandson happy, and he seems to have some things in common with a local girl—Christmas Livingstone.’

  Rita nodded as best she could through the tremors. ‘What do you know about her?’

  Although this was a perfectly reasonable question, Elsa felt herself prickle with irritation. She didn’t really know anything about Christmas Livingstone. What on earth had made her want to get involved? Perhaps she was losing her marbles. ‘I’m embarrassed to say, not much.’

  Rita studied Elsa, her milky eyes blinking. ‘The secret to good matchmaking is knowing the values and beliefs the coup-p-ple share. Every person glows like a candle flame.’ Rita held up each of her index fingers to represent two people. ‘Bring them together,’ she moved the tips of her fingers closer, ‘and they should b-b-burn in one bigger, brighter flame. They should light up the room.’ She dropped her hands and they quivered in her lap. ‘A mismatched couple will not light up a room.’

  Elsa’s spirits lifted. ‘Christmas is coming to visit us to lead us in a chocolate tasting.’

  ‘We’re all looking forward to that.’

  ‘I’ll make sure Lincoln is here too. That will give us something to go on, won’t it?’

  Rita nodded. ‘Certainly.’

  The tea trolley rattled down the hall and a pimply boy wearing a sticker on his polo shirt that said Hello, my name’s Kristof and I’m on work experience bounded into the room proffering plastic cups with safety lids. ‘Good morning, ladies,’ he grinned. ‘What a wonderful day. I’ve brought you tea.’

  Rita raised her fair eyebrows above her huge glasses. She was hardly grey at all, lucky thing.

  The boy’s vigour was like sitting too close to a fire. Elsa felt the need to retreat. ‘Goodness,’ she said to him. ‘Are you related to Tigger, by any chance?’

  Kristof’s smile waned slightly and he offered an uncertain chuckle before bidding them a good day and leaving again.

  ‘Tsk,’ Rita said. ‘The poor lad’s doing his best.’

  ‘Ah, for the energy of the young,’ Elsa said. ‘They haven’t a clue what to do with it.’

  ‘Ah, for a proper teacup,’ Rita muttered, tapping her plastic cup with her fingernail.

  ‘Next time, come to my bungalow,’ Elsa said. ‘We’ll have a proper tea party and I’ll get my grandson to come along and you can meet him too.’

  Rita’s eyes lit up. ‘Just let me know when and I’ll get young Kristof to wheel me over.’ She winked at Elsa and they tittered conspiratorially.

  Elsa felt a bubble of joy rise up in her and was glad she’d made this trip to see Rita today. It was an odd thing about aged care, she often thought, that the people inside were often lonely but didn’t necessarily want to connect with the others in the home. Perhaps it was because they all knew their time was limited. Or because they all needed to find their own personal space in the dormitory-like atmosphere. Either way, Elsa couldn’t remember the last time she’d made a new friend. And she’d forgotten how good it felt.

  She raised her plastic cup of lukewarm tea to Rita’s. ‘To new friends!’

  •

  Lincoln’s morning had been frittered away via the wonder of technology. After walking and feeding Caesar, he’d sat down to catch up on emails and finalise his research for submission to the head scientist at Neptune, struggled with uploading a hundred photographs, thanks to a new version of Windows that had changed the way everything worked, and politely enquired if there might be another suitable contract in the near future that he could apply for. Before he knew it, lunchtime was upon him and he was running late to meet Rubble.

  His friend had booked them both into a rented house in Swansea for the weekend, saying that he needed to get away for inspiration and that Lincoln needed to get out of his grandmother’s stale house and away from his laptop and breathe in some fresh seaside air.

  ‘You’re working too hard,’ Rubble had said down the phone, chewing something, his words indistinct. Evidently Lydia was still sulking.

  ‘I think I’m working an appropriate amount, considering I’m technically unemployed right now,’ Lincoln had replied. ‘I’m finishing up my Ecuador research and working on chapters for the chocolate book.’

  ‘How’s that going, by the way?’

  ‘Great, actually. We’ve been working together for ten days now and it’s going better than I had expected. I think Christmas was a good choice for a co-author. She’s really clever.’

  ‘Stinkin’ Lincoln! I can hear that tone in your voice. You fancy her.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Do too.’

  ‘Do not.’

  ‘Do too.’

  Lincoln gave up. When Rubble was in his gorging phase, not only did his girth expand but so too did his arrogance. He became immovable and inflexible, like the big heavy rock he resembled.

&
nbsp; Lincoln’s last line of defence had been that he needed to take care of Caesar.

  ‘No problem,’ Rubble said. He’d found a place that was pet friendly so Caesar could come too. There was some debate then over whose car to take, Lincoln’s grandmother’s minuscule but sturdy Honda or Rubble’s unpredictable but larger BMW; they decided on the BMW, because although it might break down at any moment, at least there was more room for Caesar to stretch out in the back. Lincoln didn’t really fancy driving two hours with Caesar sitting on his lap.

  So now he threw some clothes into his backpack, turned off his laptop, considered whether to take it with him before deciding not to, and packed a bag of treats for Caesar. When Rubble tooted the car horn outside, Lincoln flicked off the switches and bundled the old fella into the BMW.

  At Swansea, Lincoln took Caesar for a walk along the shoreline to stretch their legs and Rubble booked them a table for two at a seafood smorgasbord restaurant overlooking the water, then headed to the beach with his camera to photograph anything and everything, hoping that Lydia would start talking to him soon. While Rubble snapped away with increasing desperation, Lincoln indulged in a Bubble O’Bill, a childhood favourite ice cream, and let Caesar lick the stick clean.

  That night at dinner, Rubble consumed lobsters and crayfish like some sort of large sea monster, miserable with failure.

  ‘So, do you think the seaside is your next thing?’ Lincoln asked, cracking open a crab claw.

  Rubble shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  Lincoln considered his friend’s sad and puffy face. ‘Maybe you need to head overseas sooner rather than later? Maybe don’t wait for me to find another position in the jungle. I think you need to get out of this rut now. Perhaps Lydia’s moved her interest to Egypt, or Afghanistan, or Canada?’

  Rubble licked his lips. ‘Maybe.’ He sat back from his plate, the frantic hoovering ceasing.

  Lincoln was encouraged. ‘When was the last time you headed OS?’

  ‘I popped over to New Zealand a few years back for my cousin’s wedding. But I haven’t really done any significant international travel for almost seven years.’ Rubble wiped his mouth with his napkin and let it fall back onto his lap. He tapped the table, his face taking on a grave, urgent look. ‘You might be right. After you mentioned the jungle, I got cold feet thinking I didn’t have enough money to spend on that sort of thing when I’m not producing anything and therefore not selling anything. And the longer that goes on the more precarious the finances become.’

  ‘But you need to find the inspiration first. It’s a catch-22.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t have to do a massive trip to South America or Europe. You could do a week in Samoa, Tonga, Thailand, Bali. Even outback Australia might be enough of a change to ignite some passion, don’t you think?’

  Rubble straightened, his eyes shining. ‘The outback! The great red land that swallows backpackers and adventurers without a trace.’ He whipped out his phone and began tapping away, presumably googling how to get to the outback.

  A starched waiter appeared, offering another basket of bread. Rubble waved it away.

  Lincoln suppressed his grin.

  •

  It was only the second day of winter and already the season had announced its arrival with pouring rain and single-digit temperatures. It was on days like these that Christmas wished terribly she could light a fire in her Georgian abode. This was the sort of weather a building like this was built for. Lien would be struggling today too, the cold making her joints much worse. Christmas made a mental note to pop a pair of the store’s newly arrived bed socks into a bag to drop off to her when she visited next week.

  On days like this, the best way to attract customers was to heavily promote her steaming hot coffee, hot chocolate, apple pies and hot fudge. Tourists still came to town over winter; she just had to be a bit savvier about her promotions. Sometimes, poor weather actually helped, with people happy to get out of the rain and sit inside with delicacies while they watched the droplets hit the pavement.

  But today was slow in The Apothecary, as it was all along the street. The only real activity she could observe was an occasional forlorn visitor popping into the bakery up the road, no doubt hoping to get a seat by the fire and a hearty meal. She almost wished she could join them. She’d been thinking about the munchkin a lot today. Some days were like that. His ghost would appear from out of nowhere and she’d wonder what her life would be like now if he’d stayed around and she had a three-year-old at her side. Despite the loss she felt for him, she did know that she didn’t want to have any children. But sometimes, the road not taken whispered to her. It was okay to feel like that, she told herself. It didn’t mean anything had to change. She just had to acknowledge it when it did and look after herself.

  She was alone in the shop. Abigail hadn’t come in; massage appointments slowed during the cold months, and days like today guaranteed numerous cancellations. No one wanted to get their clothes off in this weather, even though the rooms were always heated to the point of making Abigail sweat. Clients just couldn’t come to terms with heading out the door into the wind and rain to get to the warmth of the massage room. With the shop empty, Christmas took the opportunity to whip upstairs and grab her own new woollen socks, as her feet were a bit cool even inside her boots. There was something so nice about clean, new socks, with no pilling and no thinning. Just fluffy and ready to snuggle her toes into.

  It was while she was upstairs that she heard the ship’s bell. She skipped back down the internal staircase, buoyed by her new socks, and found Cheyenne at the counter holding an armful of roses. The florist was wearing a thick black windcheater with a faux-fur neck collar over a long white dress and knee-high boots. As usual she wore no makeup, but her full lips were a rich pink even without gloss. Christmas was struck by how Nordic she looked with her orange hair swept to the side.

  ‘Hi!’ Cheyenne said, a huge smile spreading across her face.

  ‘Well, hello to you,’ Christmas said. ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.’

  ‘My insurance company just sent me a cheque!’ Cheyenne beamed. ‘Apparently they’d overcharged me, so they sent me a refund for almost two years of excess payments. The girls and I will be having takeaway for dinner to celebrate.’

  ‘An unsolicited refund! That’s not something you hear every day. Good luck must be headed your way.’

  A hiss of air brakes and the throb of a diesel engine outside signalled a tourist bus pulling up in the main street.

  ‘And look,’ Christmas said, rubbing her hands together, ‘your good fortune’s rubbing off on me. Can you stay to help out for a bit?’

  ‘No problem,’ Cheyenne said, reaching for an apron featuring a black cat with a white bow tie.

  This time of year, tourist buses were often full of people over fifty who had money and time on their hands. Christmas hastened to get more coffee going and changed the music to Michael Bublé. Cheyenne’s cheerful company and a busload of tourists were just what she needed to chase the creeping blues away.

  But by that evening, the creeping blues had transformed into a nagging itch. The roads not taken in her past might be closed, but there were still new ones open now.

  She lifted the valance and peered into the darkness under the bed, where she stored her wooden treasure chest. Made out of valuable Tasmanian Huon pine and engraved with her name and date of birth, it had been a gift for her on her twenty-first birthday from Joseph.

  After he and Darla had divorced, Joseph had married again and had another daughter and son with his new wife, Gloria. Christmas had always felt a bit cheated by this, as though Paula and Sacha should have been her siblings too. She was Val’s sibling and they were Val’s siblings, so surely they should all be family? Then Joseph and Gloria had divorced and Gloria was now Val’s ex-stepmother, and they didn’t have a good relationship, and it had all become quite complicated. But regardless of these changes in his life, Joseph and Chr
istmas had just carried on with their own odd but important relationship, something Christmas cherished. There were no set rules on how to conduct a relationship like theirs but she thought they were doing it rather well. Oprah would be proud.

  She sat on the floor now, the heater going against the chill of the evening, and pulled out the chest. Over the years, she’d filled it with sentimental things. Birthday cards. Concert tickets. Ribbons won at sporting carnivals when she was younger. Notes. Photos. Gifts she didn’t really like but didn’t want to part with because they came from someone with love.

  The ultrasound picture from the day she found out that her baby had no heartbeat. Evidence. The little blob there inside her. There but not alive. There but not here.

  She touched it now, sadness shifting like a draught around her feet. Her hand had buried the ultrasound picture under a pile of birthday cards before she’d even consciously decided to do it.

  There was something else she was looking for. She rooted around in the chest, pulling out piles of memorabilia, hovering for a moment here and there, with a smile or a flicker of sadness, but her hands kept moving until they found it. A letter. From Miriam Deschamps, her high-school pen pal.

  She opened the envelope and pulled out the tissue-thin paper, then carefully unfolded the pages.