Christmas’s heart did a skip and a jump, like a child leaping over puddles for fun. She swiftly rebuked herself for being so silly. She was just swept up in the romance of the night before with Dennis and Juliette and her feeling of triumph when she’d received Dennis’s text message saying it was ‘all systems go’. He’d even managed to thank her and add a smiley face. Love was well and truly in the air.
But she must stop any kind of fantasising about Lincoln, she told herself firmly. She replied to his text, explaining that she had to take her own car because she had errands to do on the way there and she needed space to transport large boxes. Then she spontaneously texted Emily to invite her along to dilute the intensity of the attraction. Because, she realised with a shock, there was no denying it: there was definitely a mutual attraction going on. Or at least a mutual flirting. With Emily there she could ensure that she wasn’t alone with Lincoln.
But once she’d picked up Emily, she almost regretted inviting her.
‘Have you thought any more about finding your father?’ Emily said, almost the moment she’d buckled up in the front seat.
‘Oh, not again, Em. I told you, I’m not interested.’
‘You know you don’t actually have to do anything with the information if you did happen to stumble onto something, right? It’s just all about options.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to open that can of worms in the first place. And besides, I’m busy enough as it is just organising myself an itinerary—spending hours online researching what I might want to do in my week in Paris and where I’m going to go in the week after the course, organising credit cards and euros and all that, let alone writing half a book, without wasting time looking for a man who mightn’t even exist.’
‘I’m sure they have people who can help you do that now,’ Emily persisted. ‘Genealogy people and, I don’t know, social services and such.’
‘Again, it all takes time I don’t have,’ Christmas said, teeth gritted.
‘But what about—’
‘Please! Can we just drop it? I need to get my head into the right space for this chocolate tasting.’
‘Fine,’ Emily huffed. ‘I was just trying to help.’
Christmas tried to be patient. She flicked the radio station to find one playing some lazy jazz to break up the dense mood in the car. She didn’t know why Emily was being so dogged about this, and it was irritating in the extreme, but she’d done a lot to help Christmas over the years and for that she was grateful. Their friendship seemed to be chugging through some choppy waters right now, but it would pass, like all things do. In the meantime, they just needed not to lose sight of what was important.
•
Elsa gripped the rubber wheels of her chair. This was not going the way it was supposed to. It had seemed so promising last week when they’d discussed Chocolat. Everyone had loved the book, even Lulu, and likewise for the movie. It was charming, magical and delicious. There was consensus that the chocolate tasting this week could only be a resounding hit. And it should be.
On the surface, it looked wonderful. The common room of Green Hills was alive with voices and colour and laughter. Lincoln was at her side, enthusiastically writing notes. Her chocolate-tasting event had generated much excitement among the residents, their families and the staff. The residents were seated behind tables, which had been laid out in a U-shape so they could see the guest of honour as she guided them through their activity. Residents’ daughters, sons and grandchildren sat with them, chatting, tasting and laughing.
Robert Graham’s wife’s shoulders were relaxed, her hair was loose, and she smiled as she helped him participate, guiding his hand to each chocolate and then writing down his remarks on a clipboard. Yvonne Murphy, without family, was assisted by lovely Sarah, who’d recently dyed her hair a cherry red. She was helping Yvonne navigate her way through the colourful flavour wheels that Christmas Livingstone had printed out for them all, encouraging their struggling minds to label flavours as buttery, floral or spicy, and then more specifically as egg, rose or cinnamon.
Doris Laherty was there too, occasionally interrupting her snoring to eat a piece of chocolate fed into her mouth by the fat hands of her four-year-old great-grandson, who was perched on her lap. Her eldest daughter, Mavis, was gently massaging her shoulders and chatting with the work experience boy, Kristof, who was a permanent volunteer now as a placement for some kind of course he was doing, and was still as bouncy as ever, rushing around to assist wherever needed.
Even Lulu Divine had stopped whinging for once and was instead passionately competing to win the quiz prize, a large basket of goodies from The Chocolate Apothecary. Elsa would very much like to win that basket too. Her mouth had watered the moment Christmas unpacked it from her suitcase for today’s session.
The music of Edith Piaf filled the room, courtesy of Christmas’s iPhone. Technology these days was so small and portable. Elsa’s mind was momentarily taken back to the farm, one night when Ebe had come home singing a song in Dutch, celebrating the sale of a bull, pushing wads of pound notes into her hand and then spinning her around the kitchen in front of the Aga.
‘Ebe!’ she’d laughed, pushing him away. ‘The copper’s boiling and I need to get the washing done before the storm hits. It’ll take days to dry as it is.’
He’d let her go, turning away to put a record on the turntable. Dropping the needle onto the vinyl with that exquisite bump and scratch you never heard anymore. Such a loss.
Still, it was nice to hear Edith singing now.
To anyone else, this event would appear a success. But at least she knew that Rita Blumberg, sitting to her right, understood completely. She’d raised a sympathetic eyebrow at Elsa the moment Christmas had walked in the door with that other woman in tow.
Lincoln, who had arrived a few minutes before, had introduced Christmas to Elsa as his co-author on the book he was writing, his hand on the back of her shoulder, which had pleased Elsa no end. Christmas shook Elsa’s hand warmly and said how lovely it was to meet her, and thanked her for organising the event. She laughed with Lincoln and touched her hair. All good signs.
And this Christmas girl was pretty. Not overly tall and not too thin. Shapely. Short fair hair. Elsa preferred long hair on women and had kept her own hair long her whole life. But it didn’t do Christmas any harm. She had large eyes the shape of teardrops lying on their sides. A rosy mouth that shone with some sort of lip gloss.
Christmas had then introduced the other woman as her friend, Emily Bathurst, who worked from home and was therefore lucky enough to have flexible hours to attend events such as these. And that was the problem. This Emily girl had a nice face and open, friendly eyes. She beamed a warm smile at Lincoln and then held his hand in greeting for just bit too long, in Elsa’s opinion.
No, this wouldn’t do at all. Elsa had her heart set on Christmas, and Emily’s presence was muddying the waters.
‘It’s lovely to finally meet you,’ Emily had said to him. ‘I’ve heard a lot about the work you’re doing with Christmas. Here . . .’ She dug out a business card, slightly creased, from the bottom of her handbag. ‘I’m a television researcher for a lifestyle program and we’ve been doing regular features on food. It’s my job to come up with new ideas. If you’re interested in chatting to us about the origins of chocolate, just give me a call.’
‘Thanks,’ Lincoln said, studying her card for a moment before pocketing it.
Elsa ground her plastic teeth. ‘Lincoln,’ she said quickly. ‘Could you please run back to my bungalow and get a rug for my lap? The air conditioning is a little cool in here today.’
‘Absolutely,’ Lincoln had said, and disappeared out the side door.
‘Round two,’ Christmas said now, pulling out her quiz cards. ‘Ready? Okay. True or false: the Cadbury company was founded by two brothers who were Quakers.’
‘True!’ Elsa called, getting in first. She had no idea, but it was a true-or-false question; she had a fifty per cent c
hance of getting it right. Lulu screwed up her lips.
‘Correct.’ Christmas nodded to Emily, who was keeping score on a clipboard. ‘Next question: chocolate contains chemicals from the alkaloid group. Name a medication that is a type of alkaloid.’
Silence. Shuffling.
Lincoln put up his hand. ‘I know, I know.’ But Lincoln was banned from answering questions.
Robert Graham’s voice: ‘Morphine?’
‘Yes, well done, Robert. That was a tricky question. Caffeine, nicotine, cocaine and quinine are also alkaloids.’ Christmas applauded and there were impressed murmurs from many in the group.
‘What part of the cacao tree do the cacao beans come from?’
‘The pods!’ Lulu would have jumped out of her wheelchair if she could have.
‘Correct. The pods are actually a fruit and the beans are the seeds of the fruit,’ Christmas said. ‘What sort of climate do cacao trees grow in?’
‘Rainforest,’ Rita said, at the same time as Lulu said, ‘Warm and wet.’
‘You’re both correct. It’s actually a very narrow strip either side of the equator and the trees do like a steady temperature and rainfall.’ Christmas gestured to Lincoln. ‘Our resident botanist, Elsa’s grandson Lincoln, can give you lots of information on that.’
Lincoln blushed, Elsa was sure of it, though all that facial hair was an effective mask. Blushing was a good sign. She started to feel hopeful again about her matchmaking. Still, she hadn’t seen ‘the light’ Rita had gone on about.
Emily wrote down a point each for Lulu and Rita.
‘Last question for this round. True or false: chocolate contains the same chemical that’s produced in our brains when we’re in love.’
‘True!’ Multiple voices and multiple hands in the air. Lulu even slapped the table in front of her.
‘Yes,’ Christmas said. ‘It is true.’ And her eyes drifted to Lincoln. Elsa smirked at Rita.
From there they proceeded to try more chocolate, cleansing their palates between samples with warm green tea; Christmas explained that the tannins in the tea sucked the fat of the chocolate from the mouth. ‘Warm polenta soup is actually the best palate cleanser,’ she added, ‘but not so pleasant. Green tea is good. We just need to follow it with some room-temperature water to wash away the taste of the tea.’
Elsa even managed to forget about the problem of the Emily woman for a while, enjoying comparing tasting notes with Lincoln and studying the flavour wheel together. They had a considerable debate over whether a particular piece of chocolate had hints of mint or fresh-cut grass.
‘How do you know what fresh-cut grass tastes like?’ Lincoln asked, amused.
‘Most of taste is smell,’ Elsa said. ‘I worked a dairy farm most of my life. If I thought about it long enough I could probably tell you what species of grass it is.’
‘Impressive, Nan.’
It was amazing what some people could detect in a flavour. Many couldn’t get past a general label of citrus or floral or woody. Doris’s great-grandson could only say ‘yum’ or ‘yuck’. But others could detect pineapple, sauerkraut, dust, plastic, sherry or aniseed.
Christmas wrapped up the session by revealing the identities of all the chocolates, some of which were common supermarket brands while others were more exotic, from Trinidad, the Ivory Coast, Ghana or Indonesia. Robert Graham had won the quiz prize and Christmas handed it to him to group applause. Lulu applauded but then ran over Robert’s wife’s toes with her wheelchair in her hurry to get going.
Residents slowly dispersed back to their rooms and the Kristof boy flexed his muscles moving tables. Elsa and Rita lingered, watching as Lincoln jumped up to help the girls gather the laminated flavour wheels, click lids onto containers of chocolate pieces, and collect tasting notes.
Then, right in front of them, Lincoln and Emily both reached for the same flavour wheel. Their hands touched, and it was plain as day where the light in the room shone—exactly where they stood.
Rita put her hand on Elsa’s age-spotted arm. ‘Sorry, dear.’
•
If the discussion in the car on the way to the home had been all about Christmas’s father, heading back, it was all about Lincoln.
‘You’re absolutely crazy!’ Emily said. ‘Lincoln’s a total catch. How often do great men like that end up in Evandale?’
‘I’m not saying he’s not great; he is,’ Christmas admitted.
Emily gave her an exasperated look. ‘Well, if I was you, I’d be grabbing that opportunity as fast as you can, because a man that great isn’t going to be on the shelf for long.’
14
Emily was playing Go Fish with her nieces. She was wearing a plastic Viking helmet with long yellow wool plaits attached; Imogen wore a bonnet that did up under her chin with a fat pink ribbon; and Rose wore a tiara.
‘Emily, have you got a six?’ Imogen asked, narrowing her eyes at her. Since she’d turned ten, Imogen had decided she would drop the ‘Aunty’ and just call her ‘Emily’ in her most mature voice.
‘Why yes, I do,’ Emily said, handing it over. Rose groaned and pouted her perfect little lips. Obviously she’d been looking for a six too.
Imogen’s face broke into a grin and she smoothed her messy fringe out of her eyes as though that had been a very hard decision to make and she was relieved she’d got it right. She collected Emily’s six and put it together with her own in a very neat pile, then lined it up with all the other very neat piles she was building.
‘Girls,’ Tony called from the kitchen. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready. Help Aunty Emily up off the carpet and then go wash your hands.’
‘I’m not quite a granny yet,’ Emily said, piling up the cards and holding out her hands for her nieces to tug her into a standing position.
‘You’re not exactly a fresh chicken either.’
‘Spring, not fresh. And why are you being so mean?’ She turned to the girls and pulled a face. ‘Your daddy’s being a big meanie.’
They squealed and jumped up and down, excited at the idea of an impending fight between their father and their aunt. Imogen spanked Tony’s backside as he passed by with a platter of salad for the table. ‘Naughty, Daddy!’
‘Meanie, meanie,’ both girls chanted.
‘Now go to your room and think about what you’ve done!’ Rose demanded, hands on hips and an expression on her face that was so intently cross Emily couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Good one, Em,’ grumbled Tony. ‘Now look what you’ve done. It’s already hard enough being the only man in the house.’
Emily directed the girls down the hall towards the bathroom, then went to help cut up and serve the lasagne. It was a pre-made one from the supermarket and had been baking in the oven for an eternity, the aromas of melting cheese and bubbling tomato sauce torturing her rumbling stomach.
‘Should I put some aside for Britney?’ she asked.
Emily had never really got over her sister-in-law’s name. Britney was so Britney Spears. So bubble gum, peroxide and flirting in bars. ‘She’ll have to change her name once she graduates, you do realise,’ Emily had said once to Tony. ‘She’ll never be taken seriously as a solicitor with a name like that.’
Now Tony pulled the garlic bread out of the oven. ‘Yes, thanks. Her last lecture doesn’t finish till nine. She always rummages through the fridge afterwards like a cranky bear trying to find honey at the end of a long winter. You don’t want to be in the firing line when Brit’s blood sugar’s low.’
This happy little domestic scene awakened a yearning in Emily. Unlike Christmas, she did want a partner and a family. Sometimes she had the distinct impression that once she’d passed the age of thirty-five or so, people had silently marked her as a spinster. No one asked about her love life anymore, probably because they didn’t want to offend her, and possibly because they thought she’d made a deliberate choice. But she hadn’t; it had just been the way the cards fell. Sometimes, these days, she even forgot herself that she wante
d these things. So when she’d met Lincoln it was a shock to realise that she felt an immediate interest in him.
But Lincoln was off-limits, because Christmas was clearly smitten with him, even though she was stubbornly refusing to do anything about it. As Emily knew all too well, Christmas had a set of rules that told her not to go there, rules she seemed set on following, just as she’d fiercely shut down any discussion about finding her father.
But Emily didn’t have any rules. Quite the opposite.
‘I met someone the other day,’ she said as casually as she could, setting placemats.
‘What? A bloke?’
‘Yes. And you don’t need to sound so surprised . He’s a botanist and living locally.’
‘A science man,’ Tony said, noisily gathering cutlery from the drawer. ‘How old?’
‘Forty-two, according to Christmas. He’s her co-author on a book they’re writing together on chocolate. I met him on Monday at a tasting she was doing at the nursing home in Oatlands.’
‘Divorced?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Kids?’
‘Nope.’
‘Gay?’
‘Doesn’t seem to be.’
‘Drunk? Gambler? Criminal?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Then what’s wrong with him?’ Tony threw a few things into the dishwasher and yelled out to the girls to hurry up. ‘I don’t like it when they go quiet,’ he muttered.
‘Why do you think there’s something wrong with him?’ Emily asked, trying not to sound defensive because hadn’t she asked the very same thing of Christmas? She wondered if this cynicism they seemed to share was a genetic thing.
Tony shrugged. ‘Just seems weird, that’s all.’
She was suddenly furious. ‘But I’m not married. And I’m nearly forty. Is there something wrong with me?’
The Chocolate Promise Page 15
