The Chocolate Promise

by Josephine Moon

  She laid the tiny sugar flowers (ordered especially—she wasn’t quite clever or patient enough to be able to make them herself) around the base and on top of the ganache so the whole thing looked like a perfect miniature chocolate cake. They were beautiful, even if she did say so herself. She must remember to take photos of them before she boxed them up for Mary to take with her today. They’d keep in the fridge till Mary saw her mother—as long as Mary could keep from eating them herself.

  She wished she’d been able to send a selection out to her own mother for Mother’s Day last week. Darla was a meat- and-three-veg or steak-and-chips sort of person and thought Christmas’s obsession with gorgeous food and homewares was ridiculous and indulgent, but even she couldn’t resist her daughter’s handmade chocolates. Christmas would offer to do them for the wedding, too, next time she spoke to Val. She must find out what sort of flowers Val had picked for her bouquet so she could track down and order the appropriate sugar flowers to match.

  She was just tying a sunny yellow ribbon around the white gift box when Mary opened the shop’s front door. She was dressed in a military-inspired red dress with a double row of brass buttons and long black boots. Her lipstick and nails were a matching glossy red, as was the shiny studded harness on her schnauzer. Mary’s ebony and ivory hair was strikingly similar to the colours in Ferdinand’s coat. He’d been clipped recently, which made his pointy bat-like ears seem taller than normal.

  ‘Hello!’ Christmas said. ‘Hi, Ferdy.’ She scratched the dog’s neck, and his tail thumped against Mary’s ribs. His busy nose inspected as much of Christmas as he could, seeking out chocolate. She pulled a dog chocolate out of the tall glass jar she kept stocked full of canine tempters (made of carob, of course, chocolate being poisonous for dogs) and handed it to him, and he accepted it with glee, his tiny teeth chomping into the treat.

  ‘Smells wonderful in here today,’ Mary said, taking in the heady mingled aroma of brewing coffee, the pink roses in Cheyenne’s displays, and the hot chocolate in the tempering tank. She raised a sculpted red nail in greeting to Abigail as she led her sleepy massage client out of the treatment room and into the cooler air at the front of the shop, sitting her down with a pot of lemongrass tea.

  ‘I just finished your mum’s daisy chocolates,’ Christmas said, reaching for the box and placing it on the counter in front of Mary.

  Mary peeked inside the box. ‘Oh dear, I’m not sure she’ll get them. They look far too good.’ She bit her lip. ‘I hope I can control myself.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Christmas offered.

  ‘No thanks, darl. I just had one over at St Andrew’s. I’m doing a story on their latest refurbishment project. If I have another right now I’ll be too jittery to drive to my next appointment.’

  ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a godmother project, to see if you could help?’ Christmas filled Mary in on Veronika’s situation. ‘I was wondering if you had any whitegoods suppliers up your sleeve who might like to help out in return for some publicity.’

  ‘Great idea,’ Mary said, moving her chin away as Ferdy’s kissing got a bit too zealous. ‘Try Phillip’s Wonder Whitegoods, and maybe Eric’s Electrical, let them know I’m looking for a feel-good story for the front page and I’d be keen to come and take lots of photos.’

  Christmas enjoyed that familiar rush of excitement as another godmother project began to come together. ‘That’s wonderful. I’ll do that this afternoon. It will mean so much to Veronika. I did tell her it would all be done tastefully. I think she felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing but I assured her you’d do a good job.’

  ‘You can count on me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The ship’s bell rang again. Christmas looked up to see Lincoln step over the threshold. Her stomach flipped. She said goodbye to Mary and stood solidly behind the counter, her fingers tightening around the marble.

  Lincoln was smiling. He’d had a haircut, she realised. The back and sides were neat and straight, though he’d left some length through the top. His beard had been trimmed too, so he looked a little less Wild Man of the Forest and more Hollywood Actor, those piercing blue eyes enhanced today by an ocean-blue shirt with its top button distractingly undone.

  ‘Hi.’ He smiled, deep but gentle creases fanning out around his eyes. ‘I hope I’m not late.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, releasing her fingers from the bench. ‘You’re right on time. And you look good.’ Instant regret. Sometimes her mouth said things from her brain that slipped past the censor.

  He looked pleased. ‘Thanks. I’m on my way out and decided it was time I let go of the jungle and cleaned myself up a bit.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘To see my dad, actually.’ His smile dropped. ‘He’s over at Oatlands. Well, a bit out of there, but close enough.’

  ‘Near your grandmother, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed heavily. ‘He’s a difficult person and one of the reasons overseas travel suits me so much.’ He put a hand to his face then and rubbed at his beard as though he’d said too much.

  She decided not to pursue what was evidently a sore topic. Besides, she of all people was least qualified to comment on father issues. ‘Let’s go to the table in the corner,’ she said, leading the way to the small round cafe table beside the window. Sitting down on one of the wooden chairs, she wiped her hands on today’s apron—sage-green cotton with white and yellow daisies and dragonflies and bright yellow trim. She loved the feeling she got from wearing aprons, a kind of motherly protection from the outside world, and she was glad she had it on now as she sat under Lincoln’s penetrating eyes. It felt like an added barrier between them.

  He handed her some papers. ‘I’ve brought you some preliminary paperwork, like a contract I guess, just outlining what we’re doing and when our deadlines are—the first one’s in September—and asking for your commitment of intention to work on the project. That will just cover us while the publishers get the formal contract set up for you to be my co-author.’

  ‘Wow,’ she said, thumbing through the pages but not really taking in any words. ‘It’s all happening so fast.’

  ‘Are you having second thoughts?’ he asked, anxiety lining his brow.

  ‘Oh, no. Not at all. When would you like to start? Would next week suit? I shut the shop on Mondays so we could meet here then if you like.’

  ‘That sounds good. Say, ten o’clock?’

  ‘I’ll lock it in.’ She fished in the pocket of her apron and pulled out a pen and her slim Eiffel Tower diary and made a note. ‘I have to write everything down,’ she explained. ‘I just can’t keep track of all the different threads in my life otherwise.’

  ‘I’m the opposite at the moment,’ he said. ‘I’ve found myself with all this space in my life a bit earlier than I was intending. I should still be in the Amazon right now.’

  ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘Some things, like the constant movement of the jungle. Nothing is ever still. Something is always growing—even if it’s just fungus in the heat—or slithering, or dripping, or squawking. It suits me, the ever-changing unpredictability. I don’t like to get bogged down.’ He smiled then. ‘Actually, maybe bogged down isn’t the right word, since when it rains you get nothing but bogged down in the mud.’

  She grimaced. ‘Not for me, I’m afraid. I’m a bit of a princess, I think.’

  ‘Life is easier here, in some ways. But you’d be surprised. You get into a rhythm. You find a way into all that movement and join it, like jumping into a flowing river and relaxing and letting it take you where it wants to go.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll go back?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  Christmas was shocked at how disappointed that one word made her feel.

  ‘I’m applying for jobs all the time,’ he went on, ‘but I’ve no idea when one will come up.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, making herself smile supportively. ‘I hope you get what you want soon.
’

  •

  Lincoln reluctantly said goodbye to Christmas. He liked her. He admired someone whose heart was so open, so giving, and so passionate. Passion—that was something they had in common. She was easy to talk to and made him feel good, somehow. He’d much rather stay talking to her than go to see his father, but he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  He manoeuvred his long legs awkwardly into the small Honda and set off for Oatlands, watching the farmlands pass by in sweeping browns. So different from the green of the jungle. Occasionally the tiny car rocked as it was buffeted by a squall of wind. So different from the still humidity of Napo.

  Since arriving home just over two weeks ago he’d come up with all manner of excuses to avoid visiting his father. Jen was giving him a hard time about it, saying she was going crazy not knowing what was going on down there—Lincoln was only a short drive away whereas it was a plane flight for her, he didn’t have a disabled son, and did she have to do everything herself? Irritation gnawed at him. He wondered why he was bothering to see Tom. It wasn’t like it would make any difference to whatever crap he was pulling with Nan. Just like it had never made a difference to how much he’d ever thought of Lincoln. Or, more precisely, how little he’d ever thought of Lincoln.

  Lincoln loved trees. Tom’s longest-running job had been with the biggest logging company in Tasmania. And that pretty much summed up their relationship.

  His father lived in a fibro shack that would have once been part of a busy sheep- and wheat-farming community. Now the town was desolate and virtually empty, the houses untended, with falling-down chain-wire fences and rusted letterboxes. Every house in Tom van Luc’s street had likely not seen any sort of tradesperson for years.

  Pulling up in the dirt driveway, Lincoln cast an eye over the open screen door on the verandah, the weathervane flipping and screeching in the wind, and the dark grey clouds above. It wasn’t as though his father had ever been a ball of fun. He’d always been taciturn and rigid, a bit miserly. But sometime over the past decade he’d descended dramatically into a foul-tempered, unkempt hermit, the kind that frightened small children. The kind that became an almost legendary figure, encouraging adrenaline-seeking teenagers to egg each other on to sneak up onto the verandah, knock on the door and then run away, high on the thrill of fear.

  Lincoln stepped carefully up the sagging steps and knocked once on the door, the peeling mustard-coloured paint flaking off under his knuckle.

  Tom came to the door in his threadbare trousers and thin, holey jumper, peering warily out at his visitor.

  ‘Where are the slippers I sent you?’ Lincoln asked, immediately angry, pointing at the ancient pair on his father’s feet.

  ‘Waiting for these ones to wear out.’ Tom put his hand to his mouth while a chesty cough shook his body.

  Lincoln followed him into the kitchen, swept a pile of old newspapers off the stool by the stovetop and sat there in silence while Tom struck a match to light the gas. At least, Lincoln noted, he’d finally replaced the battered aluminium kettle with stainless steel.

  He wanted to jump right to the point and ask Tom what on earth was going on with Nan, but he forced himself to be patient. His father didn’t like to be pushed. Lincoln had learned at a young age not to rush him or risk an explosive outburst of criticism that wounded him inside and made him retreat up Nan’s apple tree until the pain receded. She would let him stay up there, never telling him to come down, only ever setting up a picnic table beneath the tree and letting the scent of home-baked pie entice him from his branch. She knew not to push him either—Lincoln could be as sulky as Tom was explosive.

  Tom pulled out two stained mugs from the cupboard over the sink and placed them on the bench, then poured boiling water over two teabags.

  Lincoln took a breath. ‘So. What’s been happening?’

  ‘Nothing new.’

  Lincoln made himself bide his time. He looked at the piles of clothes, dishes and papers heaped around the room, then caught sight of his father’s rod and reel in the corner behind the television. ‘Caught anything lately?’

  ‘The lake’s got good stock again. Brook trout mostly. They had to restock it after the big drought. Caught a nice one last week and had it for dinner and lunch the next day.’

  Lincoln wondered whether it was obscene indulgence or environmentally responsible to artificially restock the lake. He imagined a bunch of men paid to transport fat fish from a farm out to a lake so the locals and tourists could get a thrill hooking one. He couldn’t help but think of the Ecuadorians swimming in the Napo River, wearing their gumboots and absurdly large eye masks to see the fish hiding under logs and rocks so they could pierce them with the poisonous barbasco root. How even a fish as small as your hand was worth celebrating as it was flung into the boat to be cooked over an open fire.

  ‘I haven’t been fishing for years,’ Lincoln said, trying to think back. ‘It must have been with you, out on the lake before the drought. So that’s going back a bit.’

  ‘Nineteen ninety-five,’ Tom said. ‘It was Father’s Day. You and Jenny both came.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Lincoln said, smiling at the memory. ‘And Jen was in her vegetarian phase and kept banging the side of the tinny and shouting, “Run, fishies, run!”’

  Tom shook his head in mock disgust. ‘Bloody nuisance. Didn’t catch a bloody thing. I banned her from the boat then, you know. Told her she couldn’t come out ever again.’

  ‘I do remember. She was relieved, actually. She said the only good use for a boat was to rock it, really hard, in any situation of too much seriousness or importance.’

  Tom grunted a partial chuckle. Jen was safe ground. Lincoln wished she were here now. She’d always been the mediator in their family, bridging the awkwardness with deep philosophical lectures that left them with jaws dropping, alternated with random fluffy tabloid gossip that allowed the rest of them to brood in silence while she chatted on. In hindsight, it was probably her finally leaving home that had led to his parents’ divorce, which was ten years too late by Lincoln and Jen’s reckoning.

  ‘Have you seen her lately?’ Lincoln asked.

  ‘Not for a while.’ His father’s eyes were focused on the back wall of the kitchen, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  ‘She emailed me while I was in Ecuador,’ Lincoln said, circling the issue, looking for a place to land that wouldn’t get his father’s back up. ‘Nathan’s going well, she said.’

  Tom picked up a television guide and began flicking through it. Lincoln gritted his teeth. Tom had once made a remark within Jen’s earshot, after her partner had walked out because he couldn’t handle a child with disabilities, and after too many rums, that a child like Nathan, born with cerebral palsy, should have been knocked on the head at birth, that it would have been kinder to everyone. It was something Jen seemed to have somehow forgiven, or at least accepted, though Lincoln couldn’t understand how and maintained the rage on her behalf. He took a deep breath and tackled the reason for his visit.

  ‘She forwarded me an email from the nursing home.’

  Tom’s eyes shot up from the TV guide. Guilty.

  Lincoln pressed on. ‘It was from one of the nurses, who wanted to let us know that you hadn’t been to see Nan for many weeks.’

  ‘So?’

  Lincoln tried to quell his rising anger. ‘She suggested Nan was lonely, and she was worried she might be developing depression.’

  ‘Was it that Sarah girl? She’s a nosy cow.’

  ‘Dad, you do realise you are the only member of this family who is able to visit Nan on a regular basis, don’t you?’

  ‘You’re here.’

  ‘Yes, but I had to cut my work trip short, just to come home and make sure she was okay.’

  ‘Of course she’s okay.’

  ‘She needs more than being fed three times a day and assisted in the shower, Dad. She needs company. Love.’

  Tom scoffed. ‘Love? She doesn’t know the meaning of the w
ord.’

  Lincoln stood up and paced. ‘How can you say that? Nothing could be further from the truth.’ Elsa had patiently taught Lincoln to pick and shell beans, and then how to salt and boil them. She’d let him collect the eggs from chickens and never once got angry when he accidentally dropped and broke them. She bought him books from fetes and markets and together they lay on the musty couch reading for hours. She let him turn up whenever he wanted, let him stay for as long as he cared, gave him space, hugs and apple pies as the situation necessitated. He’d never felt anything but love from her. Never felt criticised. Never judged. Only loved.

  He stopped, suddenly, facing his father. It was something Sarah had said in her email. I’m worried Tom might be, how should I put this, exerting pressure on Elsa.

  ‘You want something from her,’ Lincoln said. And then, looking at the holes in his father’s slippers, with shining clarity, ‘It’s money, isn’t it?’

  Tom flared, smacked the TV guide against the table. ‘Don’t you come here judging me. You don’t live here. You don’t know anything. She’s an old woman who’s never going to leave that place. She doesn’t need all the money that’s tied up in the house.’

  Lincoln recoiled. ‘You asked her to sell the house?’

  ‘Why should she keep it? She doesn’t need it. And you’re plenty old enough to sort yourself out. You’re not a teenager anymore who needs to stay with his grandmother when he can’t hack it at home!’

  Lincoln didn’t even know where to start with that criticism. Forty years of never being good enough stood there in the room with him, gathered at his back like an army ready to charge forth.

  But just then there was whining and scratching at the back door.

  ‘Caesar! Shut up!’ Tom shouted, his eyes flashing with anger.

  ‘Who’s Caesar?’ Lincoln said, irritated that his moment to take on his father had been interrupted.