The Chocolate Promise

by Josephine Moon

‘We can follow a bean, a single bean, from its life in the pod, on the branch on the tree, on the farm, region, country, et cetera, and onwards to market, the trader, the ship or plane or whatever it travels on, through processing and on and on until it’s eaten.’

  Lincoln rubbed his beard thoughtfully. ‘I can see how that would work.’

  ‘We could create a travel diary and postcards.’ She smiled. ‘Stamps in its passport. Send it to trade shows and chocolate-tasting competitions.’

  ‘It could provide commentary about prejudice in the bean community between different countries of origin and different varieties,’ Lincoln said, nodding as the ideas started to flow.

  ‘It could look into its family history,’ she said.

  ‘It could build a family tree to follow the genetics of the bean families. There’s been some amazing work in the past five years on rediscovering heirloom bean varieties and even three completely new strands of cacao in the Amazon. It’s a fascinating field.’

  ‘Could there be species we still don’t know about?’ Christmas asked, her attention arrested.

  ‘Sure. Anything’s possible.’

  ‘And would it be possible for those species to have different chemical properties?’

  ‘Of course.’ He tilted his head. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m holding out for the discovery of a super bean, one that has unrivalled health benefits.’

  ‘Chocolate as medicine,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I love that.’

  She grinned at Lincoln. When he was excited his blue eyes blazed. She found herself wondering what his personal story was. Why someone who was obviously nice, intelligent and good looking was single.

  She turned away and focused on making the coffee. They had a lot of work ahead of them and they’d need to get started quickly if they were going to get the manuscript up to scratch before she left for France.

  Their plan was straightforward. They divided up the manuscript into botany-related areas for Lincoln, and created new sections for Christmas to write, focusing on the artisan techniques she used herself—such as sourcing, roasting and grinding cacao beans from scratch; creating raw chocolate from a few simple ingredients; tempering chocolate; and lashings of recipes from her own repertoire. They would swap sections and help each other, Lincoln concentrating on content and Christmas on improving his words to make them more friendly. They wanted the majority of a full draft put together before she left for France, and that would leave them about six weeks after her return to re-draft and edit it before their submission deadline in September.

  Phew!

  She felt lightheaded just at the thought of all this extra work. But perhaps it was a just what she needed right now to keep her mind free of distractions, because, she reminded herself firmly, there was no room for romantic dreams in her life.

  Rule number ten.

  11

  When Christmas had discovered she was pregnant, she was thirty-five and living in Sydney. She was the senior PR rep for Simon Barton, an up-and-coming Australian tennis player with a brat-pack reputation. He was significantly younger than her and had longer hair too, which he wore piled on top of his head in a way that should have been feminine but actually just gave him an edgy appeal. Particularly when he had his shirt off. The guy was gorgeous. He should have been raking in the money from sponsors. Instead, his reputation as an arrogant player who was a bad loser, together with a couple of drink-driving convictions and rumours that he slept around, was pushing the fans and sponsorship money away.

  Christmas had been given the assignment to turn it all around.

  ‘I think we need to get you out doing some charity work,’ she’d said the first day she met him in person. He was sitting across the desk from her, one ankle on his other knee, charcoal suit pants leg rising up to reveal no socks beneath the leather shoes. He was on his way to a photo shoot for a newspaper magazine feature, an article she’d worked hard to secure, and when he’d walked through the glass doors into her office she’d had to force herself to look only at his eyes. If she took in too much of his appearance she would lose her train of thought.

  Kelly, the temp at the front desk, blushed noticeably and fluttered about him on his arrival, offering tea and coffee and magazines. Christmas had eyed him over the top of her laptop screen, deliberately making him wait. She knew he didn’t want to be here but that his business manager had threatened to quit if he didn’t turn up. At the thought of losing the person who looked after his money, Simon had conceded to the meeting.

  ‘What sort of charity?’ he asked now, suspicious.

  Christmas tapped her pen against the leather cover of her diary. ‘Something with children is always good. Sick kids, preferably.’

  He sniffed and lifted his chin and she saw the muscles twitch in his neck. She could see the smooth rise of his pecs under his crisp white shirt, which he’d left artfully open at the top for just such an effect. Damn, the man had good fashion sense.

  ‘It fosters goodwill and makes people feel better, brings joy and happiness,’ she said, sensing his resistance.

  He absently stroked the two-day growth on his chin, considering this.

  Christmas leaned back in her chair and crossed her slim legs, and his eyes dropped to her knee. ‘Look,’ she said, smiling, ‘the general public consider you heartless, and potential sponsors think you’re unreliable. Visiting children in hospital, running a weekend tennis camp for underprivileged youth, flipping burgers for a charity barbecue in the park—all of these things will help build an identity of selfless giving.’

  He studied her, a small smirk on his lips.

  ‘I’m sure Trevor would agree,’ she said, and at the mention of his manager’s name, Simon evidently accepted defeat.

  ‘Fine. Tee it up and I’ll be there. On one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’ Having dinner with a client was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Kelly appeared at the door of the office, blushing. ‘Taxi’s here,’ she said, simpering at Simon.

  Christmas closed her laptop and stood up, grabbing her bag. ‘Now, let’s get to this photo shoot before we’re late.’

  Simon lived in an ultra-modern two-bedroom apartment in an exclusive building right on Bondi Beach. Floor-to-ceiling glass gave it expansive views straight over the ocean. It had wide oak floorboards, blond in colour, limestone features in the bathroom and kitchen, stone benchtops, squared-off basins and bathtubs, lots of mirrors, and minimalist furniture with straight lines and not a lot of comfort. It was beautiful, in a highly composed architectural way, but lacking in warmth. A lot like Simon.

  They arrived there just on sunset, in time to share a drink on the balcony as the sky changed colours around them.

  ‘You did well today,’ Christmas said, clinking her wine glass to his highball of scotch. ‘You answered the questions with real sincerity and humility, and the photos will look sensational. I think it’ll be a great feature.’

  She was genuinely proud of him. She’d coached him a bit in the taxi on the way to the shoot but hadn’t really thought he would follow her advice. Yet when the journalist had asked him about a recent racquet-throwing tantrum on court, instead of scowling he’d lowered his eyes and spoken about how ashamed he was and how he was seeking help to learn how to process his emotions. He wanted the public to remember that he was still young, and sometimes he might stumble, but being a man was about acknowledging your faults and doing something about them. Listening, Christmas had been surprised and impressed.

  Simon gazed out over the rolling waves. ‘It was all true; I do need to grow up.’

  Just then, a small ginger cat with a tinkling bell on its collar ran through the door to the balcony and rubbed itself against Simon’s leg.

  ‘Rosa! You shouldn’t be out here.’ He swooped down to pick her up and she threw herself backwards in his arms, exposing a white chest
and chin, closing her eyes in rapture as he rubbed her, and purring like a chainsaw.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a cat,’ Christmas said.

  He smiled as Rosa reached up a paw and patted at his face. ‘I got her from the pound.’ He led Christmas back inside and closed the screen door behind them so Rosa couldn’t escape.

  ‘What were you doing at the pound?’ Christmas sat down on his white leather couch, which she now noticed had claw marks in it.

  ‘I featured in a commercial for dog food and, as a thank-you, they sent me a load of cans of the stuff. I didn’t have a dog, so I went to drop it at the animal shelter. There was a row of cages with cats and dogs in them. The death row.’ He stroked Rosa’s back as she settled herself in his lap. ‘They all had these expressions on their faces. You know?’ He looked up at Christmas as though appealing to her for understanding, and his meadow-coloured eyes fastened on hers. ‘They seemed to know it was over for them. The end of the line. Some paced. Some sat with their noses pressed to the wire. Some actually cried.’ He paused for a moment and the sadness hung heavy in the room.

  ‘Anyway,’ he pulled himself up straighter, ‘Rosa was in one of the cages. But she was sitting there serenely. Like, whatever was coming she was just going to take it.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t know what was coming.’

  ‘No.’ Simon shook his head emphatically. ‘She was brave. Really brave. I didn’t think about it too hard. I just said, “I want that one,” and they handed her to me.’

  Rosa rolled over in his lap and bit the sleeve of his white shirt affectionately.

  ‘So why the name Rosa?’

  ‘After Rosa Parks, the black woman in America who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. You know her?’

  Christmas nodded, stunned. There was a lot more to Simon Barton than she’d first thought. Than anyone thought.

  ‘I remembered reading about that in school and thinking how incredibly brave that was. Sometimes I think about that on court.’

  ‘Simon, that is the most amazing story. Why doesn’t everyone know this? We could really use it to our advantage for publicity.’ Christmas leaned forward, her heart racing with excitement as her mind filled with ideas.

  ‘People don’t need to know everything,’ he said. He put Rosa gently onto the couch next to him and stood up. ‘Anyway, I’m starving. Let’s eat.’ He gave Christmas a thousand-kilowatt smile and held out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘How does Italian sound?’

  •

  Really, it was no wonder so many women slept with Simon. Not only was he gorgeous, but he was actually very charming and funny when he stopped being a prat. Quickly, Christmas fell under his spell too. They began an intense relationship that seemed to go from zero to a hundred in a matter of days. At work, he became her all-consuming project, and because she could see all the wonderful things about him, it was easy to convince others of his good character with her enthusiasm.

  Before long they were photographed together on the beach, where he liked to jog first thing in the morning, and she had taken to joining him. Not that she could keep up. But it wasn’t hard to roll out of bed at his place at the crack of dawn, with the sun rising over the water, beckoning them to run and then eat bagels at a beach cafe. The photos appeared in women’s magazines, with all sorts of speculative shoutlines splashed on the front cover.

  Simon’s older woman tames his wild ways!

  Has Simon met his match?

  Barton hits a love game.

  The coverage did wonders for her PR firm’s reputation too, and her supervisor, Kristy, winked at her over the magazine headlines and hummed a little ditty with every new client request that came through the inbox or over the phone. And their romance did wonders for Simon as well. Who wasn’t cheerful and goodnatured when they were in love? His public image began to improve.

  A few months into their glorious love fest, Christmas fell pregnant. The baby had been the result of consuming a reckless amount of champagne at a race luncheon; afterwards, she’d left her huge, feathered hat on and Simon had left his tie on, and together they’d made a munchkin.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Simon had asked, his former surly self appearing once more. ‘A baby’s not exactly in my plans right now.’ He was on the phone, away at an intensive training camp in the Bahamas after some time off for a minor shoulder injury. He was getting ready to hit the circuit again soon, intending to come bolting out of the gates a new and improved player with a new and improved image. His coach and sponsors were sure he would be dominating the sport next year.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly in my plans either,’ Christmas had cried. She was certainly of an age when it was deemed reasonable to have a baby. A little late, even. But it had never been a priority.

  ‘I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now.’

  Christmas sniffed. ‘Really? You don’t want me to . . .’ But she couldn’t actually say the words. She wasn’t going to end this pregnancy, no matter how inconvenient it might be. She was heading for a promotion and a huge pay rise and all of that would change once she announced the pregnancy. And this thing with Simon? Well, who knew where that was going. They’d been having a great time and she could honestly say she was in love. But that didn’t mean they were going to be able to make it work forever.

  The physical effects of pregnancy were shocking too. Her usual hectic working pace ground to a virtual halt and her productive afternoon meeting time was replaced by sitting at her desk with a glass of iced water pressed to the side of her neck and her forehead, sipping from it occasionally to relieve the nausea. And at two o’clock every afternoon, she had to shut the blinds of her office and lie down on the couch and sleep.

  Although the munchkin wasn’t planned, a few weeks after they’d found out, both Simon and Christmas had decided it was a boy. They would talk about him on the phone and sometimes Simon even sounded a little excited.

  ‘I was thinking about when I should buy him his first racquet,’ he said, smiling down the phone.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t already.’

  Christmas had decided that at the age of four, the munchkin would be best friends with the dog. Because by then they’d have a dog, too. A beagle, named Snoopy, who would share a bed with Rosa at night.

  And at seven, Simon insisted, the munchkin would be on his way to tennis stardom.

  A baby. It was a miracle. Unexpected, but a miracle.

  But the munchkin decided not to stay. He left without warning. One day he was there and the next he was gone, his little soul returned to wherever he came from, leaving Christmas feeling as though she was filled with nothing but wet sawdust. Her wide eyes were glued onto her face but there was nothing behind them. Her body had no substance and her legs could barely hold her up.

  ‘These things happen,’ Simon said. It was his interview voice.

  She hated him for that.

  He didn’t know what to say to her on the phone in reply to her tears or her silence. She had no energy to talk. No patience for anything that was said. He sent flowers. But they spoke less and less. Emails stopped coming. And a month later, she saw a magazine with a photo of him out to dinner with a young platinum-haired fashion model.

  She stopped going to work. She hated her job now. She didn’t care about making other people’s lives look better when hers was falling apart. Why couldn’t a fairy godmother come into her life and fix everything? Take away the pain?

  Days passed while she lay in bed with the curtains shut. She blamed herself for being reckless, for allowing herself to fall in love with Simon and with the munchkin. She was seared by the cruelty of the loss. Compounding it was the fact that they hadn’t told anyone about the baby. Their little miracle, their little munchkin man, didn’t even exist in any other sphere but her heart. And she couldn’t tell anyone now. This huge surprise she had been only meant to keep for a few more weeks was now never to be shared. An announcement could never be made for somet
hing that wasn’t there. Oh, by the way, my baby died. Pass the cake?

  Except he wasn’t a baby—only a foetus. The word the doctor had used. As though he wasn’t real.

  But he was real. She’d seen him. With a heartbeat and little balled fists at his side. And a tail. A tadpole munchkin.

  She quit her job.

  It was Val who came. She opened the curtains and pulled off her sister’s rank pyjamas and put her in the shower and washed her hair.

  ‘Come on, Massy,’ she ordered, through Christmas’s protests. ‘You know what this is. It’s not like we haven’t seen it enough with Mum.’ Christmas slapped weakly at her hands while Val used the shower hose to rinse the shampoo from her hair. ‘You know the only way out of this is forwards. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it sucks. But you have to do it.’

  Val stayed for a week. Drove her to the doctor. Drove her to the counsellor. Drove her to her office to pack up her belongings. Did her washing. Bought her food. Paid her bills.

  Then Val had to go, back on a plane to Launceston and her family. And Christmas knew it was time to leave too. Sydney was no longer her home. She needed to change everything. So she booked a flight back to Launceston as well.

  There was no room at Val’s, so she spent a month moping around Emily’s house. Emily didn’t seem to mind the moping; she was just glad to have Christmas back on the island and she could be happy enough for both of them, she said. Christmas continued seeing a counsellor, Samantha, a tiny blonde woman whose long hair hung around her shoulders like a halo. Every time they talked, she sent Christmas away with the same homework—nurture the five senses, every day.

  ‘We are traumatised through the senses,’ Samantha explained, passing Christmas a box of tissues and a cup of peppermint tea. ‘What we see, what we feel, what we hear, taste and smell. And the only way to heal from the trauma is to heal those senses through nurturing yourself. It’s not a luxury; it’s a necessity.’

  Christmas agreed to follow her instructions. Emily’s job as a television researcher was flexible and she often worked from home. Together she and Christmas picked flowers every few days from Emily’s untended but prolific garden. They took an excursion down to Hobart and stayed overnight in a hotel so they could hit the Salamanca markets early the next morning, stocking up Emily’s car with bounty. They bought passionfruit-scented candles and olive oil soaps that smelled of black raspberry and vanilla. They ate hot German sausages while listening to Peruvian street musicians. Christmas lay on a massage table in a tent while a reflexologist treated her feet. Emily helped her pick out a new set of soft sheets with embroidered details and a big fat doona with a matching cover. They took home chocolates, organic skincare products, silk scarves and new handbags, and returned to Emily’s house in Launceston feeling light and revitalised.