It was all part of her.
And that made her feel special. And capable. Maybe it was only when we compared ourselves to others that we truly saw who we were. It was like chocolate tasting: it could be difficult to identify flavours in a piece of chocolate until you compared it with a different piece. Only then could you pick out and appreciate the uniqueness of each.
She loved The Chocolate Apothecary. Adored it. But now she wondered what more might lie beyond the walls of her store. Her ten rules for happiness kept her safe and content and steady. And that was important. But they also set limits. It was entirely possible that she’d stalled; her life was sitting comfortably in neutral. What if she changed the rules? What could she do then?
‘You will love this place,’ Mim said, turning around in her seat to grin at Christmas as Hank manoeuvred a reverse park. ‘Have you ever tried l’andouillette?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Christmas said, unbuckling her belt and peering out at a small stone two-storey building with a tiny Juliet balcony on the upper floor, and a couple dining by candlelight, with vines clambering up the iron railing.
‘It’s the best in Paris,’ Hank boomed happily. She could almost hear him salivating. Even Margot had brightened, and she removed her earphones, straining to see the elegant crowd gathered at the entrance, with its red ropes and a bouncer, as though waiting to enter an exclusive club.
‘We made a reservation as soon as we knew you were coming,’ Margot said now, smiling at her.
‘Thanks. That was really thoughtful. What is l’andouillette, exactly?’ Christmas asked.
Hank grinned and Mim chuckled. ‘Warm stomach sausage,’ Hank said.
‘Oh.’
‘You game to try something new?’
Christmas took a deep breath of Parisian air. ‘You know, I think I am. How bad could it be?’ And as she stepped out onto the lamp-lit footpath, she made the decision right then to say goodbye to the ten rules of happiness.
•
Darla Livingstone pulled her sleeping bag more tightly around her inside the back of her Kombi van. It was stiffly cold tonight. The sky above the sclerophyll forest was a dome of black and indigo, with diamond-white stars sprinkled as liberally as the hundreds-and-thousands on the fairy bread she used to make for Christmas on Sunday mornings for breakfast.
Darla was angry. But she wasn’t totally sure why, and that made her all the angrier. It irked her, this idea of Christmas being in Paris. Her daughter’s parting questions about Gregoire had left her feeling scratched, the implication that she was a bad mother leaving marks the way koalas’ claws cut into the eucalypt trunks as they fought for a footing.
It had been the seventies. Back then unwed mothers in Australia were still being forced into giving up their children for adoption. Christmas was lucky she even knew who her mother was.
Darla rolled over and punched the pillow into a different shape just as her mobile phone lit up and buzzed against the torch. She hesitated when she saw the name on the screen, then picked it up anyway. ‘Joseph? I was asleep.’
A pause. ‘It’s only six o’clock.’
‘And winter. The bush goes to bed at five o’clock these days. It’s not like I can just pop out for dinner and a movie.’
‘Mmm.’
‘What’s up?’
He continued, as he’d always done. Patiently. His calm principal attitude to everything had always driven her nuts. No matter how outrageous she became, no matter what she tried to provoke him, he just looked at her like she was a social project to be dealt with.
‘. . . so I thought we should talk about the wedding. See if we can come to a place of mutual support. For Valerie’s sake.’
Darla rolled her eyes in the dark. ‘Not her too. Is there some sort of campaign going to find me Worst Mother of the Year or something?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Never mind,’ she muttered. ‘Just Christmas asking questions about her father again. Hello? Joseph, you’re breaking up. The signal out here is terrible. Hello? Can you hear me?’
‘. . . her father . . .’
‘Her bloody father! That’s all I hear about these days. Not a phone call to talk to me about my work, how many animals I’ve found, how the research is going, or if I’ve hooked up with a drover or anything, no, it’s all about weddings and Gregoire Lachapelle, the man who made goat cheese. No one cares what I’m doing . . . hello? Joseph?’
She switched off the phone, tossed it on top of her hiking boots and pulled her beanie down furiously.
•
Val blew her nose loudly and opened her jaw wide to pop her ears. ‘Ugh. I’m sick of the green stuff,’ she said miserably.
Joseph winced. Decades of teaching children and he’d never got used to snot. It was the one thing he couldn’t stomach. He’d once held a boy on his lap for over an hour applying pressure to the gushing wound on his head where it had hit the concrete. He’d applied a first-aid bandage to an arm that was clearly broken in two places. And he’d mopped up vomit more times than he could count. But the snot? He shuddered.
‘Here.’ He handed her a cup of tea and directed her to the kitchen table to sit down.
‘Thanks.’
‘I spoke to your mother on the way over tonight,’ he said, focusing on chopping the carrots and celery for the fried rice. Nate sat perched on a tall stool beside him, his collection of sauce bottles in front of him, waiting for the right time to add them to the pan.
Willis swaggered by, a wrench in his hand, smacking it against his palm, his eyes focused out the window. Joseph eyed his eldest grandson. If Willis were one of his students, he’d be directing him into a specialised stream for boys. Some kind of manhood development program. He was just the right age for it and was exactly the type that would do well with mentor-directed activities. He knew he should speak to Val about it, but it was hard to know when to step in with advice. No parent liked to think they were missing something. But it did take a village to raise a child. It was the eternal balancing act of knowing that a parent always knew best, except when they didn’t.
‘I wanted to talk to her about the wedding,’ he went on, dropping the carrots and celery into the hot oil. ‘Here, mate, stir that,’ he said, passing the wooden spoon to Nate.
‘What about it?’ Val said, sipping her tea.
‘I just hoped I could encourage her to be a bit more supportive.’
‘Yeah, well. That’s just Mum, isn’t it?’
‘But I know it hurts when she’s so dismissive.’
Val’s eyes went bright and she looked quickly at the floor. ‘Yeah. I guess.’
Joseph waited for more. Silence always encouraged the other person to open up. This time was no exception.
‘I know Archie and I have been together forever. But it’s still . . .’
‘Special?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Of course it is,’ he said.
‘I’m lucky I’ve got my dad,’ she said.
‘It’s odd, I was talking to her about the wedding, and I wanted to ask her how she might like to be involved, you know, maybe see if we can get a bit more spirit from her, when out of the blue she mentioned Christmas and said something about Gregoire.’ As he spoke he wished, yet again, that he’d been able to play a more active role in Christmas’s life when she was young, but grateful they were still close. ‘It was a bad line so I didn’t catch everything, but she said that no one cared about her and they only wanted to know about the man who studied goat diseases.’
Val straightened. ‘Really? That’s more than she’s ever told Christmas. How exciting. A scientist! That’s kind of ironic, given she’s working with Lincoln the botanist now. Come to think of it, Mum’s kind of a scientist too. In a mad, decapitating-animals way.’
‘And I teach science. Not big on the decapitating though.’
‘Yes! That’s true! How did Christmas and I turn out so not sciency?’
‘Cooking’s a science,’ Nate said gravely,
pouring in the oyster sauce.
Joseph rubbed the back of Nate’s neck. ‘Good job, mate.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Braxton?’
‘In his room. A new pack of dinosaur books arrived so we won’t see him for a week now.’
‘I better go get him, then.’
‘Oh, this is great. I must email Christmas with the news about Gregoire.’
•
The teapot sitting on the coffee table in Emily’s lounge was covered with a knitted tea cosy in the shape and colours of a bright red strawberry, with the green leaves and stalk forming the handle.
‘You really didn’t have to bring me food,’ Emily said, putting a tray with teacups, a sugar bowl and a tiny milk jug down in front of Val. ‘You look like you need food deliveries more than I do right now. You look terrible, frankly.’ She limped back to the couch to sit down and propped up her foot on the footstool.
‘Thanks. Just what a girl always loves to hear,’ Val said, simultaneously wiping her nose and reaching for the teapot. Perhaps she should have washed her hair before she came, she thought. Emily still looked nice, despite having been off her feet for days. Maybe Val was getting too fat and comfortable in her almost-married state. ‘Nice cosy, by the way.’
‘My colleague, Rupna, gave it to me. She’s a mad knitter and needs to offload some of her work from the house before her boyfriend divorces her. Apparently he’s more of a modern-design, clean-freak type.’
‘Oh well, it sounds like they’re a match made in heaven.’ Val laughed. ‘And don’t worry about the food. Dad came over last night and made a mountain of fried rice to help me while I’m sick. Anyway, I’ve been meaning all week to come over and drop off some food to help you with your sprained ankle, but then the flu got hold of me and everything turned to crap. So I’m sorry I’m late. The thought was there days ago.’
‘Much appreciated,’ Emily said.
‘Hang on a minute. Why are you drinking tea? Aren’t you a coffee addict?’
Emily twisted her lower lip. ‘Yes. But my migraines have been a bit out of control lately. I seem to have them if I don’t have coffee and if I do. I’m not sure which is worse though, so I’m still experimenting.’ She took a sip and screwed up her freckled nose. ‘I’ve been trying hard, but I really haven’t found any teas I like, despite all the recommendations Christmas has given me.’
‘Oh no!’ Val slapped her forehead. ‘I meant to email Christmas last night to tell her that Dad found out from Darla that Christmas’s dad was a scientist who studied diseases on farms.’
‘Really?’
‘Isn’t that amazing?’
‘Yes, it is. This is perfect! It might finally be the thing that convinces her to try to make contact with Gregoire! But you didn’t email her?’ Emily said.
‘No. My head was so full of mucus I couldn’t think straight. I’ve got so much sinus pain it’s hard to look at a computer screen right now. All I want to do is lie down in bed with a bottle of brandy and not get up again until this horrible lurgy is gone.’
‘I can email her,’ Emily said. ‘I’ve got a heap of work to do online tomorrow so I’ll do it then. Take it as a small thanks for the food. I’m on the mend and you look like you could use another week off.’
‘I fear you’re right. The house is falling apart. It’s complete chaos in every room.’
‘So, same as usual then?’ Emily smiled.
‘Yep. Same as usual.’
•
Emily reached down to the floor beside the couch where she’d been lying for the past hour, ever since Val had left, with an ice pack over her eyes and the curtains and blinds closed. Her fingers groped around on the carpet seeking her mobile phone, as much to shut off the shrill noise as to answer it. She tried not to shift her position on the couch. Any small movement of her neck sent wild throbbing pain shooting through every part of her head. Even her teeth hurt.
At last she found the cool metal of the phone. She brought it to her chest, used one finger to lift the ice pack just enough for an eye to see the green button, pressed it and immediately dropped the ice pack back into place.
‘Hello,’ she whispered. Even the sound of her own voice was too much.
‘Hi. I got your text,’ Lincoln said, sounding concerned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her words still soft. ‘I seem to be a disaster when it comes to dating you.’
‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault. And I didn’t really want to drink award-winning wine and eat four courses of gourmet food and sit by a roaring fire in a stone manor overlooking rolling green hills and mist and ducks on a pond, with good company and charming and funny anecdotes that I may have spent a week preparing and which are guaranteed to win over the pretty girl I’m with. I mean, who in their right mind would want to do that?’
‘Don’t make me laugh; it hurts.’
‘Sorry. Is there anything I can do?’
‘Sadly, no. Not unless you have some sort of black-market migraine-strength pain relief.’
‘If we were in Ecuador, maybe. But here? Not so much. Is there anything else?’
‘No. Oh, wait. Yes. I was supposed to email Christmas to give her some news about her father. Apparently, her mother says he’s some sort of microbiologist who studies farm crops. Could you tell her?’
‘Er . . . wouldn’t that be better coming from you?’
A pause.
‘Emily? Are you still there?’
‘Uh. Yeah. Um, I think I’m about to vomit. Look, could you just email her? I’ve really got to go.’
19
The first night of the scholarship course in Provence wasn’t going anything like Christmas had thought it might. She was currently sitting on the floor in front of Master Le Coutre’s shoes. They were very nice shoes, made of some kind of soft forest-green leather with neat rows of stitching around the soles and on the upper. They had the air of handcrafted pieces. The hem of his dark trousers brushed his fine woollen socks as he swayed back and forth in front of the group, waltzing by himself. His silver hair, the suggestion of white whiskers, and leathery tanned skin conveyed his years. The tops of his ears wilted gently outwards, as though they were tired of standing upright. But his eyes burned with a fierce youthful confidence and zest for life. Whenever he spoke, his eyes widened and his brows and forehead raised, and he held an expression of perpetual questioning, as though waiting for answers he might not have even asked. Right now, though, his eyes were closed as he hummed the Blue Danube.
This was how they would learn to make chocolate, he’d said. First, you learned to dance. Then to make love. Then chocolate. ‘You cannot dance without balance,’ he explained. ‘You cannot dance without a partner. Nor can you craft chocolate without these things. The flavours are your balance. The ingredients, your partner. You must have mutual respect and support for each other for a winning performance, an event that will leave no one unmoved.’ He paused here for so long that Christmas wondered if they were supposed to respond. But it seemed that no one was brave enough to speak or ask questions.
‘You probably think you already know how to make love,’ he said. ‘You think because you can fit all the pieces together and get some sort of enjoyment out of it that you have succeeded. Non! It is rubbish! What does it mean to make love?’
Christmas very much hoped that was a rhetorical question, and sighed with relief when he continued without waiting for a reply.
‘Attention to detail. Intimate knowledge, exploration and experimentation. Tender, gentle caresses. At times, robust activity. All the senses. Softening. Consuming. Taking another into your mouth. Becoming one.’
Oh boy. Christmas lowered her eyes to the floor.
‘Making love and making chocolate, they are not so different, non?’
‘Right on!’ Philomena cheered.
The toes of his soft shoes made little sound on the flagstones of the private room in the Aix-en-Provence restaurant. Christmas shifted her weight. The hardness of the stone was begi
nning to make her lower back ache, unsurprising since she, and the four other scholarship winners, had been sitting here for what felt like an inordinate length of time while Master Le Coutre shared his offbeat wisdom.
They were supposed to be enjoying a first-night get-to-know-you meal with their teacher, but Christmas hadn’t had a chance to speak to any of the others properly yet. Master Le Coutre had entered the room just as the first glasses of wine were being poured and whisked them away from the dinner table. He’d taken them to the open space near the unlit fireplace, where he’d given a speech to welcome them, surveying them with his deep grey eyes, then announced that he would rather ‘demonstrate than ruminate’ on what the magic of chocolate making was all about.
To Christmas’s right, Philomena Sarah (a Martha Stewart lookalike ‘from Denver, Colorado, U-S-AAAA!’) was scribbling notes in the back of her well-worn and food-stained recipe book—Master Le Coutre’s The Art and Genius of Chocolate, which she’d brought for him to sign.
On the other side of Philomena was Henry Jacobs, a greying gentleman from Gloucestershire in the south of England, who wore tweed, smelled of cigars, walked with a cane and had been given a chair to sit on, rather than directed to the floor like the others.
To Christmas’s left was Tibbie Tottie Taylor, from California, who looked like a cheerleader and chewed gum.
And beside Tibbie Tottie was Jackson Kent from Johannesburg. He had briefly introduced himself as a police officer wanting a career change. Fair enough, too. Christmas’s mind had flicked momentarily to what life must be like for a policeman in South Africa and she had quickly decided that a career with chocolate won hands down.
While Master Le Coutre continued to dance, an impatient waiter hovered in the background, twisting a napkin, obviously keen to get on with serving dinner. The flickering candles around the room gave the man’s thin face a dramatic gothic appearance.
Christmas’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten anything since some pretzels from the minibar in her hotel room this afternoon. Her plane into Aéroport Marseille Provence had been delayed and she’d not had time to grab anything before meeting the courtesy shuttle bus for the forty-minute trip to the city of Aix-en-Provence and the hotel. Once there, she’d had a bit of time to relax and settle into her room. She’d flicked through the room service menu and considered ordering something, but the description of the dinner in the scholarship’s welcome letter sounded wonderful, and there were five courses of it, so she wanted to save herself and be able to enjoy every mouthful. Right now she really wouldn’t mind tucking into the promised red bell pepper soup with crab mayonnaise, wild mushroom and summer truffle omelette, and spit-roasted lamb leg with herbs of Provence. Hell, she’d even try the squab if it was hot and available. But the way Master Le Coutre was going, it didn’t look like she’d be eating any time soon.
The Chocolate Promise Page 21