Jen gave him a grateful smile. ‘Dad? Do you get it?’
‘What is it exactly you’re asking me to do?’ Tom said.
‘Well, first tell us this. Why are you so hung up on getting Nan’s money now?’ She looked around the room. ‘I mean, it’s pretty clear you’re not flush with cash. Are you broke? Do you have debts? Have you got a gambling problem?’
Tom dismissed her questions with a wave of his hand.
‘Well, what then? Because we don’t understand. Please, let us help you.’
Their father worked his jaw. ‘You can’t help. And if you must know, I stuffed up.’ Bitterness edged his voice. ‘I got done in a deal, okay? I know that will come as a huge shock to you,’ he said to Lincoln.
‘What sort of deal?’ Jen asked gently.
‘Real estate. House flipping.’
‘What’s that?’ Lincoln asked.
‘Mitchell, two doors up, who took off and dumped that dog on me, invited me into a group of investors who buy houses for a low price, hit them with a team of renovators, and then put them back on the market to sell them again in less than a month. They reckoned they do it all the time and make big profits fast.’
Lincoln bit back words, not wanting to stop his father from talking.
‘They had lots of brochures and videos of their previous successes. So I borrowed against the equity in this house to invest, but it didn’t work. I was screwed over. Now my money’s tied up in a bad investment and the bank wants the repayments for the loan and I can’t make them.’ Tom looked angry, embarrassed. He glared at Lincoln as if daring him to criticise.
‘So why don’t you just tell Nan that?’ Lincoln said instead.
‘She’d love that,’ Tom muttered. ‘She’d just love to hear how I proved yet again to be a disappointment, how I could never live up to her first-born saint, Matthew, or successful Jake.’
Lincoln felt a tug in his chest. ‘Nothing you ever did was good enough,’ he said. ‘Painful, isn’t it?’
Tom stared at him but didn’t say anything.
‘You need to tell her,’ Jen said.
‘No.’ Tom tapped his finger on the wooden arm of the couch. ‘It’s the principle of the thing.’
‘The principle?’
‘She took my money.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jen said, shaking her head in confusion.
‘Back when I was eighteen. I’d been working my guts out on the farm for years, earning a pretty good wage back then, milking and cutting hay and mucking out yards and stalls. Backbreaking work. It wasn’t all machines like it is these days. I was saving up to get off this island and go to America. I’d missed the call-up to Vietnam and I was disappointed, to be honest.’
Lincoln felt the shock of his father’s confession through his whole body. He couldn’t imagine anyone being anything other than hugely relieved to miss out on being forced to go to war.
Jen just nodded, listening.
‘So I decided to get out another way. I had my money all stashed in a tin in the milking shed. I was going to pay for my airfare to America. And then Pa got in trouble, again.’ He screwed up his nose.
‘What sort of trouble?’ Lincoln asked. His grandfather had been a bit of a menace. He’d swap his milk urns for his neighbours’ if they had richer, creamier tops on them. Perhaps he went too far, ended up on the wrong side of the law.
‘Money trouble. Same as always. Debts he couldn’t pay. So Mum took my money. Just took it. Stole it!’ Tom’s face had turned an ugly purple.
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Lincoln said. ‘Nan’s got a good amount of money to her name now and she says they made it dairying.’
‘Yes, interesting, isn’t it? She always knew what Pa was like and she used to hide money all over the place. I don’t think she even realised how much she’d hidden till after he died and she went and found it all. And her parents knew what Pa was like, so they left all their money—which they’d made from their own dairy farm—to just her, as well as the land.
‘So you think she owes you?’ Jen said.
‘She does owe me!’
‘I see.’ Jen twirled a vine of hair, something she’d always done when she was thinking.
Tom thrust a finger at Lincoln. ‘You think she is a perfect grandmother. But she was far from a perfect mother.’
25
A midnight bird squawked through the darkness outside Christmas’s window. And now that the whole of the chateau was sleeping, she had energy roaring through her like an express train. It was Wednesday night. She would be back in Tasmania on Saturday and she could be metres away from her father right now. Or she could be on the wrong side of the country.
Lincoln had sent her a short text soon after arriving home to say Elsa would be okay, but he hadn’t made contact since, and she was swinging between feeling cold with dread that she’d ruined everything and sick with shame that she’d brought all of this on herself. Well, almost all of it.
What she needed right now was to be making chocolate, harnessing her wild mind into constructive activity. But there was no such distraction to be found here.
Then she thought of something and rushed to her handbag. She had a bottle of lavender oil she’d purchased at the farm last week. She could rub some on her temples to ease the anxiety. But while rummaging through the contents of the bag, she found something else—the chocolate wrapper with Jackson Kent’s number on it. His language school wasn’t far away. And he did say to call any time. She didn’t let herself think about it for too long before she picked up the phone and called him and, bless him, he answered almost straight away.
He arrived at the chateau not long after in a utility vehicle he said he’d borrowed from a fellow campus inmate.
‘Inmate?’ Christmas said.
‘It’s a pretty fair description.’ He was joking. She hoped.
He asked her no questions as they drove along the darkened roads to his language school, and Christmas felt increasingly silly for calling him, fearing that she was imposing. But she needn’t have worried, she realised when they arrived, because the campus was lit up like a jolly school camp with a carnival atmosphere. Midnight feasts were going on at candlelit wooden tables beneath leafy trees with fairy lights wound around the branches. Cigarette smoke waded heavily through the still air. All around was the sound of corks popping from wine bottles and glasses clinking.
‘What’s that sweet smell?’ Christmas asked as they picked their way across the damp grass, passing a few rows of grape vines that harboured at least two romantic entanglements that she could see.
‘Some sort of flower, I think,’ Jackson said. ‘It’s strongest at night and makes me dream of travels I’m yet to have.’
‘Careful, Jackson, I think the French language has released the poet in you.’
He smiled and opened the weathered wooden door to his cabin. ‘There are worse things, I suppose.’
The room was spartan, but pleasant enough. Two single beds, blue quilts pulled up, a bedside table and lamp between them, an ancient writing desk and chair, and a small bar fridge humming in the corner. French dictionaries, books, maps, shopping catalogues and transport timetables lay scattered around. Outside, someone picked up a guitar and began a Spanish-sounding tune, accompanied by a chorus of whoops, claps and table slapping.
Jackson picked up a half-drunk bottle of red wine off the fridgetop and plucked out the cork. ‘Would you like some wine?’ he asked, reaching for glasses on a small shelf above the fridge.
‘Yes, thanks.’
He poured them each a glass and she gratefully took hers, if only to give her hands something to do while his eyes studied hers.
‘It seems as though you’re all having a great time here,’ she said, sitting on the chair at the desk. Jackson sat on the end of one of the beds and put his glass on the bedside table. She felt better already just for being out of her room away from her own thoughts and with a friendly face to talk to.
‘I’m e
njoying myself,’ he said, flexing his fingers and then stretching his arms over his head and loosening his neck. ‘My brain hurts all the time, though. Immersion language schools are tough but I feel like I’ve come a long way in a few days. We aren’t supposed to speak anything other than French while we’re here and it can be really exhausting.’ He rubbed his eyes.
‘I’ll bet.’ Christmas reflected guiltily that she still only had a few simple words and phrases. ‘I’m sorry for keeping you up,’ she said sipping the wine. It was thick and warming.
‘Non, non.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘As you can see there is little rest to be had. I think it’s part of the torture method of breaking you down and then building you back up again.’
‘Like a cult?’
He laughed. ‘A bit.’
‘Lucky you’re so strong then,’ she said, genuinely admiring him. His eyes connected with hers and a jolt went through her. She put down her near-empty glass.
‘Thank you.’ He waited a moment and then said, ‘So, why are you here, Christmas? Really? I’m sure it’s not to make chocolate—as much as I enjoyed our time together doing that.’
‘Well, I do actually like to make chocolate when I’m stressed. It’s what I do at home. It soothes me.’
‘What are you stressed about?’
It was a long list. She’d fallen in love, been loved in return, and then it had all come into doubt and been turned upside down. The information about her father. Elsa’s illness. Her mini breakdown in front of Lincoln at the chateau.
She suddenly felt hot and stood up, looking for a window to open. There was one above the bed where Jackson was sitting; she reached over him, her shirt lifting and the skin of her abdomen finding the air. She shoved the window open as hard and fast as she could and stepped back out of Jackson’s personal space, but his eyes were focused military-style, straight ahead. A wave of affection for him made her want to reach out and stroke his cheek. But she held back.
She sat on the bed opposite him, their eyes level. Most of all right now, she needed a friend. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said.
‘I don’t have anywhere else to be.’
‘That’s good, because I’ve been feeling really bad the last couple of days. Bad in a way I haven’t felt for several years. I started to worry myself.’
Jackson waited for her to go on.
‘I got some information and it was quite a shock.’
‘Is everything okay back home?’
‘Yes. I guess. I’m not sure.’ She paused, wondering where to start, and fiddled with the bedspread near her knee.
‘I hear it helps to start at the very beginning,’ he said.
‘Like a Julie Andrews song?’ She grinned.
‘Huh?’
‘“Do, re, mi”? You know, The Sound of Music?’
‘Never seen it.’
‘Oh, come on. You must have.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘But you have to,’ she said. ‘Everyone needs to see it. It’s such a lovely film. Too long, granted. I’ve probably watched it twenty times and only made it to the end twice. But, still! You have to see it. I’m going to send you the DVD as soon as I get home.’
Jackson laughed, his neck muscles flexing as his head tilted back. Seriously, the man only had to breathe and muscle would flex.
‘Here, give me your address.’ She fished in her bag for paper and a pen and passed them to him to write it down, which he did, amused, resting the paper on his knee. He wrote carefully.
‘Excellent,’ she said, putting the paper back in her bag. Outside, the music sped up and more instruments joined the guitar. It sounded like a gypsy festival out there and Christmas’s mood soared.
‘Okay, so now that we have my movie viewing sorted, let’s get to the reason you’re really here,’ Jackson said.
‘Oh, yeah.’ She paused again. Maybe talking about this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe it would just make her mind focus on it more. Perhaps, in the absence of chocolate making, she needed another form of physical outlet. ‘You know what? I think you’ve helped me already. How about we just go outside and drink wine and dance?’
‘Fine with me,’ he said. ‘I’m better with action than talking.’
‘Then let’s just dance instead of talking, or making chocolate,’ she said, excited.
‘Master Le Coutre says it’s the same thing anyway.’
‘He might just be a genius,’ she said solemnly.
‘Or mad as a hatter,’ Jackson said.
‘Oh, so you’ve seen Alice in Wonderland then?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Oh, Jackson!’
‘Maybe we should dance?’ he suggested.
‘Amen to that.’
And so they danced, barefoot on the damp grass, overly warm in each other’s arms, the smell of wine on their breath as they laughed, surrounded by people from all around the world, singing in different languages, live music effortlessly directing their steps, until at three am they finally began to droop with fatigue and Jackson drove her home, their conversation slowing naturally as their eyelids began to close.
‘You should stay,’ she said when he pulled up outside the chateau. ‘You’re too tired to drive. There’s a foldout couch in my room. It’s probably not very comfortable, sorry, but maybe no worse than the compound you’re already in. And at least it’s quiet.’
He shook his head.
‘Okay, I’ll sleep on the foldout and you can have my bed,’ she said cheerily.
‘It’s not that,’ he said, looking straight ahead. ‘It would be too difficult to be there with you and not be with you.’
Christmas’s heart lurched. ‘I’m sorry, Jackson. I really like you. I just think my heart is, kind of regrettably, somewhere else.’
He looked at her then and butterflies stirred around her navel. ‘Why “regrettably”?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘It’s always such a big risk, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘I live in Jo’burg. I understand something of living with risk.’
‘Yes, I suppose you do.’
‘But there is one thing I know for sure,’ he said, reaching out to brush some hair from the side of her face. ‘Being alive is a risk. You risk dying every single day. But you can’t let it stop you living. And nothing . . . nothing . . . you can do will stop death from coming eventually. So the only choice you have is to live.’
Christmas swallowed past the tightness in her throat and took a deep breath. ‘Well, that’s sobering.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘No, you haven’t. I think you’re right. Maybe the trick is just to keep on dancing.’
He gave a small smile and she hopped out and closed the door gently.
Christmas watched Jackson’s borrowed ute until the taillights disappeared around a bend. She hoped very, very much that she would see him again one day. For now, she blew him a kiss goodbye.
For her final two days in Provence, Christmas decisively made herself three temporary rules, just to help her get to the other side: she would make peace with the fact that she wouldn’t find Gregoire Lachapelle on this trip but know that the door was still open for the future; she would allow no more angst over Lincoln—that situation would be sorted soon enough, one way or another; and she would devote herself to drinking in the stunning beauty of Provence, savouring every taste, sight, sound and smell, filling her inner well before she got back on the plane.
So that was what she did.
She arrived back in Tasmania after dark on Saturday evening and slipped into her loft above The Chocolate Apothecary. She dropped her luggage just inside the door, set the heaters to a fierce level to warm the frosty air, pulled on a fresh pair of fluffy paisley pyjamas from her armoire and climbed under her doona, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Her first day back in the shop was a Sunday, so there wasn’t a lot of time to indulge in jetlag, with the expected weekend visitor
s coming as usual. But she’d woken feeling better than she’d thought she’d might, and enjoyed reading through Abigail’s notes on everything that had happened on the days the shop had been open; she also flicked through the collection of letters and bills that had accrued. Unexpectedly, and touchingly, there was an invitation from Dennis and Juliette to their nuptials in a few months’ time. They’d set the date on the same night as the chocolate-inspired proposal, they said, and would love her to come. She was honoured that they would acknowledge her for the very small role she’d played in securing their happiness.
But she’d have to leave all communications and paperwork until tomorrow when the shop was closed. Today, she needed all her mental power to concentrate on making coffees and serving treats without burning or spilling anything. Throughout her time on the floor, she noticed that the store was slightly changed with the movement and rearrangement of stock; coming home was like reacquainting herself with a good friend who had adventures of her own to share. She was also enjoying the creative, entrepreneurial thoughts that kept floating to the surface—inspired by her trip—such as hosting farm tours to local producers, connecting people with the origins of their food, and running chocolate-making workshops—though she’d be a lot kinder to her clients than Master Le Coutre’s boot camp had been to her cohort.
Christmas wasn’t surprised that Rosemary McCaw was the first visitor on her doorstep. What was surprising, however, was how she was dressed—in head-to-toe hot-pink lycra and carrying a black bicycle helmet under her arm.
‘Christmas Angel, it’s so wonderful to have you back at the helm of this ship,’ Rosemary said, tip-tapping her way across the floor to embrace her.
‘It’s wonderful to see you, Rosemary,’ Christmas said, hugging her. ‘And why are you dressed like that?’
Rosemary stepped back and pointed her foot to one side to show Christmas. ‘My new shoes.’ They were cycling shoes, which explained the noise they made on the wooden floor. ‘Gordon Harding has been instructing me in the fine art of penny farthing transportation. We’re training for next year’s seniors races.’
‘Oh.’ That also explained the skin-tight pink outfit. ‘Oh! You and Gordon, hey?’ Christmas winked at Rosemary and raised her eyebrows. It was so heart-warming to see two senior residents find new life with each other. Especially since Rosemary had seemed down before Christmas left for France.
The Chocolate Promise Page 29