Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (15 page)

I have sung carols in the snow a few
times, risking frostbite in fingerless mittens as I clutched the songbook, but I
have never before dodged heatstroke while singing ‘Little Donkey’. I
guess there is a first time for everything.

We break up from school, and I try to
get into the Aussie Christmas spirit. I drape fairy lights along the patio and hang
up cards with surfing Santas, cards with sleighs drawn by kangaroos, cards with
koalas wearing reindeer antlers. It’s kind of surreal. I surprise Emma by
teaching her how to bake mince pies and Christmas cake; we have a laugh, but the
rich fruit-and-brandy aroma as the cake cooks makes me suddenly, painfully,
homesick.

An airmail package addressed to me
arrives from home, tied up with string and covered in Christmas stickers; I slice
open the box and take out the presents inside, carefully wrapped in white tissue
paper with red ric-rac bows. I read the gift-tag messages from my sisters, telling
me not to open anything until my Skype call home on Christmas Day, and my throat
aches suddenly, as if I’ve swallowed a shard of glass.

The day before Christmas Eve Bennie has
a sleepover and we watch cheesy festive DVDs and exchange presents, promising not to
open them until Christmas Day; we talk about our plans to hang out at the beach and
meet cool boys.

‘We have the whole of January to
have fun,’ I tell them. ‘I can’t wait!’

‘About that,’ Tara says.
‘I didn’t know how to tell you before, but Dad says he’s taking us
down to the Gold Coast right after New Year for a fortnight’s holiday, then on
to Brisbane for my Aunt Lisa’s wedding. I’m looking forward to it, but
I’ll miss hanging out with you guys. And the cool boys bit,
naturally …’

‘All the more for us,’
Bennie teases.

I’m sorry Tara will be away, but
still, I can’t help looking forward to the holidays. Forget the promises I
made to Dad – a little bit of romance is exactly what I need right now. As I drift
off to sleep I’m not thinking of Riley, with his surf-boy good looks and his
hot/cold messages that have fizzled away to nothing. I’m thinking of Ash, with
his books and his grin and the way his eyes hold on to mine whenever we’re
together. I’ve hardly managed to see him since school broke up – I can’t
seem to work out his new shift schedule, but I realize I miss him.

Last year I woke on Christmas morning
with Coco jumping up and down on my bed like a maniac, trying to wake me. This year
is different. There is no annoying stepdad playing cheesy carols on his fiddle; no
bleary-eyed sisters eating chocolate coins and tangerines at six in the morning in
front of a log fire; no ancient handknitted stockings hanging from the mantlepiece,
bulging with tiny presents. There is just the stillness of the pre-dawn house, the
sound of my own breathing.

Christmas morning is not meant for
lie-ins, it’s meant for barking dogs and footprints in the soot around the
fireplace and wrapping paper torn carelessly to reveal those silly, lovely stocking
presents you didn’t even know you wanted. What will my sisters be doing now?
Mum said they weren’t having the usual Christmas Eve party … too
much bother, she said, after all the hard work at the chocolate workshop these last
few months. Too stressful for Summer too.

Will they be down in the village at a
carol concert? Watching
It’s A Wonderful Life
, that mad old
black-and-white DVD about an angel earning his wings that Mum loves so much? Setting
out a mince pie, a glass of whisky and a carrot for Rudolf, hanging up the
stockings? It is 5.05 a.m. in Sydney, and Christmas has begun, but back home at
Tanglewood it’s still Christmas Eve. I am a time traveller, lost and far from
home, drifting in the nowhere-land of darkness.

I open up my laptop, click on to
SpiderWeb. There’s a whole bunch of notifications; the first, surprisingly, is
from Surfie16.

Hey, sorry I’ve been
neglecting you. Stuff got a bit complicated. I’m away now – home for Xmas
– but let’s get together once I’m back, yeah?

Ten days ago, this message would have
made my day, but now it leaves me cold. I misjudged Riley. I thought he was an
Aussie version of Shay Fletcher, cute and kind and cool, but it turns out he was
just another dishwater boy, his messages veering erratically between flirty and
malevolent. I click Delete and the message vanishes.

My sisters have posted pictures on my
SpiderWeb wall – a photo of the Christmas tree with Mum’s vintage-style fairy
on top from Skye; the still-empty stockings along the mantlepiece from Summer; a
picture of Caramel the pony with mistletoe behind her ear from Coco. Even Cherry has
posted a photo, a shot of the mirror above the fireplace, draped with greenery and
fir cones.
Miss you, Honey xxx
is scrawled on the glass in lipstick.

I love that they’ve thought of me,
posted pictures to wish me Happy Christmas even though it’s still Christmas
Eve back home. I wonder if there is frost on the grass, snowflakes falling from a
velvet sky? Here, the heat is already curling around me like an unwanted blanket,
sticky, stifling.

I message back, then shower and dress.
Dad gave me money to buy myself something for Christmas to go with the laptop; I
went shopping with Emma and picked out a new dress and some art materials. I take
out my new sketchbook and paints, position myself in front of the mirror and begin a
self-portrait. A ghost girl takes shape on the paper, jigsaw pieces missing from her
face, her body. She looks as if she might fall to pieces, but her eyes are bright
and proud.

‘Honey! Breakfast!’

Emma appears in the doorway, and I tidy
up my things and go through to the kitchen. Dad is wearing a Santa hat and PJ
trousers, making smoked salmon bagels. ‘Happy Christmas, Princess!’ he
declares, pulling me in for a hug.

‘Happy Christmas, Dad. Happy
Christmas, Emma!’ I say. I hand over presents, a DVD box set of a crime series
Dad likes and a gift box of pamper goodies in her favourite fragrance for Emma. What
with my laptop, dress and the art materials, Dad and Emma have been more than
generous, but I’d give anything for a stocking filled with chocolate coins and
tangerines and stripy socks, like the ones we have at Tanglewood. Christmas at
Dad’s house is very calm and grown-up.

I open my presents from Tara and Bennie,
a cute notebook and a purse in the shape of an owl; they’re the kind of things
I’d have picked out back when I was twelve, but I’m stupidly touched.
It’s a long time since I’ve had friends who gave me cute presents
instead of cigarettes and cider and invitations to all-night parties.

The phone rings and I swoop on it,
hoping it’s Mum or my sisters, but all is silent as I hold the handset.
‘Hello? Who’s calling?’ I ask. ‘Coco? Is that you? Stop
messing around!’

The line clicks and goes dead.

‘Who was that?’ Emma wants
to know.

‘It just went dead,’ I
shrug. ‘I thought it might be Mum, but it couldn’t have been. She said
they’d Skype me tonight, at eight o’clock our time – they’ll be
asleep now.’

‘Just a wrong number,’ Dad
says.

Emma’s lips press into a tight
line. ‘On Christmas Day!’ she says. ‘Of all days!’

I frown, aware that Emma is unsettled by
the call too. Later, she and I are getting the picnic ready, packing cold meats and
tubs of salad from the deli. Emma slides champagne and orange juice into the cool
bag, wedging them in with ice packs, balancing the box holding pavlova with
strawberries and fresh cream on top. The mince pies are long gone, but I finished
off the Christmas cake yesterday, cloaking it in golden marzipan and thick white
icing that stands up in peaks the way Mum showed me. I wrap some slices in tinfoil
for the picnic basket.

‘See if your dad’s ready,
will you, love?’ Emma says.

I drift across to the open door. Dad is
outside, by the pool, pacing and talking on his mobile. I tilt my head to one side,
straining to catch the words.

‘I know, I know,’ he says,
his voice low. ‘It’s hard for me too. But I’ve told you before not
to call the house phone! What are you trying to do?’

My heart thumps, and unease prickles my
skin like sweat. I step back into the cool of the house, smiling brightly at Emma.
‘He’s coming,’ I tell her. ‘Any minute.’

We drive to the beach, one of the busier
ones along the coast from Sunset. Christmas lights have been strung along the dunes
and a sound system is playing Christmas songs through huge speakers. A giant
Christmas tree stands to one side of a festival-style stage, a blackboard
advertising the bands playing later.

The beach itself is a patchwork of
family picnics, random mini Christmas trees dotted here and there across the sand,
the smell of dozens of disposable beach barbies gently charring Christmas dinner. I
spot a group of girls my age playing volleyball in red bikinis with white funfur
trim, older kids down by the water with surfboards. Everyone is wearing red hats,
fake beards, antlers, tinsel.

‘Isn’t it amazing?’
Emma breathes. ‘I knew you’d love it, Honey. It’s so alive, so
different!’

‘Amazing,’ I echo.

It really is. Not so long ago I’d
have loved the bright, brash spectacle of it all. I’d have asked the bikini
girls if I could join in with the volleyball game, wandered down to chat to the
surfers, stayed out late to watch the bands and found a party to take me through
till Boxing Day. Now, though, I am hiding behind sunshades and a floppy hat, smiling
an empty smile. I feel hollow, like I left an important part of me behind at
Heathrow Airport and haven’t quite noticed until now.

I eat and laugh and say all the right
things; I slather on suncream and stretch out in the sand, drink cold champagne
mixed with orange juice. Nobody touches my home-made Christmas cake, and when I
taste a piece it turns out to be cloying and heavy, too rich, too solid. I abandon
the cake on its bright plastic plate and the sun dries it to a rubble of tasteless
crumbs.

Eventually, bored and boiled alive, I
head for the ocean, swimming up and down dutifully between the green flags until my
limbs ache. Wading ashore, I realize I’m miles from where I started.

As I cross the crowded beach towards Dad
and Emma, a couple of lads walk past with surfboards, laughing, talking, feet
crusted with sand. A third boy follows, blond, tanned, wholesome, handsome; the last
boy on earth I want to see right now. My heart flips over. He catches my eye and his
face registers surprise, confusion.

Riley is just as gorgeous as I
remember.

‘Hey,’ I say, keeping my
voice steady. ‘Thought you’d gone home for Christmas?’

‘Home?’ he echoes. ‘I
am home. I live in Sydney, born and bred. We’ve met before, yeah?
Sorry … I can’t quite remember your name. Remind me?’

I roll my eyes. Riley likes to play
games, I know, but this one is ridiculous.

‘It’s Honey,’ I say as
brightly as I can. ‘We met in November, at Sunset Beach. You rescued my
sketchbook.’

‘That’s it!’ he says,
his face lighting up. ‘I asked you to a party and you gave me the flick. Which
is just as well because you’re, what, like, fourteen or something?’

‘Fifteen,’ I say. ‘And
it can’t have bothered you that much, or you wouldn’t have added me on
SpiderWeb.’

Riley frowns. ‘OK,’ he says.
‘That’s your British sarcasm in action, right? I never quite got around
to adding you on SpiderWeb. Sorry for that.’

I shiver, in spite of the scalding heat.
Either Riley is a great actor or he’s telling the truth, and much as I hate to
admit it, I don’t think he’s faking the boredom and indifference as his
eyes slide away from me and over to his mates.

‘So. Happy Christmas and
stuff,’ he says. ‘Nice to see you again, um … Honey? Gotta
run.’ He lopes across the sand towards his mates.

As far as I can tell, the boy I’ve
just been talking to is not the boy who sent me flirty messages at 5 a.m., day after
day for weeks on end. And if Riley isn’t Surfie16 … then who is?

We leave the beach late afternoon,
before the live music begins, and I don’t even care. Dad and Emma are off to a
client’s cocktail party; Dad says it will probably be stiff and formal and
achingly dull. I take the hint and wriggle out of the invite, but Emma isn’t
comfortable leaving me behind.

‘Sure you won’t come?’
she asks, elegant in a chiffon dress, gold-hoop earrings reminding me yet again that
my dad is not as perfect as I thought he was. ‘It feels wrong, leaving you
home alone on Christmas night.’

‘We’ve been through all
this,’ Dad says. ‘She’ll be fine!’

‘I really will,’ I promise.
‘Mum’s Skyping at eight. I can’t miss that!’

Dad tells me to say Happy Christmas to
my sisters, and when I ask if he wants to hang on for half an hour and say it
himself he looks at me like I am crazy.

‘We can’t be late,’ he
argues. ‘It’d be incredibly rude, and Nielson’s a guy I want to
keep sweet. He could put a lot of work our way in the New Year.’

Is Dad serious? Work comes before
family, even on Christmas Day?

Before I can argue, he swoops in to drop
a swift kiss on my hair and steers Emma out to the car. I resist the impulse to
throw the rest of the Christmas cake at the back of his head, but only just. That
cake is solid – it could do a lot of damage.

As soon as I’m alone, I open my
laptop and click on to SpiderWeb. Looking back over Surfie16’s posts, I see
how vague he has been each time I’ve asked about uni or where he lives; how he
changed the subject if I mentioned the day we met. I wanted him to be Riley, and he
played along – but Surfie16 could actually be anyone; his home page gives nothing
away. He could be some middle-aged sicko who gets his kicks from flirting with young
girls. The thought makes my skin crawl. And then I remember that I asked him to my
house, gave him my address and mobile number.