Bitter Sweet

Gabriel Stone kept his cocoa-brown eyes on the elegant red-head browsing the exhibits in his chilly workshop.

The slender, stylish woman had been in every week for the last month, never speaking, only smiling at each item of Gabriel’s work, paying particular attention to the life-sized piece to the rear of the building, the piece covered in silver voile.

Today, she was studying the hand-carved animals –an elephant and a bear –each wrinkle of skin and every fibre of fur delicately fashioned from the darkest chocolate and laced with wisps of white.

She pulled her coat together, buttoned it and raised her collar. The sculptor watched her warm breath condense into a small halo inches away from her mouth. He was used to the cold; he’d worked this way for ten years with only fingerless gloves and a woolly hat for extra warmth.

Using the flat of a knife and the tips of his fingers, he smoothed and caressed his latest work of art, a full-scale sculpture, entitled Venus in Dark Chocolate. His eyes flicked to a reference photograph on the wall, as he made subtle adjustments to the slope of the statue’s nose.

He could see the redhead in his peripheral vision. She was crouching, examining the gold-leaf chessboard and dark and white chocolate playing pieces.

‘How do you stop them from melting?’ Her voice was soft, like caramel, fluid. Soothing. It stopped him dead. The last person to have that effect was his wife, Violet.

Gabriel straightened up his wiry frame and swallowed, oiling his throat before speaking. ‘It’s just science,’ he said. ‘And refrigerated display counters.’

As the woman’s head turned, she lost her balance and toppled over. Gabriel threw down his knife, ran across the concrete floor and proffered his hands. She laughed and allowed him to raise her up.

‘Your hands are warm,’ she said, still holding them.

‘And yours are frozen.’ He saw her cream skin rippled red with cold. These were the first hands he’d held since Violet’s. It made for a peculiar mixture of emotions; he could taste the sour citrus of betrayal folded with the sweet syrup of desire. On the back of his tongue, separated, was the bitter almond of guilt.

He and the woman stood like two exhibits, staring intently at one another.

Gabriel spoke first. ‘Drink?’ He let her hands down, led the way to his small office and poured milk from his battered fridge into an old pan. He ignited a single-ringed camping stove seated on the worktop, placed the pan on the heat and reached for the crumpled packet of sugar slumped against the kettle. ‘Would you pass that, please?’ He pointed to an opened bar of chocolate on the compact, square table. The woman obliged and he placed it next to the hob. ‘Please, sit.’

She pulled her coat straight and took the only seat. ‘So you’re Gabe Stone, the Chocolate Sculptor?’ She stared at him.

Only Violet called him Gabe. The rawness of the cold air stung his eyes and he blinked to dilute the pain. ‘Gabriel,’ he corrected, and through his misted vision he saw the woman nod.

‘Gabriel. I’m Rose.’ She held out her graceful hand and this time Gabriel shook it and released it, immediately turning his attention to the sugar in his other hand. He poured it into the hot milk and stirred with a wooden spoon he’d pulled from a drawer, and although his back was turned, he knew Rose was watching. Violet always did. He returned the sugar to its resting place, left the spoon in the pan and picked up the bar of chocolate, breaking it into small chunks and dropping them into the frothing mass.

‘Damn!’ He screwed up the empty foil and aimed it at the sink. ‘It’s sugar last.’ He clenched his jaw. Towards the end of Violet’s life, this was the only way she could take chocolate and Gabriel’s mistake was proof he should not be making the drink for another woman. He heard Rose scrape her chair back and felt the air around him move. She took the spoon and began stirring.

‘It smells amazing,’ she said.

Gabriel let out a long, deep breath, turned around and leaned against the sink. ‘It’ll taste like carob.’ He shook his head and then stared at the floor. How had he allowed himself to be distracted by Rose? He pulled off his hat, ran a hand through his salty dark hair and looked into the pan. ‘It’s done.’ He watched as Rose dispensed the drink into two mugs.

Before she became ill, Violet liked to pour. ‘Let me do that,’ she had said. ‘Let me look after you.’

‘I’ve tasted filthy carob, Gabriel, and it was nothing like this,’ Rose said.

Her words cut across Gabriel’s thoughts. He raised his eyes in surprise and his lips twitched into a tiny smile. ‘You think carob’s vile too?’

She quickly swallowed. ‘Vile? It’s sinful. Seventy percent is as low as I like my cocoa solids.’ She winked. ‘But this? This is heavenly. Who taught you to make it?’ She took another sip.

He was moved by the pleasure in Rose’s voice and exhilarated by the way her words discharged like popping candy. Before he could check himself he replied, ‘My wife, Violet. She was a master chocolatier.’ He stopped. He had spoken Violet’s name and he had spoken it to another woman. What was the punishment for betrayal? Divine retribution? He scrunched up his face, closed his eyes and waited. He winced as a hot hand touched his arm.

‘Gabriel? Are you OK? You’re marble white.’

‘I’m not sure.’ He eased open his eyes.

Rose placed her mug on the sink and guided him to the chair. ‘You have an exceptional talent.’

Gabriel scratched his head. ‘For making a fool of myself?’ When his question was met with silence, he looked at Rose. The concern in her eyes at once gladdened and saddened him.

‘Tell me about your wife.’

Her syrupy tone delivered brittle words and Gabriel’s stomach churned as it siphoned the blood from his face. There was no chocolate on the planet as white as he felt. ‘I can’t.’

Rose perched on the edge of the table and picked up Gabriel’s hat. ‘Do you never feel the cold?’

There was a question. He felt the cold every night in the frostiness of the empty house and the chill of the cotton bed-sheets. Winter and summer, January winds blasted through his mind, leaving a trail of icy dreams and frozen memories. ‘Not when I’m working,’ he said eventually.

He surveyed Rose as she handed over his hat and flicked back her red hair. With that glorious head of fire he would be engulfed in flames. His nights would hold warmth once more.

She pushed off from the table and walked to the door. ‘Show me your favourite piece, Gabriel.’

Thrown by the sudden change in pace, he faltered. ‘I…have a few.’

Rose swirled round, her green eyes glistening like Christmas frosting. ‘I only want to see one. The one. The one that makes your heart swell, the one that steals your breath. The one you love.’

Gabriel shivered. She wanted to see Violet.

Rose knelt before him and touched his fingertips. ‘Please, Gabriel. Show me. Then I’ll go.’

He looked into her crystallised Key lime eyes, at once sweet and sour; she was an angelic, wicked living contradiction, who brought hope and damnation.

‘Gabriel. You need to see her.’

Her words, textured with silk, floated through his mind. He hadn’t looked upon his wife in five years.

His hands were lifted and his body followed. This woman could lead him anywhere. They drifted through the workshop to the covered statue, where they stood hand in hand.

The voile wasn’t dense enough to entirely conceal the sculpture, but it obscured its finer features. Reminiscent of their wedding day, Gabriel gently removed the veil, revealing a flawless, single-breasted female. He heard Rose draw a breath. ‘This is Violet,’ he whispered.

‘Oh, Gabriel. She’s beautiful.’

‘She is.’ He gazed upon the sculpture just as he’d gazed upon Violet in life. He loved every inch of her –her long black hair, her liquorice eyes, two breasts, one breast –it made no difference. He turned to Rose. ‘We loved chocolate, we ate it, we drank it, we even bathed in it, but it couldn’t save her. We thought the antioxidants would fight the disease.’ He focused his attention on the statue once more.

‘Chocolate heals,’ Rose said. ‘You still believe that.’

He acceded: his faith had never cracked.

‘Then let Violet fix you.’

Compelled to comply, Gabriel touched Violet’s bronzed face and searched her truffle eyes for answers.

But Violet wasn’t looking at him.

He followed her line of sight to his hand. The hand entwined in Rose’s. His healing had begun. He glanced back at the statue. Had he sculpted that smile?