Chocolates and Flowers Read online

  When we draw up on the gravel at Tanglewood, Dad toots the horn once and Skye and Summer come outside, wrapped up against the frosty morning in coats and scarves, wide-eyed and hesitant in the yellow light from the car headlamps. They both look amazing. I told them to dress up, and Skye is in a vintage duffel coat with a print dress peeping out beneath, while Summer wears a velvet jacket over a pink floaty dress, the silk flower I gave her the Christmas before last clipped in her hair along with a little bunch of feathers. She looks awesome, and I cannot wait to see her face when she discovers where we are going.

  ‘Did we really have to be up so early?’ Skye groans, scrambling into the car. ‘Where are you talking us, Outer Mongolia?’

  ‘It feels like Outer Mongolia here,’ Summer says, shivering as she scoots across the seat to snuggle up against me. ‘Cold. Mind you, I always seem to be freezing lately. So … where are we going?’

  ‘Exeter Bus Station,’ Dad says, turning out on to the road again. ‘Can’t say more than that – it’s more than my life’s worth!’

  ‘Why is it all so secret?’ Skye demands. ‘And why am I here, anyhow? Is it so you get to look like some kind of player, Alfie, with two girls hanging off your arm?’

  ‘Busted,’ I say. ‘You know me too well, Skye Tanberry.’

  ‘I like secrets,’ she says. ‘Secrets are cool …’

  ‘Maybe,’ Summer says. ‘But I think we deserve to know a bit more, Alfie. You can’t just tell us to dress in our best stuff and be ready at five, and not say why …’

  ‘Can you give us a clue?’ Skye chimes in.

  They take it in turns to try and tease and trick the surprise from me as we drive through the winding, early morning lanes, and by the time we finally reach the bus station I relent and reveal that we’re taking a coach to London.

  ‘I knew it!’ Skye says. ‘Is Finch in on all this? Because if he isn’t and I’m just some kind of gooseberry, I will not be pleased. Two’s company and three’s a crowd, as they say …’

  ‘Finch is meeting us at the other end,’ I admit.

  ‘Yay!’ Summer squeals. ‘That’s perfect! Just like old times!’

  ‘OK,’ Skye says. ‘I might have to kill him when I see him, though. He never said a thing. He hasn’t been in touch for ages … but all the time the pair of you were planning this!’

  We get to the bus station just in time, and pile on to the coach, grabbing seats along the back. Summer sits in the middle, sandwiched between me and Skye, and I break out a picnic breakfast of apples, tofu burger and bottles of fruit smoothie, all designed not to freak Summer out. Skye is less anxious about that, and adds a couple of chocolate bars into the mix. Summer doesn’t eat any of those, but they don’t seem to bother her either.

  ‘Even you are all dressed up,’ Summer comments as I shrug off my anorak and stow it on the luggage rack above us. ‘That’s your best Christmas jumper, right? What is going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I just don’t want us to look like country kids once we get there.’

  ‘Are we having a sightseeing day?’ Skye wants to know. ‘Because I haven’t done that for soooo long. We came up years ago, when Dad was still around, and went to see Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament. We rode around on one of those sightseeing buses that have no roof, and it started to rain, so Mum bought us umbrellas …’

  ‘With pictures of London cabs and the London Eye on,’ Summer finishes for her sister. ‘And Beefeaters and Scots Guards with those red jackets and big furry hats …’

  ‘That’s right,’ Skye agrees. ‘And then Mum stopped at a street stall to buy us all souvenir T-shirts, and a sandwich from a cafe because we were starving, and we missed our train and Dad had to pay extra for us to catch a later one, and they quarrelled all the way home.’

  ‘Coco wouldn’t stop crying,’ Summer remembers. ‘She was only about four …’

  ‘Happy days,’ Skye quips. ‘Not.’

  I frown. ‘Today will be better,’ I say.

  ‘Obviously,’ Skye says. ‘My dad is not involved in it, so it has to be better. He wasn’t good at family days out.’

  ‘He wasn’t good at families, full stop,’ Summer adds, yawning and leaning her head against my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Alfie. Today will be awesome, whatever it is you’ve got planned.’

  I hope so, I really do.

  Finch meets us at Victoria Coach Station as arranged, looking effortlessly cool in an old suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up and a T-shirt advertising some indie band I’ve never heard of. I instantly regret my Fair Isle jumper and anorak. I was aiming at the hipster look, but suddenly panic that I look more like a middle-aged trainspotter. It’s very demoralizing.

  ‘So,’ Finch says, hugging Skye and Summer in turn, ‘your birthday treat awaits you! Follow me …’

  ‘Follow you where?’ Skye wants to know.

  ‘To the ends of the earth,’ Finch quips. ‘Well, Covent Garden, anyway. I thought we could grab a birthday brunch before we unveil the Special Treat!’

  ‘Great,’ Skye says. ‘I’m starving!’

  Summer flicks an anxious look at me and slips her hand into mine, and we follow along as Finch cuts through the crowds and leads the way down steep escalators to the Underground. We pile on to a busy train and then pile off again at Green Park to change on to the Piccadilly line. A little while later, we emerge from the ancient lifts at Covent Garden Tube and wander out into a crazy, crowded plaza filled with tourists and entertainers and shops and stalls.

  We mooch around for a little while and watch a man juggling fire and two girls doing acrobatics, and try to figure out how the man sprayed gold is able to sit cross-legged in mid-air with only his stick touching the floor; then Finch checks his watch and takes us to a cafe overlooking the square.

  It’s a good choice … there are lots of healthy options on the menu; Summer picks poached egg and spinach and actually manages to eat quite a bit of it.

  ‘What’s the surprise?’ she asks me for the millionth time. ‘Are you ever going to tell us? Or is it just being in London? Because that would be brilliant … but Finch did mention a Special Treat.’

  Summer’s eyes are hopeful, and I know she has started to put the pieces together, begun to guess.

  ‘Be patient,’ I say. ‘You’ll find out in a minute.’

  We scrabble our money together and pay, then pull on coats and head out into the bright, cold air. I check my watch and exchange a glance with Finch.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s go. Shut your eyes …’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ Skye argues, but Finch puts a hand over her eyes and leads her forward, and Summer closes her eyes, her lips curving into a nervous smile. She knows. She’s hoping.

  I take her hand and lead her through the crowd, and the four of us stop in one corner of the plaza, a little way back from our destination. ‘You can look now,’ I say.

  Summer opens her eyes wide, and I watch her mouth quiver into an enormous smile as she takes it all in.

  ‘The Royal Opera House,’ she says, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Romeo and Juliet! Oh, Alfie … I can’t believe it!’

  4

  Finch has collected the tickets already so we check our coats into the cloakroom and go up the stairs to the auditorium. We are up in the amphitheatre bit, in the upper slips, way up high where the cheap seats are. We’ll probably need a telescope to see the actual ballet, but that doesn’t matter.

  The place looks like a palace.

  Summer moves slowly, as if in a dream, feet sinking into the thick carpet, her head held high. She walks right past our seats and glides down towards the front of the amphitheatre, looking down on the tiers below, the circle stalls, the wide sweep of stage partly hidden behind thick swathes of crimson velvet. Her eyes rake over the grand boxes where the plushest, private, priciest seats are, everything trimmed with crimson and gold.

  She looks perfect in her pale pink dress, the skirt gauzy, fl
oaty, like a dancer’s. The flower and feathers in her hair catch the light as she gazes downwards, transfixed.

  I walk down to stand beside her.

  ‘Happy?’ I ask.

  ‘Happy,’ she echoes. ‘Alfie, this is the best surprise ever. You are the best boyfriend ever. It’s awesome! I have always, always wanted to come here. It was my dream …’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘It must have cost a fortune!’

  ‘I’ve been saving,’ I say with a shrug. ‘I wanted to do something special for you.’

  She turns to me and plants a light kiss on the end of my nose, then grabs my hand and dances a pirouette in front of me, laughing. I’d say every single bit of planning and effort has been worth it, just for that moment alone.

  Summer stays down at the front of the balcony, watching the orchestra pit as the musicians begin to tune up. Around her, the theatre fills slowly. I shift in my seat, awkward in my Christmas jumper. I am way out of my depth, and very glad Finch and Skye are here too. I feel like a scarecrow next to the old blokes in suits and bow ties, the younger men in cord jackets and paisley patterned scarves. As for the women, they’re downright scary, especially the old ladies with their elegant faces and smart blouses with glittery brooches. I see Summer turn to watch a family take their seats, the parents smiling brightly, the two little girls in red velvet and lacy white socks and black patent leather shoes.

  Does it remind her of when she was little, of when her dancing dreams first began?

  Finch heads off to buy a programme, and Skye turns to talk to me.

  ‘You care about my sister a lot, don’t you?’ she says as I watch my girlfriend lean against the balcony, transfixed by all the glitz and glamour. In the midst of it all, she looks beautiful, ethereal, perfect.

  ‘Obviously,’ I say to Skye. ‘You know that.’

  ‘You’ve put a lot of thought into this, I can see,’ she says. ‘It was nice of you to include me and Finch too.’

  ‘Moral support,’ I say. ‘I mean, this is me, Alfie Anderson, at a ballet … a slushy one at that, Romeo and Juliet. In the poshest theatre in London. I may look calm, but inside I’m terrified!’

  ‘Maybe,’ Skye says with a shrug. ‘You really are one of the good guys, Alfie.’

  I laugh. ‘Dunno about that,’ I say. ‘I try!’

  She shakes her head. ‘Look … don’t take this the wrong way,’ she says. ‘I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I know exactly what you’re trying to do …’

  I blink, baffled. ‘What am I trying to do?’ I ask. ‘I thought I was just arranging a birthday treat for my two favourite girls?’

  Skye rolls her eyes. ‘You’re worried about Summer, like I am. Like we all are,’ she says. ‘You’d do anything to make her better, make her happy again. And she loves ballet, so to see a performance here … well, it’s an amazing thing for you to arrange. Awesome. Only … it could actually be quite difficult for her too. Painful. Do you know what I’m saying, Alfie?’

  ‘Yeah, but … it’s the thing she loves most in the world, right?’ I argue. ‘I know what you’re saying, Skye, but … well, I think it’ll be fine. What harm can it do?’

  Skye sighs. ‘The problem is that Summer’s dream was to dance onstage at the Royal Opera House, not just to watch a ballet here,’ she says. ‘She wanted it so much, and now those dreams aren’t going to happen.’

  ‘They could,’ I argue, but Skye interrupts me.

  ‘They won’t,’ she says, and I recognize the truth in her words even though I really, really don’t want to.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she goes on. ‘I want those things for Summer almost as much as she wants them for herself. But can’t you see, Alfie? She’s ill. She’s not well enough to go to a boarding ballet school, or to train with a professional ballet company. Not now … probably not ever. Maybe she’ll be a dance teacher, or a choreographer perhaps; maybe she’ll run a dance supplies shop and work with dancers that way, but she won’t be a professional ballerina. She’s too fragile for that. She’d break under the pressure.’

  A wave of anger surges through my body, hot and hopeless. Skye is right, even though I don’t want her to be. I hate Summer’s illness with a passion – it has taken so much from her. It’s not fair. I’d like to punch a fist through the ornate walls, kick a hole in the gilded balcony, smash this whole place to pieces. But that wouldn’t change a thing, of course.

  ‘You can’t know all that for sure,’ I say. ‘She’ll get better – she’s getting stronger already. This might be just the thing to change it all, give her something to aim for again.’

  But even as I argue, I know deep down that chasing after impossible dreams won’t help Summer to get well … and it could push her backwards, down into the darkness of her eating disorder, all over again. Summer is walking up towards us, ready to take her seat. I can see the sadness in her eyes, the shadows.

  What if Skye is right?

  5

  Finch comes back and Summer slips into the seat beside me, and the lights are dimmed as the orchestra launches into action. The auditorium is filled with music, and as it reaches a peak the crimson curtains swish back to reveal a busy marketplace scene. It’s not my thing, obviously – men in tights and all that – but to my surprise, I can follow the story. There are young men trying to impress the girls (happens every day at Exmoor High) and even a dramatic fight between two feuding families, with swords and knives and some rich bloke wading in to break the whole thing up.

  It’s not as bad as I was expecting.

  The dancer who plays Juliet is fair-haired and beautiful, and I imagine she’s Summer and I’m Romeo, although obviously you would never catch me in tights in a million years. After a really slushy love scene between the two of them, the lights come up and there’s an interval, and I am certain Skye is wrong about how Summer will react because her face is bright with the thrill of it all. She turns to me and starts explaining about Montagues and Capulets, the two feuding families, and how Juliet is only supposed to be fourteen, and how Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev danced the roles here at the Royal Opera House in the 1960s. She flicks through the programme to tell me about today’s dancers while Skye and Finch head off to queue for ice cream, and then the seats fill again and the lights dim and Act 2 begins.

  This time there’s a secret wedding and a murder, and Summer leans forward in her seat, lips parted, eyes wide, unable to take her eyes off any of it. During the second interval she drifts down to the balcony again, looking down at the stage and the people in the stalls below.

  ‘Wish I’d been able to get better seats for us,’ I say. ‘They’re all millionaires down there, I reckon.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she replies. ‘I’m here with you, and that’s what counts. I can’t believe you did this for me, Alfie. You are the best boyfriend ever!’

  I am still glowing from the compliment when the lights dim again and we slide back into our seats for the final act. This one is crazy. There are sleeping potions, daggers, vials of poison and secret letters that don’t get delivered so that everything goes horribly wrong. The music works itself into a crescendo as the drama unfolds. Mistakenly thinking Juliet is dead, Romeo drinks poison, and, awaking to find him dead, she stabs herself … and that’s the end. Seriously. The curtain goes down on two dead bodies.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. I thought all stories had to have happy endings, these days? Apparently not.

  The whole place goes crazy with the applause, and the dancers come on for a curtain call, even Romeo and Juliet, miraculously risen from the dead. A small girl with ringlets and a lacy dress comes onstage with a bouquet of flowers almost as big as she is, presenting it to the ballerina who played Juliet. Roses, crimson and white.

  When I turn to look at Summer, I see she is crying, tears rolling down her pale cheeks as if her heart will break. That wasn’t in the plan.

  ‘Um … you didn’t tell me it was so sad,’ I sa
y. ‘It’s like an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show mixed up with Crime Scene Investigates. Heavy.’

  Summer just nods and bites her lip and lets her hair fall forward to hide her face.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Skye is asking. ‘Summer, what’s wrong?’

  But Summer is sobbing uncontrollably, her body shaking, and people are looking at us oddly as they gather up their bags and scarves and programmes and file out of the theatre. Skye slips an arm round her twin, whispering softly, but Summer just shakes her head and pushes a fist against her mouth, and still the tears come.

  ‘What should we do?’ Finch asks me, looking bewildered. ‘Get a cup of hot, sweet tea or something? That’s supposed to help when people are upset, isn’t it?’

  ‘Dunno, Finch,’ I say.

  ‘Talk to me, Summer,’ Skye is pleading.

  But Summer says nothing, and Skye’s eyes flash towards me, leaving a taint of blame. This is my fault. Finch warned me, Skye warned me … but I thought I knew best. I didn’t, clearly.

  ‘Look, can you give us some space?’ I ask Skye and Finch. ‘Some time alone. Yeah?’

  Skye looks doubtful, but the two of them head for the exits as the cleaners come in and begin to gather rubbish and vacuum the carpet. The buzz of noise offers some camouflage as I sit down next to Summer, curling my arm round her shoulder.

  ‘I thought you’d like it,’ I say quietly. ‘I didn’t know it was going to be so sad.’

  Summer struggles to catch her breath, letting the sobs subside.

  ‘It’s not that,’ she whispers eventually. ‘The ballet was beautiful. Amazing. I … I loved it.’

  I frown. ‘Then how come …?’

  She throws her head back, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she says. ‘Nobody does. This place … it means so much to me. It’s a part of every dream I’ve ever had. But … Alfie, those dreams will never happen now. I’ve ruined everything, thrown it all away.’