Simon's Choice by Charlotte Castle Read Free Book Online Page B

No, they’re not. They’re free , so we can go, right?” Sarah beamed up at her dad, her face arranged in a well-practiced cherubic expression. The same eyelash-batting look that little girls learn from the age of two and which mothers are largely immune to. “Pleease …”
    Disneyland. It was a well-worn argument. Sarah desperately wanted to visit the theme park in Paris. Her parents considered it anathema.
    To an outsider it might have seemed odd, even cruel, that Sarah’s parents, who could easily afford such a trip, had so far refused to grant the child’s wish. However, it is important to remember that there are many things that little girls urgently crave. Puppies. Ponies. Ten foot teddy bears. Candy-floss factories. Most longed-for desires are forgotten after six months, replaced with newer, better fantasy objects. Some remain, but remain impractical.
    On Sarah’s diagnosis, her parents had determined not to spoil her. They had to believe that she had a future, and therefore they had to continue to shape the personality and attitude of their daughter in the same manner they would have had she not been diagnosed with such a ravaging illness. It was hard, seeing her little frame clothed in open-backed hospital gowns, not to promise her the world. She was, of course, fussed over. She was given teddies and game consoles, board games and craft kits. But all these were practical. The child needed entertaining. Riding lessons were promised for when she was better. Theatre trips were booked when she was well enough. But still they held out on Disneyland.
    Simon felt strongly about Disneyland, in particular the European park, situated outside Paris. What possible motivation, he wondered, could people have for travelling to France to see a fake plastic palace in a land scattered with real-life fairytale castles? In America, where there was no such thing and popular culture had its foundations in pretence, the cinematic, the futuristic, the ‘stars’, then yes, he supposed there was a place for giant mice, burgers and saccharine sentiments. But in France? The land of chateaux, musketeers, Marie Antoinette and Monet? How could anyone want to visit a fiberglass fabricated kingdom dedicated to capitalism and commercialism? Where the request for a glass of wine and a chunk of Camembert would be met with blank-eyed contempt. It was France for God’s sake.
    And the money! Simon was not a cheap man, but he was cautious. His formative years had been spent not in poverty but certainly on the strictest of budgets. His parents' careful planning and saving had been handed down in his psyche. Friends reported back that burger meals in bog-standard, well-known burger joints had set them back £60 for a family of four. For a burger! Not only that – it was a burger which you collected yourself and which you would be expected to clear away. For £60, Simon calculated, he could take his family to a fabulous French restaurant, perhaps by a river, perhaps on the coast where he could introduce them to the gastronomic delights of France. Oysters, lobsters, cheeses, cassoulets … but a burger?
    No. Simon had remained adamant. Melissa was largely in agreement. There was no reason to buy passage to France, only to immerse themselves in what they saw as an oversized shopping mall with roller coasters. Their parental gift to Sarah was to feed and stimulate her mind. They wanted to show her wondrous sights that were not experienced by everybody. They wanted to immerse her in the histories and cultures that had created the world in which she lived. To bequeath an appreciation of the foundation on which her society was built. If they truly loved their daughter, they felt, then they would deny her the tawdry falsehood of a theme-park holiday and lavish the gift of knowledge on her instead. Disney could be experienced on television. Versailles could not.
    Leukemia or no leukemia.
    “Free meals, Daddy. So it won’t be thirty pounds for a burger.