The Last Anniversary

So that was the day she decided that what she really wanted to do with her life was work full-time on her Gublet books. When she got pregnant and her mother had offered them her house on Scribbly Gum, she and Callum had gone out to dinner and worked out a whole life plan.

She would take maternity leave from the graphic-design studio, but hopefully she’d never have to go back. When the ‘baby’ (it was so amazing to think that there really would be an actual real baby, separate from herself) was asleep, she’d work serenely on the third Gublet book and get it finished by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Callum would take on extra music students outside of school hours. The builders would do what they said they were going to do and their dream home in the mountains would be finished in plenty of time for them to move in when Laura returned from overseas. Within two years they would save up enough money so that Callum could start up his Music School for Adults. They would work out a sensible investment plan. They would take multi-vitamins and drink carrot, celery and apple juice every day. (They would need to buy a juicer.) They would be healthy, happy and successful. They would have one more child. Maybe even two more! Why not? So far it seemed pretty easy!

Callum wrote it all down on a notepad. Grace added amusing sketches to illustrate each point. They ate duck with crab-meat sauce. They were pleased with themselves.

Grace draws her pencil back and forth across the page in deep zig-zags, remembering that night. Their plans had been so very, very pat, hadn’t they?

She remembers how she’d poked at her stomach to make the baby kick back and how she and Callum had laughed, high on the possibilities of their future. What was so different about her imagined life from the reality of it? It’s all going according to plan. Here she is, with her baby sleeping, sitting at her mother’s dining-room table, ready to do Gublet–and everything seems bland and pointless, just plain old yawning dull.

Gublet. A trite, not especially original picture book in an overcrowded market which doesn’t sell that well or make that much money.

Her marriage. She remembers all that fuss she’d made when she first met Callum. So prissy and girly. Oh, oh, I just love him so much! Did she really feel any of that? He is just a man, for God’s sake. A slovenly man who doesn’t do enough around the house, who is getting a bit fat around the tummy, who has really horrible breath in the morning, who is infuriatingly convinced he is always right.

She says out loud, ‘Oh, stop being such a bitch, Grace.’

She remembers the day the call came through from the publisher about Gublet. ‘There’s someone on the phone for you,’ Callum had said, failing to repress an enormous grin. Grace, mystified, had taken the phone, and Callum had carefully watched her face until he saw her start to smile, at which point he’d performed a wild, silent victory dance around the kitchen.

How can she not love Callum?

Well, she does love him. Of course she loves him.

The baby is crying. She looks at her watch. It has happened again. Two hours vanished.

This is not normal.

15

From inside the warm restaurant, Sophie looks down at the crowds of people walking back and forth along the quay, heads bent against a chilly wind. A non-descript couple rugged up in black coats, hurrying and holding hands, slowly meta-morph into the familiar figures of her parents, like a special effect in a movie. Sophie smiles involuntarily and tries to keep watching them with the eyes of a stranger. A perfectly ordinary middle-aged, quite stylish, definitely married couple with a relaxed, happy air about them, as if they are on holidays. They are both on the short side, giving them a cute, compact look. The woman stops and demonstrates something: a hammering movement with hands. The man shrugs, grabs her hand and pulls her along towards the restaurant. Sophie laughs to herself and feels the anticipation of relief. She is going to read them Aunt Connie’s letter and let them decide what she should do. Whatever they say, it will be said with unconditional, soothing approval of Sophie.

She watches them come in the door, pink-faced and peeling off their coats. Her father, in a smart grey suit with a red tie, has a roundish face, old-fashioned gold glasses and a lovely smile, which he gives his wife as he helps with her coat. Her mother, who is wearing a soft blue dress, is checking herself in the glass-mirrored wall and trying to smooth down her irrepressibly curly hair. The wind has given her a slightly crazed look. They chat away to the maitre d’ as if he is an old, dear friend and there is a loud burst of laughter. Sophie’s parents create flurries of laughter wherever they go.

Finally, they look Sophie’s way and she raises a hand. Her parents beam in unison, as if it has been months since she’d seen them last, not a mere two weeks.

Sophie’s friend Claire, on meeting the Honeywell family for the first time, said, ‘Now I get it why you’re so popular. You’ve always been adored. You expect to be adored and so you are.’

‘I do not expect to be adored. Anyway, all parents love their children,’ retorted Sophie, feeling embarrassed because she knew it was true.

‘Not like yours love you,’ said Claire. ‘It’s borderline dysfunctional.’

‘Hello, darling,’ says her mother. ‘That’s a gorgeous new top. Can you believe my hair? I look like I’ve been electrocuted.’ She bulges her eyes and vibrates her head to demonstrate her point.

‘Hello, Soph,’ says her father. He pulls out a chair for his wife and kisses Sophie on the cheek. ‘Your mother accepts full responsibility for our lateness. No drink yet? Two points off? This lighting is a bit too moody I think. I can hardly see you.’

Every third Thursday, Sophie’s father takes his wife and daughter out for dinner at a carefully chosen restaurant. The Honeywell family specialises in fine dining. They’d applied their own elaborate rating system to restaurants in Paris, London, New York and, of course, Sydney. It is one of their shared family hobbies, along with opera, Scrabble and reality TV.

Her mother, Gretel, enjoys telling people about how they used to take Sophie out to restaurants when she was just a toddler. They would prop her up on two cushions so she could reach the table and she’d be ‘good as gold!’, solemnly pretending to read the menu which was ‘twice the size of her!’. The waiters made her pretend cocktails exactly the same pink colour as her mummy’s. Sophie also smoked pretend lolly-cigarettes, just like Mummy and Daddy’s, blowing pretend smoke out the side of her mouth (‘little actress’), but Gretel generally leaves out that part of the story because it makes people stop saying ‘Ohhhh’ and say uneasily ‘Oh?’ Plus, Gretel doesn’t actually like to think about the number of cigarettes they smoked in their daughter’s presence. Sophie only has to give the tiniest cough before Gretel is clutching her husband’s arm. ‘Listen to that! Passive smoking! What were we thinking? We probably destroyed her poor little lungs!’