The Last Anniversary

On the way home in the car, still puffing from her work-out, Veronika listens to a radio interview with a criminal psychologist, who is talking about the difference between male and female serial murderers.

Veronika turns up the radio. She is interested in murder.

‘Men stalk, women lure,’ says the criminal psychologist.

‘So we lure our victims with our irresistible feminine wiles?’ says the interviewer irresistibly.

‘You could put it like that. In fact, you tend to already know your victims,’ says the criminal psychologist, apparently happy to let the interviewer act as a representative of female serial killers.

‘Aha! Watch out for your wives and girlfriends, listeners!’ says the interviewer.

Veronika shouts at the radio. ‘Shut up, you fatuous twit! You moronic cow! This is interesting!’

‘You tend to smother or poison your victims,’ says the criminal psychologist.

‘Ooh, here’s a lovely dinner I’ve baked for you, honey!’ chortles the interviewer. Veronika gives the car radio a left hook and it really hurts her hand. She hadn’t intended to connect.

She turns off the radio and pulls up with a screech of brakes at a red light. She hates this intersection. The traffic lights are clearly faulty. Her lane is always treated unfairly. Look at that! The fools doing a right-hand into Condamine Street have had two green lights in the time she’s been sitting here! She’s already written once to council about it. Perhaps it’s time for a visit. Personal confrontation seems to be very effective when dealing with bureaucrats.

Afterwards, she will be fascinated by the complex workings of her own brain. Because there she is, busily pondering the issue of faulty traffic lights, while simultaneously her smarter, more intuitive subconscious mind is considering the topic of murder. And then, without warning, her subconscious lobs a clear, precise, perfectly articulated thought straight into her consciousness. It’s not so much a thought as a fundamental truth. A truth she has probably always known, somewhere deep within her psyche, ever since she was a small child and first heard the (SO OBVIOUSLY FABRICATED!) story of Alice and Jack.

Aunt Connie was most definitely a murderer.

Well of course she was. Alice and Jack didn’t just vanish. They were murdered. Poison probably, artfully sprinkled on cinnamon toast!

Veronika smiles, oblivious to the fact that the lights have changed and the car behind her is tooting with increasing irritation.

27

I want my ashes scattered one night, at the stroke of midnight, by Rose and Enigma at Kingfisher Lookout. (No, it is NOT necessary for any of you younger ones to accompany them, thank you. They are perfectly capable.) Afterwards they can celebrate with a feast of my cinnamon pear tartlets and some nice champagne. The pies are in the freezer. Thaw overnight and cook at 250 degrees for twenty minutes. They should still be warm by the time you get to the top. You can take that champagne I won in the Legacy Raffle.

PS. Don’t stand too close to the edge when you throw the ashes, girls, or you’ll be joining me sooner rather than later.

‘It will be her last midnight feast at Kingfisher,’ says Rose. ‘I can remember the first time we did it. We must have been about thirteen.’

‘All very well for you Night Owls,’ says Enigma. ‘I’d rather be asleep at midnight. I can remember you dragging me up there when I was about thirteen. All I wanted to do was sleep.’

‘Rubbish. You loved it,’ says Rose.

‘Well of course I loved it. I was thirteen,’ says Enigma. ‘But I’m too old for it now, for heaven’s sake. Are you nearly finished?’

Rose is painting a silver moon and stars on Enigma’s cheeks. She’s already done an identical design on her own face. It was Connie’s favourite. She chose it for her fiftieth birthday party and wore a midnight blue and silver dress to match. Rose gave Jimmy a colourful sunrise on his forehead. She remembers Connie sitting on Jimmy’s lap, pressing her cheek to his. ‘Opposites still attract! Even now we’re old fossils!’ In fact, they were extraordinarily young, thinks Rose with surprise, who at the time had believed that they were all astonishingly old.

‘You used to be much quicker,’ grumbles Enigma.

‘You used to be much more patient.’ Rose dips her brush into the midnight blue. She watches her hand’s tremor. Every day it distresses her afresh, the way her body doesn’t belong to her any more.

‘What does it matter if it’s not perfect just this once?’ says Enigma querulously. She is sitting opposite Rose, her face tipped forward, an unwilling canvas, with her glasses clasped in her lap. ‘No one is going to see!’

‘Enigma Anne!’ Rose uses the same quelling tone of voice she and Connie both used when Enigma was naughty as a child. They were imitating their own mother’s scolding tone.

Enigma subsides and pushes her lower lip out slightly. Rose turns to share a meaningful face with Connie and remembers yet again that she is not there. She will never get used to that either. Every day she will forget and remember, forget and remember.

She dabs metallic silver paint over the deep crevices in Enigma’s cheeks. When she was a little girl she had such firm, velvety, kissable skin.

‘Connie and I used to love kissing the back of your neck,’ she tells Enigma. ‘We showered you with kisses.’

‘Hmmph,’ mutters Enigma, but Rose feels her face soften beneath her brush.

When Rose is finally finished and they are ready to go, Connie’s ashes have gone missing. They get irritable and snap at each other until Enigma remembers putting the container in the fridge.

‘The fridge?’ repeats Rose. ‘Did you think they would go off?’

‘Yes, I know it sounds silly,’ says Enigma. The moon and stars on her face give her a puckish look. ‘But I was clearing the table and I couldn’t think what it was. I have a little rule: when in doubt, put it in the fridge!’

‘Imagine Connie’s face!’

‘She’d be absolutely furious!’

They look at each other and they have to sit down while they giggle, resting their heads on their hands.

Outside, it’s bracingly cold. They rug up in beanies, scarves and gloves. Connie’s ashes are safely stowed in a picnic basket together with the hot, foil-wrapped tartlets and the cold champagne.

‘Look at the stars!’ says Rose as they climb astride their bikes. ‘It looks like they’ve put extras out for us tonight.’