The Last Anniversary

Grace sat at the opposite side of the table to her mother and carefully laid the sesame bar down next to her bowl of chicken pasta and her glass of orange juice. Her mother’s eyes didn’t flicker. She just continued to eat her pasta, her lipsticked mouth chewing and digesting ladylike mouthfuls. ‘I’m going to eat this,’ said Grace, and her voice, which she had hoped would sound determined and mature, came out tentative and babyish. Laura’s vague, friendly gaze just skimmed straight over her, as if she were no more interesting than a chair. Grace picked up the sesame bar. Her heart was thudding. Her mother dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her serviette. Grace tore open the packaging. Her mother reached over for the pepper grinder and put some more black pepper on her pasta. Grace held the sesame bar in front of her mouth; she nearly retched at the thought.

Her mother yawned. A genuine, slightly bored yawn.

And Grace thought, She’s going to let me die right in front of her.

She took the sesame bar to the rubbish bin and then she scrubbed her hands to ensure there was no trace of sesame seed left. She took the chicken penne up to her room and climbed into bed and ate it there. Three days later her mother said, ‘I think it’s going to rain’ when she came down to breakfast and her punishment had ended.

Now, twenty years later, as Grace irons, her grown-up mind thinks with bitter amusement, ‘She won the bluff. Of course she would have stopped me.’ But another less certain part of her still wonders, Would she have let me die to prove a point?

Callum still hasn’t turned the television back up. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never told me this.’

‘It’s not that interesting. I don’t know how your parents disciplined you.’

‘My father roared at me and my mother chased me around the house brandishing whatever she happened to have in her hand. They didn’t ignore me for days on end.’

He is looking at her with what Grace takes to be revulsion at yet another example of her strange, cold family life, compared to his rowdy, messy, cheerful childhood.

‘Can you turn it back up?’ she says, but instead he stands up.

‘Grace. Sweetheart.’ He reaches out a tentative hand to touch her face.

‘Now you’re blocking the television,’ says Grace, and presses the steam button so the iron hisses.

43

‘Have you told your husband yet?’

‘No.’

‘I haven’t told my wife either.’

‘My husband would just sneer at me.’

‘My wife would just laugh at me.’

‘Well, we’ll show her.’

‘Maybe. I hope so.’

‘You’re not losing your nerve, are you?’

‘Not after we’ve come this far.’

44

Ron is sitting in his study, desultorily working on some overdue paperwork, when he is pleased to remember that it’s the first of the month, which means he can flip over the page on his Aubade Lingerie calendar. The picture for May is of a skirt flying up to reveal a G-stringed bottom, and while it’s a very appealing, professional piece of photography, it will be interesting to see what June has to offer. Under no circumstances can he flick ahead. He takes pride in such small, secret acts of self-denial; they build character. He has tried to explain the importance of delaying gratification to Margie, but she only pretends to be interested while stuffing more and more food down her cakehole.

The calendar was a Christmas gift from a supplier. When Ron’s daughter Veronika saw it hanging up in his study she became unexpectedly feral. They had a ferocious argument about it. She was completely irrational, of course. It never ceases to amaze him, the stunning lack of logic in women’s brains. For Christ’s sake, it’s not like he put it up in the dining room! Besides which, this isn’t something you’d see hanging up in a mechanic’s workshop. It’s a limited-edition collector’s item. It’s tasteful. It’s elegant. The photos are in black and white!

‘Oh, what would you know about art, Dad!’ Veronika’s lips had curled. ‘This is soft  p**n . It’s insulting to Mum! It objectifies and degrades women!’

‘Don’t upset your father, darling,’ Margie had said. ‘It doesn’t worry me. It’s very pretty.’

‘Well, it should worry you!’ Veronika had sounded like she was close to tears and stormed out of the room, leaving Ron to wonder out loud whether his daughter was actually stable.

(It beggars belief that this intense, contemptuous, skinny woman is the same toddler who used to be so excited when he came home from work that she spun in circles, shrieking, ‘Daddy home! Daddy home!’)

Sometimes Veronika makes him feel strangely inferior, strangely lower-class, and that’s not right. Australia is a classless society. Egalitarian. He is pleased to remember the word: egalitarian. An upper-class, well-educated sort of word. He may be the son of a fitter and turner but he can use words like ‘egalitarian’, no problem at all.

Just because Veronika has all the benefits of the university education that Ron missed out on. A university education he damn well paid for!

To be scrupulously honest, the island paid for it.

But still.

Oh, forget it. He’ll never understand her.

Ron takes down the calendar and reverently flips the page to reveal a photo of a woman with her arms raised above her head as she pulls off her sweater. Her uplifted br**sts are encased in a lacy bra.

Isn’t the lighting sort of…moody? Grainy? Doesn’t that make it art? What does soft  p**n  actually mean? Didn’t Rembrandt or somebody or other paint nudes? What’s the difference? Just because he’s dead. And French. Was he French? The f**king French. He must look Rembrandt up on the Internet. He should do an art-history course or something.

The phone rings and he answers while still studying the woman’s br**sts.

‘Hi, Dad.’

Ron drops the calendar on his desk as if it’s hot.

‘Hello, Veronika.’

‘How are you? What are you doing?’

She is sounding unusually light-hearted.

‘Just–paperwork, love.’ He is irritated by how wrong-footed he is feeling. ‘Do you want to speak to your mother?’

‘Oh, OK, no time to chat I see! Well, is she there?’

‘Actually, I don’t think she is. She’s out.’