The Last Anniversary

‘He knows the law–and the law is on our side.’

‘I don’t know that the law actually is on our side,’ says Margie doubtfully.

‘Of course it is!’ says Enigma comfortably.

Margie scoops cake mixture into a tin. ‘I hope so, Mum.’

Rose cracks another egg and thinks of Connie at nineteen, her young, strong, determined face in the moonlight, saying,

‘Neither of us is going to jail, you ninny!’

She looks down into her bowl and sees that a piece of eggshell has fallen into the yolks. ‘Oh sugar.’

45

‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.’

‘So I take it you found that–satisfying?’

‘Satisfying! Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!’

‘Gosh.’

‘I just had no idea! I’m furious with myself! All those years I wasted with big hairy apes! What a fool! Why didn’t I see?’

‘Well, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but you know it’s not necessarily like this with every woman. It might be just this particular woman.’

‘Oh, I only want this particular woman.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh my God, really!’

46

‘The gardener will be better in bed.’

‘He’ll have filthy fingernails.’

‘Who cares about the sex? She wants to have babies! She’s got to get all practical and hard-headed and pick the right father for her children.’

‘I just never saw Sophie with a solicitor. I always thought she’d be with an arty type.’

‘The gardener sounds a bit backward if you ask me. What about that juvenile staring competition?’

‘I thought that was sexy!’

‘I thought it was weird. And he made those disgusting sandwiches for her.’

‘Yes, Sophie has to have a man who can cook! What are they going to eat for dinner? Novelty cakes?’

‘She’s got to have a man who can match her intellectually.’

‘Oh, and when did Sophie become such an intellectual giant? She watches reality TV!’

‘The point is, she can’t make any decisions until she sleeps with them.’

‘She can’t sleep with both of them!’

‘She’s been celibate for years. She needs to sleep with someone!’

‘What if she gets pregnant and she doesn’t know who the father is?’

‘DNA testing.’

‘Which one makes her laugh?’

‘Which one turns her on the most?’

‘Which one has the smallest head?’

‘What?’

‘That’s what my grandmother always said to me, “Marry a man with a small head.” She said, “You’ll thank me when you’re in labour.”’

Sophie’s high-school girlfriends rock back and forth, their faces creased like monkeys with uncontrollable, alcohol-fuelled mirth, as gale after gale of laughter sweeps the table. They’re out to dinner at a Korean restaurant where you sit cross-legged on the floor around a low table. Sophie’s love life is the favoured topic of conversation. There are detours: a five-year-old’s sudden tantrum about going back to kindergarten after the holidays (‘No, I’ve already done school, thank you, Mummy.’), a husband’s sudden tantrum over a scheduled-for-months vasectomy (‘He’s scared his personality might change, like the dog’s.’), a ferocious childcare centre manager, a senile mother-in-law, an outrageous parking ticket, an outrageous request for o**l s*x (‘We’d been arguing the entire night. I seriously think his main objective was to shove something in my mouth to shut me up.’). However, no matter how hard Sophie tries to divert them they continually come back to the Sweet Solicitor/ Gorgeous Gardener conundrum. Sophie is the only unmarried, childless one in this unusually fertile circle of friends, and she is therefore the sole representative of her particular lifestyle choice. (Choice? Is it a choice? They all act like it’s her choice.) She earns the most money, she’s slept with more men, travelled more and seen more movies. (Apparently you can’t go to the movies any more after you have children. Sophie keeps asking what about babysitters but her friends just exchange gently patronising ‘she’ll learn!’ looks.) Whenever she is with this particular group Sophie swings constantly back and forth between pride and shame. You’re a high-powered career woman. You’re a dried-up desperado who can’t find a man. You’ve succeeded. You’ve failed. You’re the odd one out. You’re the special one.

She doesn’t want to talk any more about Rick or Ian. Mention of their names makes her feel obscurely guilty.

‘I got my training for doing the tours of the Alice and Jack house the other day,’ she says, and is pleased when she sets off a new flurry of conversation.

‘Ooh, did you learn any inside information?’

Sophie chooses her words carefully, torn between the desire to show off with some juicy gossip and island loyalty. ‘Not really, although sometimes I think the old ladies know more than they’re telling me.’

‘My nana always insisted it was something to do with the two sisters who found the baby. She said she remembered when it happened and looking at the photos of them in the newspaper and thinking the older one had shifty-looking eyes.’

Sophie jumps to defend her fairy godmother. ‘That’s Aunt Connie, and she had lovely honest brown eyes. She’s the one who left me the house!’

‘She’s also the one who wrote you the letter talking about your Mystery Man, isn’t she! I’m positive she meant the gardener.’

And they’re off again. They don’t really need Sophie there at all. They go on and on. Sophie quietly gets the attention of the waiter and orders more wine. While she is doing this it is agreed that tossing a coin would be the most sensible idea. If it’s heads, it’s a win for intellect and Ian. If it’s tails, it’s a win for sex appeal and Rick. A gold two-dollar coin is tossed high above the table and spins down to land with a splash in somebody’s goat curry.

‘Which one were you hoping for before it landed?’ they all yell, excited by their clever psychological ploy. ‘Whoever you were hoping for is the one you LOVE.’

Sophie thinks, Gosh, mothers really are such cheap drunks. She says truthfully, ‘But I wasn’t hoping for either of them.’