The Last Anniversary

Ha! Give him a taste of his own medicine.

‘Oh,’ he answers. ‘I thought you enjoyed the Anniversary, that’s all.’

Her heart softens slightly. After a few seconds, she says, ‘When I was little, every Anniversary morning I used to wake up frightened that Mum and Dad were going to disappear like Alice and Jack.’

She would lie in her bed, her heart thumping. She’d want to run and check if they were still there in their bed, but she was frozen with fear. She couldn’t even move a muscle, as if that would set everything in motion. Sometimes it seemed whole lifetimes of paralysed horror passed before her dad would appear at her bedroom door in his striped blue pyjamas, his hair all sticking up, asking if she’d like a cup of tea in bed. The relief of not being abandoned was so enormous she nearly wet her pants each time.

And then, when her own children were little she became morbidly convinced they would vanish if she took her eyes off them for a second. She was obsessed with newspaper stories about missing children. Often she wrote letters to their mothers, telling them their child was beautiful and she was praying for them and enclosing a large cheque just in case it could help in any way. One woman in Queensland still writes back to Margie every Christmas, thirty years after her curly haired six-year-old daughter vanished while waiting for the school bus. Margie can see the faces of those missing children from the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, as clearly as if they were her own children. She can remember their names, their mothers’ names and what they were wearing when they disappeared. It’s the unsolved ones who haunt her the most. It’s better when the bodies are found. Aunt Connie always said, ‘Unsolved mysteries are the best!’ and Margie would want to scream at her, ‘Not for the mothers, they’re not!’

She has never told anybody about her ‘thing’ with the missing children. It’s between her and their mothers.

Ron clears his throat. He sounds as awkward as a teenage boy on a first date. ‘So, were you angry then–when they told you the truth about Alice and Jack?’

Yet another question about feelings! Has he been reading her copy of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?

‘I think I already knew, without knowing I knew,’ answers Margie. ‘I think my subconscious had worked it out. So it wasn’t a surprise, really, it was like a confirmation. I didn’t feel angry so much as hurt that they felt they had to wait till I was forty to tell me.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Right. I can imagine it might have been, ah…hurtful.’

Watching Ron try to talk about anything vaguely emotional rather than factual is like watching an uncoordinated man earnestly trying out a few moves on the dance floor. It’s both touching and excruciating. There is silence. Margie takes the opportunity to quietly practise her pelvic-floor exercises. She can squeeze her pelvic floor for an impressive eight seconds now, which is not bad for a fifty-five-year-old woman with two children. An interesting thing is that these exercises often make her feel a bit sexy, or ‘horny’, as they say.

Ron says, ‘So, this thing you’ve got on tonight, this Weight Watchers thing, partners aren’t invited, right?’

He has already asked this three times. She says, ‘No, I’m sorry, you can’t come tonight.’ This new feeling of power is quite delicious. She rolls over to face him and says, hardly able to believe her wantonness, ‘But we could arrange for you to come right now if you like.’ He stares at her blankly. Oh dear, thinks Margie, did I get the terminology wrong? Doesn’t ‘come’ mean orgasm? I guess I’m as bad at dirty talk as he is at ‘feelings’ talk! She puts a hand down his pyjama pants and takes a good, firm hold of his penis. His eyes widen in understanding. In all their years of marriage Margie has never, ever done such a thing without husbandly guidance. It was always Ron’s role to request sex and hers to either acquiesce, or plead tiredness or ‘that’ time of the month. She’s behaving like a real hussy this morning!

He says, rather hoarsely, ‘This is unusual.’

A shadow of concern flits across his face and Margie knows he is wondering if she has developed these new habits in another man’s bed, but then he obviously decides to think about it later as his eyes roll back in his head comically, like a cartoon character parodying sexual pleasure. Margie pulls her flannelette nightgown over her head, closes her eyes and imagines she is stroking the handsome gondolier’s swarthy Italian penis.

And the best thing is, according to her calorie-counter book, an ‘active’ sexual session can burn as many as four hundred and twenty-five calories.

Grace is flossing her teeth while she stands at the end of the bed, fully dressed, watching Callum sleep. It’s a strange feeling to stay awake the whole night while the rest of the world sleeps. It makes her feel tough and edgy. Sleeping seems like a dopey, passive way to spend perfectly good time. She remembers reading somewhere that the average person spends twenty-two years of their life asleep. Year after year after year. How pathetic! Callum’s unshaven face is soft and facile. He’s been lying there in virtually the same position for hours on end. Meanwhile, Grace has done two loads of laundry and cooked and frozen three more lasagnes. There is not another centimetre of room in the freezer. That will have to do.

The baby has slept through again. He’s slept through now for three nights. Sophie won’t have any trouble with him.

What will Laura think about this? Grace imagines her mother flinching with disgust. She’ll be secretly embarrassed that Grace has done something so publicly emotional. (Don’t be a drama queen, Grace.) The whole thing will seem messy to her. Grace looks at her fingertips, which are red and raw from cleaning products. Every surface in the house is shimmering and sterile in the early morning light. Of course, by the time Laura gets back Callum will have had free rein of the house for a while, so standards will have plummeted. Sorry, Mum. Did my best. I never did clean anything quite well enough for you anyway. Although I remember I once did quite a good job on the tiles in the spare bathroom. You said, ‘You only missed that bit in the corner by the vanity.’ How I glowed with pride! What a tender childhood memory. And what about Dad? Dentist Dad. Will he come to my funeral? Will he feel bad that he never even gave his own daughter so much as a check-up, let alone a filling? Will he send a card with a twenty-dollar note in it? Dear Grace, So sorry to hear you killed yourself, have fun! With love from Dad.