The Last Anniversary

It turns out that Gretel can do emotional blackmail with the best of them. Sophie feels rather proud of her. She’ll have to tell Claire that her family isn’t quite so lovey-dovey after all. That fairytale façade hides conflict–issues! They’re dysfunctional! Next they’ll be on Jerry Springer throwing chairs at each other.

Sophie treats herself to two Turkish delight chocolates from her emergency stash next to the bed. As the familiar sweetness fills her mouth she looks at herself in the mirror and wriggles her shoulders so her glittery wings flap. She looks OK. She looks cute! The children will love it. Also, her cle**age is quite impressive. At least one of her suitors, Rick or Ian (Callum?), is sure to be weak-kneed with lust when they see her. It’s true that this may indicate questionable tendencies, but still, she’s been celibate for so long she’ll take it any way she can get it. She lifts her pink satin skirts and hurries down the spiral staircase. She has to meet Aunt Rose to get her face painted.

Grace pushes Jake in his stroller down the main street of the island, breathing in the smells of cold air and wood-smoke, popcorn and mulled wine. Once, she and Callum were skiing in America when they walked into a bar and Grace sniffed and said, ‘I just got a whiff of Anniversary Night.’ After all these years of bigger and better innovations it still seems to have exactly the same fragrance it had when she and Veronika and Thomas would run wild for the night, acting like little royals and telling the other children it was their island and they’d better be off it by midnight or the ghosts of Alice and Jack Munro would eat them for dinner. Of course, then came their teenage years when they would just lope around looking superior and sullen and sneaking off for illicit cigarettes. One year, Veronika decided that the whole concept of the Anniversary was disgusting and disrespectful. How could they celebrate the deaths, possibly the murders, of their great-grandparents? The three of them had worn black and held a private wake for Alice and Jack on the beach at Sultana Rocks. They’d held torches under their chins and chanted incantations that Veronika had written. Aunt Connie had discovered them and laughed, which had wounded their pride, and then she had apologised, which had confused them.

It feels wrong having the Anniversary Night without Aunt Connie.

But it seems like everything is going smoothly. Margie hasn’t left anything to chance. The fairy lights are on and sparkling. The island staff, who, after all, know the drill pretty well after all these years, are standing to attention behind the food-laden trestle tables which line the street. The performers are limbering up and checking their equipment. The tarot-card reader is sitting behind her table shuffling her cards. At the end of the street is a big stage and Callum’s jazz band are tuning up their instruments. This is the third year they’ve played for the Anniversary. They were a big hit the first year, and Callum was so touchingly chuffed when Aunt Connie told him The Snazzy Jazzies was the best band they’d ever had for the Anniversary. There will be a jukebox afterwards and Callum will be giving dance lessons. He thinks rock ’n’ roll, or swing, he’s going to see what the crowd is like. She watches Callum’s familiar body made strange by distance. He’s such a good man. Kind and funny and fundamentally good all the way through. Not like Grace, who has a secret rancid core, who is capable of thinking terrible thoughts, who if somebody bumps into her in the shopping centre will sometimes horrify herself by screaming silent obscenities, DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME! It’s probably only the constraints of society that curtail her capacity for unspeakable cruelty. She should never have been allowed to be a mother. She should have been sterilised.

Early guests are starting to arrive, spilling off the extra ferries that will be running all night. Grace looks at the faces of the families walking by, flushed with excitement and probably too many clothes. They’re all obediently dressed in parkas and beanies, as if they’re in the Snowy Mountains, not Scribbly Gum Island.

‘Excuse me?’ A beaming female face swims into focus. A woman has touched her on the arm and Grace is disconcerted, as though someone on television waved at her. She feels so remote from the world, from normal people, she thought she was invisible.

‘Do you know where we go for the face-painting?’ asks the woman.

‘Actually, I’m one of the face-painters,’ answers Grace. ‘We’ll be setting up in about half an hour.’

‘FAIRY FLOSS!’ shrieks the little boy. Grace sees Sophie in her fairy outfit, surrounded by children, laughing as she swirls floaty fairy floss around a stick from her tub. Sophie is shimmery-pink and pure. She is another good person. A dear little sunflower. A sweet little sugar-cube. A sunny little honey. The perfect match for Callum.

Sophie hands an impatient child a stick of fairy floss and sees Grace walk by, pushing the baby in his stroller. She’s all in black. Black jeans. Black jumper. Her hair is out, hanging straight down her back, and it looks very blonde. As she gets closer Sophie sees the impatient child’s father’s eyes drawn to her, flicking up and down her body. He sees that Sophie has caught him looking and says, half-apologetically, half-leering, ‘That’s what I call a Yummy Mummy!’ Why is he talking to Sophie like she’s a bloody mate in a pub? She gives her most charming smile and says, ‘And that’s what I call a Sleazy Daddy!’ He chuckles uncertainly and drags his son away by the elbow.

‘Free fairy floss?’ offers Sophie brightly to the man who appears to be next in line. He’s not dressed as warmly as all the other guests. He’s wearing jeans and a yellow surfy sort of T-shirt. He looks about fifty, with a paunchy stomach, stubbled jaw and an earring.

‘Not exactly free, is it?’ he says. ‘Not when you’ve paid seventy-five bucks a ticket.’

Sophie notices that he is carrying some sort of elaborate vase shoved under one armpit. Has he stolen it from one of their houses?

‘Well, everything is included in your ticket price,’ says Sophie. ‘Would you like some?’

‘Can’t stand the stuff. Rots your teeth.’

Aren’t you the charmer, thinks Sophie, smiling beatifically.

‘I’m looking for someone called Veronika Gordon,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a business appointment with her.’

Oh goodness, he’s the Kook! Everyone has been talking about this man who responded to Veronika’s ad about Alice and Jack in the paper. They’ll all be delighted to see how unsavoury he looks, which will confirm their suspicions. Grandma Enigma has declared that she intends to give him a good piece of her mind. ‘But what if he really does have information about Alice and Jack?’ Sophie had asked. ‘Well, I can assure you, he doesn’t,’ Enigma had said. ‘He’s a con-man. Ooh it makes my blood boil!’