‘Ha! Now you’re blushing!’ crows Veronika as she returns holding three large glasses of mulled wine. ‘Is it a delayed reaction or what? It’s OK, Audrey, you don’t need to pretend to look away. Sophie isn’t embarrassed by her blushing.’
Sophie accepts the glass of wine thankfully. ‘Veronika thinks of my blushing as a sort of party trick.’ She takes a sip of her wine. ‘Oh, this is fantastic!’
Veronika sniffs. ‘Mmmm. Not bad. Too much lemon, not enough nutmeg. Anyway, come on, Audrey. I want you to meet my Grandma Enigma. Don’t be surprised if she drops dead on the spot when she hears. Oh–and wait till I tell Dad! Dad will have cardiac arrest. He’ll have a stroke.’
‘You know, you don’t have to tell everyone tonight.’ Audrey looks panicky. ‘There’s no rush. You can wait for the right time.’
‘No time like the present.’ Veronika is already marching off, arms pumping. ‘Bye, Sophie!’
‘Oh God.’ Audrey shrugs helplessly at Sophie and hands over her mug of wine. ‘Here. Take this.’ They disappear into the crowd.
It seems that Veronika won’t be content with merely coming out of the closet, she’s leaping out.
The pain in Rose’s back has got so bad it feels deliberate. Malicious. It hurts her feelings. As though someone has just taken a plank of wood and violently slammed it against her lower back.
She takes a deep breath. The line of little girls waiting for their ‘Melly the Music Box Dancer’ faces is finally starting to dwindle. Grace has finished all the boys and is helping her out with the girls.
I’m really too old to still be doing the children’s face-painting. I’m eighty-eight years old. I should be in a rocking chair with a blanket over my knees and people bringing me cups of tea. Mum, don’t you think I’m too old for this now! Her mother had died a few weeks before Rose’s fifteenth birthday, but ever since Connie died Rose has found herself missing her mother with fresh, childish grief. My back really hurts, Mum. It’s called rheumatoid arthritis. My doctor tells me to think happy thoughts. I’m afraid I thought rather a rude word. You died before you turned forty so you missed out on all the fun of getting old. Oh it’s a lark, Mum. Rose can feel the back of her mother’s cool hand against her forehead. My poor Rosie.
She dips her paintbrush deep in pale pink and tries to smile at the little girl sitting quietly in front of her, chubby legs sticking out, hands resting obediently on her knees.
‘Excuse me, excuse me!’ Rose looks up from her painting to see a young fellow of about Ron’s age carrying some strange sort of urn and wearing a yellow short-sleeved T-shirt without a jacket.
Rose is appalled. ‘You must be freezing! We must find another jacket for you.’ The little girl looks up and solemnly informs the man, ‘I’m wearing two pairs of socks to keep my toes extra toasty.’
‘Well, I don’t feel the cold,’ says the man in that irritable, overly formal way of men who feel foolish talking to children.
‘I’ve never felt the cold. Excuse me. I wanted to ask you if you know where I can find Veronika Gordon. I’ve been looking for her all night. People keep telling me I’ve just missed her. She seems to move very fast.’
‘Well, you have just missed her again actually, and yes, she does move fast. Her grandfather used to call her Speedy Gonzales.’ Veronika had been by with a pretty Asian girl with long, shiny dark hair. Veronika had told Rose she was feeling g*y and Rose said that was lovely and she was feeling quite g*y herself, even though she wasn’t really because her back was hurting so much, but it was so nice to see Veronika in a good mood, instead of her normal agitated state. Then the two girls had giggled a lot about something and Veronika had given Rose a kiss on the cheek, which was also unusual for her and had made Rose feel teary.
‘Look, I had an arrangement to meet this Veronika. I’ve got important information for her.’ He pats the urn he is holding under his arm.
Rose doesn’t like his tone. Suddenly she knows who he is: The Kook! ‘What sort of information?’ she says carefully.
‘Information relating to the disappearance of Alice and Jack Munro.’
She gives him a steely look. ‘I’m Rose Doughty. My sister and I found the Munro baby. I’d be very interested to hear this information. Very interested indeed.’
‘I bet you would,’ says the Kook. ‘Because you two sure made bucket-loads of money from that little find, didn’t you? Quite an operation you’ve got going here.’ He looks around with contempt and distractedly rubs his arms, even though he supposedly doesn’t feel the cold. ‘You’ve done very well out of all this, haven’t you?’
Rose can feel her heart vibrating with an old familiar terror, an ancient shame. She presses a hand to her chest. Oh for heaven’s sake! This is such nonsense! She’s not a teenager any more. Suddenly she is furious with Connie. It was all her idea! Her bloody idea! Rose wanted to tell everyone when Enigma was six, back in 1938. But no, oh no, it all had to be done Connie’s way. It always had to be done Connie’s way, and sometimes she was wrong!
The Kook says, ‘Anyway, it’s this Veronika I’ve got an arrangement with, so I’ll keep trying to hunt her down.’ He crouches down so that he’s at eye-level with Rose. He has surprisingly nice brown eyes. ‘By the way, I know exactly what you two did.’
‘We found a baby,’ says Rose. She can hear herself sounding like a tremulous old woman. ‘That’s all we did.’
‘Yeah. Good one.’ The Kook bounces back up on his feet and disappears into the crowd.
‘Oops-a-daisy!’ cries the little girl with delight, as Rose’s elbow knocks her paint palette flying, so that pink paint and silver glitter slosh all over the little girl’s warmly clad legs.
Ron isn’t quite sure what to do with himself. What does he normally do on Anniversary Nights when Margie is around? He can’t remember. Years ago, when the kids were young, he always did the sausage sizzle. The Anniversary Nights weren’t quite this glitzy back then. It seems to him that it was more fun in the Seventies. He and Laura’s husband, Simon, used to cook up hundreds of sausages, stick them in bread rolls with a bit of tomato, lettuce and Margie’s chutney sauce. Went down a treat. They drank a lot of beer and mucked around. Margie was always in a flap, running back and forth like a headless chook trying to keep Connie happy, while Laura just lounged around smoking cigarettes, looking sultry. Ron used to tease Margie, and Simon would say to Laura, ‘Why don’t you help your poor sister?’ but Laura would just ignore him and tilt back her head and blow smoke rings. She didn’t actually seem to like Simon that much; Ron remembers thinking, I’m glad Margie doesn’t ignore me like that. So it was strange the way Laura reacted to Simon running off with his dental nurse. She never seemed to get over it, and every year those bitter lines of disappointment on either side of her mouth were carved deeper and deeper. Ron had missed Simon when he left and secretly felt let down by him. As if the life that was good enough for Ron wasn’t good enough for Simon.