The Last Anniversary

Veronika is in a frenzy. ‘Audrey is my girlfriend, Auntie Laura. I became a lesbian while you were away, but I’ll introduce her properly in a minute. This is important! How do we know for sure this man isn’t telling the truth?’

‘He’s just trying to get money out of us,’ says Laura disgustedly. ‘I dated him for a while. I met him at Parents without Partners. I made the mistake of sharing some confidential information with him after a few too many chardonnays one night. Veronika, did you just say what I think you said?’

‘Oh, Laura, that’s disgraceful!’ says Enigma. ‘But why didn’t you ever bring him home for dinner?’

‘Exactly what confidential information did you share with him, Auntie Laura?’ Veronika’s face is pink, her hands clenched.

‘You’ll just have to wait till you’re forty to find out,’ says Enigma.

‘Till I’m forty?’

Rose looks around helplessly for a chair. There are shooting pains up the back of her legs. She looks at the self-satisfaction on Enigma’s face and the anguish on Veronika’s. Oh, it’s all so silly. It’s so tiring. Seventy-three years of lies. Seventy-three years of thinking before you spoke. Seventy-three years of fear. Like walking along a cliff-face. How tempting to just step out into thin air.

Be quiet, Rose, orders Connie in her head.

I’m sorry, Connie. I’ve just had enough.

Enough is enough.

She reaches for Veronika’s hand.

‘We know he’s not telling the truth, darling, because Alice and Jack Munro never existed. Connie and I made them up.’

‘You made them up? You never found a baby? There was no baby? Or–what–why, well then, who is Grandma Enigma?’

Rose has a glorious sensation of freefall. ‘Well, she’s my daughter, darling.’

Enigma throws her hands in the air and wails, ‘Oh, now look what you’ve gone and done!’

Callum’s hand is warm on the back of her neck and he’s pulling her to him, and some sober, tomorrow part of her mind is saying, Calm down, Sophie, it’s only a tacky, drunken kiss, it’s not a tidal wave, it’s not an earthquake, it’s not a miracle, but some other part of her mind is thinking what a beautiful and appropriate word swoon is and how she’s swooning like a regency-romance heroine who’s never been kissed in her life except that now, oh God, oh f**k, oh thank you, his tongue is in her mouth, and has every other kiss in her life been leading up to this ultimate, perfect kiss? Yes, she thinks it has.

Eating the samosa is like eating a piece of evil. Grace is committed to going ahead but she hadn’t realised just how difficult it would be to go up against the habits of a lifetime. She has to physically force the hand holding the samosa up to her mouth, as though the air around her has turned into wet concrete. For a few seconds her mouth stays jammed shut while her nostrils contract in horror–nuts, nuts, we smell nuts!–but finally she manages to unclamp her lips and shovel a corner into her mouth. She is standing away from the crowds on the main street, leaning with her back against a tree. The crowd is a heaving, solid mass, faces glowing under the lights of the giant heaters. Callum and Sophie must be in there somewhere. Dancing, probably. Making life look so simple. She waits and there it is. The first warning of every allergic attack of her life. A shuddery shiver straight down her back, icy fingertips caressing her spine. She swallows convulsively and waits. There is the unbearable sandpaper scratch in her throat. It’s moving faster than any other reaction she can remember. She’s being strangled from the inside. Her eyes fill with water. She claws at the bark of the tree. The pain is her punishment for not loving her baby. But now it’s impossible to hold on to that thought because she can’t breathe. What a complete fool! What an idiotic thing to do. Every thought in her head is wiped clean except for the need to breathe. For God’s sake, she can’t breathe.

Rose is exhilarated. She wants to dance. Her backache has vanished. ‘It’s all over,’ she says to Enigma. ‘I told Connie years ago we should just tell everybody the truth. I feel so good! I feel all light and airy!’

Enigma is crying, of course, snuffling into her hanky. ‘Well, I certainly don’t feel light and airy! Oh! Why isn’t Margie here? Laura, make Rose stop talking! Do something! It’s all your dreadful friend’s fault!’

The Kook has put his urn on the floor and has folded his arms aggressively across his chest. ‘People are going to want to sue you. It’s fraud. You women have committed fraud.’

‘Well, you should know all about fraud,’ says Laura. ‘Because that’s what you were here to commit, weren’t you? You thought because you knew the truth you could get away with this pathetic stunt! Got some more gambling debts to pay off, have you?’

‘Oh, dear.’ Enigma is momentarily diverted from her crying. ‘I don’t think you should date a gambler, dear. They’re awful people, gamblers.’

‘For God’s sake, Mum, I’m not seeing him!’ says Laura. Rose notices for the first time that Laura is looking better than she has in years. She has a lovely gold tan and her forehead looks all smoothed out and she’s wearing a wonderful necklace with an oval red stone.

‘Laura,’ she says, ‘that necklace is really beautiful!’

‘Don’t we have a few more important things to talk about here than Auntie Laura’s necklace?’ asks Veronika.

And that’s when somebody yells into the tent with frantic authority, ‘Is there a doctor here? There’s a girl having some sort of allergic reaction.’

‘Grace? Is it Grace?’ Enigma lifts her tear-stained face. Veronika has already sprinted from the tent, like a runner hearing a starting gun.

‘What’s going on?’ Veronika’s new friend jiggles the baby up and down in her arms. ‘Who is it?’

‘Where did I put my bag?’ Laura kicks violently at the ground around her. ‘Somebody find my bag!’ The Kook picks up a black leather bag from the ground and she snatches it from him and runs off behind Veronika, and Rose’s legs shake so badly that Enigma and the Kook have to grab at her elbows to stop her from falling.

What’s going on?

Some woman is having some sort of fit.

I think it’s an allergic reaction.

At the moment the words penetrate Sophie’s molten consciousness, Callum shoves her away from him, and it’s like being wrenched awake from a beautiful dream by a shrieking alarm clock.