The Last Anniversary

And what’s really funny is this: she does love him. It’s not a silly crush. She’s actually fallen in love with him. And she is never going to be with him. She doesn’t even want Grace to leave him. She just wants to be living in the parallel world where he never met Grace at all and instead he met Sophie at the Pseudo Echo concert back in the Eighties and they dated and got married and had three kids and now she pretty much takes him for granted and sits on his lap like he’s an old armchair and they’re trying to find ways to spice up their sex life and on Saturdays they ferry their kids around to soccer and netball and on Sundays they work in the garden. She wants that life so bad.

You stuffed up big time, buttercup.

The doorbell rings. Sophie doesn’t even bother to smooth down her hair. She is irretrievably unattractive. She kicks off her shoe and walks down the stairs in her crumpled-up pink fairy dress, fingering her cold sore with enjoyable disgust, muttering to herself like a mad old crone. She flings open the door.

‘Good morning, darling.’ It’s Rose, and she’s cut off all her hair. It’s a white elfin cap and it makes her neck look longer and her eyes larger. She’s wrapped in a stunning, richly beaded pashmina. ‘You look a bit tired.’

Sophie says, ‘Well, you look beautiful.’

‘I’ve dressed up to celebrate the end of the Munro Baby Mystery.’ Rose lifts a corner of the pashmina. ‘This is a gift from Laura. It’s from Nepal, or somewhere like that.’

As Rose turns her head to examine the fabric, Sophie feels a shock of recognition. She says, ‘I can’t believe I’ve never noticed before how much you look like Grace.’

Rose smiles sadly. ‘Well, she is my great-granddaughter, even though she doesn’t know it yet. Imagine that! If she’d died last night from her allergic reaction she would never have known I was her great-grandma. I think that’s terrible, I really do. I could wring Connie’s neck! What have you done to your lip, Sophie?’

Sophie holds the door open and lets Rose walk in front of her. She answers, ‘It’s a cold sore.’

‘Oh,’ says Rose. ‘I think you’re meant to put lemon juice on it. Who told me that? I know. It was Rick. The gardener. I think he gets them sometimes.’

Sophie makes a silent gruesome face at herself in Connie’s hallway mirror as she passes it.

‘Have you heard how Grace is this morning?’ she asks.

‘Yes, apparently she’s fine. Just shaken up. What a scare she gave us. We could have lost her. Thank goodness for Laura. Do you know what Thomas has done today? He’s gone out and bought one of those EpiPens for each of us. So we can all carry one, and they cost an absolute fortune! One for you as well! But you know Tom. He’s a terrible worrier. He’ll be worrying over this for years after we’ve all forgotten it! Oh, and did I mention Ron ended up in jail last night?’

‘No!’

‘Yes, it’s all a bit confusing. Margie had to go and get him and apparently she wasn’t at a Weight Watchers party at all. Enigma wasn’t making much sense because she’s very cross with me and thinks I’ve got Alzheimer’s. She won’t stop crying. What a night it was! What with the Kook, and Laura coming home, and Grace, and, well, goodness me! Anyway, why don’t you go and have a shower while I make us a cup of tea. Would you like me to scramble you a few eggs?’

‘Oh, no, no, sit down, please!’ Sophie flaps her hands ineffectually, but Rose is too much at home in Connie’s kitchen. She’s already taking out a glass bowl and tut-tutting as she discovers the eggs in the fridge. ‘You must keep your eggs at room temperature. I thought I’d mentioned that before? Quickly, go and have your shower. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll put some lemon on that cold sore and you can eat your eggs while I tell you the whole story about Alice and Jack. We’re going to put out something called a ‘Media Release’, you see, and I want everyone in the family to hear it all first before we go public.’

So, Sophie stands under the shower and lets the water spray hard on her face and thinks about how Rose meant her too when she said, ‘Everyone in the family.’ As she towels herself dry, the smell of scrambled eggs and coffee is drifting up the stairs and she wonders if there is something profoundly superficial about a person who can take so much pleasure in the thought of eating breakfast, even when her heart is split right in two.

51

It only takes about half an hour for the Munro Baby Mystery to be unravelled into a simple, straightforward, sad story. Sophie listens while she eats her breakfast and her cold sore throbs and sunshine floods Connie’s kitchen so that Rose’s eyes look especially blue and young as she talks.

Connie always started the story with my turquoise crêpe de Chine. She’d say, ‘Rose went dotty over some dress fabric.’ But I’m going to start a bit earlier because I’m in charge now!

It was 1932. The year Phar Lap died. You know Phar Lap? The racehorse? Sorry, darling, of course you do. Oh, you saw the movie? I don’t seem to like going to the pictures any more. I can’t get comfortable. Yes, I suppose I could take a cushion. Well, anyway, I mustn’t digress, Veronika was nearly having a coronary this morning when I wouldn’t stick to the point. Her new friend was chuckling away. She’s nice, isn’t she? She seems to be a very special friend. Well, anyway, it was the year Phar Lap died. I can remember Dad hearing it on the wireless and stomping about, saying that Phar Lap had been poisoned by American gangsters. We didn’t take much notice.

There were only two weatherboard houses on Scribbly Gum Island then. One was the house where Connie and I lived with Mum and Dad, and right on the other side of the island was our grandparents’ house. You could only get there by boat then because we hadn’t cleared away any of the bush.

Grandpop lived there on his own. Grandma died when I was only very little and I don’t remember much about her except that she always knelt down when we visited, so she was the same height as me, and I liked that because it was like she suddenly became a child-sized grown-up. I wish I could kneel down for Lily and Jake but it hurts my knees too much. Grandpop was Harry Doughty, who had won the island in the famous ‘Ashes’ bet when he was a young man. He was very proud of winning that bet. It was like his lifetime’s achievement. We had to hear the story quite a lot.