The Last Anniversary

Dad said Connie should stop jabbering about scones and just get tenants into Grandpop’s empty house. He seemed to think it would be so easy. I can remember him shouting at Connie, ‘Just go along into Glass Bay and organise for someone to let the house. We’ll charge them fifteen shillings a week! That’s more than fair!’ He was quite oblivious to the fact there were empty houses all over Sydney because no one could afford to pay their rent. There were evictions every day. I can remember walking through the city and seeing people sitting outside their homes, surrounded by all their possessions, lamps, cushions, saucepans. But you see, Dad never left Scribbly Gum. He barely left the house. He was in his own dream world.

Well, one day Connie got sick of Dad haranguing her and told him that she’d found tenants for Grandpop’s house and their names were Alice and Jack Munro. She said the Munros were good Catholic people and they were paying five shillings a week, and here was their first rent money. I remember Dad saying, ‘We’re not a bloody charity! They must think it’s bloody Christmas!’ But he seemed to accept it, and seeing as he never took the boat around to Grandpop’s house he wasn’t ever likely to notice that Alice and Jack were never home. Connie would chat on and on about this mythical Alice and Jack Munro. She seemed to get a kick out of conning Dad.

The rent money really came from Connie’s new enterprise as a bookie. The railway workers would come down and meet her at the wharf and place their bets with her, which she’d record in a book with a red cover. It was illegal–she was breaking the law, you know! I was frightened for her but she loved it. Of course, she didn’t make nearly enough money. We weren’t starving, not like children in Africa. But you know, there were some days when we went to bed quite hungry. I can tell you, we never took food for granted again.

One day, a friend at school said that her sister could help me get a job at a big department store in the city working behind the cosmetics counter. So of course, I had to leave school and take it. We needed the money too badly. I hated it. I was so shy. It was agony for me to talk to those posh ladies each day. I missed my mum dreadfully.

Well, Sophie dear, you’re probably wondering if I’m ever going to mention the crêpe de Chine. Do you want some more scrambled eggs? No? Yes, of course you do. Help yourself. There’s plenty.

I’d been working there for a few weeks when I happened to see a roll of fabric when I walked by the haberdashery department. It was the colour that caught my eye. I’ve always had an interest in colours. Certain colours make me feel like I’ve heard music. Mum was the same. She understood. Connie had no idea, practically colour-blind that girl! Well, this was deep turquoise, and because it was crêpe de Chine it had a rich, satiny feel to it, like a jewel. I could imagine Mum saying to me, ‘Oh Rose, it’s so pretty!’ For some reason I became quite fixated with that fabric. I sketched the summer dress I would make with it. Just something simple with an A-line skirt and a round neckline. It seemed like if I could make that dress, I could get back my old life. I felt like it would make me closer to Mum. Well, to be honest, I don’t know what I thought really. I think I just went a little mad. I lusted after it. I even dreamed about it, for heaven’s sake. And of course, I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting it. It was expensive fabric. We didn’t have enough money to eat. We certainly didn’t have enough money for fabric.

Well, I may as well just come out and say this: I stole two pounds from the till.

I know. I don’t look like a thief, do I? But that’s what I did, and my mother would have been absolutely horrified. I didn’t even think much about it. I didn’t even feel guilty. I just wanted that fabric. And of course, I was caught, by the floor supervisor. I thought of him as an elderly man but he was probably forty at the most! He was a short man with a pear-shaped body and an egg-shaped head. I didn’t like him at all. I secretly called him Mr Egg Head. I thought Mr Egg Head would sack me for sure, but instead he took me to the storeroom out the back and said he had a proposal for me. He said he’d be prepared to overlook what I’d done and even let me keep the money if I was prepared to perform some extra services for him every now and then.

Yes, darling, I can see by the look on your face that you’ve guessed what those services were. Well, I was such a dreamy, naïve girl. I was just so relieved that I wasn’t going to lose my job or go to jail! And I could still buy my precious fabric! You know what I actually remember thinking? That Mr Egg Head had been sent by Mum to keep me out of trouble. Like he was my guardian angel. I thought I’d have to make him the occasional cup of tea.

Mr Egg Head took it very slowly. I had to meet him in the storeroom and he’d make me close the door behind me and then it was down to business. At first it was just a kiss on the cheek and I thought, Oh, gosh, that’s not so nice, I’d much rather make him a cup of tea! But then I thought, after all, I had done the wrong thing. I probably deserved it and it wasn’t that bad. Of course, he started doing more and more and I started to feel so ashamed of myself. I truly believed I was a disgusting person. A dirty thief. And of course, one day Mr Egg Head, ah, took advantage of me, during the morning tea-break. Well, technically he raped me, but then again I never said no, of course. It didn’t actually occur to me to say no. I was the bad person. I was the one being punished. I just tried very hard to think of something else.

52

Margie is bathing Ron’s black eye with saline solution. He sits slumped at the kitchen table, while she stands next to him and looks dispassionately at the top of his head. That luxuriant dark hair is starting to thin so she can see his baby-white vulnerable scalp. When she first met Ron she thought he was so good-looking she was embarrassed to even meet his eyes. That was the problem. She’d thought he was too good for her and that she should be eternally grateful to him for choosing her. In fact, he was quite lucky to have her! When she’d shown Sophie the old photo of her in her red bikini she’d wolf-whistled and said she was like a supermodel, and then she’d said, ‘No, Margie, I’m serious,’ in that funny way of hers.

Ron winces heroically as she dabs at the cut on his eyebrow, and says, ‘Do you want to go on a picnic today?’

Margie stops dabbing while a bubble of laughter inflates in her chest. ‘Oh, that’s OK, I don’t think you’re in any condition for a picnic.’