The Last Anniversary

Apparently some silly legal organisation called the Australian Consumer and Competition something or other wants to talk to them about ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’, which is very bad, according to Ron, and just goes to show that Rose has got them into hot water! Fortunately, Ron seems to be dealing with lawyers and talking to a lot of serious-looking chaps in dark suits, and they are working out something called a ‘loophole’, which sounds like a good idea. Anyway, it’s nice for Ron to have something to do and to feel important, so they all act interested and encouraging when he talks about it.

Of course, nobody wants to interview Enigma any more, oh no, she’s no longer the Mystery Munro Baby. She’s a nobody. She’ll never be on This is your Life now. She’ll never have another Women’s Weekly spread and nobody will ever want her autographed photo. She’s just an ordinary old widow who isn’t even very good at tennis. She may as well be dead.

‘Is Rose talking to another journalist?’ asks Laura.

‘Oh, probably,’ says Enigma. ‘She’s probably there right now telling the whole world that I’m illegitimate, that I’m the daughter of a ra**st with a head shaped like an egg. Why does she have to say that part? What’s that got to do with anything? Everybody is probably looking at me thinking my head is egg-shaped! There’s no need to snort like that, Laura, it’s very bad-mannered. Well, Laura, I blame you for this whole debacle, it is your awful friend’s fault–he started it! I said from the beginning he was a kook, but I didn’t know he was my own daughter’s beau! People are very upset about this, you know. Very upset. Did Rose think of that before she started blabbering on? I can see you giggling, Margie. Why are you so happy these days?’

Enigma feels all itchy with irritation. Nobody is giving her any sympathy whatsoever. ‘You look like the cat that swallowed the cream.’

‘I think it’s because she’s stopped swallowing cream,’ says Laura.

‘Oh, ha, ha,’ says Margie happily. ‘You’re just jealous. I’m nearly as skinny as you.’

‘Well, I think actually you’re in much better shape than me,’ says Laura. ‘You’re very toned, I must say. I was admiring the back of your arms before.’

‘They’re called triceps,’ says Margie. ‘I can do tricep push-ups on my toes.’

Rose comes back into the room–another one who looks like the cat who swallowed the cream, with her sophisticated new haircut! She’s still so pretty really, and it gives Enigma that jealous, hurt, proud feeling she’d forgotten. When she’d learned that Rose was her mother, she’d thought, I have a beautiful mother, so maybe I’m beautiful too? But nobody who knew the truth had ever commented about Enigma’s resemblance to Rose. Daughters were meant to be prettier than their mothers, but Enigma knew, deep down in her heart, that she could never, ever be as lovely as Rose. Enigma probably resembled her father. A ra**st! It wasn’t fair. Her blood was dirty. Enigma hated her father for what he’d done to Rose–a secret, powerful hatred that could make her feel quite dizzy.

Rose says, ‘Sorry about that. Another journalist. Oh, Enigma, I forgot to tell you that some young girl called from Channel Nine this morning and asked if you and I would be prepared to be interviewed by Ray Martin. I said I certainly didn’t want to be on TV, thanks very much, but I’d check with you.’

Enigma nearly spills her cup of tea. ‘Well, Rose, of course I’d like to be on TV! It would be a good opportunity to set the record straight.’ Television! She’d get her hair and make-up done by a professional! She’d have a tiny microphone pinned to her jacket. Ray Martin would look at her with those kindly interested eyes and ask her questions. All the tennis girls would videotape it.

Rose says, ‘I said I was fairly sure you’d be interested,’ and Enigma catches her winking at Laura and Margie but she doesn’t care because she’s going to be on television–finally!

Sophie and Ed are in the living room talking about the colour ‘duck-egg blue’, which Ed thinks might be perfect to lighten the room, when Sophie says irrelevantly, ‘Are you single, Ed?’

And there’s the twitch. A lightning-quick spasm of all his facial features, as though an invisible hand suddenly slapped him across the face. The twitch hasn’t changed at all, except that it only happens once and it’s so fast that you’re not quite sure if you imagined it. He says, ‘I had my heart pulverised about two years ago, and I know it’s hard to believe with these devastating good looks but I’ve been single ever since. What about you?’

She says, ‘I haven’t been in a relationship since I broke up with Thomas three years ago.’

‘It’s difficult, sometimes, being single,’ says Ed reflectively, and Sophie remembers the scientific way he would examine his own feelings when the boys at school used to do horrendous imitations of his twitch. ‘Most of the time I’m fine, just getting along with my life, but sometimes I just get hit by this sulky left-out feeling. Like when you played musical chairs and the music stopped and you were there feeling like a moron. You know what I mean?’

‘Oh, I know,’ says Sophie. ‘I know.’

She watches Ed stopping to examine the framed photos that line the mantelpiece of Connie’s old fireplace.

‘That’s my collection of godchildren,’ she says. ‘I’ve got nine of them. I’m considering telling my friends there are no new vacancies.’

Ed says, ‘I’ve only got one, a friend’s daughter called Sarah. She’s a little princess. Her mum and dad and I all have to sit around having tea parties with her.’

He picks up one of the photos and says, ‘I always assumed I’d be a dad. It’s weird. I think I knew I was g*y even before I realised what the word meant, but I also had these deeply conservative ideas about how I’d grow up and have kids and live in a house with a white picket fence.’

‘I’m sure you could find a nice guy prepared to wear a flowery apron for you,’ says Sophie flippantly, but then she sees the stoic expression on his face and it’s identical to the one she’s felt tightening her own facial muscles, when she says to women with false bravado, ‘Well, my biological clock is sure getting nervous!’

She watches his profile as he picks up another photo and thinks, with a surge of anger on his behalf, Well, for heaven’s sake, why shouldn’t Eddie Ripple–sweet, kind, sad Eddie Ripple–be a Dad?