The Last Anniversary

‘All that work you put into baking it,’ says Grace. ‘I’m so sorry I can’t eat it.’

‘I’m so sorry I brought it!’ says Sophie, while Claire and Sven guffaw in her head.

‘It’s not your fault,’ says Callum. ‘How would you have known?’

The thing is that Sophie actually did know about Grace’s nut allergy. Both Thomas and Veronika have on different occasions regaled her with the legendary story of Thomas’s sixteenth birthday, when Grace had kissed a boy who had just finished eating three satay chicken skewers. There had been a terrifying, exciting race across the river on Uncle Jimmy’s speedboat to the waiting ambulance. The boy she’d kissed had been quite traumatised by the event and later turned out to be g*y. Apparently his mother still blamed Grace for what she considered to be her son’s unfortunate choice of sexuality.

But Sophie had forgotten all about the nut allergy when she’d made the cake.

‘Actually, I think I did know but I forgot,’ she admits, and battles unsuccessfully with a blush. Too late. Here it comes. Oh shit! These are the worst situations, where she really isn’t embarrassed. After all, it’s perfectly understandable that she would forget Grace’s allergy, and this sort of situation must happen to her all the time. She’s like the growing gluten-free, wheat-free, dairy-free brigade, constantly having to say, ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly eat that.’ So even though it’s a bit mortifying that her cake is so conspicuously nutty, she doesn’t feel that bad. Unfortunately, the moment there is a likelihood that other people might conceivably think she could feel awkward, she blushes, and is therefore embarrassed by the blush, not the original situation.

Yes, it is a cruel disorder.

Her face throbs.

Her neck burns and blotches.

She watches Callum and Grace slide their eyes away to opposite corners of the kitchen. I’ll take the twitch next time, thinks Sophie.

‘Thomas and Veronika both told me about the birthday party where you nearly died,’ she says, talking normally, calling upon thirty years of blushing experience to get her through.

‘Aha! Satay-stick boy!’ crows Callum, and he looks Sophie straight in the eye, grinning, as if she isn’t blushing at all. ‘I think Sophie is trying to bump you off, Grace. Lucky we uncovered her cunning plan. The walnuts all over the cake were a bit of a giveaway.’

Oh bloody, bloody hell. She really, really likes him.

‘People forget about my stupid nut allergy all the time,’ says Grace nicely, but still with that perceptible touch of ice. ‘My own mother forgets. Please don’t worry about it. Callum can have my piece. I’m still watching what I eat anyway. I’m trying to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.’

Grace is wearing jeans and a pristine long-sleeved white shirt. She is tall and slender and utterly perfect.

‘As long as he doesn’t kiss you after he eats it,’ teases Sophie, a bit daringly, as if they are all old friends. She stands there with her scarlet face, like a silly mask, resigned to it.

‘Actually, I never forget Grace’s allergy. I’m in a constant state of terror I’ll have to use the EpiPen on her,’ says Callum, and Sophie, watching him watching Grace, sees that he truly adores his wife. Well, of course he does.

‘I’ll have two, no, three pieces of cake,’ he continues. ‘Just so you don’t feel bad, Sophie, but then I’ll gargle with disinfectant.’

‘A disinfected mouth doesn’t sound very kissable,’ says Sophie.

‘Yes, I think I’d rather risk it with a walnut mouth.’ Grace smiles and her whole face is transformed.

There is a cosy moment of three-way camaraderie in the kitchen. Oh dear, thinks Sophie. I think I’m falling in love with both of them.

But Grace’s smile vanishes like sunlight obliterated by a cloud and she seems impatient. ‘All right, well, why don’t you two go and sit down in the dining room and I’ll just finish off making the lunch. It’s a pity the weather is so bad. Otherwise we could have sat on the balcony. Here, Sophie, would you like to hold the baby? He’s just had his feed so he’s in a good mood.’

Before Sophie can answer, Grace dumps the baby in her arms.

Sophie makes a strange ‘ha!’ sound and clutches the baby tight. Although she adores babies she is also terrified of them. As godmother to nine children (it’s very expensive, and two of them she secretly dislikes, to her intense shame) she has extensive experience with first-time mothers. Generally, they are quite wearing. Sometimes they hand the baby over only to immediately snatch it back, and Sophie can always feel their eyes on her and their baby, watching her like a hawk, which only adds to her nervousness. Grace, however, instantly turns her back and is chopping an eggplant into cubes, the knife thudding hard against the cutting board, thud, thud, thud. Her back in the white shirt is very still; Sophie imagines all the muscles contracted. She feels sudden, unaccountable pity for Grace. What is it, honey? What’s the matter? Well, how ridiculous. Grace is a woman leading a dream life.

Callum leads Sophie into the dining room. She walks stiffly, imagining tripping or accidentally banging the baby’s head against something. She’s always slamming her own elbows against doorways. Callum and Grace probably wouldn’t be quite as understanding as they were about the walnut cake if she smashed their baby’s head. It’s a relief when she is seated.

The dining room, like the rest of the house, is elegant but austere, like a display home. There isn’t enough real ‘stuff’ lying around. The colours are too neutral. The surfaces too shiny.

‘Do you like living here?’ she asks Callum when she is settled with relief at the table, the baby a comforting weight in the crook of her arm.

Callum sits at the head of the table, next to her. He’s wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt with a T-shirt on underneath. His jaw is unshaven, unlike at the funeral. He obviously doesn’t shave on the weekends. He’s a big lumbering lump of a man really, but there is just something delicious about him. Oh for heaven’s sake, Sophie! Get a grip. You obviously need to have sex with somebody, anybody, very soon. Celibacy is sending you mad.

If you blush again I’ll murder you.

‘I like living on the island,’ says Callum. ‘It’s great. I’m not so fussed about living in my mother-in-law’s house. It’s all a bit stiff and clean for me. I grew up in a house with six boys.’