The Last Anniversary

Sophie is a sweet, kind, smart girl who would never, ever think of smashing a hairbrush against a baby’s head. She makes funny faces. She talks to Callum about music. She would fit right in with Callum’s huge circle of extroverted friends, whereas Grace still feels like the new girlfriend even after all this time. Sophie made Callum do his helpless sort of teenage-boy guffawing laugh that Grace hasn’t heard in ages and she made Jake smile for the first time ever. She even made Grace smile, for God’s sake. Jake will be much better with Sophie as his mum. After all, Grandma Enigma was brought up by Aunt Connie and Aunt Rose, and look what a happy life she’s led! Grace is just following a fine family tradition of handing over babies to more suitable people.

Tomorrow Sophie is moving into Aunt Connie’s house, which will make her much more accessible. It should be easy to make sure that Callum and Sophie spend as much time as possible together. Just as they’re about to fall in love, Grace will conveniently disappear.

One spoonful of sesame seeds and she’ll be out of everybody’s way. No need for sleeping pills or jumping off cliffs. She can already imagine how her throat will feel as it begins to swell and close up. That part will be awful but it will only last a few seconds, and the great clean void of nothingness that follows will be wonderful.

30

Bellbirds. Sunlight gentle on her face. Lapping water. Salty air. Pine-O-Clean scrubbed floors.

Sophie opens her eyes on the first morning of living in Aunt Connie’s house and feels almost drunk with first-morning-of-a-holiday happiness. She knows she will remember this time in her life the way you remember the first few months of a new relationship; a time with its own special smell and taste, a time where everything, even ordinary objects like shower curtains, look sharper and more significant, as if you’ve taken a hallucinogenic drug, as if all your senses had been muted before. She’s in love with this house. It’s so perfect it makes her want to laugh. The butterflies that suddenly swoop down the hallway in front of her, the way the polished floorboards turn gold in the afternoon sun, the constant background sound of the river, the resident kookaburra, the state-of-the-art dishwasher that leaves glasses sparkling, the funny china toilet-roll holder!

It is comforting to know that she can experience joy like this without it involving a man. She frowns. Although, then again, there is something a bit sexual about this drunken happy feeling. Her body feels all soft and yielding, as if she’s woken up from a night of sleepy lovemaking. This isn’t how she expected to feel after moving into an old lady’s house. Perhaps Jimmy and Connie had an excellent sex life and all those sighs of satisfaction over the years have soaked into the atmosphere.

She stretches her arms languorously above her head. She definitely had some rather enjoyable dreams last night. There was a lot of kissing involved. Lovely, romantic kissing. Somebody with wide shoulders. They were in a boat together. Now who was the guy?

Oh.

It doesn’t mean anything. You can’t help who chooses to march into your dreams and start kissing you without your permission.

Mmmmm.

Yes, well, no point lingering on that particular topic.

Anyway, the point is, she feels very happy and right now she does not need a man at all. In fact, perhaps–she grins wickedly at the ceiling–it’s time she invested in a nice, expensive…vibrator! Forget all these romantic ideas about sex and get practical. Claire is always offering to buy her one for her birthday. (‘They’re perfect when you’re in a hurry,’ Claire told her. ‘I’m never in a hurry to have an orgasm,’ Sophie had said.) Yes, the bellbirds, the lapping of the river and the gentle hum of an efficient, state-of-the-art vibrator.

She laughs out loud.

And who cares about kids anyway? Messy, noisy, ungrateful things. She’ll sponsor another World Vision child or something. Connie and Rose never had children and they led satisfying, happy lives. Perhaps they made judicious use of vibrators.

Oh, that’s enough! The prudish side of Sophie’s personality slaps her hands together with disgust.

She should get up. The place is filled to the rooftop with boxes. Her parents will be over later today to see the place. Her father will bring his toolbox, light globes, spare fuse wire and picture hooks. He will frown a lot and bang on all the walls with his fist. He’ll worry about things like the hot-water system and security. He doesn’t like the fact that she has moved in without the deeds to the property. So far she has only talked briefly to Aunt Connie’s solicitor on the phone. Unlike Enigma and Rose, Hans finds paperwork soothing and necessary. Sophie’s mother will bring Turkish Delight chocolate, champagne, bubble bath and some new regency romances. Gretel will dance around the house pretending she’s Sophie: ‘Here I am eating my dinner!’ ‘Here I am talking on the phone!’

Just another few minutes and then she’ll get up.

The ceiling of Connie and Jimmy’s bedroom slopes at sharp angles with beautifully carved cornices. Her eyes linger on the cornices and she realises that the pattern is actually curved eucalyptus leaves. She remembers Connie telling her that Rose did all the designs for the cornices and tiles around the house and that she got her inspiration from the island. When Sophie lifts her chin from the pillow she can see the river from a row of uncurtained picture windows. Lying here feels like being in a boat bobbing along the river.

Sophie has been brought up to send charming handwritten thank you letters on pretty notepaper and it is a terrible pity that she can’t send one to Aunt Connie.

Dear Aunt Connie, thank you for my brand-new life. What a thoughtful gift.

Sex in the morning. Sleepy, sticky, cosy sex. Like sex in a tent. Or sex in a sleeping bag. Faster, quieter and a bit dirtier than sex at night. A simple, satisfying, tender, loving f**k.

It is six a.m. on a Saturday and Callum Tidyman is lying in bed, on his side, with an optimistic erection, looking at his mother-in-law’s cream curtains and thinking about sex in the morning. He’s thinking about how only a few months ago he would have just rolled over and pulled Grace to him, if she hadn’t already done the same to him. Now that seems as wildly inappropriate as grabbing a stranger’s breast on a bus. (When he was a teenager he used to frighten himself, imagining what would happen if he suddenly went mad and shoved his hand down the front of some woman’s dress, how her face would instantly switch from benign to appalled, how he’d no longer be a gawky kid carrying a gigantic cello case but a psycho. You wouldn’t be able to go back once you’d done something like that. You’d cross a line. It was like imagining throwing yourself off a cliff–terrifyingly compelling because you could so easily just do it. It was only your self-control that stopped you, and what if you lost it for a second?)