The Last Anniversary

by Liane Moriarty

  Connie was very skinny.

  The waistband of Margie's skirt is cutting cruelly into her waist.

  It's a wonder Connie hadn't specified what everyone should wear to the funeral. Her list of instructions had been so meticulous, leaving nothing to chance. There was even a running sheet for the service.

  Margie is quite convinced that Connie just decided to die that night. She can imagine her thinking to herself, 'Right, that's it. Time to go.'

  For the last three days Margie has had Connie's voice in her head.

  NO SICKLY SWEET SPEECHES.

  NO FLOWERS.

  HEAT SPINACH AND RICOTTA TRIANGLES AT 300 DEGREES FOR 15 MINUTES. DO NOT MICROWAVE. THEY GO SOGGY.

  It has been tiring, organising this funeral, along with all her normal work. Margie would quite like to curl up in a corner somewhere and go to sleep. She wishes her mother or her daughter had asked if she needed a hand. She would have said 'No, thank you' of course, but still, just for the recognition. Everybody likes a 'pat on the back', as they say. Ron seems quite convinced she sits around all day watching television.

  With Connie gone she'll have a bit more time to herself. That's horribly disloyal to think but it's true. People were always going on about how remarkable it was that both Connie and Rose managed to look after themselves at their ages. 'Tough old biddies!' they'd say admiringly. It's true that Connie and Rose were remarkable for their ages, and Margie was so proud of them: their minds were as sharp as tacks! But a fair amount of 'behind the scenes' work had gone into ensuring they thought that they'd been managing just as well as they had ten years ago. Not that she begrudged the extra washing or ironing or cleaning or shopping.

  'Don't do so much for them,' her sister Laura was always saying, 'then they might realise they need to go into a retirement home.'

  'They'll go into a retirement home over my dead body,' Margie had retorted.

  'It probably will be your dead body,' Laura had told her very unsympathetically, before she jetted off to Europe, leaving her daughter with a brand-new baby! (Fancy deliberately choosing to take yourself to the other side of the world when your first grandchild was about to be born. Still, 'each to their own', as they say.)

  Next to her, Ron shifts slightly and sighs. She can smell the contemptuously classy smell of the aftershave he buys at the airport when he travels away on business. His legs next to hers, encased in newly dry-cleaned Armani suit trousers, with sharp straight creases down the centre, are masculine and controlled.

  Margie is nothing but soft, oozing, spreading thighs and breasts and bottom.

  I'll show all of you, thinks Margie with sudden determination. I'll lose weight. I'll lose kilo after kilo after kilo and then I'll emerge from all this flesh, skinny and hard and light and free.

  The priest seems to think he is a fucking talk-show host. Ron looks at his watch. He has a meeting in the city at two. Margie promised him the service would go on for no more than an hour, but Margie just says whatever it is she thinks you want to hear, with no particular regard for the facts. If this goes on for much longer, he'll just get up and walk out.

  For some reason his eyes keep returning to that shiny, expensive-looking coffin. He wonders how much it cost and considers leaning over to ask Margie, just to see her panicky mortification. He doesn't know much about the funeral industry but he suspects the margins are excellent.

  So, you carked it, Connie. He feels a flicker of triumph, as if he has won something. He does not bother to analyse this feeling. He is not into naval-gazing.

  Ding dong, the witch is dead.

  He did respect the old bird. She never fussed. Generally women waste a lot of time fussing. Fuss, fuss, chat, chat. Never get to the point. Whereas Connie said exactly what she meant. When he'd first met her, over thirty years ago now, she could throw a frisbee like no woman he'd ever seen. A good straight pass that sliced the air. Margie always did these feeble, pathetic tosses, as if her arm was made of plasticine. Back then he thought that was cute. Back then he was thinking with his dick.

  Yes, Ron had always respected Connie, even though he suspected the feeling was not mutual. That doesn't concern him especially. He doesn't need to be liked. A lot of people don't like him. It is their problem. Not his.

  'Connie was a woman of strong Christian ideals,' says the priest.

  What a load of crap. Connie was a hard-nosed manipulator who conned the whole bloody country. The island has lost its dictator. Now who will tell them all what to eat for fucking breakfast?

  Ron stops listening to the priest and lets his eyes glaze over.

  It doesn't bother him that Connie, or any of the women, have never once asked him for his advice about the business. He just finds it ironic. He is, after all, a Business Consultant. Quite a successful one. Executives with MBAs who are running multi-million-dollar corporations come to him for advice, but not the old women in his own family. It doesn't seem to have ever occurred to any of them, not even his wife. They ask him to open jar lids and change light globes. They don't ask him to look at their financial statements. In fact, he has never even seen the financial statements for Scribbly Gum Enterprises, although he has often idly attempted to calculate its net worth. As a shareholder, Margie would have access to the figures, but she has never asked for his help interpreting them. It wouldn't surprise him if she didn't even know the difference between a balance sheet and a profit and loss.

  They don't invest much, but then Connie and Rose have always been so careful with their money. It's a legacy of growing up during the Depression. Ron has an uncle who is incapable of putting more than a speck of butter on his toast.

  He would quite like to see the Scribbly Gum figures. He is ready to be impressed by the capabilities of a trio of old women.

  He is no misogynist, in spite of what his daughter Veronika might think.

  Thank Christ. The priest seems to have finally wrapped up the eulogy and is moving on to the procedural part of the day. Move it along, mate. A fast funeral is a good funeral.

  Ron is not completely sure what the word 'misogynist' means. He keeps forgetting to look it up in the dictionary because he doesn't have a dictionary. Proof that he is not a misogynist is that when his son Thomas was growing up, Ron fully expected him to turn out to be gay and he was fine with this. He would have said, 'No problem, mate.' That's how open-minded he is. He's almost disappointed that Thomas ended up so bloody conventional. Look at him, sitting there holding hands with his bland sex-less wife. He should have held on to that Sophie. Now she was a sexy little thing.

  Someone is opening the double doors at the back of the church. Daylight spills in and people turn, disapproving and interested, to see who is so late.

  Speak of the devil. Here she is.

  Yes.

  Far too sexy for poor old Tom.

  22

  Grace turns around and sees Callum at the back of the church, holding the door for a girl with a wedge of honey-brown hair falling over one eye. Even from this far away, she can see the girl's face is aflame with colour.

  Veronika, who is next to Grace, holding the baby, makes a disgusted sound and mutters something under her breath, nostrils twitching and eyes darting like a mad person.

  It's that Sophie Honeywell, Grace realises. She recognises her from when she was bridesmaid at Veronika's wedding. She remembers now feeling charmed by some funny, self-deprecating story Sophie had told her about the stupid things the wedding photographer had made them do between the church and the reception. She'd pulled faces and mimicked the photographer.

  Sophie is obviously hoping for somewhere to sit at the back. She is desperately craning her neck while people stare comfortably back at her. Callum has seen that there is space at the end of the front pew next to Veronika and Grace. He makes an affable gesture for Sophie to go ahead of him but she is all in a fluster. Callum places a hand on her shoulder, gently propelling her forward, and Sophie has no choice but to walk down the aisle.

  The priest sto
ps talking and waits with elaborate priestly patience while everyone in the front row turns their legs sideways to let Callum and Sophie shuffle past.

  'Incredible!' hisses Veronika, bitterly shaking her head. She rocks the baby furiously and slides down towards the end of the pew.

  Callum sits down next to Grace. 'Sorry I'm so late,' he whispers and puts his hand over hers. Sophie sits down on the other side of him and looks straight ahead, while Veronika makes an exaggerated show of squeezing even further away from her.

  The priest raises his hands again and at that point the baby begins to cry.

  Automatically, Callum turns and reaches across Sophie to take the baby from Veronika. Tenderly, expertly, he holds Jake over one shoulder, pats his bottom and sways slightly in his seat. The baby stops crying immediately.

  Grace watches Sophie watching Callum and the baby. Sophie's eyes, which seem to be the same honey colour as her hair, are lingering on them both with the yearning, enchanted expression of a child standing in front of a magical Christmas display in a shopping centre.

  23

  Scribbly Gum Island, 1999

  It was thirteen weeks since her husband's funeral. Connie Thrum stood at her stove browning lamb shanks and rubbing her neck with her free hand.

  Jimmy used to stand behind her when she was cooking and rub her neck while he offered enthusiastic, exceedingly dumb suggestions. 'How about a bit of parsley, Con?' It bugged her. She didn't need her neck rubbed when she was cooking and she didn't like people watching her. She liked to present them with the completed meal, nicely arranged on a good-quality plate and see their eyes light up. 'Scat!' she'd say to Jimmy. 'Stop lurking! Can't you find something better to do?'

  Now, when she was cooking, she missed him rubbing her neck so much it gave her stomach cramps.

  Until he died she hadn't realised just how often Jimmy had touched her: a kiss on the forehead in the morning when he brought in her morning tea, sudden bear-hugs if they met in the hallway. When they watched the six o'clock news together they'd sit thigh-to-thigh on the sofa and he'd absent-mindedly stroke her arm while he concentrated on the news, frowning heavily and muttering beneath his breath at the politicians' lies. He'd run his fingers up and down her spine while they read together in bed. And patting her bottom-well, the man couldn't leave it alone! 'What's so fascinating about it?' she'd asked him once. 'It was the first thing I noticed about you,' he told her. 'Your pretty bum.' Really! He must have patted and pinched it a dozen times a day. She could never train him out of the habit. Sometimes he'd sneakily try to do it in public, which she found disgraceful and he found hilarious.

  The problem was that after all those years her body seemed to have adapted to being touched. Now the touching had stopped, just like that, with no warning, and it was a shock, like a blast of cold air. Jimmy hadn't even been sick. They were going to do the fruit shopping one ordinary Thursday morning and she walked into the kitchen and there he was, lying on the floor, sending her heart flying into her throat. 'What are you doing?' she shrieked out foolishly, into the silence. The last thing he'd said to her, only seconds before, was, 'I can't find my bloody wallet, Con.'

  Now her untouched body felt like a plant drooping without water. Her skin was drying up and shrivelling before her eyes, becoming astonishingly ugly, as if the touch of Jimmy's fingers had been keeping it alive. Lately she had been secretly stroking her neck when she cooked, patting her arm when she watched the news, wrapping her arms around herself when she went to sleep. Once, ridiculously, she even patted her own bottom.

  Still, it was better than crying so hard you felt like you couldn't breathe.

  She took the shanks out of the pan and began layering the base of her good oven pot with chopped-up onion, mint leaves and garlic. Lamb shanks with Guinness. Jimmy's favourite. She kept making his favourite dishes, as if that would make him feel closer, as if that would make up for the fact that the last words he'd heard from her were, 'For heaven's sake, you'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on.'

  She'd noticed over the years of their marriage that they were always going through patches-good ones, bad ones, so-so ones. For example, there was that really enjoyable time in the early Eighties when they discovered apricot massage oil from Avon. Goodness me. That had certainly spiced things up in the bedroom (and once in the bathroom and quite a few times in the living room!). But then of course there were the bad times, like after the war, when she'd told him the truth about Alice and Jack. He was furious. He got such a wounded look on his face, she never forgot it. And when he refused to see the doctor about why she wasn't getting pregnant. She'd hated him for a while over that. Really hated him. But then she just got tired of hating him and started loving him again. It was easier.

  And then, interspersed between the really good times and the really bad times, were the so-so times, where they didn't take all that much notice of each other, just ambled along, like a brother and sister really, maybe a bit snitchy at times. They were in the middle of a snitchy patch when he died.

  Perhaps the poor man hadn't been feeling well.

  Good Lord. She held on to the counter for balance. Sometimes the pain of missing him was so bad it almost knocked her off her feet. She poured stock and Guinness into the pot and bent, one hand on her back, to put it in the oven. It was the first time she'd hosted a dinner party since Jimmy died. There would be ten people: Enigma, Rose, Margie, Ron, Thomas, Veronika, Laura, Callum, Grace and-ah, their guest-oh for heaven's sake, what was the fellow's name? She knew it perfectly well. She was good at remembering names. Jimmy was hopeless. When they went to parties, someone would catch sight of Jimmy and their face would break into a grin-because everyone loved him-and Connie would lean over, barely moving her lips, like a ventriloquist: 'Paul Bryson, tennis, local council', and Jimmy wouldn't even blink, he'd cry, 'Paul, mate! How's that killer serve of yours?!'

  Now for the sticky caramelised apples. Thomas's favourite dessert. Poor old Thomas, according to Margie, was eating nothing but rice crackers he was so distraught over the Sophie business. Sophie had broken it off two weeks ago, just before he was going to take her to Fiji, of all the ridiculous places, to propose. (What was wrong with right here on Scribbly Gum Island?) The family was up in arms about it; they were probably more upset about Sophie's defection than Jimmy's death.

  The fact was that Connie was actually upset about the Sophie business too. She'd been quite taken with her the few times she'd met her. Not that she'd met her that often. It was like pulling teeth getting Thomas to come to the island these days. But she'd come to the house for afternoon tea a month or so after Jimmy had died and Connie had felt marginally better just looking at her. It was those dimples-a thumbprint on either side of her mouth. The dimples were still there, even when she wasn't smiling.

  Her enthusiasm for the house and Scribbly Gum Island had reminded Connie of Jimmy, the way he was that first day he rowed her out to the island, his cinnamon eyes all shiny. For years, before she packed away those dreams forever, Connie had imagined hers and Jimmy's child. She'd always thought they'd have a son, a miniature version of Jimmy, but when Connie looked at Sophie she found herself imagining what it would have been like to have had a daughter. It was strange, feeling that old pain for a child, like hearing the notes of an old song.

  When Sophie had seen Jimmy's boots still sitting there on the back veranda, she'd stopped, put her hand on Connie's arm and said, 'You must miss your husband so much.' Not in a sappy, sentimental way. No. She looked genuinely sympathetic. 'Yes, I do,' Connie had said, and had had to suppress a tremor in her voice. 'Yes, I do.'

  Everyone in Connie's family seemed to expect her to just get on with it, as if the death of your husband was to be expected. Five days after Jimmy died, Enigma actually had the hide to say, 'What a grumpy face you have today, Connie!' Grumpy! But Sophie said, 'You must miss your husband so much.' Such a simple thing to say, and the girl was probably being polite, just well brought up, but for some reason Connie had fo
und it profoundly touching. How wonderful to have a daughter like that!

  Sophie wasn't right for Thomas, though. Connie could tell. He was too damned grateful to have her. A woman wants to be adored but she doesn't want reverence. Thomas was trying too hard. He had the strained expression of a man who is under-qualified for his job. He laughed too loudly at her jokes and sat too close to her. Sweet, serious, worried Thomas; he needed a woman who made him feel like a man and Sophie needed a man who could give her a run for her money. He was just plain too wimpy for her.

  Still, it would have been nice to have had Sophie there at family events. She clearly loved the island. She might even have convinced Thomas to live there. She would have brightened up the place, like Jimmy did. Yes, Jimmy's daughter would have been just like Sophie, and maybe the island would have been a different place with her light-hearted touch. She was the missing ingredient they needed. The hint of nutmeg.

  Connie stirred brown sugar in melted butter and watched the sugar dissolve. Would six apples be enough? There had to be enough food and it had to be perfect. If her standards slipped, Laura would be on her case about getting somebody in to help, or even suggesting she move off the island to a retirement village. She, Connie Thrum, in a retirement village filled with doddering geriatrics!

  It had been terrible the first time Connie washed sheets after Jimmy died and she realised he wasn't there to pull them out of the machine for her and carry them out to the line. She'd leaned over, tugging uselessly at the wretched heavy things, which had got all twisted around the rotor, and when she realised it was hopeless she'd kicked the washing machine in futile rage and really hurt her foot. Then she'd found herself sitting on the laundry floor, sobbing like a baby. It just seemed so unfair and undignified that after all the hard work of her life, all the striving and the planning and the worrying, she would end up defeated by two wet sheets. She didn't know what she would have done if Margie hadn't turned up and made her a cup of tea and kept up a meaningless stream of comforting Margie-babble while she lifted the sheets out of the washing machine and pegged them on the line for her. Now, whenever Margie came over she quietly helped herself to a load of washing (even stripping the sheets off the bed and remaking it) and brought it back the next day all neatly pressed and folded. It wasn't necessary of course, Connie wasn't a helpless old woman, but still, bless her.