Ian turns to her. His eyes are shining with a frightening new evangelical zeal. 'Well, actually, a lot's changed since I saw you last!'
Religion? Acupuncture? Hatha yoga? The Atkins diet? Whatever it is, she can sense the approach of a nasty sandstorm about to blast through her beach wedding.
'And it's all thanks to something you said when we went out the other night, when you were talking about seizing the day.'
Sophie stares at him. 'I have never in my life used the words "Seize the day".'
'OK, well maybe not those words, but you certainly talked about the principle of it. Anyway, it's all thanks to you, I'm giving up law and I'm moving to New Zealand to be a white-water-rafting instructor!'
Grace and Aunt Rose are packing up their face-painting equipment. They both agree that they must have surely painted the face of every child on the island and that it gets more tiring every year and next year they really should get some help. Aunt Rose is going off now to sit in the tent with Grandma Enigma and Grace is going to get them both something to eat.
Grace helps Aunt Rose to her feet and feels the delicate bird-like bones in her arm.
'Oooh, I'm an old fogy, darling, aren't I?' Rose winces and clutches at her back. 'I look in the mirror sometimes and I think, "Who is that old woman?" I never thought I'd be this old. Connie and I used to laugh at the thought of us as little old ladies and we'd pretend to hobble around on our walking sticks, and now look, I actually have one and it's not just for show, I need it!'
Grace just smiles. 'I'll see you at Grandma Enigma's tent. Just a cup of tea?'
'Yes, and maybe a piece of angel cake. It won't be as good as Connie's but at least they're following her recipe.'
Rose walks off through the crowd. From behind, in her long, black coat, with her hair hidden by her hat, she doesn't really look that old at all. She might need the walking stick but she hasn't lost the gliding ballerina walk that Grace remembers from her youth.
Grace pulls the note Margie left for her from her jeans pocket.
Darling, I've double-checked re the Anniversary menu and just wanted to remind you that you're fine to eat everything on the menu EXCEPT for the SATAY STICKS (well that's a pretty obvious one!!), those tiny parmesan biscuits (lethal sesame seeds!) and the SAMOSAS (walnuts, if you can believe it!). Have fun, I hope Grandma Enigma manages the baby OK while you're doing the face-painting. Don't tire yourself out! Love from your Aunt Margie xx
PS. I know this is so annoying of me but I can't help it. I just wanted to suggest that perhaps Jake could wear that little red hat I gave you-it will keep his little ears lovely and warm. I know! I'm sorry! Deborah nearly snapped my head off when I suggested Lily wear her one-so SNAP MY HEAD OFF if you like! (But I know you won't!) Can't wait to tell you all about my Weight Watchers 'party' which I've been so secretive about-it will give you all a good laugh, that's for sure.
She doesn't want Margie to blame herself, but she won't, surely she won't, and everybody will say to her, 'Oh Margie, she had the note from you right there in her pocket. It was perfectly clear! She must have been distracted and forgot. It was just a tragic accident.' But will Callum say, 'Yes, but she never forgets'? It's true that Grace never eats a piece of food cooked by anyone else without double-checking, without saying, 'I'm sorry, but could you please double-check with the chef.' Sometimes even after everybody has confirmed she's safe she will put a morsel to her nose between pinched fingers and sniff like a suspicious dog and feel a tingle of danger at the back of her throat, a vision of a quick stir with a spoon covered in quivering golden drops of deadly sesame oil, and she'll drop it back onto her plate and say, 'Mmmm, I don't trust it,' and Callum will have to be restrained from marching into the kitchen to grab the chef by the throat and demand explanations. 'My wife's life is depending on you,' he sometimes says to waitresses, so melodramatic and sweet. And he gets so mad when Grace forgets to take her EpiPen out with her, and if they're going out to dinner he makes her pull it out of her handbag and show it to him before they leave the house. But nobody will be surprised that she didn't bring it to the Anniversary Night. And Callum will be upset at first, but it will just be the shock really, and he'll know deep in his heart that he and the baby are going to be better off with Sophie.
Sophie will talk about music with him and go dancing with him and swing her hips and jiggle her shoulders and move like a woman, not a cardboard cut-out. Sophie will make friends with that huge social circle of Callum's friends. She'll go to those loud, happy, tipsy BBQs without feeling sick flutters in her stomach, and she won't just find a chair and sit there with her arms and legs not quite right, just sitting there for the whole night, holding her drink too tightly, worrying that everybody thinks she's a cold snobby bitch and secretly thinking the steak marinade has too much salt in it. Oh no, Sophie will be flitting from circle to circle, laughing and chatting and making everybody chuckle. She'll know all their names and all their kids' names. She'll have long, chatty conversations on the phone with Callum's lovely mum, and say, 'Oh, hi, Doris!' She'll love Jake like a proper mother and do tuckshop duty and throw birthday parties and jump up and down on the soccer field. She'll blush and giggle and Jake will grow a foot taller than her and put his arm around her and say to his mates, 'This is my mum.' His darling little mum. And nobody will think all that much about Grace except to say, 'Oh, what a terrible tragedy.'
Jake is with Grandma Enigma right now, wearing his red woollen hat. He's warm and clean and fed and there are eleven lasagnes in the freezer and dozens of bottles of expressed milk, and all the washing is up-to-date and Sophie is just over there, the pretty pink Good Fairy waiting to step in, and Grace did the best she could but it wasn't enough, she never felt it, she never felt a thing, and it will be such a glorious relief, such a release, like when the pain-reliever begins its soft, fuzzy drift through your bloodstream, like cool grass on your bare feet after white-hot sand, like sleep closing down your brain after a long, exhausting day.
She looks around her and all she can see are children with Melly the Music Box Dancer and Gublet faces, her own smiling creations mocking her for thinking she could be happy, and it seems to her that the children are the only ones who can truly see her despicable core, and she can see their eyes shining at her through their painted faces and they're all saying, Yep, do it, Grace, do it, it's time.
'Bye everybody! So long! Au revoir!'
Gublet McDublet waved to all his friends from the window of his spaceship but nobody even lifted their head.
Melly the Music Box Dancer hadn't been to see him all night. They were all too busy playing.
Ron runs towards the wharf. He's going to take his jet-ski over, which means his clothes are going to be drenched, and if the cabbie at Glass Bay complains about him dripping river-water all over his cab he's either going to put him in a headlock and threaten to kill him or else he's going to give him all the money in his wallet and say, 'Look mate, just take me to the Hilton, my wife is there with some hairy-chested, gold-medallion-wearing guy named Ron, which is my name. I know, I can't fucking believe it either.'
He'll tell him he'll pay him double the value of any speeding tickets. Triple.
Do you want to come and watch? Was he for real? Had Margie got caught up in some weird trendy cult where they all practise...fetishes? Even the word 'fetish' makes him shudder. Ron does not like fetishes. He has no fetishes. He likes normal, straightforward Australian sex with a woman, and the woman should be his wife, and the woman shouldn't sleep with anyone else but him, and afterwards they should have a bit of a cuddle and fall asleep in their own bed. Simple. Bloody hell. Why did he take such simple good things in his life for granted?
As he gets to the water he sees a familiar figure in the moonlight walking towards him.
'What are you doing here?' he calls out in surprise, but he doesn't stop running long enough to find out.
Sophie has decided everybody on the island has had quite enough fairy floss and packed up her machine.
All the children seem to be on sugar highs. Their colourful painted faces make them look like miniature demons and the older ones are running around in feral packs, making strange roaring sounds. Shouldn't they be in bed? Callum's jazz band has packed up their instruments, and loudspeakers are pounding out Latin American music. The street performers have all stopped performing. Sophie can see two clowns kissing passionately. There seem to be quite a lot of people trying out dirty dancing for the first time in their lives.
Sophie takes off her wings and puts a denim jacket over her dress. She had intended to find something to eat, but uncharacteristically she's lost her appetite. All she feels like is more mulled wine-she's drinking it like water. The more she drinks, the better it tastes. There is a gentle buzzing sound in her head.
It is so funny that both the eligible men in her life have been eliminated within half an hour of each other. Oh, it's just hilarious! The girls are going to fall about laughing. Her life should be a sitcom it's so funny. She giggles but it sounds like a hiccup. Or a sob.
The thing is, as well as being funny, it is also humiliating. Because she thought she was so great, so attractive, having two men interested in her, when she wasn't even especially interested in either of them. All of a sudden she thought she had all the time in the world. Pride comes before someone trips you flat on your face.
And now here she is, single and nearly forty. So very, very single and so very, very nearly forty. That elusive marriage and babies thing has slipped through her clumsy, grasping fingertips. She just couldn't get it right in time. There won't be a Lily baby or a Jake baby for her. She's going to be on her deathbed and thinking about her achievements as a Human Resources Director. That will be her gift to humanity. The Morale Committee will gather around gratefully. The only person who is apparently in love with her is Thomas, who is married to somebody else. And the only person she's in love with is Callum, who is also married to somebody else.
'Sophie.'
'Ha! I was just thinking about you.' Sophie looks up at Callum and feels herself pulled irresistibly to him like metal shavings to a magnet. She has to dig her heels into the ground so she doesn't suddenly superglue herself to his chest.
'Really. What were you thinking?'
'I was thinking...' Gosh. She has absolutely no idea how to finish the sentence. Callum doesn't seem to care. He seems bright-eyed and fidgety. 'Were you thinking you'd like to dance with me?'
'How funny! That's exactly what I was thinking!'
Callum holds out his hand and Sophie takes it. A manic happiness floods her bloodstream.
He leans towards her with wide eyes and says, 'Don't you think the mulled wine is amazing!'
'Oh,' says Sophie fervently. 'I think it's delicious.'
Rose is walking towards Enigma's tent, worrying about Grace, although she's not sure exactly why. Something about the expression on her face just then. It was so disinterested. It was wiped clean. It reminded her of someone's face from her past. Actually, she knows who it was. It reminded her of that Jenkins boy when they saw him at Dora's wedding after the war. Oh, but for heaven's sake! That's ridiculous! Grace isn't suffering from shellshock! Grace isn't about to do anything silly.
The Jenkins boy had hung himself in the family garage.
It's probably just that Rose has always been slightly worried about Grace, ever since the day Laura brought her home from the hospital and handed her over to Simon, saying, 'Here. You stop her crying. You're the one who wanted a baby so bad.'
Oh, but Grace is fine! She's got Callum, who anyone can see adores her, and the baby is thriving.
The music is too loud. Her back hurts. Someone knocks against her, 'Oh my God! I'm so sorry!' and then disappears into the crowd. There seems to be a frenetic, out-of-control feeling to this year's Anniversary. Everybody she sees is carrying a glass of mulled wine-it seems very popular, even though Rose had a taste and it definitely has too much lemon, not enough nutmeg. As she finally reaches the Baby Munro tent she can see Enigma sitting up in her chair, pointing her finger at someone, as though she's Lady Muck. (What sort of person would Enigma have been if she'd just been a plain old Beth or Agnes?) Veronika and her new friend are there too. The friend is holding Jake. It seems that everyone is talking at once to a man wearing, oh dear, a yellow T-shirt. It's the Kook. He's obviously found Veronika. As Rose gets closer she sees him hold up the strange urn and announce,
'These are the ashes of Alice Munro. My mother, Alice Munro.'
Veronica's mouth drops and stays dropped.
Enigma guffaws, 'Well, I don't know whose ashes they are but I can assure you they're not the ashes of Alice Munro!'
'Oh for heaven's sake!' says a familiar voice next to Rose.
Rose turns. 'What are you doing here?'
Ron roars across the river on his jet-ski. He's going to take her on a campervan holiday in Tasmania, he's going to finally hang up that godawful baby-in-a-flowerpot print in the sunroom, he's going to be more patient with her mother, he's going to let her watch whatever that rubbish show is she wants to watch on Sunday nights, he's going to go on picnics, he's going to put Christmas lights on the guttering, he's going to ask her, Do you still miss your dad, because I miss him, and Do you still write to the parents of the missing children in the paper, which you thought I never knew about, and Do you still know the words to all of Buddy Holly's songs, and Do you think our children are normal...and, Jesus Christ, was Veronika trying to tell him she was a lesbian tonight?
'I thought you were in Turkey!' says Rose.
'I decided to come home early,' says Laura.
'Laura?' says the Kook uncertainly, lowering the urn.
'What can I get you?'
'Just one of those samosas,' says Grace. 'They look nice.'
'You're pretty good,' says Callum.
'I know I am,' says Sophie.
The music thuds inside her. They're on their own invisible island surrounded by gyrating people. They're moving like one person. He's going to kiss her very soon.
'Your mother was Alice Munro?' Veronika is ecstatic. It seems that nothing in her world is as fixed and boring as she thought. 'So what happened to her? Why did she leave? What happened to Jack? This is amazing! Incredible!' She looks at Audrey, who is gorgeous and calm and jiggling the baby expertly over one shoulder. 'Can you believe this, Audrey!'
Enigma says, 'He's a con-man, I tell you.'
'Oh, am I?' The Kook shakes the urn. 'How can you prove these aren't the ashes of Alice Munro?'
Laura snorts with derision. 'Oh, David, give it up!'
'Do you actually know this man, Laura?' says Enigma. 'I suppose you met him in some dreadful foreign country. Why are you back so early anyway? Nobody told me you were coming back early! Have you noticed that Margie isn't even here tonight? I'm here all alone dealing with problems like this!'
'I'm back early because I decided I want to spend time with my grandson.' Laura looks at Jake in Audrey's arms and pats him tentatively on the head as if he's an exotic animal. 'Is that so strange? Where is Grace? This child looks hungry. And who are you? Are you the babysitter? Don't tell me they've got a nanny? How terribly trendy of them!'
Veronika is in a frenzy. 'Audrey is my girlfriend, Auntie Laura. I became a lesbian while you were away, but I'll introduce her properly in a minute. This is important! How do we know for sure this man isn't telling the truth?'
'He's just trying to get money out of us,' says Laura disgustedly. 'I dated him for a while. I met him at Parents without Partners. I made the mistake of sharing some confidential information with him after a few too many chardonnays one night. Veronika, did you just say what I think you said?'
'Oh, Laura, that's disgraceful!' says Enigma. 'But why didn't you ever bring him home for dinner?'
'Exactly what confidential information did you share with him, Auntie Laura?' Veronika's face is pink, her hands clenched.
'You'll just have to wait till you're forty to find out,' says Enigma.
'Till I'm forty?'
Rose looks around helplessly for a chair. There are shooting pains up the back of her legs. She looks at the self-satisfaction on Enigma's face and the anguish on Veronika's. Oh, it's all so silly. It's so tiring. Seventy-three years of lies. Seventy-three years of thinking before you spoke. Seventy-three years of fear. Like walking along a cliff-face. How tempting to just step out into thin air.
Be quiet, Rose, orders Connie in her head.
I'm sorry, Connie. I've just had enough.
Enough is enough.
She reaches for Veronika's hand.
'We know he's not telling the truth, darling, because Alice and Jack Munro never existed. Connie and I made them up.'
'You made them up? You never found a baby? There was no baby? Or-what-why, well then, who is Grandma Enigma?'
Rose has a glorious sensation of freefall. 'Well, she's my daughter, darling.'
Enigma throws her hands in the air and wails, 'Oh, now look what you've gone and done!'
Callum's hand is warm on the back of her neck and he's pulling her to him, and some sober, tomorrow part of her mind is saying, Calm down, Sophie, it's only a tacky, drunken kiss, it's not a tidal wave, it's not an earthquake, it's not a miracle, but some other part of her mind is thinking what a beautiful and appropriate word swoon is and how she's swooning like a regency-romance heroine who's never been kissed in her life except that now, oh God, oh fuck, oh thank you, his tongue is in her mouth, and has every other kiss in her life been leading up to this ultimate, perfect kiss? Yes, she thinks it has.
Eating the samosa is like eating a piece of evil. Grace is committed to going ahead but she hadn't realised just how difficult it would be to go up against the habits of a lifetime. She has to physically force the hand holding the samosa up to her mouth, as though the air around her has turned into wet concrete. For a few seconds her mouth stays jammed shut while her nostrils contract in horror-nuts, nuts, we smell nuts!-but finally she manages to unclamp her lips and shovel a corner into her mouth. She is standing away from the crowds on the main street, leaning with her back against a tree. The crowd is a heaving, solid mass, faces glowing under the lights of the giant heaters. Callum and Sophie must be in there somewhere. Dancing, probably. Making life look so simple. She waits and there it is. The first warning of every allergic attack of her life. A shuddery shiver straight down her back, icy fingertips caressing her spine. She swallows convulsively and waits. There is the unbearable sandpaper scratch in her throat. It's moving faster than any other reaction she can remember. She's being strangled from the inside. Her eyes fill with water. She claws at the bark of the tree. The pain is her punishment for not loving her baby. But now it's impossible to hold on to that thought because she can't breathe. What a complete fool! What an idiotic thing to do. Every thought in her head is wiped clean except for the need to breathe. For God's sake, she can't breathe.
The Last Anniversary Page 29