When they were nearly at the wharf, Ron had removed his icepack for a second and said, 'Did you know our daughter was a lesbian?' and Margie had grinned at him and said, 'Yes, I did. I had a lovely lunch with her and Audrey last week,' and Ron had said, 'Oh,' and pressed the icepack back to his eye.
Now Ron drums his fingers on the kitchen table and says nervously, 'We could take a trip to Italy, if you like? You and me? A second honeymoon?'
Margie turns around from the sink and looks at him. It's as if some sort of blurry substance has been peeled from her eyes and she can see him clearly for perhaps the first time in her life-an uncertain, greying, middle-aged man with a secret terror he's not as smart or as classy as he'd like to be; a man who pretends he doesn't care what other people think when he cares desperately; a man who despises himself so much that the only way he can alleviate his feelings of inferiority is by stomping down his wife's personality with a daily stream of nasty jibes. A little man.
A man with a foolish wife who should simply have said, 'Don't speak to me like that.' Maybe if she had she could have saved both of them.
She sits down in front of Ron and says, 'I'm not really interested in going to Europe. What I'd really like is to drive around Australia. I've always wanted to drive across the Nullarbor.'
'We could do that. Get a four-wheel drive...'
'No, I mean on my own. I'd like to take a holiday on my own. For a couple of months.'
'Oh.' His face gets all pulpy with hurt. 'Oh. OK.'
'I think it might be good for us to spend some time apart, don't you? I don't mean an official separation or anything. Just a break. It seems like a good time now that we are talking about closing down the Alice and Jack business. And then we can think about what we'd like to do.'
'Oh,' he says again. 'OK. Yep. That's a good idea.'
Margie feels suddenly sick with this horrible new power.
'Well,' she says. 'I'm going to call Callum and see how Grace is.'
She stays sitting and she is about to reach over and pat his shoulder but her new, strong body doesn't move, and after a few seconds she stands up and goes to phone and leaves him sitting there studying his knuckles.
Maybe she'll call him from some outback town and say, 'Come and meet me.'
Or maybe she won't. She really has no idea.
53
Rose's story is interrupted while they move into the living room, in the hope that Rose will be more comfortable on Sophie's couch. They experiment with cushions behind her back until she says she thinks that's about as good as they can manage.
Sophie feels a sick horror over Rose's revelation. The scrambled eggs sit unsteadily in her stomach. Rose is too pure and fragile to even say the word 'rape'.
'That's so horrible,' Sophie awkwardly touches Rose's thin shoulder, 'what happened to you.'
'Oh darling, it's OK, it was a very long time ago,' answers Rose serenely. 'There's no need to be upset. You're just like Veronika. We only just managed to save her from breaking one of Laura's good mugs. She was very agitated. She couldn't understand why I didn't go straight to the police. But it's a different era now. You modern girls are a lot better informed and a lot more assertive, which is a good thing. The problem was, I truly believed I was the criminal.'
Rose pats Sophie's arm as if she is the one who should be comforted, and says, 'Oh sugar! I brought a photo to show you. It's in my bag still, in the kitchen.'
Sophie leaps to her feet and goes to the kitchen, conscious of how freely she can move around compared to Rose.
The photo is of Connie, Rose and their mother dressed up in hats and gloves for a day out in the city. They're walking down a street, arms caught mid-swing, and both girls are looking at their mother and laughing. 'They used to have "street photographers" in those days who would take your photo without you even knowing,' says Rose. 'Then they'd give you a card and you could go to this place on George Street and see if you'd like to buy it. Mum felt sorry for the photographer so we bought this one. It was a few weeks before she got sick.'
'You were so beautiful.' Sophie looks at Rose's young, laughing face. 'I bet you were like Grace and didn't even realise how beautiful you were.'
'Oh, I could be vain!' says Rose. 'Look at me with my long hair. The fashion was short bobs but I was so proud of my long blonde hair I refused to cut it!'
She caresses her mother's face with an age-spotted bent finger. 'That's the coat Mum lost in the train. It was navy. Good wool.' A tear runs down her withered cheek. 'Oh Mum, you silly thing.'
Sophie feels her own eyes sting as she looks at fourteen-year-old Rose and thinks of the terrible things that were about to happen to her. She wants to go back in time and protect her and Connie. Take them along to an ATM and withdraw as much cash as they need. Buy their mum a new coat on her credit card and take her to the doctor on her Medicare card. March into David Jones and buy a whole damned roll of turquoise crepe de Chine. Punch Mr Egg Head in the nose and then get him charged with sexual harassment before he even has a chance to lay a single sleazy finger on Rose.
'Well,' says Rose. 'On with my story. Connie always said there's nothing worse than a person who keeps meandering from the point.'
So, it was only a few days later that Mr Egg Head got transferred to another department, and a few weeks after that I started falling asleep at the counter in the afternoon.
I was fifteen years old, Catholic and pregnant. It was quite a scandal for those days, darling. Quite a scandal. And I had an awful suspicion that my father might actually kill me. I could imagine him quite calmly picking up his bible and thumping me to death with it.
Well, Connie guessed it eventually and I told her what had happened. I remember we were sitting down at Sultana Rocks and Connie had a stick and she was making holes in the sand, and as I told the story she jabbed harder and harder until the stick broke and she threw it hard across the water. Then she gave me a hug. A very quick, hard hug. We weren't ever a very cuddly family, so it was special. It meant that she didn't think I was a dirty thief who deserved her punishment. Then she picked up another stick and started jabbing more holes in the sand, but this time in orderly rows, and I knew she was trying to think out a solution. I remember closing my eyes and feeling so relieved because now it was Connie's problem. I completely abdicated responsibility to her. So, I can't really complain.
The normal practice in those days for unmarried Catholic girls was that you were sent off, all very hush-hush, to a home in the country, where you had your baby and it was quickly whisked away for adoption. Well, Connie wasn't having any of that. She was determined that we would keep it. She was more interested in the baby than I was, to be honest. She was grieving for Mum too of course, and I think the baby gave her something to focus on. She was also determined to save my reputation, which seems funny these days, but she didn't want word getting around Glass Bay that I was 'used goods'. She thought I'd still meet a nice young man and settle down and get married. I remember she walked up and down the beach jabbing with her stick for ages until she finally marched back, looking very triumphant, and said, 'Alice and Jack Munro are going to have a baby.'
I said, 'Fine, Alice and Jack have a baby and then what? What happens to them?'
She said, 'They vanish! Poof! We're not even going to try to come up with an explanation. They're going to vanish into thin air, just like the people aboard the Mary Celeste. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.'
She had a fondness for unsolved mysteries, you see, and the Mary Celeste was one of her favourites. She thought this would solve everything. We could keep the baby, save my reputation, and people would hear about Scribbly Gum Island. 'Once people get a whiff of scandal they'll want to come here for a sticky-beak,' she said. 'We'll be ready and waiting with scones and tea. Light, fluffy scones! We'll put Banksia Island right out of business.'
Well, I thought she was joking, or temporarily insane, but that very day she told Dad that Alice Munro was expecting. He said, 'Well, as long as th
ey keep paying their rent, that's all we care about.' Connie said, 'I think they're doing it tough, Dad. We'll have to keep an eye on them.' One day she said, 'I promised that if anything ever happened to the Munros that we'd look after their baby,' and Dad snapped, 'What the bloody hell did you say that for?' and Connie said, 'I was being a Good Samaritan, Dad, just like in the bible,' and that shut him up.
I didn't see how we would hide my pregnancy from Dad, but Connie said he wouldn't notice. She said he didn't look at us. I didn't see how it would be possible not to notice your daughter was nine months pregnant, but Connie was right. I just wore loose clothing and I never got very big anyway. Looking back, I think the poor man was close to being legally blind. That's why he hardly left the house.
Or maybe he did notice and he just didn't want to know. Maybe he saw through the whole thing. Who knows?
I had to give up work, of course, when I got to three months. The ladies at the department store had beady eyes. Luckily, Connie got a job doing office cleaning and she spent the next six months turning Grandpop's house into Alice and Jack's house. She put a couple of Mum's old dresses in the cupboard. She managed to get a free crib from the Salvation Army. It was like a project for her. I think she enjoyed it. I remember the day she came up with the idea of the half-finished crossword, she was tickled pink. Well, I didn't take much notice of it all, really. I was in a funny state at that time. The experience with Mr Egg Head had quite, well, shaken me up, I suppose. I spent hours fishing and trying not to think. I honestly didn't think we'd get away with it. I thought we'd both end up in jail.
Of course, there was the problem of who would deliver the baby, when it came. We could hardly go to a hospital because what would we do about the birth certificate? Connie was thinking about confiding in a friend who was a midwife, but she really didn't trust anybody with the secret. Well, in the end we didn't have a choice. I started getting contractions three weeks early. It was one of those stormy, dramatic days. Connie took me around in the boat to Grandpop's house. The water was all choppy and I was out of my mind with fear. We got up to the house and I had Enigma on the kitchen floor in about half an hour. Connie delivered her. She cut the cord with our grandmother's old kitchen scissors. Her hands were all slippery and she was shaking so much she cut herself. So that's her blood on the kitchen floor, and probably some of mine too. I remember Connie kneeling there with tears streaming down her face, blood dripping from her hand, holding Enigma. She loved Enigma instantly. It took me much longer. Actually, to be honest, Sophie darling, I could hardly bear the sight of her for quite a few months. I was worried she had an egg-shaped head. Don't ever tell her that, will you? I still think it has a slightly eggy shape to it, at times. Connie was crying with joy, while I cried for my mother.
Well, we cleaned the baby and wrapped her up and took her home to Dad and we told him the story about going around to have a cup of tea with Alice and Jack and finding the baby. It was a test to see if he swallowed it-but he did, hook, line and sinker. At first he said we'd just have to take the baby to the hospital in Glass Bay and have it put in care, but Connie kept saying, 'We made a promise, Dad,' and then the funniest thing happened. Connie gave him the baby to hold and his face melted, went soft and smooth. He said, 'Well, as long as she doesn't wake me up at night,' and handed her back.
The next morning Connie said to me, 'This is your last chance to change your mind', as if any of it was my idea! And she went off to the police station and told them we'd found an abandoned baby. Then the newspapers sent around Jimmy to do a story, and funnily enough I think Connie and I both really started to believe in it. Alice and Jack seemed more real to me than Mr Egg Head whispering vile things in my ear. Connie was right. The very day after the story appeared a boatload of sticky-beaks turned up at the island and we were ready with a tray of freshly baked scones: tuppence and ha'penny with a cup of tea.
Connie didn't tell Jimmy the truth until after he came back from the war, and he was furious. The Munro Baby Mystery had been the story that started his career and he was horrified that it was a hoax. He took a long time to forgive Connie. That was when Connie came up with the idea of not telling Enigma until she was forty. I think it threw her when she realised she'd hurt Jimmy's feelings. People don't like to feel they've been conned, do they? Especially men. Men take themselves so seriously. Connie had this idea that by the time Enigma got to the age of forty she'd be mature enough to handle it. Actually, I think Enigma was mostly worried about whether she'd stay famous.
As the years went by I started to think that maybe we could come clean about the whole thing. I wanted Enigma to know that I was her mother, but she was really more Connie's daughter than mine, especially in those first few months after she was born when I went a touch barmy. I barely touched her. Connie brought her up really. I was just like a big sister. I remember I felt hurt when Enigma asked Connie if she could call her 'Mum'. But what could I do? Connie was her mum. If it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have been able to keep her. And when Connie and Jimmy couldn't have their own children and she so badly wanted them, I could hardly say I wanted Enigma just for me.
Besides which, by then the Munro Baby Mystery had become a successful business. When Dad died in 1940 we had made more money than we'd ever dreamed of. Whenever Connie thought interest in the Munro Mystery was starting to wane, she'd come up with something new to get people talking again. After the war, she wrote all those letters from Alice to Jack and pretended to find them in the cake tin under the bed. Confidentially, Sophie, those letters were really all about Connie's feelings about her marriage to Jimmy; they were going through a bit of a bad patch. So Jimmy sat down and wrote that beautiful love letter from Jack to Alice. Connie cried when she read it. You've read it, haven't you? He could be romantic when he wanted to be, that Jimmy! Then of course, in the 1970s, when our numbers were very low, Connie read The Female Eunuch and decided that Alice was being 'emotionally castrated' and she sat down and wrote Alice's diary in two days and got Margie to 'discover' it under the floorboards. I remember Jimmy saying, 'Nobody is going to fall for this rubbish! How many more historical documents can be hidden in one small house?' Well, that diary caused a sensation because it implied that Alice probably bumped off Jack, and the feminists just loved that. After that we all agreed there couldn't really be any more discoveries.
There were so many times when I felt such a strong desire to tell everyone the truth, but Connie was like a stubborn old-is that the phone again, Sophie? No, answer it. I'm finished. That's the end of my story.
54
'Oh, you're there. I've been trying to call all morning.'
'Sorry. I slept in. I had a bit too much to drink last night.'
'Me too. The mulled wine was...'
'Yes. It sure was.'
'Yes.'
'Well.'
'So.'
'How is Grace?'
'She's fine, physically, but one of the doctors talked to me this morning and she seems to think that Grace has postnatal depression.'
'Oh, dear. Oh, well...shit. I should have thought of that. I had a friend who had it. I seem to have been missing the obvious lately. Oh, God, you don't think she purposely...?'
'Yeah. Maybe. She says it was an accident but I don't know. She's so careful about what she eats. I should have seen it. Actually, I thought maybe she was depressed a while back, but everybody kept telling me she was fine. They kept going on about those thank you cards she made and how no depressed woman could have managed that. It wasn't as if she was crying all day. Or not in front of me, anyway. But I did know something was different. I should have...anyway, she's going to get help now. That's not why I'm calling. I wanted to say to you, about last night...'
'Oh no! Don't say anything! You don't need to say anything. We'll just pretend it never happened. It was just the wine. Don't even think about it! It's not important. Especially not now.'
'It is important. I wanted to say I'm so sorry for pushing you away like that
and I wanted to say that...'
'It's OK! Please don't say anything more.'
'I don't want you to think it didn't mean anything. I don't want you thinking it was just the wine. Even though the wine-but it wasn't just the wine. Oh, fuck.'
'You don't need to say this.'
'The thing is, I really love Grace.'
'Of course you do. Please stop it.'
'I would never be unfaithful to her.'
'You don't need to say this!'
'But I just want you to know that if I'd met you before I met Grace, you know, that whole 'other lifetime' thing. This sounds like such cliched crap but I'm serious. I just want you to know that you mean something to me, that if things had been different, then things...would have been different. Oh Jesus, I sound like a lunatic.'
'Please stop it.'
'OK, but do you see what I'm saying?'
'Yes, I do. Thank you.'
'OK.'
'OK.'
'I'm sorry.'
'There's nothing to be sorry for.'
'OK.'
'OK.'
'Are you laughing or crying?'
'A bit of both.'
'Oh.'
'Let's never talk about it again, all right, Callum? Not one word. Or even a meaningful look. Especially no meaningful looks. All right? You promise?'
'All right. No meaningful looks. I promise.'
'Send my love to Grace.'
'I will.'
55
Grace sits in her hospital room with her mother, looking at the lunch which has just been delivered by a sour-faced woman shoving a trolley. Callum has gone home to relieve Veronika and Audrey of Jake, and the doctors have said that he can come back and pick up Grace later this afternoon.
Grace feels shaky and surreal. Her throat is still sore, as if somebody had tried to strangle her, and her leg is aching and bruised from where her mother jammed in the EpiPen. She is not allowing her mind to form any complete thoughts about what happened last night; she's just revelling in the relief of oxygen flowing unimpeded into her lungs. In. Out. In. Out.
The Last Anniversary Page 32