The Last Anniversary (13 page)

‘W
e are here today to celebrate the life of Connie Thrum.’

The priest stands behind the pulpit with hands outspread. He is a fresh-faced boy. No surprises there. Children are running the dashed world, thinks Enigma, while tears slide down either side of her nose, trailing pink rivulets through her face powder. Doctors, policemen, politicians, newsreaders. Children everywhere, acting so important! They think they’ve always been in charge, which is sweet, although sometimes inconvenient, such as when the doctor refuses to give Enigma the prescription she requests and tries to come up with her own ideas, when Enigma knows exactly what it is that she needs. They all take themselves so damned seriously. Sometimes Enigma has to try not to laugh. All this talk about Australia’s ‘aging population’ when anybody with eyes can see it’s not aging, it’s young-ing, or whatever the opposite word to aging is–Connie would know the right word. Connie filled in every single square of the
Sydney Morning Herald
cryptic crossword puzzle every single day. The clues are all nonsense to Enigma.

Connie was always a real smart woman. Enigma remembers the night they all sat around doing the National IQ Test on television and Connie got the highest score. Ron had been furious and made accusations of cheating, pretending he was being funny but everyone could see right through him. Veronika had accused her father of being a misogynist and Thomas had told Veronika to stop acting like a pseudo lesbian intellectual. Enigma didn’t understand either accusation. Rose had dreamily refused to take part in the IQ test. Luckily Thomas got quite a high score, nearly as high as Connie, which was a relief because ever since Enigma dropped him when he was a baby she has been secretly observing him for signs of brain damage. (Nobody knows about this–she has never told a soul, it wasn’t her fault, he was such a
slithery
baby!) Even when Thomas went on to study at the university, she never completely relaxed, worrying that perhaps he was some sort of idiot savant.

Enigma leans back and peeks a look down the aisle at Thomas, sitting next to his wife, dull-as-dishwater Deborah, with dear little Lily on her lap. Oh dear, Thomas looks quite stupid today with his mouth hanging open like that. He probably does have a touch of brain damage. Certainly, it was stupid of him not to hold on to Sophie Honeywell, who was so funny and pretty and really enjoyed her food!

Rose hasn’t cried at all, Enigma notices. She is sitting very still, looking at the priest with that gracious blank expression she gets. You can never tell what she’s thinking. That Rose is an odd fish all right, Enigma’s husband Nathaniel used to say.

‘Connie played many roles in her life,’ says the boy-priest.

‘She was an outstanding member of the community, a successful businesswoman, a loving sister to Rose, loving wife to Jimmy, and loving adoptive mother to Enigma.’

Yes, well, excuse me but that’s not strictly true, she never actually adopted me. Enigma remembers coming home from school one day and asking Connie if she could call her ‘Mum’. ‘No, you can’t,’ Connie had said. ‘One day, when you’re forty years old, I’ll explain why. This is nothing to cry about, Enigma. Save your tears for something worthwhile.’

Enigma had still cried. She didn’t need to save them up; her tear ducts never let her down. When the other kids teased her for being the Alice and Jack baby and having a funny name, she would plonk herself on the ground, bury her face in her hands and bawl luxuriously until they got bored with yelling things like, ‘Your dad stabbed your mum in the guts!’ and ‘Enigma’s mum was a Murderer!’

She liked being the Alice and Jack baby. It made her feel special and exotic, like a girl in a film. And she loved a good cry! Afterwards she always felt serene and slightly sleepy. Once she revealed this to her granddaughter Veronika, who told her that when you cry your body releases a chemical like a sedative. ‘You’re probably addicted to that sedative, Grandma Enigma,’ Veronika had said. ‘You’re like a druggie.’

A druggie! That child talked such rubbish at times. Margie should have smacked her more when she was little.

Enigma leans forward to see Veronika sitting at the end of the pew, her skinny face all twisted in a ferocious expression. She’ll give herself wrinkles. Probably still sulking over Connie leaving her house to Sophie. It is a poky, old-fashioned house anyway. Difficult to clean. Enigma doesn’t know why Veronika is making a fuss over it.

Such a pity that Veronika’s marriage to Jonas had been a flop, but then Jonas had been a wishy-washy sort of fellow. No match for Veronika. She needed a good, firm man in her life.

Actually, what that child needs, thinks Enigma, sniffing noisily, is a real good fuck.

She sits back in her seat with a satisfied nod and rummages through her bag to find her Tic-Tacs. She enjoys thinking deliciously shocking thoughts from time to time. It does her good.

‘How many calories in a Tic-Tac?’ wonders Margie, as her mother rattles the little plastic box in her face.

Surely not many. Perhaps none at all. She holds out her hand and Enigma tips a white lolly into her palm. Margie puts it into her mouth, sucks, and immediately begins to viciously attack herself. ‘This is why you’re so fat, you blubbery whale, you greedy pig! Calories are
insidious
! Why do you say yes every single time food is offered to you? Why are you so weak? Why are you so pathetic? Can’t you feel how the waistband of your skirt is digging into your pasty, doughy flesh! And
you don’t even like Tic-Tacs
!’

She remembers a tip she learned at the last Weight Watchers meeting.
If you don’t love it, don’t eat it
.

Surreptitiously pretending to cough, she is about to spit the Tic-Tac into her hand when her mother suddenly shoves against her arm as she leans across her to offer the Tic-Tacs to Ron. This causes Margie to gulp and swallow the Tic-Tac and all the calories it contains, without even tasting it.

It’s probably one of those deadly, calorie-packed food items. Like cashew nuts. They have been warned to avoid cashew nuts.

Margie gives her mother a reproachful look, which Enigma doesn’t notice at all. ‘Tic-Tac, Ron?’ she is hissing.

For heaven’s sake, surely it’s disrespectful to be passing Tic-Tacs down the pew during a funeral! The priest is trying to talk. A minute ago her mother had been crying her eyes out into one of Dad’s old hankies, and now here she is cheerfully handing out Tic-Tacs! Margie has always secretly suspected that her mother is just a bit shallow.

Ron takes a Tic-Tac of course, just to amuse himself, and offers, by raising his eyebrows and inclining his head, to pass the Tic-Tacs down the aisle to other members of the family. He is doing it to make fun of Enigma and she doesn’t even know. He thinks he’s superior to everyone. Has he always been like this? Margie can’t remember.

‘…and I know Connie’s wonderful blueberry muffins will be sadly missed.’ The priest gives them a gentle, sad twinkle and there is a ripple of fond laughter. Margie, who told the priest to say that, chuckles along with them.

My thighs certainly won’t miss them, she thinks. At least with Aunt Connie dead there won’t be so much fattening, calorie-laden food on the island. No more Connie turning up with a freshly baked caramel fig loaf or a tray of honey cakes, even though she knew perfectly well that Margie was trying to lose weight.

What a selfish fat-person thing to think. She loved Aunt Connie. Although she did always feel a bit relieved when Connie left the room.

She’d noticed that whenever Connie left she could feel herself exhaling just slightly as if she’d been holding her breath. Connie could make her feel slow and bovine; the way she’d suddenly snap her head around and bark a question that would leave Margie fumbling for an answer. Even if it was a perfectly ordinary question like, ‘How are you, Margie?’ it sounded like a test. Connie always seemed disappointed with her answers, as if she’d expected more, although Margie never knew in what way. She’d certainly never shown the slightest sympathy for Margie’s attempts to lose weight. ‘You’re too old for such rubbish! Of course you want a second piece!’

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.