The Last Anniversary (14 page)

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.

G
race 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 stops 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.

Scribbly Gum Island, 1999

I
t 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 found 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.

Anyway, Connie could still damn well cook them all a bloody good meal.

What
was
that extra fellow’s name who was coming tonight? It was driving her batty trying to think of it. It was right there on the tip of her tongue.

Two hours later she still hadn’t remembered his name and there he was at the other end of the table, nodding politely as Veronika ranted away about something.

Looking around at the self-absorbed faces of her family, Connie felt an overwhelming desire to send everybody home and eat cinnamon toast alone in front of the television.

There was Ron, sitting in Jimmy’s place with such a smarmy, self-satisfied expression on his face that Connie wanted to give him a good slap. Good Lord, he’d been a shy, gawky teenager when he first started courting Margie, and now look at him, sniping away at her. And there was Margie, pretending so hard to be happy when she’d been unhappy for years. It made Connie furious. The silly ninny was on some new diet where she ate nothing but ‘protein’. This apparently meant she couldn’t eat Connie’s roast potatoes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Connie snapped, and spooned out three for her. ‘You’ve loved my roast potatoes since you were a little girl.’

‘Oh, Connie,’ said Margie reproachfully.

‘Aunt Connie, you’re sabotaging Mum’s diet!’ cried out Veronika.

‘Nobody actually force-feeds your mother,’ said Ron. ‘She could just leave them on her plate.’

‘Nobody supports her either,’ said Veronika.

‘
I
support her!’ said Laura. ‘I keep inviting you to join my tennis club, Margie.’

‘Yes, well, I am thinking about it,’ said Margie uncertainly.

‘I wouldn’t bother, Aunt Margie,’ said Grace. ‘Mum’s tennis friends spend more time worrying about their manicures than actually playing tennis.’ Grace’s tone was light but Connie noticed she didn’t look at Laura as she spoke. It was Jimmy who had first pointed that out to Connie. ‘Have you noticed that Grace never looks at her mother if she can help it?’ he’d said. ‘There’s something not right there.’

Something not right with my whole bloody family, thought Connie now.

‘Well, the potatoes are delicious, Mrs Thrum,’ contributed their guest. It seemed that everyone was determined to be as unhelpful as possible by not saying the fellow’s name.

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Connie. He had a nice, kind look about him, that boy.

‘My friend Janet rang today,’ announced Enigma. ‘I’m very upset about it.’

‘Here we go,’ muttered Laura, picking up her wine glass.

‘She’s going to become a great-grandmother for the second time and she’s
younger
than me!’ said Enigma. ‘The only news I had to tell her was that my grandson had just broken up with his fiancée!’

Thomas, all pale and hunched over his dinner plate, said, ‘Sophie wasn’t my fiancée, Grandma. I hadn’t asked her yet.’

‘You had the ring! I saw the ring! It makes me cry to think about it.’ Enigma gave the table a watery, martyred smile.

‘It’s not Thomas’s fault, Grandma Enigma!’ said Veronika. ‘Sophie dumped him!’

‘I never saw it coming.’ Thomas gave a morose shake of his head. ‘Never saw it coming. I thought she felt the same way.’

‘Of course you did,’ said Veronika.

‘You’ll meet someone else, darling.’ Margie had polished off all her potatoes. ‘Miss Right is waiting just around the corner!’

‘She might not be, you know,’ said Enigma darkly. ‘June’s grandson is forty and can’t find a woman to marry him. He has to live with another man. Two sad bachelors!’

‘Two gay bachelors, I’d say,’ said Laura, while Ron smirked.

Grace, bless her, changed the subject by telling Enigma that Callum’s mother was dying to meet her.

‘She had a book of unsolved mysteries when she was young,’ explained Callum. ‘And the Munro Baby Mystery was one of her favourites.’

‘It would be a pleasure to meet your mother, dear,’ said Enigma graciously. ‘You can take her home an autographed photo of me if she’d like.’

Connie asked Callum, ‘What were some of your mother’s other favourite mysteries?’

‘Well, she does love a good grisly murder, my mum. She used to talk about the Pyjama Girl Mystery and, oh, what was it, the Bread Board Murder. She was a young girl when they both happened.’