The Last Anniversary (38 page)

‘O
h, 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 clichéd 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.’

G
race 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.

Laura lifts an aluminium lid from a plate and her nostrils contract with disgust. ‘There is no excuse for food of this quality. It’s just laziness. Look at that sandwich. Appalling. The bread is
stale
. Are you hungry? We’ll get you something when we get home. When I spoke to Veronika she mentioned the freezer was very well stocked. She counted eleven lasagnes.’

‘Callum’s favourite,’ says Grace.

‘You always said your lasagnes were better fresh.’ Her mother pauses and pokes a manicured finger at the offending sandwich and says, ‘Did you deliberately eat that samosa last night?’

Grace pleats the thin white hospital blanket between her fingers and breathes. In. Out. In. Out. She doesn’t want to think about the failure of the Plan. She just wants to enjoy breathing.

‘You’re just normally so careful,’ says Laura.

Grace manages to speak. ‘I forgot. I was distracted.’

‘Distracted,’ repeats Laura. ‘Distracted by what?’

Grace says, ‘Do you remember that day when I nearly ate a sesame bar in front of you?’

Laura smiles, as if pleased to be reminded of a favourite joke. ‘Of course I do. You were a little minx at that age.’

‘I thought you were going to let me die.’

‘I sure called your bluff.’

‘I
seriously
thought you were going to let me die.’

‘Oh.’ Laura rolls her eyes. ‘So, what, did I psychologically damage you or something? Is that what you’re saying? Because life wasn’t easy for me after your father left. All very well for Margie to be the perfect mummy. She had a husband!’

‘She had
Ron
!’ Grace is talking in her normal voice. She feels invigorated. ‘She wasn’t exactly blissfully happy!’

‘She wasn’t a deserted wife like me.’ Laura examines her nails critically and takes some hand-cream out of her handbag.

‘Anyway, the fact is, I was never motherly like Margie. She played with dolls while I played with Mum’s make-up. So, I’m sorry, OK? Some people just aren’t motherly. I’ve been thinking a lot while I was travelling and I’ve come to realise that. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I didn’t even especially
want
to be a mother, it was your father who wanted a baby! I hope that’s not traumatising for you to hear, but it’s the truth, and it’s about time we all started telling the truth in this family. And then, when he left us for that bitch who was a size
fourteen
and couldn’t cook to save her life! I never dealt with it, you see. I let it fester like an abscess. I haven’t been happy for years. I’ve wasted my entire life mourning a
dentist
, for heaven’s sake. It hit me while I was looking at the
Mona Lisa
. I had an epiphany. It was something about that knowing smirk of hers. She’s thinking, Yep, all men are bastards but we women just have to knuckle down and get on with it. I decided I needed to make some fundamental changes in my life. I’m going to start by having a chemical peel because my skin is just dreadful–what?’

‘You had an epiphany while looking at the
Mona Lisa
and decided to have a chemical peel?’ Grace laughs and it feels like the first taste of fizzy champagne after a long period of non-drinking.

‘Well, the chemical peel was just about regaining confidence in my looks. I’m going to start from the outside in. I also want to do a course. In art history, perhaps. Or ceramics. You’re not the only arty one in the family, you know. You certainly didn’t get your talent from your father’s side of the family! And I am going to try and be a good grandmother to Jake. Not a snuggly, cuddly nana but an interested, involved, stylish sort of grandmother. You know, I’ll take him to museums. That sort of thing. When he’s older, of course. Not now. I won’t be so much help with him now. To be honest, I find babies quite terrifying.’

Well, so do I, thinks Grace.

‘Of course, you’ve got Margie to help you.’ Laura finishes massaging the cream into her hands and offers the tube to Grace, who shakes her head. She replaces the lid and takes a deep, brave breath. ‘Is there something the matter, Grace? Have you been finding it hard coping with Jake? Callum mentioned one of the doctors thought you might have postnatal depression. Look, you don’t need to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it. You’d better see a psychiatrist, don’t you think? You can tell him. Or her. Which would you prefer? A woman would be more intelligent, obviously.’

Grace says, ‘I didn’t know you carried around an EpiPen. Callum said you were so calm when you used it.’

‘When you were younger I used to practise giving injections to a banana. I was a nervous wreck at the thought. It’s not that difficult, of course. Any fool could do it. You should have had your own in your handbag! But then, I suppose if you were trying to kill yourself, that was the point.’ Laura’s face crumbles slightly and Grace notices spidery wrinkles above her mother’s upper lip. They make her feel protective towards her–big-sisterly.

Laura says, ‘You’re not going to try and do it again, are you?’

‘I
forgot
the samosas had walnuts in them,’ insists Grace.

‘Really?’ asks her mother.

‘Really.’

Laura looks at her fingernails again and says, ‘Grace, I wasn’t going to let you kill yourself when you were thirteen. I had my hand hovering over my bread roll ready to throw it at you and knock the sesame bar from your hand. I can assure you it was never even going to get close to your mouth.’

‘Oh.’ Grace’s voice sounds hoarse.

‘I know I don’t exactly qualify as mother-of-the-year material and I know I made some silly mistakes, but you’re my daughter. I would have died for you, for heaven’s sake.’

Grace examines her own fingernails.

‘I still would. That’s just, you know, the way it is.’

Grace looks up and meets her mother’s eyes. Laura smiles uneasily and then brightens, peering closer at Grace’s face. ‘Your eyebrows look like they could do with a wax. We could get Margie to mind Jake one day and you and I could go and have facials done. Would you like that?’

‘That would be nice.’

It would be awful. Grace hates facials, they make her feel claustrophobic, but still, the principle of the idea is nice.

They lapse into silence. Grace watches her mother twiddling the red stone on her new necklace, glancing around the room with that familiar mix of tension and disdain. She imagines Laura, about the same age that Grace is now, sitting alone in the kitchen, jamming the EpiPen into a banana, two lines of fear etched between her eyes. Grace breathes in and out, in and out. Oxygen flows in through her nostrils and expands her chest. There is a vase of flowers sitting on the windowsill. The flowers are a deep grape colour, similar to the colour of Aunt Rose’s new jumper. She’d like to paint them and discuss mixing the right colour with Rose. She would quite like a cup of tea. She is looking forward to having a shower and washing her hair when she gets home.

Beneath the rhythm of her breathing she can just discern a whispery thought:
Maybe it’s going to be OK.

‘You seem glum today, Sophie darling,’ says Rose as she’s leaving, wrapping her new pashmina around her.

‘I guess I’ve got a hangover from all that mulled wine,’ says Sophie. ‘And I feel especially ugly today with this horrible cold sore.’

‘Oh, well, it will get better,’ says Rose. ‘You’re a very pretty girl.’

‘Hmmmph,’ says Sophie disbelievingly, like a sulky teenager.

‘Well, of course you are. Oh, you know, there’s something I keep forgetting to tell you! I was thinking about you the other day and your search for the right man, so to speak, and you know what I suddenly remembered? I remembered that one day Connie said to me that she’d discovered the perfect man for you. The darndest thing is I can’t remember who it was–although I do remember thinking that I sort of agreed with her, although I felt disloyal to Thomas.’

‘Was it Rick?’ Sophie touches her cold sore. ‘Or Ian, perhaps?’

‘I really can’t remember who it was. I was just thinking about how funny it was that Connie was so
convinced
that this man was your soul mate!’

Wonderful. Fabulous. Oh, what does it matter anyway? The thought of meeting a new man at this stage, while she’s still so raw over Callum, seems ridiculous and pointless.

‘His name’s on the tip of my tongue! It will come to me. I’ll call you as soon as I think of it,’ says Rose. ‘Of course, you might not fancy the fellow at all!’

Rose kisses her on the cheek and Sophie breathes in her powdery scent.

‘Thank you for telling me the story about Alice and Jack.’

‘My pleasure, darling.’

I
t is the weekend after the Anniversary Night and Callum is taking Grace to see their house in the mountains. They haven’t been up for months and he’s hoping that they will be pleasantly surprised by how far it has progressed since they’ve seen it. Their builder has assured him that they will be thrilled, but Callum no longer likes the builder, in fact he hates him, and has secret fantasies about knocking him out with a plank of wood, sending that smug orange hard-hat flying.

Jake is in his capsule in the back seat, singing to himself. This week he has discovered his voice–a wonderful toy capable of creating a whole spectrum of interesting noises. When Jake is making his sounds he squints his eyes in deep concentration, which is exactly the same expression that Callum used to see on Grace’s face when he interrupted her working on one of her Gublet paintings. It twists his heart.

He and Grace are all tentative tiptoes around each other at the moment. They’re so polite it’s almost comical, but Callum can’t relax because he’s lost trust in his own character. He is completely appalled by himself. He thought he was superior to the sort of sleazy, shallow man who gets drunk and kisses another woman just a few months after his wife gives birth to their first child. He thought he was more
evolved
than that. And it wasn’t just the mulled wine. He actually teetered on the brink of an affair. An evil, lecherous part of his mind was thinking it all out:
Where can we go? Her house? Now?
He’d wanted to sleep with Sophie. He
still
wants to sleep with Sophie. He wants to talk to Sophie, listen to CDs with Sophie, dance with Sophie, make love to Sophie, make her laugh, tease her…oh for Christ’s sake. He is driving along with his wife beside him and his son in the back seat, having fantasies about another woman. But he doesn’t want to leave Grace. Oh no. Not at all. That’s not an option. All these treacherous thoughts about Sophie seem quite separate from his helpless, hopeless love for Grace. He wants to have his cake and eat it too–just like every fat, balding, middle-aged, unfaithful businessman throughout history. He is a tired cliché. A dirty joke. He has even caught himself thinking whiny, self-pitying thoughts like, But Grace doesn’t
get
me the way Sophie does.
My wife doesn’t understand me.

And he doesn’t understand her. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking any more. He doesn’t know if she does have postnatal depression or not. She says she doesn’t. She says the doctor who suggested that had only spoken to her for ten minutes and had no idea what she was talking about. She says she’s fine. She smiles her beautiful smile and says don’t worry.

He will never forget the panic he felt when she had her allergic reaction on the Anniversary Night. It was nightmarish. It was punishment for kissing Sophie. He doesn’t know if Grace ate the samosa on purpose, like Laura is suggesting, because each time he goes to ask Grace, he’s terrified she’ll say, ‘Yes, I did,’ and then he’ll have to say, ‘Why? Why did you do that?’ And what if she answers, ‘Because I saw you kissing Sophie’? It gives him a stomach-lurching feeling of vertigo just thinking about it. So he says nothing at all. He acts as if it was just an accident, as if the doctor never mentioned postnatal depression, as if they’re just a normal married couple, as if everything is fine, as if they still have sex, as if they still touch each other, as if a few weeks ago she didn’t say, ‘You don’t even know me.’ He talks to her each day like he’s reading lines from a script. ‘Good morning!’ ‘How did you sleep?’ ‘Shall I put the baby down?’

He speaks more naturally to the man at the service station where he buys his petrol each month than he does to his own wife.

He tries out one of his jovial-husband lines now. ‘Do you want to stop for a coffee before we see the house?’

‘No, I’m OK,’ answers Grace. ‘Unless you want to stop?’

‘Only if you want to.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Well, I’m fine too.’

Callum clenches the steering wheel and looks straight ahead at the highway peeling away before him.