The Last Anniversary (33 page)

‘Yes, this is little Jake.’ Enigma immediately holds out the baby hopefully. ‘Would you like a hold of him, dear? My arms are aching.’

‘Oh, Grandma, Audrey isn’t here to help you babysit!’ says Veronika, but the girl takes Jake, which is a relief for Enigma’s poor arms.

‘So, you’re from Japan, Audrey?’ asks Enigma socially.

Veronika huffs and puffs while Audrey says, ‘My parents are Malaysian actually, but I was born here.’

‘Oh, well, Malaysia!’ Enigma tries to think of something nice to say about Malaysia. Didn’t Laura used to make quite a nice beef dish from Malaysia?

But just then a very unattractive, underdressed man comes charging out of the crowd and grabs Veronika’s elbow. ‘Are you Veronika Gordon? I’ve been looking for you all night! I’ve got information about the Munro Baby.’

Aha! It’s the Kook! Enigma is delighted to have the opportunity to give this silly fellow a piece of her mind. ‘I am the Munro Baby sitting right here in front of you,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m afraid you are a con-man, young man, and goodness me, you’re not dressed nearly warmly enough!’

Sophie looks at her watch. They say that the time it takes to recover from a relationship is half its length, and she dated Rick the Gorgeous Gardener for approximately three hours, so by her calculations she has approximately twenty more minutes of grieving left to do. She takes another mouthful of her mulled wine. It really is the best mulled wine she has ever had in her entire life. It gives her a warm spicy glow right at the centre of her chest, which is now spreading to her knees. She tries to identify the red wine they’ve used. Definitely a Shiraz.

She probes tentatively at her heart. Yep, she’s over him. Ahead of time! The man was entirely inappropriate. They were completely incompatible. He didn’t ‘especially like eating out’! He got up at six a.m. and did yoga each morning! How irritating. He was a
vegetarian
! She couldn’t stand vegetarians. Clearly, he wasn’t the ‘young man’ mentioned in Aunt Connie’s letter. He was a red herring. A vegetarian red-herring. Now, where is that Ian the Sweet Solicitor? He’s meant to be dropping by tonight. Sophie has always had a very clear, very definite preference for Ian.
Could it be that Aunt Connie had a premonition that Grace was going to leave Callum and she actually meant…? It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, was it? Oh, yes, Sophie, Connie was really hoping that Grace and Callum’s marriage would break up just after they’d had a new baby. I’m sure she would have approved of that. Definitely. Good one. You THIRTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD LOSER.

‘Sophie! Hi!’

It’s Thomas and Deborah, and baby Lily in a stroller–a stern message from the cosmos about thinking of breaking up happy families, when you could have been the mummy in this one and you let the chance go because you thought you could do so much better. The three of them are wearing matching raspberry-coloured jumpers. Lily is an adorable munchkin with creamy skin and huge chocolatey eyes. Looking at her, Sophie experiences one of those unexpectedly painful bursts of longing and regret that makes her dig her nails into the palms of her hands.
Stuffed it up, buttercup.

‘Well, hello there! Let me get you all some fairy floss,’ says Sophie.

‘Oh, no, Lily is much too young for fairy floss!’ Deborah leaps in front of Lily’s stroller with arms outspread to save her child’s life.

‘Gosh, just in the nick of time,’ says Sophie. ‘I was about to ram it down her throat.’

Thomas, Deborah and Lily all stare blankly at her, and Sophie laughs merrily to try and make it sound like that was a clever witticism rather than the bitter barb of a childless ex-girlfriend.

‘How are you, Sophie?’ asks Thomas stiffly. ‘All settled in to the house?’

‘Yes, I am. I’m very happy.’ She overdoes the charm trying to make up for her earlier remark. ‘I’m so grateful to Aunt Connie. I’m very…blessed.’

Blessed? Where did she unearth such a word? She sounds like a middle-aged spinster in a cardigan and pearls. She is, of course, a middle-aged spinster in a fairy costume.

‘Good!’ Thomas rubs his hands together like a country minister. ‘Great!’

Sophie has a sudden memory of sitting on a kitchen bench with her legs wrapped around Thomas’s waist and watching his pumping buttocks reflected in the kitchen window. They had both been proud of themselves for having sex in the kitchen because it was proof of a proper movie-style passion (although they never did it again). Afterwards Thomas had made her
fantastic
scrambled eggs with Tabasco sauce and she had really thought she loved him. It is so strange that you can end up having such polite, awkward conversations with somebody with whom you once shared such intimate moments. She feels this is so interesting that it really should be commented upon, and nearly does, before realising it is perhaps not appropriate and perhaps she is a little tipsy. A drunken Fairy Floss Fairy is probably not good for Scribbly Gum Island’s corporate identity.

She notices that Deborah is also holding a glass of mulled wine. ‘Deborah!’ she cries rapturously. ‘Isn’t this wine
extraordinarily
good?’

Deborah grudgingly smacks her lips. ‘It is quite flavoursome.’

Thomas frowns. ‘Not enough nutmeg. Too much lemon.’

‘That’s
exactly
what Veronika said!’ Sophie feels suddenly very fond of them both and turns to Deborah. ‘Don’t you just love the way this family talks about food? They get these irritable, earnest expressions, like scientists.’

Deborah opens and shuts her mouth. She breathes in deeply through her nostrils as if she’s about to sneeze. Then she says, ‘I’m the sort of person who says exactly what she thinks, and I think I should say this.’

‘
Deb
!’ Thomas’s face contorts and his arm shoots out and grabs her elbow as if to save her from falling off a cliff. Some wine spills onto Deborah’s hand and she glares at him. ‘Now look what you made me do!’

‘We’ll get you some more!’ says Sophie helpfully. ‘Thomas, why don’t you get us both some more?’

‘Because I’m starting to suspect they’ve overdone it on the brandy,’ says Thomas.

‘Rubbish!’ says Deborah.

‘Oh definitely not!’ says Sophie.

‘Oh Jesus,’ says Thomas.

Deborah drains the rest of her glass, hands it to Thomas, licks her lips and says to Sophie, ‘He’s still in love with you. Did you know that? You’re the love of his life.’

‘Where are you?’ asks Ron. ‘Tell me where you are, right now.’

He has become icy calm. He is going to find this man and kill him with a single, efficient blow to the head.

‘No need to get your knickers in a knot, Ron. We’re here at the Hilton. Why, do you want to come and watch? It’s no problem.’

‘COME AND WATCH?’

Ron slams his expensive mobile phone to the ground and grinds it beneath his heel, much to the pleasure of a group of boys who assume he’s a street performer beginning some sort of violent skit.

‘Oh Deborah, I’m
not
, I know that I’m not!’ says Sophie.

‘She’s not,’ says Thomas. ‘I swear to you she’s not.’

Deborah wails, ‘Then why did you say it? Last night? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!’

Sophie thinks, oh my goodness, he
didn’t
! (Although it’s hard not to feel flattered.)

Thomas looks like a man who has been kicked in the kidneys. ‘This is excruciatingly embarrassing.’

‘I don’t care if it’s embarrassing. You still love her! You said her name when we were
making love
! That’s what’s known as a Freudian slip, and Freudian slips mean that’s what you really think deep down in your superego or something!’

‘Deborah,’ says Sophie earnestly, lovingly. Poor Deborah! Poor, sweet, travel-agent Deborah! ‘The thing is, Thomas and I weren’t at all compatible. We had a terrible sex life! Terrible!’

‘Oh, God, you’re both drunk,’ says Thomas.

‘And you’ve got such a beautiful baby girl!’ cries Sophie, gesturing lavishly at Lily.

‘Don’t you bring Lily into it!’ says Deborah fiercely.

‘Oh, well, I just meant–’

‘I know
exactly
what you meant!’

Sophie isn’t sure that she likes Deborah’s tone. She was just trying to be nice. She tries to think of something devastatingly clever to say about Deborah’s grasp of Freudian theories but she can’t quite remember anything about Freudian theories herself, even though she got a high distinction on an essay on the subject at uni.

But then they’re interrupted. ‘Sophie! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

It’s Ian the Sweet Solicitor, and he’s perfect. He’s dressed in a casual, stylish-but-not-too-stylish suede jacket and black jeans. He looks tall and funny and gently intellectual. Sophie cannot think what her problem has been.
This
is the man she will sleep with tonight. This is the man who she will have a mature relationship with over the next few months, including weekend getaways, possibly a trip to Europe, champagne brunches with friends, dinners with parents, lots of sophisticated sex in his luxury apartment, followed by one of those elegant barefoot weddings on the beach, and she’ll be pregnant with her own Lily-baby just in time for her fortieth birthday.

‘Have you two met Ian?’ asks Sophie, all tasteful conviviality. She pats Ian’s arm possessively to make it very clear in an entirely subtle way that they are an item. ‘Aunt Connie’s solicitor?’

‘Yeah, hi, Ian! We’ve met! How are you?’ Thomas pumps Ian’s hand, looking at him meaningfully as if to say,
I’ve been taken hostage by these two women, save me!

‘Do you practise divorce law by any chance, Ian?’ Deborah gives a tinkling laugh. ‘I’m just
wondering
, that’s all. No
particular
reason, except that last night my husband and I were–’

‘I think it’s time we found ourselves a good strong cup of coffee.’ Thomas takes a firm hold of her elbow. ‘Come on, Deborah.’

‘Oh, well done, you remembered your wife’s name! Did you have to really
concentrate
?’

But she allows herself to be led away, with Thomas pushing the stroller and Lily beaming and waving a chubby hand, ‘Bye, bye! Bye, bye!’ as though she’s as desperate to get away as her father.

Ian watches them go and shakes his head. ‘Ah, it brings back so many happy memories of married life.’

Sophie chuckles lightly in a way that indicates it will obviously be very different when they’re married, and says, ‘How have you been since I saw you last?’

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.

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.