The Last Anniversary (36 page)

I
t only takes about half an hour for the Munro Baby Mystery to be unravelled into a simple, straightforward, sad story. Sophie listens while she eats her breakfast and her cold sore throbs and sunshine floods Connie’s kitchen so that Rose’s eyes look especially blue and young as she talks.

Connie always started the story with my turquoise crêpe de Chine. She’d say, ‘Rose went dotty over some dress fabric.’ But I’m going to start a bit earlier because I’m in charge now!

It was 1932. The year Phar Lap died. You know Phar Lap? The racehorse? Sorry, darling, of course you do. Oh, you saw the movie? I don’t seem to like going to the pictures any more. I can’t get comfortable. Yes, I suppose I could take a cushion. Well, anyway, I mustn’t digress, Veronika was nearly having a coronary this morning when I wouldn’t stick to the point. Her new friend was chuckling away. She’s nice, isn’t she? She seems to be a very
special
friend. Well, anyway, it was the year Phar Lap died. I can remember Dad hearing it on the wireless and stomping about, saying that Phar Lap had been poisoned by American gangsters. We didn’t take much notice.

There were only two weatherboard houses on Scribbly Gum Island then. One was the house where Connie and I lived with Mum and Dad, and right on the other side of the island was our grandparents’ house. You could only get there by boat then because we hadn’t cleared away any of the bush.

Grandpop lived there on his own. Grandma died when I was only very little and I don’t remember much about her except that she always knelt down when we visited, so she was the same height as me, and I liked that because it was like she suddenly became a child-sized grown-up. I wish I could kneel down for Lily and Jake but it hurts my knees too much. Grandpop was Harry Doughty, who had won the island in the famous ‘Ashes’ bet when he was a young man. He was very proud of winning that bet. It was like his lifetime’s achievement. We had to hear the story quite a lot.

Well, Connie and I adored Grandpop and Mum, but to be quite honest we weren’t that fussed on Dad. He fought in France in the war, and as Mum always said, it hadn’t been a walk in the park. Poor man. He had a bad shoulder because of a shrapnel wound and problems with his right eye because of the mustard gas. He was also, how can I put this nicely, a little
soft in the head
. I guess these days they’d have him seeing psychiatrists and all that. Mum said he’d been a happy-go-lucky fellow before he went. He joined up because he thought it would be a lark and it wasn’t a lark at all. He hated it. He saw his three best mates die right in front of him and he thought somebody should take the blame for that. He wouldn’t stand up when they played ‘God Save the Queen’. He’d ramble on and on and he didn’t make much sense really. Mum said he came back different, but that was the only way we knew him, so we didn’t really believe her. It was like living with a large, unpredictable dog.

Well, Connie and I had such carefree, tomboyish lives. Idyllic, really. Such freedom! Sometimes I feel sorry for the children today with their sports and their ballet and their violin lessons. Connie and I could go wherever we wanted in our row boat. Of course, we did have to go to school each day in Glass Bay, but that was all right! Connie was a star pupil. There was a lot of talk about her going off to the university. I was just average, I’m afraid. Too dreamy. After school, Connie and I would just spend hours mucking around on the island and exploring the river, fishing, swimming. We had a special shady spot down on the beach at Sultana Rocks and I’d sketch girls wearing beautiful dresses while Connie read her mystery books. We didn’t go home until it was dark and we were hungry.

Actually, I think we were quite spoiled really. I didn’t think until I was much older how hard our Mum must have worked and how tired she must have been. Dad couldn’t get any work, you see. He was a butcher before the war but he couldn’t find a job when he came back, which was just as well, Mum said, because she was sure he’d chop off his fingers, with his bad eye. He was fighting the Repatriation for years to get a pension. I can still see him at the kitchen table, angrily dictating letters to Mum because he couldn’t see well enough to write. Mum had to work to support us. She had a job at a clothing factory in the city and she’d come home and Dad would be there leaning on the fence waiting to have his tea cooked for him. It never occurred to him that he could have helped around the house. Never occurred to us either. It’s just the way it was. But Mum never complained. She always had such funny stories to tell us about her day. Connie and I would be in stitches. She was always losing things. She was hopeless! She would lose her train ticket and have to sweet-talk her way out of it with the guard. Well, she was so pretty, with all that curly blonde hair! That probably helped. Once she accidentally posted her pay-packet with some letters and she had to wait for hours until the postman came to empty the post-box. Oh, she was a character!

She was a wonderful cook. Better than all of us. Even Connie. And such a talented seamstress too! She made all our clothes without patterns. For Christmas each year I would draw a sketch of the dress I wanted and she’d make it for me. Well, one night in August, Mum left her only warm jacket on the train and came home chilled to the bone. Her teeth were chattering so hard it was making her giggle. She was making ‘brrrr’ noises with her teeth. Connie was cross with her. She said, ‘You’ll get sick, Mum,’ and sure enough she did. There wasn’t enough money for another coat for her and Mum did feel the cold. It started out as just a sniffle and then it turned into a serious chesty cough. She’d lean forward with her hands on her knees and cough and cough and cough. Well, she needed a dose of antibiotics! By the time Connie and I took her off to the hospital in Glass Bay it was already too late. She died of pneumonia a few days after. She was thirty-seven. Whenever I get a prescription from the doctor for antibiotics I look at the pack and I think, That’s all Mum needed. I think, This ordinary box of pills would have saved her life. I remember Connie and me standing there at the hospital, looking at each other, not touching, not crying, just completely and utterly shocked. Our mother was too busy to die. The only time I can remember seeing her lie down was in the hospital. Is that the phone again, Sophie, love? Do you want to get it?

‘It’s OK.’ Sophie gives a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘This is more important.’

Rose smiles at her, takes a sip of tea, clears her throat and continues.

It was just one month later that Grandpop died too. I think it was the shock of losing Mum. He loved her. I think he was probably
in
love with her, actually.

Well, all of a sudden everything was different. Nothing looked familiar any more. I can remember walking out the front door and looking at the river as if I’d never seen it before. Everything was menacing and grey. My whole world looked and smelled different. There was only Connie, Dad and me on the island and it felt so empty. It needed more people to fill it up. It seemed like Mum had created enough energy and jokes and stories for ten people. It was an awful time, Sophie. We were all grieving and we didn’t really know how to do it, so we just flailed hopelessly about. It was so cold too. I remember that. Connie and I couldn’t get warm.

Dad went all religious in an angry sort of way. We’d always been Catholics, of course, but now Dad was reading the bible out loud every night and wanting Connie and me to kneel down and say the rosary with him. He went on and on about how Mum hadn’t been to confession before she died, and Connie yelled at him, ‘What would she confess? That she lost her good coat? Was that a mortal sin?’ Dad slammed the bible down on Connie’s knuckles and she just laughed. This horrible, bitter laugh.

We soon found out that we were in terrible financial straits. Connie had to forget about doing her Leaving Certificate and try to get a job. She walked around the city for weeks and weeks, lining up in endless queues and coming home with puffy blisters on her heels. I don’t think I’d even heard the word ‘mortgage’ before. We didn’t know we had a mortgage, or that Dad’s wireless was on a time-payment plan. We didn’t know it was going to take us years to pay off what we owed the grocer. We had no idea Mum was only barely keeping us afloat. She protected us from all that.

So, Connie became
obsessed
with money. All she could talk about was ways to make money. You know Banksia Island, of course? Just north of us? Well, during the Thirties, Banksia Island was a very popular picnic destination. It had quite a successful tea house. And the scones there were dreadful! So heavy and lumpy. Connie kept saying, ‘If people tasted our scones they’d never go back.’ But nobody had even heard of Scribbly Gum Island in those days, and why would people come to us when they could go to Banksia Island? We had to give them a reason–and of course we did, eventually, and the poor old Banksia Island Tea Rooms went out of business quick smart. Although those scones were really unforgivably bad, so we didn’t feel that guilty.

Dad said Connie should stop jabbering about scones and just get tenants into Grandpop’s empty house. He seemed to think it would be so easy. I can remember him shouting at Connie, ‘Just go along into Glass Bay and organise for someone to let the house. We’ll charge them fifteen shillings a week! That’s more than fair!’ He was quite oblivious to the fact there were empty houses all over Sydney because no one could afford to pay their rent. There were evictions every day. I can remember walking through the city and seeing people sitting outside their homes, surrounded by all their possessions, lamps, cushions, saucepans. But you see, Dad never left Scribbly Gum. He barely left the house. He was in his own dream world.

Well, one day Connie got sick of Dad haranguing her and told him that she’d found tenants for Grandpop’s house and their names were Alice and Jack Munro. She said the Munros were good Catholic people and they were paying five shillings a week, and here was their first rent money. I remember Dad saying, ‘We’re not a bloody charity! They must think it’s bloody Christmas!’ But he seemed to accept it, and seeing as he never took the boat around to Grandpop’s house he wasn’t ever likely to notice that Alice and Jack were never home. Connie would chat on and on about this mythical Alice and Jack Munro. She seemed to get a kick out of conning Dad.

The rent money really came from Connie’s new enterprise as a bookie. The railway workers would come down and meet her at the wharf and place their bets with her, which she’d record in a book with a red cover. It was illegal–she was breaking the law, you know! I was frightened for her but she loved it. Of course, she didn’t make nearly enough money. We weren’t starving, not like children in Africa. But you know, there were some days when we went to bed quite hungry. I can tell you, we never took food for granted again.

One day, a friend at school said that her sister could help me get a job at a big department store in the city working behind the cosmetics counter. So of course, I had to leave school and take it. We needed the money too badly. I hated it. I was so shy. It was agony for me to talk to those posh ladies each day. I missed my mum dreadfully.

Well, Sophie dear, you’re probably wondering if I’m ever going to mention the crêpe de Chine. Do you want some more scrambled eggs? No? Yes, of course you do. Help yourself. There’s plenty.

I’d been working there for a few weeks when I happened to see a roll of fabric when I walked by the haberdashery department. It was the colour that caught my eye. I’ve always had an interest in colours. Certain colours make me feel like I’ve heard music. Mum was the same. She understood. Connie had no idea, practically colour-blind that girl! Well, this was deep turquoise, and because it was crêpe de Chine it had a rich, satiny feel to it, like a jewel. I could imagine Mum saying to me, ‘Oh Rose, it’s so pretty!’ For some reason I became quite fixated with that fabric. I sketched the summer dress I would make with it. Just something simple with an A-line skirt and a round neckline. It seemed like if I could make that dress, I could get back my old life. I felt like it would make me closer to Mum. Well, to be honest, I don’t know what I thought really. I think I just went a little mad. I
lusted
after it. I even dreamed about it, for heaven’s sake. And of course, I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting it. It was expensive fabric. We didn’t have enough money to eat. We certainly didn’t have enough money for fabric.

Well, I may as well just come out and say this: I stole two pounds from the till.

I know. I don’t look like a thief, do I? But that’s what I did, and my mother would have been absolutely horrified. I didn’t even think much about it. I didn’t even feel guilty. I just wanted that fabric. And of course, I was caught, by the floor supervisor. I thought of him as an elderly man but he was probably forty at the most! He was a short man with a pear-shaped body and an egg-shaped head. I didn’t like him at all. I secretly called him Mr Egg Head. I thought Mr Egg Head would sack me for sure, but instead he took me to the storeroom out the back and said he had a proposal for me. He said he’d be prepared to overlook what I’d done and even let me
keep the money
if I was prepared to perform some extra services for him every now and then.

Yes, darling, I can see by the look on your face that you’ve guessed what those services were. Well, I was such a dreamy, naïve girl. I was just so relieved that I wasn’t going to lose my job or go to jail! And I could still buy my precious fabric! You know what I actually remember thinking? That Mr Egg Head had been sent by Mum to keep me out of trouble. Like he was my guardian angel. I thought I’d have to make him the occasional cup of tea.

Mr Egg Head took it very slowly. I had to meet him in the storeroom and he’d make me close the door behind me and then it was down to business. At first it was just a kiss on the cheek and I thought, Oh, gosh, that’s not so nice, I’d much rather make him a cup of tea! But then I thought, after all, I had done the wrong thing. I probably deserved it and it wasn’t
that
bad. Of course, he started doing more and more and I started to feel so ashamed of myself. I truly believed I was a disgusting person. A dirty thief. And of course, one day Mr Egg Head, ah, took advantage of me, during the morning tea-break. Well, technically he raped me, but then again I never said no, of course. It didn’t actually occur to me to say no. I was the bad person. I was the one being punished. I just tried very hard to think of something else.