‘What’s the gossip?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’

18

A thin layer of frost makes the Scribbly Gum wharf glitter in the sun. The island is closed for business. Family members still on the island are catching the ferry across for Aunt Connie’s funeral.

‘Oh, would you just look at him!’ clucks Grace’s Aunt Margie, peering into the stroller at Jake, who stares back at her solemnly, his chin wet with dribble. ‘He looks adorable. You dress him so beautifully, Grace! Of course, you dress yourself so beautifully too. You get it from your mother. I’m afraid I have no style whatsoever, do I, Ron?’

Her husband, immaculate in a dark suit and dark glasses, stops his pacing up and down the wharf. ‘I’m assuming you don’t actually require an answer to that inane question, Margaret. Good morning, Grace.’

When Grace was a child she thought her Uncle Ron, so handsome and debonair, so cleverly sarcastic, was exactly the sort of man she would like to marry one day. When she got older she decided he wasn’t clever at all, he was just nasty and Margie was a stupid fool for putting up with it. Now, she just accepts them. After all, Thomas and Veronika don’t appear at all concerned by their parents’ relationship. Every marriage, every family, has its mysteries.

‘You look very stylish, Aunt Margie,’ says Grace.

In fact, Margie looks her usual frumpy, cuddly self. She is wearing a white blouse and a black skirt straining valiantly to hold her in.

‘It’s hard to know what to wear to a funeral these days,’ says Margie. ‘Everything is so much more casual. You don’t think I look like a cocktail waitress, do you, Grace, darling?’

‘Not in the slightest.’ Grace thinks that Margie actually looks like a lovable diner waitress in an American road movie. All she needs is the pot of coffee and some gum.

‘I’ve been going to my Weight Watchers quite regularly,’ confides Margie breathily, leaning forward while her eyes dart over to her husband. ‘Your mother will be relieved. She thinks I’m grossly overweight.’

Grace looks at her aunt’s carefully made-up face, brown foundation collecting in the pores of her nose. ‘Oh, no, I’m sure she doesn’t,’ she says finally, wondering if she waited too long to answer. She has a strange, not unpleasant sense of disconnection from everyone, as if she is floating somewhere high above her head and operating her body by remote control. Stretch lips to smile. Fold palms of hands around pram handle. Tip head towards child in motherly fashion.

The night before, Jake had woken up at one a.m. and refused to settle after his feed. He would pretend it was his intention to go to sleep and then all of a sudden he’d give a violent shudder and scream furiously, his face bright red and wrinkled tightly like a walnut. Grace had turned on lights and paced the house, grimly rocking the baby as she walked around the perimeter of each room, upstairs and downstairs. When her route took her past the main bedroom she would see the silhouette of Callum, asleep, flat on his back, snoring blissfully. It was because he’d drunk red wine at dinner. It always made him sleep like a corpse. He would have wanted Grace to wake him but she preferred to play the martyr. She was the mother. It was her job. It was her duty. It was her punishment, for God knew what terrible crime she’d committed. At five thirty in the morning, Grace looked down and realised that the baby had finally fallen asleep, frowning deeply, his cupid’s-bow lips slack. Grace had got back into bed beside Callum and stared with burning dry eyes at the ceiling until seven, when Callum had sleepily rolled onto his side, pulling her to him, asking, ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘You look a little pale, darling,’ says Margie. ‘How is the baby sleeping?’

‘Beautifully,’ answered Grace. She steals Callum’s joke. ‘Like a baby.’

‘Like a baby!’ giggles Margie. ‘Oh, that’s a good one, Grace! Ha, ha!’

Grace tries to laugh and is horrified at the weird sound that comes out of her mouth, but Margie doesn’t seem to notice.

She imagines telling Margie the truth:

‘Here’s the thing, Aunt Margie: it’s just that I really, truly don’t like being a mother. It’s not that I’m tired or a bit emotional. It’s just not the job for me. It’s not that I’m having a few problems bonding with my baby; I don’t even like him! I feel nothing. I want out. Oh, please, please, I want out.’

Margie sighs and tugs at the waistband of her skirt. She glances at her husband, who is standing at the end of the wharf, his back very straight, one hand shading his eyes, looking out for the ferry. She smiles brightly back at Grace and shivers theatrically. ‘Isn’t it cold! It was quite hot on Tuesday! It’s been such a funny old winter, hasn’t it? Well, darling, I think it’s going to be a really lovely funeral. We’ve done everything just as she wanted. Not that Connie left anything to chance. She had a manila folder with step-by-step instructions. It’s called “Instructions for my Funeral”. She’s practically done all the catering for her own funeral, you know. That freezer of hers! Oh, I’m going to miss her so much. I don’t know how the island is going to get by without her. I thought we’d have her for another ten years at least. Oh my, would you look at what they’re wearing!’

Grace looks up to see her grandmother and Aunt Rose coming down the hill, the two of them sitting erect on their ‘mobility aid’ scooters. There is a missing space where Connie should have been. It was normally Enigma, Rose and Connie, three abreast, although with Connie just slightly ahead. They were like an elderly biker gang, zooming around the island’s one road, going as fast as the bikes would let them, which was pretty fast because one day Connie had called up one of Jimmy’s nephews who was a mechanic and said, ‘I want you to “hot up” our bikes for us, Sam. They’re too slow. It drives me mad.’ Sam had responded to the challenge with alacrity, replacing the engines with ones from lawn-mowers. Connie had given him a high five the first time she revved up her new engine. ‘We’re real hoons!’ Grandma Enigma always said. ‘We hoon around the place!’ Enigma really enjoyed saying the word ‘hoon’.

‘The wharf might be slippery!’ cries out Margie frantically.

‘It’s frosty! Be careful, Mum, Rose! Oh why must they always go so fast!’