‘They had tickets. Grace couldn’t go at the last minute. I was just doing them a favour. I was being neighbourly. What’s the poor guy’s name got to do with anything?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t have the hots for him.’

‘What a charming expression. I like Callum as a friend. I like Grace as a friend too! I babysat for her the other day.’ She says this with pride. As well as being able to start an outboard motor she can rock a baby back to sleep. She is becoming extremely accomplished.

Claire doesn’t look impressed. ‘Yes, and that’s another thing. She’s just had a new baby, Sophie. She’s probably lost confidence in her body and then along you come, sashaying around–’

‘I told you, the woman is a supermodel!’ Sophie is surprised at her rising irritation with Claire. She’s ruining her happy mood. ‘I look like a hobbit next to her. I’d never have a chance with Callum.’

‘But you’d like a chance, wouldn’t you?’

Her words have such an uncharacteristically bitchy edge that they both look startled.

‘Gosh,’ says Sophie.

‘Oh, well, sorry,’ says Claire ungraciously.

They sit in silence for a few seconds while Sophie remembers that prat of a law student who cheated on Claire when they were in their twenties. Claire had been a white-faced wraith for months. ‘You’ve just got to snap out of it,’ they all told her kindly. ‘You’ve got to have your dignity.’

‘I’m not going to have an affair with Callum,’ says Sophie.

‘I promise. I like Grace too much.’

Claire still looks doubtful. ‘It’s just that I don’t want you wasting your time falling in love with a married man. You’ll only get hurt and then the next thing you know your chances of having a family will be gone forever. You’re all feelings, Sophie. You let your heart rule your head, and I think your heart is interested in Callum, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not,’ says Sophie. ‘I’m going to fall very sensibly head-over-heels in love with the nice young man Aunt Connie has got picked out for me. I just have to work out which one it is. And now because I’m all feelings, I feel that both our glasses are empty and I’m going to get us some more of the wine that you bought, which I feel was a very nice choice.’

Claire lifts her hands in surrender.

Claire is being overdramatic, thinks Sophie that night. Nothing is happening. Nothing is going to happen. Sophie is a good person. Callum is a good person. They’re becoming good friends. That moment at the concert when his hand knocked (brushed?) against hers during the interval when he handed her the chocolate magnum had meant absolutely nothing.

(Actually, she thinks it had meant something. Because he looked embarrassed, and you don’t look embarrassed about touching someone unless you secretly like them a bit. But nothing was going to happen. She didn’t want anything to happen. She wouldn’t like him if he cheated on his wife. She could tell he loved Grace. It was just that…it was just that…well, it was just nothing really. And there was no need to keep remembering that moment over and over. It wasn’t like they kissed. It was just a brush of hands. It just made her happy to spend time with him. That’s all. You feel happy when you spend time with new friends.)

36

It’s Sunday on Scribbly Gum Island. Rose sits on her back veranda with an old shoebox filled with photos on her lap. She can see the ferry, a speck in the distance, on its way over from Glass Bay, filled with visitors and their cameras and their picnic baskets and their shouting and their litter…and their purses and wallets, Connie would say, so stop your complaining.

Rose picks a photo at random from the box. Connie and Jimmy on the dance floor on their wedding day. Enigma was flower girl and Rose was bridesmaid. Jimmy is looking adoringly down at Connie’s dark head. What would it have been like to have a man love you like that? Would it have changed something fundamental in your psyche to wake up each morning knowing that you were loved, that someone wanted to touch your body even when it got all old and wrinkly?

But the thought of a man touching her hand, her shoulder, her breast, as if they were all separate possessions of his, makes Rose want to gag. Move this way. Move that way. Open your mouth. Lift your hips.

She pushes the box off her lap, so that some of the photos fall to the floor. A breeze snatches up the photo of Connie and Jimmy and twirls it whimsically away down towards the river. She lets it go. It seems nice to let them float away together on the breeze.

She is going to make herself a nice cup of tea, but first she will clean her teeth again to take away that unexpectedly nasty taste in her mouth.

So much to do. So much to do. Margie slides her marble cake in the oven and tears her floury apron over her head as she heads up the stairs to get dressed. She’s on the roster to give the Alice and Jack tour this morning, and before that she has to pop around to Rose’s place to drop off her prescription from the chemist.

Also, she’s going to have a chat with Rose about hiring a cleaner. A lovely girl called Kerrie. She’s Rotund Ron’s daughter and she’s starting up her own business called Ms Mop-it’s and Margie wants to encourage her entrepreneurial spirit. Connie always disapproved of hiring cleaners but Margie has had enough. Even her mother has started injecting an old-lady tremor in her voice and innocently suggesting that Margie might like to help her out by just ‘running the vacuum around’ for her. Kerrie can come once a fortnight and do her house, Rose’s house and Enigma’s house. They can afford it!

She notices she flies up the stairs two at a time. When she walks now her steps seem longer. She gets places faster.

She pulls off her about-the-house dress and grabs that nice skirt from last winter. She zips it up and it falls straight to the ground around her ankles.

Goodness me.

Dumbfounded, Margie stares at the skirt.

She reaches down and pulls it up. Did she not zip it up properly? No, it’s zipped all the way up. She lets go and once again the skirt slides straight to her feet. It’s far too big for her.

Last winter that skirt was too tight. She’s going to have to take it in, or even better, give it away, airily and generously, to somebody fatter than her!

Light-headed with elation, she swings her new hips from side to side and then she dances around her skirt, singing softly at first and then louder and louder.