The Last Anniversary Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sophie was thenceforth a blusher.
    ‘What colour is red?’ the boys used to yell, squashing their cheeks together like gargoyles. ‘Sophie’s face, Sophie’s face!’ ‘Oh, poor Sophie is embarrassed ,’ the girls would snigger with fake sympathy. ‘Poor Sophie is shy .’ For the rest of that year she spent every recess and lunchtime hidden under the tuckshop stairs with another outcast, a boy called Eddie Ripple, who had a horrendous facial twitch. They were the school ‘retards’, until Eddie left and Sophie, in the same way that fat kids learn to be funny, learned to be extremely social and eventually became popular, so much so that she was voted school captain in high school. She can now walk straight into a cocktail party of strangers and within five minutes be part of the group that’s laughing the loudest and making everyone else feel jealous and left out. But she has never managed to fully vanquish the blush and it continues to make regular appearances at the most inconvenient times.
    ‘This must be a mistake,’ she says to Thomas as her face heats up as reliably as a hotplate. ‘She can’t have left me her house. That’s ridiculous.’
    Thomas looks everywhere except at her. He is one of those people who writhe in empathetic embarrassment whenever she blushes. They really had been quite incompatible.
    ‘I’ve seen the paperwork,’ he says. ‘It’s all very clear.’
    Sophie picks up a piece of ice from her glass and holds it against her forehead. ‘But I would have thought she’d leave the house to you or Veronika. Or your cousin. The beautiful one who does the children’s books. Veronika said she just had a new baby. What is her name again? Grace?’
    ‘Yes, Grace. Well, Grace has just moved into her mother’s place on the island. Aunt Laura has gone travelling for a year and Grace and her husband are building a home. Maybe Aunt Connie thought they didn’t need another one. Anyway, apparently she has left all three of us some money.’
    ‘But she hardly knew me! And my history with your family isn’t that good, is it?’
    Thomas smiles slightly and doesn’t say anything.
    ‘What does your mother say? Oh, God, what does Veronika say? I hope they don’t think I somehow manipulated your aunt! I complimented her on her house, that’s all. I didn’t mean I wanted it!’
    ‘I know,’ says Thomas. ‘I was there.’
    But Sophie is in agonies of guilt because this sort of thing has been happening to her all her life–although on a much smaller scale. She admires some person’s belonging, and the next thing she knows they are absolutely insisting she take it as a gift, which naturally causes Sophie to blush. ‘Darling, don’t be so heartfelt when you like something,’ her mother advises her. ‘It’s when you get that shiny-eyed look.’
    She probably did have that shiny-eyed look when she visited Aunt Connie’s house, because she loved it. She absolutely loved it.
    ‘The thing is,’ says Thomas, ‘Veronika doesn’t know yet–and you’re right, she probably will be upset. Have you heard about her latest idea? She reckons she’s writing a book about the Munro Baby Mystery. She’s got a bet with Dad that she’s going to solve it. She was interviewing Aunt Connie the night before she died. Mum thinks she probably talked her to death. Anyway, if I know Veronika she’ll still want to go on writing it, and of course it would suit her right down to the ground to live in Aunt Connie’s house. She hasn’t really got herself settled since the divorce. She’s living in a share house and driving her flatmates insane; they only put up with her because they like her cooking. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets it into her head to contest the will.’
    ‘Well, that’s the solution, then!’ says Sophie. She can feel her face settling back to normal. ‘It’s obvious. I won’t take the house. Veronika can have it!’
    ‘I think Aunt Connie was worried you might say