‘Sophie, this is Veronika.’

Sophie makes a strangled sound. ‘Oh, hi!’ she says brightly and falsely, as guilty as a murderer.

‘I just thought it was polite to let you know that we’ll be contesting Aunt Connie’s will. Everybody in the family is terribly hurt by what you’ve done.’

Sophie holds the phone slightly away from her ear. Veronika always speaks too loudly on the phone, and when she is angry it’s even more painful than usual.

‘Just remind me exactly what I’ve done?’

‘Ha! You know, I used to pride myself on being a good judge of character but it just goes to show how wrong you can be. I would never have thought you capable of this! Manipulating a defenceless old lady like that! I thought you were a friend! I even thought you were a good friend! But, oh, I see exactly what you are now. You may think you can walk all over Thomas but the rest of us aren’t quite so stupid. I just got off the phone from my cousin Grace and she could hardly bear to talk about it, she was so appalled by what you’ve done.’

‘Really?’

For some reason the thought of Grace, who Sophie barely knows, thinking badly of her is more distressing than Veronika, her friend of many years, thinking she is an evil manipulator of old ladies. Sophie has only met Grace just once, years ago, at Veronika’s wedding, but she has a schoolgirl crush on her. Grace is beautiful–achingly, ridiculously beautiful: the unfair sort of beauty that made it a painful pleasure just to look at her. Plus, there is that comment in Aunt Connie’s letter about Grace.

‘Tell Grace not to be upset with me,’ she says frivolously. ‘Tell her I’m a big contributor to her royalties. I’m always buying her books as presents!’

Ever since Veronika had mentioned that Grace wrote and illustrated a series of children’s picture books about an evil little elf called Gublet, Sophie has been buying her books as presents for her friends’ children. The illustrations are gorgeous, full of detail and an intriguing touch of menace that kids, especially the brattier ones, seem to love. The Gublet books only add to Grace’s mystique.

‘You’re not even taking this seriously!’ explodes Veronika. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, Sophie. I forgave you for what you did to Thomas but this is genuinely unforgivable. My family will be fighting this all the way to the highest court in the land. And I will not say another word to you in my lifetime!’

‘Starting from…now?’ asks Sophie.

But Veronika is true to her word and hangs up.

She must be genuinely upset to actually stop talking.

Whenever Veronika gets on her high horse about anything, from her opinion on a movie to her views on abortion, it brings out a flip, sarcastic side of Sophie’s personality. Afterwards she always feels bad, and now she feels particularly guilty.

Part of her had been thinking that this whole thing with Aunt Connie’s house had been all about destiny. It had been her destiny to become friends with Veronika, even though it was an annoying friendship at times. It was her destiny to date Veronika’s brother, Thomas, even though it had all ended so horribly. It was her destiny to live in Aunt Connie’s wonderful home on Scribbly Gum Island. That was the final pay-off. She deserved it!

But now it occurs to Sophie to wonder if perhaps she had been subconsciously manipulating her destiny.

She remembers when she first met Veronika at a friend’s baby shower. Sophie was supervising the cutting of the cake–one of hers, of course–featuring a pair of baby booties made out of cup cakes, when she heard somebody saying in a clear, sharp voice that she’d grown up on Scribbly Gum Island.

‘Did you really?’ Sophie had chimed in, leaning across another woman to hand the stranger a piece of booty. ‘What was that like?’

Sophie had a thing about Scribbly Gum Island. She’d adored it ever since her first visit on a school excursion when she was a child. She disagreed passionately with people who described the island as ‘a bit twee, don’t you think?’ She’d done the Alice and Jack tour a dozen times, staring with fresh fascination at the clothes still hanging in the cupboard, the baby’s crib, the newspaper sitting open on 15 July 1932–the crossword halfway completed. She’d picnicked at Sultana Rocks, had birthday lunches at Connie’s Café and convinced friends that the blueberry muffins and hot chocolates were worth the train and ferry ride, especially on a cold winter’s day. She once had a terrible fight with a boyfriend when they were holidaying in the Greek islands over whether the view from Kingfisher Lookout on Scribbly Gum Island was prettier than the view from their hotel window in Santorini. (She said it was, he said she was deliberately being ridiculous.)

When Sophie learned that Veronika was the granddaughter of the Munro Baby, she was as thrilled as if she’d met a favourite celebrity.

It was true that Veronika had been the one to rather aggressively pursue the friendship. She had invited Sophie to lunches and drinks and bullied her into doing a belly-dancing course with her. Sophie had enjoyed the course. She thought it was a hoot. When she managed to restrain her gales of laughter she was rather good at it–the teacher’s pet in fact. Veronika was the worst in the class but took it all terribly seriously, listening intently to the instructions and zealously trying to jiggle her skinny hips. That was when Sophie became fond of Veronika. Sophie’s other friends would have been collapsing with giggles or refused to really try. There was something endearing about Veronika’s hopeless persistence.

Still, the Scribbly Gum connection probably helped make the friendship more attractive and made up for Veronika’s more aggravating characteristics, such as her energy-draining intensity over everything. One of the guys at work had openly admitted to cultivating a friendship with someone who owned a yacht. What if Sophie had subconsciously been doing the same with Veronika, even while she was congratulating herself on her saintly fortitude?

But what would she have been hoping to achieve? Veronika hadn’t even taken her to meet her family on Scribbly Gum Island–‘Oh, why would you want to go there? Boring!’ It wasn’t until Sophie had started dating Veronika’s brother that she got to visit. Unless, of course, dating Thomas had been the next step in her dastardly plan.

She looks at her watch. It’s time to get back to work. She has a meeting at two. She will read Connie’s letter to her parents tonight over dinner and see what they think. If they say it’s wrong to accept the house she won’t take it.