‘I think you look really sexy in that black dress,’ says Claire.

‘Nineteen, twenty, that’s it, no more.’ She folds the top of the chip bag with a straight, firm crease and begins licking her fingers, efficiently, one by one, like a cat grooming itself. Sophie will not get another chip now even if she goes down on her hands and knees and begs for it.

‘I don’t want to look sexy. I want to look demure and non-manipulative.’

‘You should look sexy,’ says Claire. ‘He might be there.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. The guy Aunt Connie thinks would be right for you. Your new beau!’

In fact, Sophie hasn’t thought about him being at the funeral at all. When she thinks about him, which she does quite a lot, she imagines him knocking on her door a few days after she’s moved in to Connie’s house. She’ll be wearing overalls with one strap dangling down and her hair will be tousled and cute. She might have a darling smudge of dirt on one cheek. He will walk in, probably wearing muddy boots for some reason, and he will glance down at her piles of books and exotic, interesting ornaments demonstrating what an exotic, interesting woman she is, and he will make some sort of funny, perceptive, intelligent (but not scarily intelligent) remark, and at that exact moment there will be some sort of minor crisis. Something will explode or flood or burst into flames. They will work together to overcome this crisis, which ideally will require some bicep-bulging strength on his part, and when it is over they will flop down together, laughing with relief, and their eyes will meet and they will both just know. That will be the moment Sophie will sneak a look at her watch to check the time that she met her future husband, so she can tell her future children.

One problem is that she doesn’t own a pair of overalls. Or any exotic, interesting ornaments. She’ll also have to hide away her collection of regency romances. She hates the condescending expressions new boyfriends get on their faces the first time they see her regency romances, as though she’s an adorable puppy.

‘Oh, him,’ says Sophie vaguely. ‘I’d forgotten about him.’

Claire gives a long, exaggerated snort of disbelief.

‘Well, she wrote that letter months ago,’ says Sophie defensively. ‘The guy is probably with someone now. Single men don’t last long in Sydney, remember? They’re “snapped up”. Besides which, what do I know about Connie’s taste in men?’

‘You said you saw photos of her husband. You said he was a spunk.’

Sophie grins. ‘That’s true.’

‘Look, you really can’t risk looking insipid the first time you meet this guy. You’ve got to go for it. It could be your one chance. You’re not–’

‘–getting any younger. Yes, thank you, Claire.’

‘I’m just saying, if you seriously do want to have a family, you haven’t got much time. You’ve got to take every opportunity. You’re about to miss the baby boat.’

There’s that bossy, big-sisterly tone Claire adopts whenever she talks to Sophie about her love life, or lack thereof. She herself has been in a long-term relationship for eleven years and doesn’t want children because she and her partner have a ‘lifestyle’, which means they go on trekking holidays and have white wool carpet. However, she is very respectful of Sophie’s desire to have children, maybe a bit too respectful because she is vigilant about Sophie slacking off on her man-hunting. She doesn’t believe in fate or destiny or that ‘Mr Right will turn up just when you least expect it’. She believes that finding a man to be the father of your children before your fertility drops to zero is no different from any other goal, like finding the right car or the right property.

Sophie sighs and pulls another hanger out of her cupboard. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit much to expect Aunt Connie to provide me with both a house and a man, as if she’s my fairy godmother? You’re the one who says I think life is a friggin’ fairytale.’

‘Put the sexy black number on, Cinderella.’

Veronika rings Sophie again the night before Aunt Connie’s funeral. ‘Tell me you don’t have the gall to come tomorrow.’

‘I thought you weren’t saying another word to me in your entire lifetime.’

‘You’re not welcome. You’re not family.’

‘Gosh, Veronika,’ says Sophie sweetly. ‘I thought I was like your family. I seem to remember you making a speech about how I was like the sister you never had.’

Naturally, Sophie had been Veronika’s bridesmaid. It is cruel and bitchy of her to remind Veronika of her wedding to Jonas when it had ended so quickly in divorce, but this is getting tedious.

‘May I remind you that it was at my wedding that you got together with my brother!’

‘I don’t deny it, but what’s the relevance?’

‘The relevance is that you rejected him. You rejected our family. And now you think you can waltz back in, Miss Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth.’

She means, you rejected me. Sometimes Sophie thinks she’d hurt Veronika more than she’d hurt Thomas. Veronika had been ecstatic when Thomas and Sophie got together. If Sophie is honest with herself–and oh, how she strives to be honest with herself–Veronika’s effusiveness is probably one of the reasons why she had to break up with her brother. There is something about Veronika that makes Sophie want to fold her arms tightly across her chest and say, ‘You can’t have any more of me.’ Sophie has an irrational dislike of Veronika’s intense interest in the most trivial details of her life. She remembers everything, as if she is stockpiling ammunition to prove…what? That she knows Sophie better than she knows herself? She would say in front of other friends, ‘Oh, no, that date is no good. Sophie wouldn’t be able to come. It’s the third Thursday–it’s her dinner night with her parents. They rate restaurants, you know.’ She remembered what books, food and movies Sophie did and didn’t like. ‘Sophie hates tortellini.’ ‘Sophie loved that movie.’

Why do such innocuous comments aggravate Sophie so much? It feels like if she spends too much time with Veronika there will be nothing left of her. She’s like a vampire sinking her fangs into Sophie’s neck and sucking her dry.