A Perfect Proposal (4 page)

She came back with more mugs and more hot water, and as everyone had been too busy arguing to notice the pot of tea, she began to pour.

‘Does anyone take sugar?’ she said, raising her voice to be heard.

There was a silence. ‘You’d think you’d know that by now,’ said Stephen, ‘but the answer is no. And I don’t want cow’s milk, either.’

‘Oh, darling,’ said his mother, ‘we’ve only got cow’s milk.’

‘Cow’s milk is crueller than eating meat,’ said Hermione. Her two children, Myrtle and Rue, were clutching on to her hand-woven skirt, thoroughly subdued by their recent lecture. Whether this was because they were truly grateful to have been rescued from an occasion of sin, or because they’d been ordered to clutch it, Sophie couldn’t tell. She felt very sorry for her niece and nephew; having her bossy brother for
a father and her self-righteous sister-in-law for a mother couldn’t much fun.

‘Biscuit?’ Sophie held out the plate to them.

‘No thank you!’ Hermione snapped on their behalf. ‘Full of sugar and trans fats.’

‘Well, they have got sugar in them, but I made them myself, with butter,’ said Sophie.

‘Did you?’ said her mother. ‘With butter? That sounds very extravagant.’

‘I’ll have one,’ said Michael, the second eldest of the family, ‘Sophie makes great biscuits.’

Sophie smiled.

‘You should know,’ said Joanna, ‘you always eat them all. Isn’t it time you moved out?’

‘No,’ said Michael, ‘I’d miss Sophie’s baking too much.’

‘Darling,’ their mother addressed Joanna, who asked this question every time she came home. ‘I’ve told you lots of times, there’s no point in him paying rent somewhere when there’s so much room here for him.’

‘I pay rent,’ said Sophie quietly. She knew it wasn’t fair but she preferred to feel right about herself than freeload on her not-wealthy parents. When she first offered her mother money for her keep, her mother, vague as usual, just said, ‘Thank you, darling,’ and put it in a tin on the dresser. She never actually asked for it, but Sophie put it in the tin every week. Quite often Sophie raided it for money to buy lightbulbs or loo paper or some other household essential.

‘That’s different,’ said Michael. ‘You’re not doing important work like I am.’

‘But that’s terrible!’ Joanna leapt in to defend her sister, although more to goad her brother than for Sophie’s sake. ‘She earns peanuts compared to you and yet you live here for nothing!’

‘But she only has jobs!’ declared Michael, like Joanna
ignoring the fact that Sophie was present. ‘I have a career!’

‘And she hasn’t much to spend her money on except fripperies,’ said Stephen, who always sided with Michael against Joanna. ‘Look at her! She looks like a wig or a wag or whatever it is!’

Sophie, who customised her charity-shop and jumble-sale finds, combining her eye for detail with her sewing ability, was annoyed and pleased at the same time. She also wondered if her limited budget would allow her to buy her niece Myrtle a subscription to
heat
magazine for her birthday. Having that ‘symbol of everything that’s wrong with the twenty-first century’ coming into his house every week would drive her brother mad. Joanna could afford it – maybe she’d pass on her idea.

‘It’s Wag, Steve,’ said Joanna, who knew he hated having his name shortened. ‘It stands for Wives and Girlfriends. Unless there’s something she’s not telling us, Sophie doesn’t qualify.’

‘I only said she looked like one, not that she was one.’ Stephen snatched a biscuit, irritation causing him to forget he didn’t eat anything that wasn’t organic and stone-ground.

‘Which does rather prove she’s less use than ornament, said Michael. ‘Baking, while delicious, isn’t really that useful.’

‘Especially not when the products are made of white flour and refined sugar,’ put in Hermione. ‘We always use honey in preferences to the “pure white and deadly”. And of course we use wholemeal flour, brown rice, brown pasta, nothing at all refined.’

‘Your dentist bills must be frightening!’ said Joanna, who, like the rest of the family, had heard Hermione relating their perfect diet once too often.

‘Why should that be?’ asked Hermione. ‘It’s sugar that rots your teeth, you know.’

‘I didn’t mean your teeth would need filling,’ explained Joanna. She hated Hermione and didn’t often bother to hide it. ‘I just meant that bits must keep breaking off, trying to get through the slabs of cement you serve.’

Sophie noticed her brother unconsciously putting his tongue to his upper jaw, which indicated Joanna was right. But Sophie felt she should do her best to make peace. ‘Don’t you think we should all stop bickering?’ she said now. ‘We’re not often all together, we shouldn’t fight.’

‘The trouble with you, Sophie,’ said Michael, ‘is that you can’t tell the difference between bickering and meaningful discussion.’

‘Yes I can,’ she retorted instantly, ‘and what you’re doing is bickering.’

‘But what do you know about anything?’ said Stephen, coming in on his brother’s side now that his wife’s cooking was no longer under attack. ‘You hardly ever say anything meaningful.’

‘That’s a bit unkind!’ objected Joanna, who had found half a bottle of white wine behind a plant and had poured most of it into her glass.

‘Sophie knows I didn’t mean it unkindly. And we all know it’s the truth,’ said Michael, sounding self-righteous. ‘Sophie is a sweet girl, a brilliant cook, but not the sharpest knife in the box.’

‘I have always wondered why,’ muttered Sophie, ‘when you’re all so bloody clever, none of you ever have any money. This family is full of brainboxes but you’re all as poor as church mice.’

‘That’s not necessarily a bad thing,’ explained Hermione. ‘Material wealth is nothing in the scheme of things.’

‘Unless you’ve got bills to pay,’ said Sophie, whose sweet nature was rapidly dissolving.

‘We do keep our expenditure right down,’ said Hermione,
sounding smug. ‘It’s quite easy to live within one’s means if one isn’t hooked into the materialism of modern life.’

‘I don’t think I’m hooked into materialism,’ said Sophie, ‘but I think you lot are!’

Sophie’s immediate family looked at her, all of them appalled except Joanna, who looked amused and pleased that she was speaking up for herself.

‘What makes you say that, darling?’ asked her mother.

‘Because why else would you be sending me off to Evil-Uncle-Eric?’

There was a collective sigh of relief. ‘You know why, darling,’ her mother went on, as if explaining something to a child, ‘it’s because his carer is on holiday, he must have someone, and you’re free.’

‘Don’t get “free” muddled up with “available” please, Mum,’ said Sophie. ‘I’m insisting on being paid, even if it is only a fiver a week. But that’s not the real reason I’m going, is it?’

There was some shifting about and looking into empty tea mugs in response.

‘You’re sending me because you want me to get some money out of him!’

The shuffling and eye-contact avoidance became more extreme.

‘It’s true!’ Sophie persisted. ‘You all want his money.’

Joanna produced a cigarette from her bag. ‘I think you’ll find the technical term for it is the “redistribution of wealth”.’

‘It’s not for selfish reasons, sweetheart,’ her mother explained kindly. ‘We need money to repair the roof, and Uncle Eric has got pots of it.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Sophie, hoping she wasn’t expected to go through his bank account and check.

‘We do actually,’ said her father, who’d kept out of it all until now, nursing a whisky and watching the floor show
with mild amusement. ‘I saw his father’s will. The old man’s loaded.’

‘And has no one to leave it to,’ put in Michael.

‘Apart from the fact that Eric might have spent all his father’s money, I think you should wait till he’s dead before trying to get hold of it,’ Sophie went on. ‘While I can’t undertake to poison him for you, I don’t suppose he’s going to live too much longer.’

‘We can’t guarantee he’ll leave any money to the family,’ said Sophie’s mother. ‘He could leave it to a cats’ home or something.’

‘That is his privilege,’ Sophie agreed, immediately deciding to put other suitable good causes under his nose to encourage him to disinherit her greedy family.

‘We need the money more than a cats’ home does,’ said Stephen.

‘I thought you—’ began Sophie.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous! I want to spend the money on a reed bed, so we can deal with our own sewage,’ snapped her brother.

‘Yuck!’ said Joanna.

‘Yes, Sophie, don’t be silly,’ added her mother, ignoring Joanna. ‘And I think it’s very selfish of you not to try and help your family!’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Sophie unlinked her legs and got up from where she’d been sitting on the floor. ‘You lot are unbelievable! You mock me because I only do “little part-time jobs”; you complain that the things I bake aren’t “useful”, although you’re all quite happy to stuff your faces with them – even you, Stephen. None of you would cross the street to help Uncle eric—’

‘Well, he’s not called “evil” for nothing,’ put in Joanna.

‘And you expect me not only to look after him, but to get his money out of him too!’

‘Well, let’s face it,’ said Michael. ‘You haven’t got much else to do.’

That decided it for Sophie – she
would
have something else to do. The moment she’d finished looking after Uncle Eric, she would go to New York and visit Milly. She’d always wanted to; now her family had pretty much made it a necessity.

‘Well, that may change,’ she said and left the room, pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket.

‘Milly? You know you said you might be able to find me a job in New York? Could you do that? Or even if you can’t, I’ll come! I think if I don’t leave my wretched family soon, I might just go mad!’

The train may have been going to Worcester, but throughout the entire train journey to Uncle Eric’s, Sophie thought about going to New York. She, Milly and Amanda had all watched
Friends
and
Sex and the City
together, and all dreamed of wearing those shoes, visiting those shops, and drinking in those bars. They had also speculated about meeting those men, but since no one in either show seemed to go out with anyone absolutely gorgeous who didn’t have some major flaw, such as being gay, they confined their daydreams to more material fantasies.

And since Milly had gone to work there (without Sophie and Amanda! How dare she?), the two left behind had planned to go on a girly trip one day, so the three of them could live the dream together, if only for a few days.

But shortage of money, other commitments and, probably, good sense, had always stopped them actually going. However, after her stint at Uncle Eric’s, Sophie decided that she wouldn’t let the money issue stand in her way. She was brilliant at doing things on the cheap – always had been – and somehow she would get there.

It would do her family good to be without her, she decided, looking out of the train window but not really seeing the passing scenery. They took her utterly for granted. It would only be when she wasn’t there to do all the little things that made a house run smoothly – the replacing of lightbulbs, the household repairs, the little errands – that her
family would realise they missed her. And she would do something with her life that made them see that she wasn’t just a pretty face with a talent for needlework.

She considered. It would be better if she could go to New York and not blow all her savings doing it. She would have to come home after her holiday and when she did, she would have to start again from scratch to save for her course.

Which course, she still couldn’t quite decide. Ideally it should involve both tailoring and pattern-cutting, and combine fashion and business skills so she could actually make a business out of what she loved to do – remaking jumble-sale buys into quirky, interesting items. One day she would make her family sit up and admit that she was perfectly bright, and that her practical skills were more useful than all their academic qualifications put together.

By the time the train pulled in, Sophie was fired up with passion – for going to New York, for doing something for herself, and for making her family think for once. She pulled on her backpack and, glancing at the map she’d taken off the internet, she set off towards Uncle Eric’s house almost fizzing with determination to better herself.