‘In fact, I’ll be talking to them a lot more quite soon,’ Sophy said, because now she had the perfect lead-in to her news. She smiled brightly at Johnno, who stared back at her unmoved (another piece of his life advice: ‘Never trust someone who smiles with all their teeth’). ‘You see, I’ve decided, it’s just as well you’re sitting down, I’ve decided that …I’m …’
‘Spit it out, Soph. Neither of us are getting any younger.’
Sophy put down her spoon, so she could clasp her hands together. ‘I’m emigrating. To Australia.’
‘Say bloody what now?’ Johnno was usually so laid-back that it was a wonder he didn’t fall over but now he reared back in his seat, face turned to the heavens so that, for one horrible moment, Sophy feared that he was having a stroke. ‘Are you out of your bloody mind?’
No, not a stroke. Just processing her big news.
‘I’ve never explored the Australian part of my heritage …’
‘That’s because the Australian part of your heritage is a sheep station in the middle of bloody nowhere.’
‘It’s practically on the coast and Grandad says that I can borrow the truck whenever I want to.’
‘So you’re going to live with them?’
‘To start with. It’s their golden wedding anniversary at the end of August, which you should know about because they’re your par—’
‘And can you even drive?’
‘Technically I can. Mike and Mum gave me lessons for my eighteenth and I passed my test on the fourth go, but who drives in London? I mean, there’s nowhere to park and it’s super-expensive and—’
‘You’re going off-topic, love,’ Johnno advised, leaning forward now so he could stare at Sophy like he was seeing her for the first time. ‘What does your mum say about this?’
‘She’s getting used to the idea.’ Sophy decided to gloss over Caroline’s reaction, which had mostly involved shouting, ‘Have you taken complete leave of your senses?’ very loudly. ‘I know that it all seems like this has come out of the blue but it hasn’t. Not really. I need this. I’ve been wanting to change things up for ages. I just needed a push…’
Her voice was wobbling like washing on the line on a windy day and she could feel the tears begin to stream down her face and plop into the half-melted ice cream.
‘What gave you the push, kiddo?’ Johnno asked. Sophy knew that Johnno didn’t like whingers and that really their relationship, such as it was, was all surface. Neither of them went too deep. So she’d planned to be very positive about her news; but now she was crying and it all came spilling out.
‘I got made redundant,’ she choked out. ‘Not even redundant. I turned up for work, like I have done every day for the last ten years, and the shop was boarded up and there was a note on the door from the official receivers that the company had gone into administration. So, no redundancy pay; in fact, I’m still owed for December’s wages, all my Christmas overtime, which I’m probably never going to get.’
‘Soph, sweetheart, I can give you the money…’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Sophy protested. ‘I can find another job. I have ten years’ retail experience. I’ve been an exemplary employee. Except now I can’t even get the area manager to answer my messages on LinkedIn and give me a reference.’
‘They’d better give you a reference,’ Johnno growled, but this wasn’t something he could fix by turning up at the company’s shuttered headquarters and threatening violence.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. ‘Then when I got home, I was pretty upset and, when I told Egan, he didn’t even say he was sorry. He just asked me how I was going to pay the rent.’
‘I never liked him,’ Johnno said of Sophy’s boyfriend of the last five years, though they’d only met once. Johnno had all but crushed Egan’s fingers to pulp when they’d shaken hands. ‘Anyway, doesn’t he own that flat?’
‘How do you remember that?’ He didn’t even know how old his actual mother was and yet Johnno had squirreled away the information that Egan owned his own flat. Or rather his parents had bought it for him. ‘I didn’t want to leech off him, so we split the bills and I paid rent—’
‘You were paying him rentandbills. OK, me and that Egan are going to be having words…’
‘You won’t be having words because me and that Egan have broken up and so now I’m thirty,thirty,and I’m unemployed and I’m single and I’m homeless,’ Sophy summed up, then she couldn’t speak any more but sat there hiccupping and sobbing and trying to dry her eyes with a napkin, which scoured her face raw because it was better suited to mopping up ice cream spills.
Johnno let out a shaky breath. ‘Homeless? Caroline and Mike won’t let you move back in?’
‘Well, not technically homeless. They’re happy to have me but I have to sleep on the sofa because Mum’s turned my old bedroom into ahome spa.’ Sophy finished on a wail.
‘So, hate to rag on you when you’re down, but is this why you’re set on moving to Oz? Because it’s a bloody stupid idea.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s a great idea.’ But Sophy didn’t even have a chance to list the reasons why it was a great idea because Johnno had launched into the story she’d already heard many times about how he couldn’t wait to leave Australia and had followed his mates over, who were in a punk band called The Birthday Party. ‘Nick Cave, you heard of him? He’s done all right for himself. And so have I, because I’m not up to my elbows in sheep dung. You’re not going, Soph. I forbid it.’
Sophy stopped crying in favour of laughing. ‘You forbid it? Right! I’m an actual adult person. You can’t forbid me to do anything and you’re the person who always tells me that I shouldtry everything at least once. Well. I’m trying Australia and you can’t stop me!’
