"I asked her if she fancied you and she blushed."
"You what!"
"I asked her if she'd ever fancied you. We had a long talk before I went to uni." The first bars of salsa invaded the room and her head nodded to the rhythm. "Ricky Martin, I bought you this."
"I know you did."
"Do you play it much?"
"All the time. I thought you and your dad had a long talk."
"Fibber. I bet this is the first time. We did, but he just said he'd come and duff up anybody who gave me aggro. You said much the same thing. Mum said that she loved Dad and wouldn't want to be married to anybody else, but she was young when she married and she'd known him all her life. Sometimes, she said, she wished she'd had a bit of a fling. Can I tell you a secret, Uncle Charles?"
"I think we're well into secret-keeping territory, Sophie."
"Well, once, when I was young, I imagined that you and Mum had been lovers and that you were my real dad. I thought it was ever so romantic." I heaved a big sigh and shook my head, not believing what I was hearing. "So," she went on, "I asked Mum if she'd marry you if anything happened to Dad."
"And what did your mum say?"
"She told me to mind my own business. But she was blushing as she said it."
"I think you've been reading too many… um, Penelope Teapots."
"Who's Penelope Teapot?"
"No idea." I took her hand in mine again. "Is that what this was supposed to be, Sophie? A bit of a fling?"
"Are you mad at me?"
"No, of course not. I'm flattered, but I'm still mystified, when you have all those handsome young fellows at your beck and call."
She leaned on me again and I embraced her, my face in her hair, breathing in that old familiar perfume. After a while she said: "Digby's not my first boyfriend, Uncle Charles."
"Good. There you are, then. You've had your fling."
"I went out with a boy from Bristol when I was in my first year. Then I started going out with Digby."
"So you've known him a long time. What — two years?"
"No, nearly a year. I wish you still knew Annabelle. I could talktoAnnabelle."
"Annabelle's long gone, I'm afraid." Except it was her perfume Sophie was wearing and it felt like only yesterday that I'd almost drowned in its headiness. "Can't you talk to your mum?"
"Not about this."
"I don't know what to say."
"Do men always enjoy sex, Uncle Charles?"
"Well, um, usually," I mumbled, taken aback. Sophie inherited her dad's forthrightness as well as his height. "Not always, but usually." Ricky Martin was urging someone to be careful with my heart in case you break it. "Is… is that what the problem is?" I ventured, and I felt her nod her head against my shoulder.
I sat in silence for several minutes, practising opening lines and abandoning them. It was Sophie herself who broke the ice. "I enjoy it, but…" That's all she said.
"But it's not worth all the fuss," I suggested, and felt her nod again. "So you thought it might be different with an older man? Someone more experienced?" Another nod. "Well, it might have been, but I doubt it. Sometimes you have to learn about a person. Sometimes you have to be married to them before you can really relax and enjoy it. When you're young, a young man, that is, you tend to be impatient, not as considerate as you ought to be. Talk to Digby, I'm sure he'll understand. The important thing is not to worry about it: don't develop any hang-ups and don't believe everything you read in Cosmopolitan. If you love each other the sex bit is just a bonus. You're a lovely lady, Sophie, and I suspect you're just too much for young Digby, but he'll settle down once he realises that you're not going to run away from him."
"Am I being stupid?" I heard her whisper.
"No, you're not being stupid. You'll be OK, just don't expect perfection every time." I decided that sex therapist was not my calling and changed the subject. "What's Digby's second name."
"Merriman-Flint."
"'Struth! With a hyphen?"
"Yes."
"Blimey. So will you be Sophie Merriman-Flint or Sophie Sparkington-Merriman-Flint?"
"Sophie Jennifer Sparkington-Merriman-Flint," she replied.
"Of course. It suits you." I held her for a while, swaying gently to the music, then said: "Do you love him, Sophie? Really love him?"
She turned to face me and I was alarmed to see tears welling up in her eyes. I pulled her back into my arms and hugged her tight, but the tears turned into full-scale weeping.
"What is it, Sophie?" I whispered. "What's the problem? I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems. We'll work ifout."
"I'm pregnant, Uncle Charles," she sobbed. "I'm having a baby."
"Oh Sophie, Sophie." I wanted to say I was sorry, rocking her back and forth, then decided it might not be appropriate. Every thought that came into my head sounded more fatuous than the one before. "How… how…" I began, stumbling for words.
"The usual way," she sniffed with a tearful smile. "Clever clogs, know-it-all Sophie has gone and got herself pregnant. It's right what they say: It's always the nice girls that get banged up."
"I meant… how long have you known?"
"Since Friday morning."
"And how… how long..?"
"How far gone am I? About four weeks."
"That's not long. Are you sure?"
"Positive."
I wiped her cheek with my fingertips. "So what are you going to do?"
"Have a baby, I expect. Not what I'd planned but I'm growing used to the idea."
"Does Digby know?"
"No. You're the only person I've told. I don't know what Digby will say. Maybe he'll be mad at me, not want to see me again. I'm scared, Uncle Charles, really scared."
I gave her an extra squeeze. "He won't be mad at you," I assured her. "If he's the sort of person I would expect you to go with he won't be mad at you. He'll be surprised, confused, for about twenty seconds. Then he'll be the happiest man in the world, believe me."
"What if he isn't? What if he doesn't want me?"
"In that case, you come back to me and we'll run away together, to somewhere where your dad would never find us."
"Like where?"
"Antarctica, but I'm sure it won't come to that."
"That would be nice. I do love you, Uncle Charles."
"And I you. So when will you tell him?"
"Tomorrow, and when he gets over the shock I'll ask him if the offer still stands."
"It will, I'm sure. Then there's the little matter of your parents."
"I know. I'll tell them about the engagement first, if there is one, let them get used to that, then take it from there. There's no hurry, not for a while."
"Your dad will be disappointed."
"That's true, but only until he's a granddad, then he'll be as soppy as ever."
"No, I meant about having a son-in-law called Digby."
"Mmm, that is a problem." She chuckled and sniffed at the same time and I found a tissue for her in my pocket. "But there are compensations."
"Compensations?"
"Yes. His family own half of Shropshire."
"Ha ha! Good for you. Which half?"
"That's what Dad will say."
There was thunder in the distance through the night. Just before dawn it trundled off the hills and away down the valley like a powerful army, content to have reminded us of its presence. I spent the night on the settee, listening, until with a final rumble the storm shook its fist at the town before skulking off and I fell asleep.
Sophie slept through the dawn chorus and through the noises of the people next door hitching their caravan to the Volvo, dad shouting orders to everyone, before they went off for a day's fun queuing on the bypass. I had some Frosties and a cup of tea, and at ten to nine took a tray upstairs.
I knocked at my own bedroom door and asked if I could come in. A sleepy voice granted me permission.
Sophie was sitting up, the duvet drawn up under her armpits. Holding the tray on the fingertips of one hand I pulled the drawstring for the curtains to open them slightly, letting the morning sunshine spill into the room. Her hair had fallen on to her shoulders and it shone like spun gold where the sunlight caught it. She yawned and made noises of contentment, stretching her arms and smiling at me.