Whiteout (15 page)

Miranda went on: “It was the most shameful thing I've done in my life, and I don't want Ned to find out about it, ever.”

“So what are you threatening to do? Tell Olga?”

“She would divorce you and never speak to me again. It would explode this family.”

It might not be that bad, Kit thought; but Miranda was always anxious about keeping the family together.

“That leaves you a bit helpless, doesn't it?” Hugo said, looking pleased. “Since we can't be enemies, why don't you just kiss me nicely and be friends?”

Miranda's voice went cold. “Because you disgust me.”

“Ah, well.” Hugo sounded resigned, but unashamed. “Hate me, then. I still adore you.” He gave his most charming smile and left the room, limping slightly.

As the door slammed, Miranda said, “You fucking bastard.”

Kit had never heard her swear like that.

She picked up her laundry basket; then, instead of going out as he expected, she turned toward him. She must have fresh towels for the bathroom, he realized. There was no time to move. In three steps she reached the entrance to the dressing room and turned on the lights.

Kit was just able to slip the smart card into his trousers pocket. An instant later she saw him. She gave a squeal of shock. “Kit! What are you doing there? You gave me a fright!” She went white, and added, “You must have heard everything.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I didn't want to.”

Her complexion changed from pale to flushed. “You won't tell, will you?”

“Of course not.”

“I'm serious, Kit. You must never tell. It would be awful. It could ruin two marriages.”

“I know, I know.”

She saw the wallet in his hand. “What are you up to?”

He hesitated, then he was inspired. “I needed cash.” He showed her the banknotes in the wallet.

“Oh, Kit!” She was distressed, not judgmental. “Why do you always want easy money?”

He bit back an indignant retort. She believed his cover story, that was the main thing. He said nothing and tried to look ashamed.

She went on: “Olga always says you'd rather steal a shilling than earn an honest pound.”

“All right, don't rub it in.”

“You mustn't pilfer from Daddy's wallet—it's awful!”

“I'm a bit desperate.”

“I'll give you money!” She put down the laundry basket. There were two pockets in the front of her skirt. She reached into one and pulled out a crumple of notes. She extracted two fifties, smoothed them out, and gave them to Kit. “Just ask me—I'll never turn you down.”

“Thanks, Mandy,” he said, using her childhood name.

“But you must never steal from Daddy.”

“Okay.”

“And, for pity's sake, don't ever tell anyone about me and Hugo.”

“I promise,” he said.

TONI had been sleeping heavily for an hour when her alarm clock woke her.

She found that she was lying on the bed fully dressed. She had been too tired even to take off her jacket and shoes. But the nap had refreshed her. She was used to odd hours, from working night shifts in the police force, and she could fall asleep anywhere and wake up instantly.

She lived on one floor of a subdivided Victorian house. She had a bedroom, a living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Inverburn was a ferry port, but she could not see the sea. She was not very fond of her home: it was the place to which she had fled when she broke up with Frank, and it had no happy memories. She had been here two years, but she still regarded it as temporary.

She got up. She stripped off the business suit she had been wearing for two days and a night, and dumped it in the dry-cleaning basket. With a robe on over her underwear, she moved rapidly around the flat, packing a case for five nights at a health spa. She had planned to pack last night and leave at midday today, so she had some catching up to do.

She could hardly wait to get to the spa. It was just what she needed. Her woes would be massaged away; she would sweat out toxins in the sauna; she would have her nails painted and her hair cut and her eyelashes curled. Best of all, she would play games and tell stories with a group of old friends, and forget her troubles.

Her mother should be at Bella's place by now. Mother was an intelligent woman who was losing her mind. She had been a high school math teacher, and had always been able to help Toni with her studies, even when Toni was in the final year of her engineering degree. Now she could not check her change in a shop. Toni loved her intensely and was deeply saddened by her decline.

Bella was a bit slapdash. She cleaned the house when the mood took her, cooked when she felt hungry, and sometimes forgot to send her children to school. Her husband, Bernie, was a hairdresser, but worked infrequently because of some vague chest ailment. “The doctor's signed me off for another four weeks,” he would usually say in response to the routine inquiry “How are you?”

Toni hoped Mother would be all right at Bella's place. Bella was an amiable slattern, and Mother never seemed to mind her ways. Mother had always been happy to visit the windy Glasgow council estate and eat undercooked fries with her grandchildren. But she was now in the early stages of senility. Would she be as philosophical as ever about Bella's haphazard housekeeping? Would Bella be able to cope with Mother's increasing waywardness?

Once when Toni had let slip an irritated remark about Bella, Mother had said crisply, “She doesn't try as hard as you, that's why she's happier.” Mother's conversation had become tactless, but her remarks could be painfully accurate.

After Toni had packed, she washed her hair then took a bath to soak away two days of tension. She fell asleep in the tub. She woke with a start, but only a minute or so had passed—the water was still hot. She got out and dried herself vigorously.

Looking in the full-length mirror, she thought, I've got everything I had twenty years ago—it's all just three inches lower. One of the good things about Frank, at least in the early days, had been the pleasure he took in her body. “You've got great tits,” he would say. She thought they were too large for her frame, but he worshipped them. “I've never seen a pussy this color,” he once told her as he lay between her legs. “It's like a
ginger biscuit.” She wondered how long it would be before someone else marveled at the color of her pubic hair.

She dressed in tan jeans and a dark green sweater. As she was closing her suitcase, the phone rang. It was her sister. “Hi, Bella,” said Toni. “How's Mother?”

“She's not here.”

“What? You were supposed to pick her up at one o'clock!”

“I know, but Bernie had the car and I couldn't get away.”

“And you still haven't left?” Toni looked at her watch. It was half past five. She pictured Mother at the home, sitting in the lobby in her coat and hat, with her suitcase beside the chair, hour after hour, and she felt cross. “What are you thinking of?”

“The thing is, the weather's turned bad.”

“It's snowing all over Scotland, but not heavily.”

“Well, Bernie doesn't want me to drive sixty miles in the dark.”

“You wouldn't have had to drive in the dark if you'd picked her up when you promised!”

“Oh, dear, you're getting angry, I knew this would happen.”

“I'm not angry—” Toni paused. Her sister had caught her before with this trick. In a moment they would be talking about Toni managing her anger, instead of Bella breaking a promise. “Never mind how I feel,” Toni said. “What about Mother? Don't you think she must be disappointed?”

“Of course, but I can't help the weather.”

“What are you going to do?”

“There isn't anything I can do.”

“So you're going to leave her in the home over Christmas?”

“Unless you have her. You're only ten miles away.”

“Bella, I'm booked into a spa! Seven friends are expecting me to join them for five days. I've paid four hundred pounds deposit and I'm looking forward to a rest.”

“That sounds a bit selfish.”

“Just a minute. I've had Mother the last three Christmases, but I'm selfish?”

“You don't know how hard it is with three children and a husband too ill to work. You've got plenty of money and only yourself to worry about.”

And I'm not stupid enough to marry a layabout and have three children by him, Toni thought, but she did not say it. There was no point in arguing with Bella. Her way of life was its own punishment. “So you're asking me to cancel my holiday, drive to the home, pick up Mother, and look after her over Christmas.”

“It's up to you,” Bella said in a tone of elevated piety. “You must do what your conscience tells you.”

“Thanks for that helpful advice.” Toni's conscience said she should be with their mother, and Bella knew that. Toni could not let Mother spend Christmas in an institution, alone in her room, or eating tasteless turkey and lukewarm sprouts in the canteen, or receiving a cheap present in gaudy wrapping from the home's caretaker dressed as Santa Claus. Toni did not even need to think about it. “All right, I'll go and fetch her now.”

“I'm just sorry you couldn't do it more graciously,” said her sister.

“Oh, fuck off, Bella,” said Toni, and she hung up the phone.

Feeling depressed, she called the spa and canceled her reservation. Then she asked to speak to one of her party. After a delay, it was Charlie who came to the phone. He had a Lancashire accent. “Where are you?” he said. “We're all in the Jacuzzi—you're missing the fun!”

“I can't come,” she said miserably, and she explained.

Charlie was outraged. “It's not fair on you,” he said. “You need a break.”

“I know, but I can't bear to think of her on her own in that place when others are with their families.”

“Plus you've had a few problems at work today.”

“Yes. It's very sad, but I think Oxenford Medical has come through it all right—provided nothing else happens.”

“I saw you on the telly.”

“How did I look?”

“Gorgeous—but I fancied your boss.”

“Me, too, but he's got three grown-up children he doesn't want to upset, so I think he's a lost cause.”

“By heck, you have had a bad day.”

“I'm sorry to let you all down.”

“It won't be the same without you.”

“I'll have to hang up, Charlie—I'd better fetch Mother as soon as possible. Happy Christmas.” She cradled the handset and sat staring at the phone. “What a miserable life,” she said aloud. “What a miserable bloody life.”

CRAIG'S relationship with Sophie was advancing very slowly.

He had spent all afternoon with her. He had beaten her at table tennis and lost at pool. They had agreed about music—they both liked guitar bands better than drum-and-bass. They both read horror fiction, though she loved Stephen King and he preferred Anne Rice. He told her about his parents' marriage, which was stormy but passionate, and she told him about Ned and Jennifer's divorce, which was rancorous.

But she gave him no encouragement. She did not casually touch his arm, or look intently at his face when he talked to her, or bring into the conversation romantic topics such as dating and necking. Instead, she talked of a world that excluded him, a world of nightclubs—how did she get in, at fourteen?—and friends who took drugs and boys who had motorcycles.

As dinner approached, he began to feel desperate. He did not want to spend five days pursuing her for the sake of one kiss at the end. His idea was to win her over on the first day and spend the holiday
really
getting to know her. Clearly this was not her timetable. He needed a shortcut to her heart.

She seemed to consider him beneath her romantic notice. All this talk of older people implied that he was just a kid, even though he was older than Sophie by a year and seven months. He had to find some way to prove he was as mature and sophisticated as she.

Sophie would not be the first girl he had kissed. He had dated
Caroline Stratton from tenth grade at his school for six weeks, but although she was pretty he had been bored. Lindy Riley, the plump sister of a footballing friend, had been more exciting, and had let him do several things he had never done before, but then she had switched her affections to the keyboard player in a Glasgow rock band. And there were several other girls he had kissed once or twice.

But this felt different. After meeting Sophie at his mother's birthday party, he had thought about her every day for four months. He had downloaded one of the photographs his father had taken at the party, showing Craig gesturing with his hands and Sophie laughing. He used it as the screen saver on his computer. He still looked at other girls, but always comparing them with Sophie, thinking that by comparison this one was too pale, that one too fat, another simply plain-looking, and all of them tediously conventional. He did not mind that she was difficult—he was used to difficult women, his mother was one. There was just something about Sophie that stabbed him in the heart.

At six o'clock, slumped on the couch in the barn, he decided he had watched as much MTV as he needed for one day. “Want to go over to the house?” he asked her.

“What for?”

“They'll all be sitting around the kitchen table.”

“So?”

Well, Craig thought, it's sort of nice. The kitchen is warm, and you can smell dinner cooking, and my dad tells funny stories, and Aunt Miranda pours wine, and it just feels good. But he knew that would not impress Sophie, so he said, “There might be drinks.”

She stood up. “Good. I want a cocktail.”

Dream on, Craig thought. Grandpa was not going to serve hard liquor to a fourteen-year-old. If they were having champagne, she might get half a glass. But Craig did not disillusion her. They put on coats and went out.

It was now full dark, but the yard was brightly lit by lamps mounted on the walls of the surrounding buildings. Snow swirled thickly in the air, and the ground was slippery underfoot. They crossed to the main house and approached the back door. Just before they went in, Craig glanced
around the corner of the house and saw Grandpa's Ferrari, still parked at the front, the snow now two inches thick on the sweeping arc of its rear spoiler. Luke must have been too busy to put it away.

Craig said, “Last time I was here, Grandpa let me drive his car into the garage.”

“You can't drive,” Sophie said skeptically.

“I haven't got a license, but that doesn't mean I can't handle a car.” He was exaggerating. He had driven his father's Mercedes station wagon a couple of times, once on a beach and once on a disused airstrip, but never on a regular road.

“All right, then, park it now,” Sophie said.

Craig knew he should ask permission. But if he said so, it would sound as if he were trying to back out. Anyway, Grandpa might say no, then Craig would have lost the chance to prove his point to Sophie. So he said, “All right, then.”

The car was unlocked, and the key was in the ignition.

Sophie leaned against the wall of the house by the back door, arms folded, her stance saying,
Okay, show me.
Craig was not going to let her get away with that. “Why don't you come with me?” he said. “Or are you scared?”

They both got into the car.

It was not easy. The seats were low slung, almost on a level with the doorsills, and Craig had to put one leg in then slide his backside across the flat armrest. He slammed the door.

The gearshift was severely utilitarian, just an upright aluminum rod with a knob on the end. Craig checked that it was in neutral, then turned the ignition key. The car started with a roar like a 747.

Craig half hoped the noise would bring Luke running out of the house, arms raised in protest. However, the Ferrari was at the front door, and the family were in the kitchen, at the back of the house, overlooking the yard. The thunder of the car did not penetrate the thick stone walls of the old farmhouse.

The whole car seemed to tremble, as if in an earthquake, as the big
engine turned over with lazy potency. Craig's body felt the vibrations through the black leather seat. “This is cool!” Sophie said excitedly.

Craig switched on the headlights. Two cones of light reached out from the front of the car, stretching across the garden, filled with snowflakes. He rested his hand on the knob of the gearshift, touched the clutch pedal with his foot, then looked behind. The driveway went back in a straight line to the garage before turning to curve around the cliff top.

“Come on, then,” said Sophie. “Drive it.”

Craig put on a casual air to conceal his reluctance. “Relax,” he said. He released the hand brake. “Enjoy the ride.” He depressed the clutch, then moved the stick through the open-gate Ferrari gearshift into reverse. He touched the accelerator pedal as gently as he could. The engine snarled menacingly. He released the clutch a millimeter at a time. The car began to creep backwards.

He held the steering wheel lightly, not moving it to either side, and the car went in a straight line. With the clutch fully out, he touched the throttle again. The car shot backwards, passing the garage. Sophie let out a scream of fear. Craig transferred his foot from the accelerator to the brake. The car skidded on the snow but, to Craig's relief, it did not waver from its straight line. As it came to a halt he remembered, at the last minute, to engage the clutch and prevent a stall.

He felt pleased with himself. He had kept control, just. Better yet, Sophie had been scared, while he appeared calm. Maybe she would stop acting so superior.

The garage stood at a right angle to the house, and now its doors were ahead and to the left of the Ferrari. Kit's car, a black Peugeot coupe, was parked in front of the garage block at its far end. Craig found a remote control under the Ferrari's dashboard and clicked. The farthermost of three garage doors swung up and over.

The concrete apron in front of the garage was covered with a smooth layer of snow. There was a clump of bushes at the near corner of the building and a large tree on the far side of the apron. Craig simply had to avoid those and slot the car into its bay.

More confident now, he moved the gearshift into the notch for first gear, touched the accelerator, then released the clutch. The car moved forward. He turned the steering wheel, which was heavy at low speed, not being power-assisted. The car obediently turned left. He depressed the throttle another millimeter, and it picked up speed, just enough to feel exciting. He swung right, aiming for the open door, but he was going too fast. He touched the brake.

That was his mistake.

The car was moving quickly on snow with its front wheels turning right. As soon as the brakes bit, the rear wheels lost traction. Instead of continuing to turn right into the open garage door, the car slid sideways across the snow. Craig knew what was happening, but had no idea what to do about it. He spun the steering wheel farther to the right, but that made the skid worse, and the car drifted inexorably over the slippery surface, like a boat blown by a gale. Craig stamped on the brake and the clutch at the same time, but it made no difference.

The garage building slid away to the right of the windshield. Craig thought he would crash into Kit's Peugeot, but to his blissful relief the Ferrari missed the other car by several inches. Losing momentum, it slowed down. For a moment he thought he had got away with it. But, just before the car came to a complete stop, its front nearside wing touched the big tree.

“That was great!” Sophie said.

“No, it bloody was not.” Craig put the stick in neutral and released the clutch, then sprang out of the car. He walked around to the front. The impact had felt gentle but, to his dismay, he saw by the light of the lamps on the garage wall a large, unmistakable dimple in the gleaming blue wing. “Shit,” he said miserably.

Sophie got out and looked. “It's not a very big dent,” she said.

“Don't talk bollocks.” The size did not matter. The bodywork was damaged and Craig was responsible. He felt a sensation of nausea deep in his stomach. What a Christmas present for Grandpa.

“They might not notice it,” Sophie said.

“Of course they'll bloody notice it,” he said angrily. “Grandpa will see it as soon as he looks at the car.”

“Well, that might not be for a while. He's not likely to go out in this weather.”

“What difference does that make?” Craig said impatiently. He knew he was sounding petulant, but he hardly cared. “I'll have to own up.”

“Better if you're not here when the shit hits the fan.”

“I don't see—” He paused. He did see. If he confessed now, Christmas would be blighted. Mamma Marta would have said,
There will be a bordello,
by which she meant uproar. If he said nothing, but confessed later, perhaps there would be less fuss. Anyway, the prospect of postponing discovery for a few days was tempting.

“I'll have to put it in the garage,” he said, thinking aloud.

“Park it with the dented side right up against the wall,” Sophie suggested. “That way, it won't be noticed by anyone just walking past.”

Sophie's idea was beginning to make sense, Craig thought. There were two other cars in the garage: a massive Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon off-road car with four-wheel drive, which Grandpa used in weather like this; and Luke's old Ford Mondeo, in which he drove himself and Lori between this house and their cottage a mile away. Luke would certainly enter the garage this evening to get his car and drive home. If the weather got worse, he might borrow the big Land Cruiser and leave his Ford here. Either way, he had to enter the garage. But if the Ferrari were hard up against the wall, the dent would not be visible.

The engine was still running. Craig sat in the driver's seat. He engaged first gear and drove slowly forward. Sophie ran into the garage and stood in the car's headlights. As it entered the garage, she used her hands to show Craig how close he was to the wall.

On his first attempt he was no closer than eighteen inches from the wall. That was not good enough. He had to try again. He looked nervously in the rearview mirror, but no one else was around. He was grateful for the cold weather that kept everyone indoors in the warm.

On his third attempt he managed to position the car four or five
inches off the wall. He got out and looked. It was impossible to see the dent from any angle.

He closed the door, then he and Sophie headed for the kitchen. Craig felt jangled and guilty, but Sophie was in high spirits. “That was awesome,” she said.

Craig realized he had impressed her at last.