Whiteout

"Still, you managed perfectly well without a man for five years."

"I did, and I was proud of myself, especially when the economy turned down and they stopped paying me those big bonuses."

"So why do you want another man?"

"Well, you know…"

"Sex? Oh, please. Haven't you heard of vibrators?"

Miranda giggled. "It's not the same."

"Indeed it's not. A vibrator is bigger and harder and more reliable and, when you're done with it, you can put it back in the bedside table and forget about it."

Miranda began to feel attacked, as often happened when she talked to her sister. "Ned's very good with Tom," she said. Tom was her eleven-year-old son. "Jasper hardly ever spoke to Tom, except to give him orders. Ned takes an interest in him-asks him questions and listens to the answers."

"Speaking of stepchildren, how does Tom get along with Sophie?" Ned's daughter by his first marriage was fourteen.

"She's coming to Steepfall, too-I'm picking her up later this morning. Tom looks at Sophie the way the Greeks regarded the gods, as supernatural beings who are dangerous unless pacified by constant sacrifices. He's always trying to give her sweets. She'd rather have cigarettes. She's as thin as a stick and prepared to die to stay that way." Miranda looked pointedly at Olga's pack of Marlboro Lights.

"We all have our weaknesses," said Olga. "Have some more carrot cake."

Miranda put down her fork and took a sip of coffee. "Sophie can be difficult, but it's not her fault. Her mother resents me, and the child is bound to pick up that attitude."

"I bet Ned leaves you to deal with the problem."

"I don't mind."

"Now that he's living in your flat, does he pay you rent?"

"He can't afford it. That magazine pays peanuts. And he's still carrying the mortgage on the house his ex lives in. He's not comfortable about being financially dependent, believe you me."

"I can't think why he wouldn't be comfortable. He can have a bonk whenever he feels like it, he's got you to look after his difficult daughter, and he's living rent-free."

Miranda was hurt. "That's a bit harsh."

"You shouldn't have let him move in without committing to a date for the wedding."

The same thought had occurred to Miranda, but she was not going to admit it. "He just thinks everyone needs more time to get used to the idea of his remarriage."

"Who's 'everyone,' then?"

"Well, Sophie, for a start."

"And she reflects her mother's attitudes, you've already admitted. So what you're saying is that Ned won't marry you until his ex gives permission."

"Olga, please take off your advocate's wig when you're talking to me."

"Someone's got to tell you these things."

"You oversimplify everything. I know it's your job, but I'm your sister, not a hostile witness."

"I'm sorry I spoke."

"I'm glad you spoke, because this is just the kind of thing I don't want you to say to Ned. He's the man I love, and I want to marry him, so I'm asking you to be nice to him over Christmas."

"I'll do my best," Olga said lightly.

Miranda wanted her sister to understand how important this was. "I need him to feel that he and I can build a new family together, for ourselves and the two children. I'm asking you to help me convince him we can do that."

"All right. Okay."

"If this holiday goes well, I think he'll agree to a date for the wedding."

Olga touched Miranda's hand. "I get the message. I know how much it means to you. I'll be good."

Miranda had made her point. Satisfied, she turned her mind to another area of friction. "I hope things go all right between Daddy and Kit."

"So do I, but there's not much we can do about it."

"Kit called me a few days ago. For some reason, he's dead keen to sleep in the guest cottage at Steepfall."

Olga bridled. "Why should he have the cottage all to himself? That means you and Ned and Hugo and I will all have to squeeze into two poky bedrooms in the old house!"

Miranda had expected Olga to resist this. "I know it's unreasonable, but I said it was okay by me. It was difficult enough to persuade him to come-I didn't want to put an obstacle in the way."

"He's a selfish little bastard. What reason did he give you?"

"I didn't question him."

"Well, I will." Olga took her mobile phone from her briefcase and pressed a number.

"Don't make an issue of this," Miranda pleaded.

"I just want to ask him the question." Speaking into the phone, she said: "Kit-what's this about you sleeping in the cottage? Don't you think it's a bit-" She paused. "Oh. Why not?… I see… but why don't you-" She stopped abruptly, as if he had hung up on her.

Miranda thought, sadly, that she knew what Kit had said. "What is it?"

Olga put the phone back into her bag. "We don't need to argue about the cottage. He's changed his mind. He's not coming to Steepfall after all."

9 AM

OXENFORD MEDICAL was under siege. Reporters, photographers, and television crews massed outside the entrance gates, harassing employees as they arrived for work, crowding around their cars and bicycles, shoving cameras and microphones in their faces, shouting questions. The security guards were trying desperately to separate the media people from the normal traffic, to prevent accidents, but were getting no cooperation from the journalists. To make matters worse, a group of animal-rights protesters had seized the opportunity for some publicity, and were holding a demonstration at the gates, waving ba

She was in Stanley Oxenford's office, a large corner room that had been the master bedroom of the house. Stanley worked with the old and the new mingled around him: his computer workstation stood on a scratched wooden table he had had for thirty years, and on a side table was an optical microscope from the sixties that he still liked to use from time to time. The microscope was now surrounded by Christmas cards, one of them from Toni. On the wall, a Victorian engraving of the periodic table of the elements hung beside a photograph of a striking black-haired girl in a wedding dress-his late wife, Marta.

Stanley mentioned his wife often. "As cold as a church, Marta used to say… When Marta was alive we went to Italy every other year…Marta loved irises." But he had spoken of his feelings about her only once. Toni had said how beautiful Marta looked in the photograph. "The pain fades, but it doesn't go away," Stanley said. "I believe I'll grieve for her every day for the rest of my life." It had made Toni wonder whether anyone would ever love her the way Stanley had loved Marta.

Now Stanley stood beside Toni at the window, their shoulders not quite touching. They watched with dismay as more Volvos and Subarus parked on the grass verge, and the crowd became noisier and more aggressive.

"I'm so sorry about this," Toni said miserably.

"Not your fault."

"I know you said no more self-pity, but I let a rabbit get through my security cordon, then my bastard ex-partner leaked the story to Carl Osborne, the television reporter."

"I gather you don't get on with your ex."

She had never talked candidly to Stanley about this, but Frank had now intruded into her working life, and she welcomed the chance to explain. "I honestly don't know why Frank hates me. I never rejected him. He left me-and he did it at a moment when I really needed help and support. You'd think he'd punished me enough for whatever I did wrong. But now this."

"I can understand it. You're a standing reproach to him. Every time he sees you, he's reminded of how weak and cowardly he was when you needed him."

Toni had never thought about Frank in quite that way, and now his behavior made a kind of sense. She felt a warm surge of gratitude. Careful not to show too much emotion, she said, "That's perceptive."