Whiteout(34)

Stanley hung up and grinned at Toni. "We're in the clear." Exuberantly, he put his arms around her and hugged her.

She pressed her face into his shoulder. The tweed of his waistcoat was surprisingly soft. She breathed in the warm, faint smell of him, and realized it was a long time since she had been this close to a man. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back, feeling her breasts press against his chest.

She would have stayed like that forever, but after a few seconds he gently disengaged, looking bashful. As if to restore propriety, he shook her hand. "All credit to you," he said.

The brief moment of physical contact had aroused her. Oh, God, she thought, I'm wet, how could it happen so quickly?

He said, "Would you like to see the house?"

"I'd love to." Toni was pleased. A man rarely offered to show guests around the house. It was another kind of intimacy.

The two rooms she had already seen, kitchen and study, were at the hack, looking onto a yard surrounded by outbuildings. Stanley led Toni to the front of the house and into a dining room with a view of the sea. This part looked like a new extension to the old farmhouse. In a corner was a cabinet of silver cups. "Marta's tennis trophies," Stanley said proudly. "She had a backhand like a rocket launcher."

"How far did she get with her tennis?"

"She qualified for Wimbledon, but never competed because she got pregnant with Olga."

Across the hall, also overlooking the sea, was a drawing room with a Christmas tree. The gifts under the tree spilled across the floor. There was another picture of Marta, a full-length painting of her as a woman of forty. with a fuller figure and a softness around her jawline. It was a warm, pleasant room, but nobody was in it, and Toni guessed the real heart of the house was the kitchen.

The layout was simple: drawing room and dining room at the front, kitchen and study at the back. "There's not much to see upstairs," Stanley said, but he went up anyway, and Toni followed. Was she being shown around her future home? she asked herself. It was a stupid fantasy, and she pushed it aside quickly. He was just being nice.

But he had hugged her.

In the older part of the house, over the study and drawing room, were three small bedrooms and a bathroom. They still bore traces of the children who had grown up in them. There was a poster of the Clash on one wall, an old cricket bat with its grip unraveling in a corner, a complete set of The Chronicles of Narnia on a shelf.

In the new extension was a master bedroom suite with a dressing room and a bathroom. The king-size bed was made and the rooms were tidy. Toni felt both excited and uncomfortable to be in Stanley's bedroom. Yet another picture of Marta stood on the bedside table, this one a color photograph taken in her fifties. Her hair was a witchy gray and her face was thin, no doubt by reason of the cancer that had killed her. It was an unflattering photo. Toni thought how much Stanley must still love her, to cherish even this unhappy memento.

She did not know what to expect next. Would he make a move, with his wife watching from the bedside table and his children downstairs? She felt it was not his style. He might be thinking of it, but he would not jump a woman so suddenly. He would feel that etiquette demanded he woo her in the normal way. To hell with dinner and a movie, she wanted to say; just grab me, for God's sake. But she kept silent, and after showing her the marble bathroom, he led the way back downstairs.

The tour was a privilege, of course, and should have drawn her closer to Stanley; but in fact she felt excluded, as if she had looked in through a window at a family sitting at table, absorbed in one another and self-sufficient. She felt a sense of anticlimax.

In the hall, the big poodle nudged Stanley with her nose. "Nellie wants to go outside," he said. He looked out of the little window beside the door. "The snow has stopped—shall we get a breath of air?" Sure.

Toni put on her parka and Stanley picked up an old blue anorak. They stepped outside to find the world painted white. Toni's Porsche Boxster stood beside Stanley's Ferrari F50 and two other cars, each topped with snow, like iced cakes. The dog headed for the cliff, evidently taking a habitual route. Stanley and Toni followed. Toni realized that the dog bore a distinct resemblance to the late Marta, with her curly black hair.

Their feet displaced the powdery snow to reveal tough seaside grass beneath. They crossed a long lawn. A few stunted trees grew at angles, blown slantwise by the tireless wind. They met two of the children coming back from the cliff: the older boy with the attractive grin and the sulky girl with the pierced navel. Toni remembered their names: Craig and Sophie. When Stanley had introduced everyone, in the kitchen, she had memorized every detail eagerly. Craig was working hard to charm Sophie, Toni could see, but the girl walked along with her arms crossed, looking at the ground. Toni envied the simplicity of the choices they faced. They were young and single, at the beginning of adulthood, with nothing to do but embrace the adventure of life. She wanted to tell Sophie not to play hard to get. Take love while you can, she thought; it may not always come to you so easily.

"What are your Christmas plans?" Stanley asked.

"About as different from yours as could be. I'm going to a health spa with some friends, all singles or childless couples, for a grown-up Christmas. No turkey, no crackers, no stockings, no Santa. Just gentle pampering and adult conversation."

"It sounds wonderful. I thought you usually had your mother."