Whiteout(44)

"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, f*ck 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."





6 PM

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 flrst 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.