Whiteout (17 page)

Kit froze, paralyzed with fear and terror, as if he were a child again. Stanley looked at the computer and the mobile phone and raised his eyebrows. Kit pulled himself together. He was no longer a kid frightened of a reprimand. Trying to make himself calm, he said into the phone, “Let me call you back in two minutes.” He touched the keyboard of his laptop, and the screen went dark.

“Working?” his father said.

“Something I have to finish.”

“At Christmas?”

“I said I would deliver this piece of software by December the twenty-fourth.”

“By now your customer will have gone home, like all sensible folk.”

“But his computer will show that I e-mailed the program to him before midnight on Christmas Eve, so he won't be able to say I was late.”

Stanley smiled and nodded. “Well, I'm glad you're being conscientious.” He stood silent for several seconds, obviously having something else to say. A typical scientist, he thought nothing of long pauses in conversation. The important thing was precision.

Kit waited, trying to hide his frantic impatience. Then his mobile rang.

“Shit,” he said. “Sorry,” he said to his father. He checked his screen. This was not a diverted Kremlin call, but one directly to his mobile from Hamish McKinnon, the security guard. He could not ignore it. He pressed the phone hard to his ear, so that the voice of the caller would not leak out to be heard by his father. “Yes?”

Hamish said excitedly, “All the phones here have gone kaput!”

“Okay, that's expected, it's part of the program.”

“You said to tell you if anything unusual—”

“Yes, and you were right to ring me, but I have to hang up now. Thank you.” He ended the call.

His father spoke. “Is our quarrel really behind us now?”

Kit resented this kind of talk. It suggested that the two disputants must be equally guilty. But he was desperate to get back on the phone, so he said, “I think so, yes.”

“I know you think you've been unjustly treated,” his father said, reading his mind. “I don't see your logic, but I accept that you believe it. And I, too, feel that I was unfairly done by. But we have to try to forget that, and be friends again.”

“So says Miranda.”

“And I'm just not sure you have put it behind you. I sense you holding something back.”

Kit tried to keep his face wooden so that his guilt would not show. “I'm doing my best,” he said. “It's not easy.”

Stanley seemed satisfied. “Well, I can't ask any more of you than that,” he said. He put his hand on Kit's shoulder, bent down, and kissed the top of his head. “I came to tell you supper's almost ready.”

“I'm nearly done. I'll come down in five minutes.”

“Good.” Stanley went out.

Kit slumped in his chair. He was shaking with a mixture of shame and relief. His father was shrewd, and suffered no illusions—yet Kit had survived the interrogation. But it had been ghastly while it lasted.

When his hands were steady enough, he dialed the Kremlin again.

The phone was picked up immediately. Steve Tremlett's voice said, “Oxenford Medical.”

“Hibernian Telecom here.” Kit remembered to change his voice. He had not known Tremlett well, and nine months had passed since he had left Oxenford Medical, so it was unlikely Steve would remember his voice; but he was not going to take the chance. “I can't access your central processing unit.”

“I'm not surprised. That line must be down also. You'll have to send someone.”

This was what Kit wanted, but he was careful not to sound eager. “It's going to be difficult to get a repair crew out to you at Christmas.”

“Don't give me that.” Steve's voice betrayed a touch of anger. “You guarantee to attend to any fault within four hours, every day of the year. That's the service we pay you for. It's now seven-fifty-five p.m., and I'm logging this call.”

“All right, keep your shirt on. I'll get a crew to you as soon as possible.”

“Give me a time estimate, please.”

“I'll do my best to get them to you by midnight.”

“Thank you, we'll be waiting.” Steve hung up.

Kit put down his mobile. He was perspiring. He wiped his face with his sleeve. So far, it had all gone perfectly.

STANLEY dropped his bombshell during dinner.

Miranda felt mellow. The
osso bucco
was hearty and satisfying, and her father had opened two bottles of Brunello di Montepulciano to go with it. Kit was restless, dashing upstairs every time his mobile rang, but everyone else was relaxed. The four kids ate quickly then retired to the barn to watch a DVD movie called
Scream 2,
leaving six adults around the table in the dining room: Miranda and Ned, Olga and Hugo, Daddy at the head and Kit at the foot. Lori served coffee while Luke loaded the dishwasher in the kitchen.

Then Stanley said, “How would you all feel if I started dating again?”

Everyone went quiet. Even Lori reacted: she stopped pouring coffee and stood still, staring at him in shock.

Miranda had guessed, but all the same it was disquieting to hear him come right out and say it. She said, “I suppose we're talking about Toni Gallo.”

He looked startled and said, “No.”

Olga said, “Oh, poo.”

Miranda did not believe him, either, but she refrained from contradicting him.

“Anyway, I'm not talking about anyone in particular, I'm discussing a general principle,” he went on. “Mamma Marta has been dead for a year
and a half, may she rest in peace. For almost four decades she was the only woman in my life. But I'm sixty, and I probably have another twenty or thirty years to live. I may not want to spend them alone.”

Lori shot him a hurt look. He was not alone, she wanted to say; he had her and Luke.

Olga said bad-temperedly, “So why consult us? You don't need our permission to sleep with your secretary or anyone else.”

“I'm not asking permission. I want to know how you would feel
if
it happened. And it won't be my secretary, by the way. Dorothy is very happily married.”

Miranda spoke, mainly to prevent Olga saying something harsh. “I think we'd find it hard, Daddy, to see you with another woman in this house. But we want you to be happy, and I believe we'd do our best to welcome someone you loved.”

He gave her a wry look. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but thank you for trying to be positive.”

Olga said, “You won't get that much from me. For God's sake, what are we supposed to say to you? Are you thinking of marrying this woman? Would you have more children?”

“I'm not thinking of marrying anyone,” he said tetchily. Olga was irritating him by refusing to argue on his terms. Mamma had always been able to get under his skin in exactly the same way. He added, “But I'm not ruling anything out.”

“It's outrageous.” Olga stormed. “When I was a child I hardly saw you. You were always at the lab. Mamma and I were at home with baby Mandy from seven-thirty in the morning until nine at night. We were a one-parent family, and it was all for your career, so that you could invent narrow-spectrum antibiotics and an ulcer drug and an anticholesterol pill, and become famous and rich. Well, I want a reward for my sacrifice.”

“You had a very expensive education,” Stanley said.

“It's not enough. I want my children to inherit the money you made, and I don't want them to share it with a litter of brats bred by some tart who knows nothing except how to take advantage of a widower.”

Miranda let out a cry of protest.

Hugo, embarrassed, said, “Don't beat about the bush, Olga dear, say what's on your mind.”

Stanley's expression darkened, and he said, “I wasn't planning to date
some tart.
”

Olga saw that she had gone too far. She said, “I didn't mean that last part.” For her, that amounted to an apology.

Kit said flippantly, “It won't be much different. Mamma was tall, athletic, nonintellectual, and Italian. Toni Gallo is tall, athletic, nonintellectual, and Spanish. I wonder if she cooks.”

“Don't be stupid,” Olga told him. “The difference is that for the last forty years Toni hasn't been part of this family, so she's not one of us, she's an outsider.”

Kit bridled. “Don't call me stupid, Olga. At least I can see what's under my nose.”

Miranda's heart missed a beat. What was he talking about?

The same question occurred to Olga. “What's under my nose that I can't see?”

Miranda glanced surreptitiously at Ned. She feared that later he might ask her what Kit meant. He often picked up on such things.

Kit backed off. “Oh, stop cross-examining me, you're a pain in the arse.”

“Aren't you concerned about your financial future?” Olga said to Kit. “Your inheritance is threatened as much as mine. Have you got so much money that you don't care?”

Kit laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, right.”

Miranda said to Olga, “Aren't you being a bit mercenary?”

“Well, Daddy did ask.”

Stanley said, “I thought you might feel badly about your mother's being replaced by someone new. It never occurred to me that your main concern would be my will.”

Miranda felt hurt for her father. But she was more worried about Kit and what he might say. As a child, he had never been good at keeping
secrets. She and Olga had been obliged to keep everything from him. If they trusted him with a confidence, he would blurt it out to Mamma in five minutes. Now he knew Miranda's darkest secret. He was no longer a child, but on the other hand he had never really grown up. This was dangerous. Her heart beat like a tom-tom. Perhaps if she took part in the conversation she had a chance of controlling it. She addressed Olga. “The important thing is to keep the family together. Whatever Daddy decides, we mustn't let it break us up.”

“Don't lecture me about the family,” Olga said angrily. “Talk to your brother.”

Kit said, “Get off my case!”

Stanley said, “I don't want to rake all that up again.”

Olga persisted. “But he's the one who has come closest to destroying the family.”

“Fuck you, Olga,” Kit said.

“Easy,” Stanley said firmly. “We can have a passionate discussion without descending to insults and obscenity.”

“Come on, Daddy,” Olga said. She was furious, because she had been called mercenary, and she needed to counterattack. “What could be more threatening to the family than one of us who steals from another?”

Kit was red with shame and fury. “I'll tell you,” he said.

Miranda knew what was coming. Terrified, she stretched out her arm toward Kit with her hand upright in a
Halt
sign. “Kit, calm down, please,” she said frantically.

He was not listening. “I'll tell you what could be more threatening to the family.”

Miranda shouted at him: “Just shut up!”

Stanley realized there was a subtext of which he was ignorant, and he frowned with puzzlement. “What are you two talking about?”

Kit said, “I'm talking about someone—”

Miranda stood up. “No!”

“—someone who sleeps—”

Miranda snatched up a glass of water and threw it in Kit's face.

There was a sudden hush.

Kit wiped his face with his napkin. With everyone watching him in shocked silence, he said, “. . . sleeps with her sister's husband.”

Olga was bewildered. “This makes no sense. I never slept with Jasper—or Ned.”

Miranda held her head in her hands.

“I didn't mean you,” Kit said.

Olga looked at Miranda. Miranda looked away.

Lori, still standing there with the coffeepot, gave a gasp of sudden, shocked comprehension.

Stanley said, “Good God! I never imagined that.”

Miranda looked at Ned. He was horrified. He said, “Did you?”

She did not reply.

Olga turned to Hugo. “You and my sister?”

He tried his bad-boy grin. Olga swung her arm and slapped his face. The blow had a solid sound, more like a punch. “Ow!” he cried, and rocked back in his chair.

Olga said, “You lousy, lying . . .” She searched for words. “You worm. You pig. You bloody bastard, you rotten sod.” She turned to Miranda. “And you!”

Miranda could not meet her eye. She looked down at the table. A small cup of coffee was in front of her. The cup was fine white china with a blue stripe, Mamma's favorite set.

“How could you?” Olga said to her. “How could you?”

Miranda would try to explain, one day; but anything she said now would sound like an excuse. So she just shook her head.

Olga stood up and walked out of the room.

Hugo looked sheepish. “I'd better . . .” He followed her.

Stanley suddenly realized that Lori was standing there listening to every word. Belatedly, he said, “Lori, you'd better help Luke in the kitchen.”

She started as if awakened. “Yes, Professor Oxenford.”

Stanley looked at Kit. “That was brutal.” Anger made his voice shake.

“Oh, that's right, blame me,” Kit said petulantly. “I didn't sleep with Hugo, did I?” He threw down his napkin and left.

Ned was mortified. “Um, excuse me,” he said, and he went out.

Only Miranda and her father were left in the room. Stanley got up and came to her side. He put his hand on her shoulder. “They'll all calm down about it, eventually,” he said. “This is bad, but it will pass.”

She turned to him and pressed her face into the soft tweed of his waistcoat. “Oh, Daddy, I'm sorry,” she said, and she began to cry.