Whiteout - Ken Follett [31]
She turned into a street of old stone-built workers’ cottages and pulled up outside a larger house that might have been occupied by an overseer. Ned had lived here with Jennifer until they split up two years ago. Before that they had modernized the place at great expense, and the payments still burdened Ned. Every time Miranda drove past this street, she felt angry about the amount of money Ned was paying Jennifer.
Miranda engaged the hand brake, but left the engine running. She and Tom stayed in the car while Ned walked up the path to the house. Miranda never went inside. Although Ned had left the marital home before he met Miranda, Jennifer was as hostile as if Miranda had been responsible for the breakup. She avoided meeting her, spoke curtly to her on the phone, and—according to the indiscreet Sophie—referred to her as “that fat tart” when speaking to her women friends. Jennifer herself was as thin as a bird, with a nose like a beak.
The door was opened by Sophie, a fourteen-year-old in jeans and a skimpy sweater. Ned kissed her and went inside.
The car radio played one of Dvořák’s Hungarian dances. In the backseat, Tom’s Game Boy beeped irregularly. Snow blew around the car in flurries. Miranda turned the heater higher. Ned came out of the house, looking annoyed.
He came to Miranda’s window. “Jennifer’s out,” he said. “Sophie hasn’t even begun to get ready. Will you come in and help her pack?”
“Oh, Ned, I don’t think I should,” Miranda said unhappily. She felt uncomfortable about going inside when Jennifer was not there.
Ned looked panicked. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what a girl needs.”
Miranda could believe that. Ned found it a challenge to pack a case for himself. He had never done it while he was with Jennifer. When he and Miranda were about to take their first holiday together—a trip to the museums of Florence—she had refused, on principle, to do it for him, and he had been forced to learn. However, on subsequent trips—a weekend in London, four days in Vienna—she had checked his luggage, and each time found that he had forgotten something important. To pack for someone else was beyond him.
She sighed and killed the engine. “Tom, you’ll have to come, too.”
The house was attractively decorated, Miranda thought as she stepped into the hall. Jennifer had a good eye. She had combined plain rustic furniture with colorful fabrics in the way an overseer’s house-proud wife might have done a hundred years ago. There were Christmas cards on the mantelpiece, but no tree.
It seemed strange to think that Ned had lived here. He had come home every evening to this house, just as now he came home to Miranda’s flat. He had listened to the news on the radio, sat down to dinner, read Russian novels, brushed his teeth automatically, and gone unthinkingly to bed to hold a different woman in his arms.
Sophie was in the living room, lying on a couch in front of the television. She had a pierced navel with a cheap jewel in it. Miranda smelled cigarette smoke. Ned said, “Now, Sophie, Miranda’s going to help you get ready, okay, poppet?” There was a pleading note in his voice that made Miranda wince.
“I’m watching a film,” Sophie said sulkily.
Miranda knew that Sophie would respond to firmness, not supplication. She picked up the remote control and turned the television off. “Show me your bedroom, please, Sophie,” she said briskly.
Sophie looked rebellious.
“Hurry up, we’re short of time.”
Sophie stood up reluctantly and walked slowly from the room. Miranda followed her upstairs to a messy bedroom decorated with posters of boys with peculiar haircuts and ludicrously baggy