Capital

wasn’t sure how to make money, exactly, but anyone with eyes could see that it was everywhere in London, in the cars, the clothes, the shops, the talk, the very air. People got it and spent it and thought about it and talked about it all the time. It was brash and horrible and vulgar, but also exciting and energetic and shameless and new and not like Kecskemét in Hungary which had seemed, as the place we grow up in always seems, timeless and static. On the other hand, none of the money sloshing around London belonged to her. Things were happening, but not to her. If the city was one huge shop window, she was outside on the pavement, looking in. Getting on for four years after moving to London, at the age of twenty-seven, she was still waiting for her life to begin.
    She was in a receptive mood when Roger and Arabella asked if she would go to the charity do. She might not have been as amenable if she’d known that Roger was worried about her being taken for an escort; but the idea of playing an international woman of mystery was one that she immediately understood. There was no time to get home and back and changed, and in any case Matya had nothing she could confidently wear to a ball-banquet. This sort of thing brought out the best in Arabella. Once Matya had picked up Conrad from his play date, Roger was banished downstairs to look after the children for an hour. Arabella lay on her pillows and gave orders and a running commentary as Matya tried on various of her outfits. Though Matya was an inch taller, with smaller boobs and a bigger bum, they had established in the past that some clothes fitted both of them. ‘It’s proof that there is a God,’ said Arabella. Now, as Matya tried on dresses, she lay propped up on the pillows and passed judgement.
    ‘Not that, darling. You’re going to have to wear something open-toed and with that it’ll just look weird. Try the Dries van Noten. The one with the print . . . Twirl . . . No, makes you look a bit hippy. Try the black one again . . . No, you need the push-up bra. Damn . . . OK, try the green one.’ And so on. Eventually they settled on a bias-cut emerald-coloured vintage dress Arabella had bought in Brighton, worn with a twenties necklace which had belonged to Roger’s mother. Arabella did something to her hair with pins, then stood back and said, ‘There.’ Matya checked herself in the full-length mirror. She looked, even to herself, like a movie star.
    Roger came galumphing up the stairs, knocked and called ‘Are you decent?’ and then crashed into the room. ‘Time to be – wow,’ he said.
    Then they were off in the taxi. For Matya, black cabs, which she could not afford, were part of the glamour and romance of London. She had thought her employer would be heavy going, on his own – she had hardly spent any time with Roger, since their intense first thirty-six hours or so back at Christmas – so his ease and nice manners and ability to talk about not very much came as a happy surprise.
    Heading into town, they were for the first part of the journey travelling against the flow of traffic. Matya realised that she didn’t know exactly where they were going, and didn’t care. Roger sprawled over the back seat of the cab like what he was, a man to whom a thirty-pound taxi fare was nothing. The day was fading so the headlights of cars and the interiors of buildings were beginning to shine more brightly; she felt both snug in the taxi, and a little bit on show. A cyclist at a traffic light, from the bag slung over his shoulder a messenger rider, gave her a long look. As well he might, thought Matya, as well he might . . .
    The do was at Fishmongers’ Hall. It was a spectacular old livery company building, high-ceilinged, deliberately imposing, with both the solidity of old London and the moneyed gloss of the new City. Outside was the sort of stone staircase up which visitors could sweep or trot or prance. There was a team of waiters holding flutes of champagne, and a reception line shaking hands, at which Matya momentarily panicked, but Roger, reading that, whispered, ‘Just say your name,’ which she did, and the man turned and announced:
    ‘Matya Balatu’
    at top volume, as if it were the name of a celebrity or aristocrat. And she went on Roger’s arm into the main ballroom, lit with huge chandeliers, and full of dressed-up City types. Matya could see that this was a routine thing for many of the people present, a charity do like all the