Capital

think it’s time to go and get my nails done,’ said Naima, ‘but I don’t want to move.’
    ‘Moving. Always bad,’ said Arabella.
    ‘Anyway,’ Naima went on, continuing what she had been saying before she lapsed into silence five minutes before, numbed by the heat, ‘I’ve stopped going to Selfridges. It’s just too overwhelming. The personal shoppers are great and I love the range of stock and they have such an eye for brands, when you see a new label there it’s always lovely, but after a couple of hours you’re exhausted , it’s like going round some colossal bazaar. The thing about Liberty’s is . . .’
    Arabella made noises to show that she was listening and in full agreement. Who would have thought that ‘Eric the barbarian’, who according to Roger was simply revolting on the subject of women and sex, would still have been married to his first wife, the cuddly little dumpling from wherever she was from (Arabella didn’t feel she yet knew her well enough to ask, and was also aware that Naima might have told her once already while she wasn’t paying attention). And for all her rabbiting on, you could tell she had very good taste; or the good taste to employ people who had very good taste, which was the same thing. Arabella recognised pieces of serious collectors’ modern furniture. The bathrooms and spa were stocked with expensive cosmetic products. Obviously it was a bit like a boutique hotel but so what? What was not to like about boutique hotels?
    It was particularly delicious to be lying in the wet, saturating heat when you knew it was so cold outside. Bitingly cold; country-air-in-winter cold. Arabella was especially sensitive to cold and found it difficult to relax entirely when she had to be on alert against a draught; but there was no risk of that here, the house was beautifully finished and insulated. She could properly relax and let herself be pampered. Conrad had been a little mutinous at the idea of the weekend in the company of other children he didn’t know, but he and Josh had taken one look at their play barn and instantly been in ecstasy. There was a little whiteboard on which they were allowed to write down what they wanted for their tea (subject of course to parental vetting). Conrad had taken the blue felt tip and in the most adorable way written ‘spegeti + chips’. Arabella had been at least as sceptical as the boys about coming here but she had to admit that Roger had been right that it would be good fun – ‘even if it’s awful in one way, it’ll still be fun’, he had said. Overall this had to be one of his better ideas in a long time. Not that that was high praise.
    Arabella was having moments of feeling, not exactly guilty about the nasty surprise she was planning – because Roger was still a lazy and clueless husband who had no idea what she did, no idea at all – but the faintest stirrings of preliminary unease. This was not to do with Roger, who deserved what he was going to get. Even lying in forty-plus-degree heat, her every pore open to the steam, massaged to the point where she was a giant floppy noodle, sitting on the comfortable seat with her new best friend Naima gossiping about which shops’ perfume counters employed off-duty whores, and bitching about Lothar’s too-skinny wife swimming round and round in the pool like a huge German goldfish of showing-offness – even there, she could feel a toothache-twinge of pure rage at Roger. She was at home all day, coping, stressed out, while he sat in his comfy office, and then when he came home he had the nerve to act like the tired one, like the big hero! And because the children were pleased to see him at weekends, which was based on little more than the fact that they never saw him at any other time, indeed saw as little of him as if he’d been a white-collar criminal in some prison that had a weekend-release scheme – because the children were happy to see the invisible man, he gave himself airs as if that meant he was Banking Father of the Year. While also complaining about how tired he was, of course.
    No, Roger would eat what he was given. He would start to appreciate her, or else. The issue causing Arabella some concern was more to do with the children, who might be upset. Who, let’s face it, would be upset. But if she spoke to them and explained that Mummy was having to go away for a day or two, ‘one or two sleeps’, but would be back very soon, and had left presents for them, and