Free How It All Began by Penelope Lively Page B

liked. She would use her own subcontractors for the various installations. It only remained for George to decide on what style he felt would most appeal to some American fund manager or German diplomat. The final sum for the spend would be agreed when George had made his decision. Marion’s own commission would nicely stem her looming cash-flow problem; she reflected on this with satisfaction as she washed her hands in the restaurant’s luxuriant Ladies, which had some choice effects, she noted—neat, those light fittings, where do they come from? She was unable to enter a room without assessing it and was tiresomely aware of this.
    When she rejoined George he was busy once more on his mobile but quickly put it away: “I can’t wait to see what you do with the flat. I don’t think minimalist, for Hampstead, do you? Countrified but smart, maybe? Anyway, we can discuss and then I shall leave it to you. I’m off to my place in Greece for a week but after that let’s talk.”
    They parted outside the restaurant. Marion saw him flag down ataxi. She walked to the bus stop, thinking about money. She was parsimonious about taxis these days, and about other things, indeed. No holiday this year; no new clothes except essentials. But money is such an elusive concept. It serves up something concrete—the taxi, the cashmere sweater, the week in Corfu—but is also an absence, vanished behind the figures on a screen, the columns on a page, the immense piles and pages of figures that have announced a global crisis and ravaged millions of lives. George Harrington comes from the world of figures; he presumably thinks differently about money. It is not, for him, the taxi or the new pair of shoes, though it has presumably provided these, along with the place in Greece and the flat in Hampstead and the Clerkenwell studio apartment and the penthouse by the Thames—the property portfolio that is his hobby, it seems, and that he sees as a foray into creativity. It has delivered all this, but serious money, for him, is that evanescent stuff at which he stares on his screen, and to which he responds in a way that is quite mysterious to Marion. She understands figures—oh yes, quite well enough to run a small business without, so far, going bust, but she realizes that this is a far cry from the relationship that George Harrington has, and others like him. She has a vague idea of what is being done—money is being moved around, all the time, second by second, great invisible intangible mountains of the stuff, and these strange notional movements drive the world’s economies and, when they go awry, can rock individual lives.
    She took the bus back, spending a notional amount from her Oyster card, stopped off at the corner shop, where she handed over real cash, and arrived home. No prospective clients had phoned or e-mailed. The woman for whom she was currently doing a small job had left a message disliking all the curtain samples that Marion had provided. Marion thought with relish of George Harrington, who would presumably give her a brief and leave her to it. Women clients were always the worst; sometimes she thought she hated women.
    There was also a message from Jeremy, a touch reproachful, saying hadn’t she had his text, or was her mobile on the blink? She had indeed had his text, on the bus, and had not replied. He wanted to come around this evening; Marion had been planning soup and a salad in front ofthe telly. If Jeremy came she would feel she had to cook a proper meal, and the evening of privacy and relaxation would be gone.
    When you prefer soup and the telly to a few hours with your lover there is something not quite right. Marion confronted this truth, while wondering what to say to Jeremy. Yes, so far as she was concerned the affair had lost its panache. She still liked him, still enjoyed his company, sex was indeed most welcome; but an element of take it or leave it had crept in. She was growing more than a little tired of