‘You look relaxed. Switzerland must’ve been gorgeous,’ I say. ‘And the house looks stunning, so it was all worth it.’
‘Oh, but it’s a trial, isn’t it?’ says Tor, the thought of owning so much weighing heavily on her. ‘The builders finished the kitchen, which is a blessing, but they’re bringing in a hundred tonnes of concrete for the footings of the pool house on Monday. The neighbours are complaining, but we only want a tiny thing so I can have my daily dip. We’re not planning LA pool parties.’
‘Neighbours,’ I say. ‘You can’t live with them and you can’t bulldoze them.’
I spy Lawrence in his study, a toad-like Tory politician of the port-and-gout school. He’s wearing half-moon spectacles and hunched over some learned policy, no doubt condemning the poor to further penury for their own benefit.
‘So sorry to miss Nathan’s birthday,’ Tor says.
‘Not to worry, so did his father. How’s Cait getting on?’
‘She seems distraught. Aisha dropped her off this morning and explained the whole Owen situation. She also mentioned your marvellous cake!’
‘Well, it’s good of you to put her up. Her mum’s too far fromthe girls’ nursery, and I think Cait is safer here, away from Muswell Hill.’
‘How dangerous is Owen? I don’t want him coming here. I never liked him, even before I found out he was a wife-beater.’
‘You’ve always had such good instincts.’
‘Oh, and Aisha also told me that Sophie’s embarking on an affair. I think that’s bad form,’ says Tor.
‘I think it’s a double bluff,’ I say. ‘She adores Paolo. She just wants him to propose.’
‘Well, she should try drinking a little less. Anyway, come through.’
I follow the effortless linen-blend white trousers hanging from her tiny waist, as Tor wafts through her marble hallway and into the white kitchen. The ceiling is made almost entirely of glass held up by an ornate metal framework.
‘It’s like the Royal Opera House,’ I say, staring at the huge dome.
‘Funny you should say that,’ says Tor, picking a piece of celery from a bowl, turning it in her fingers then putting it back. ‘When Neil, the chief architect, was thinking of design cues, he took us to the Floral Hall. That’s the feel we wanted.’ She waves a hand in the air. ‘It’s criminally expensive, but this is where the memories happen.’
‘That’s certainly true for me.’ I think of Nathan spraying me with pureed carrot and Nelly smearing cat faeces on the floor.
‘And then, there’s this ridiculously large garden to manage!’ she says, gesturing beyond the wall of glass.
‘So difficult to know what to do with so much land,’ I say.
Tor narrows her eyes, then heads off to her extravagant coffee machine. We sip carbon-neutral coffee from an approved Rainforest Alliance producer as she narrates her problems with the nanny and housekeeper. Fortunately, there’s no need to listen as I can tell the general tone of dissatisfaction and distress from her arm gestures.
‘We’ve been looking at houses nearby,’ I say.
‘In Hampstead? Really?’ she says, her expression finely balancing mockery and surprise.
‘It’s my dream.’
‘It’s everyone’s dream, Lalla. But it’s not like Muswell Hill. There’s not something to fit every budget.’
‘We’ve found somewhere, actually. About to make an offer.’
‘I had no idea. Be a love and pass me the almond milk,’ she says as a means to move the conversation back to her. She is much nearer to the fridge than I am, so I give her a quizzical look. In response, Tor nods rather quickly to indicate that I need to follow her instruction.
I walk to her double-fronted fridge. It is covered in charts monitoring all kinds of activities, labelled with the kind of names only possible if you know your child will go to the most elite of schools: Ptolemy, Ulysses and Poseidon (shortened to Toli, Uli and Psi), and their daughter, Hero. Clearly not Christian in nature, but it does provide Tor with a daily opportunity to explain that she read Classics at Oxford and went back to do a summer school in art history. If you ask her where she went to university, she says, without hesitation, ‘Oxford, twice.’
‘Are these charts new?’ I ask.
‘No. I used to keep them in the snug because Law’s a bit prudish about bowel movements, but I no longer monitor that now they’re all older, so he’s happier.’
‘I didn’t know Psi played the harp,’ I say as I open the fridge, and find the almond milk.
