Not that much work got done on 21 December at Pinker Lloyd, as the compensation committee broke its news. Every now and then he would peek through the window and survey the scene in the trading room. The noise was about a quarter of its usual level. People were just sitting there. One or two of them had their heads in their hands. Some others were just standing around in a demoralised little group. They looked like refugees or something. Sad, so sad. It was like… Roger stretched to find some metaphor for the scale of the grief, the comprehensiveness of the disaster. Being in some shithole in Iraq or somewhere, where some Yank pilot has dropped a bomb on you by mistake. Everybody’s blown into pieces, bits everywhere, limbs, blood, everything. And it’s not your fault. That was the key thing – not your fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. But they went and dropped the bomb anyway. Those bloody Yanks…
Anyway: Friday had been too soon, and there hadn’t really been an opportunity over the weekend. It was the sort of news you had to steel yourself to break, you had to create a pause around the moment, and there hadn’t been an opportunity. Arabella had been out on Saturday, and he’d had a lie-in and then pottered about while the weekend nanny took Joshua and Conrad, then he’d gone to the gym in the afternoon and they’d had a takeaway after the kids were in bed, but things had by then felt too chilled out to spoil the mood, and then on Sunday they had a brunch date at the country club, and it had slid into the afternoon, and Roger had first been buzzed from a couple or even three Bloody Marys and then had been coming down from the buzz, and the day had somehow gone, and now it was Monday, Christmas Eve, and there was no way this could possibly be the right time, could it? To tell your wife you’d underperformed your own expectations – which Roger had mentioned to Arabella, one night a couple of months ago, a mistake he couldn’t resist making to see the glint come into her eye, at some point when his marital stock had otherwise been rather low – but to tell your wife you’d underperformed by a cool £970,000, that wasn’t the sort of gift you gave on Christmas Eve. Roger wasn’t a monster.
What with all the whatever, he’d barely had time to think about its being Christmas. At least he had sorted out Arabella’s present, some fancy sofa she’d had her eye on, which would be (this was the punchline) delivered on Christmas Day itself. The people at the furniture company, the delivery people anyway, worked on Christmas so you could have your present right there when you wanted it with none of that rubbish about waiting two weeks for the delivery. Fair enough, if you were spending ten grand on a sofa you could at least get the arsing thing delivered when you actually wanted it even if it was Christmas.
The thing was, to let Christmas be Christmas. Not to turn it into something out of a depressing film, It’s a Wonderful Life without the happy ending. It’s a Shit Life and We’re Suddenly Poor. No. Don’t tell her on Boxing Day, obviously. The plan was to go down to Minchinhampton on the 27th and stay into the new year, have a few chums down for a party and sleepover on New Year’s Eve. That might be the time to do it, in Wiltshire. Have a bit more perspective out of London. Arabella would be knackered from looking after the children – she’d already warned him that it would be ‘just the two of them’ doing childcare over the holiday – which would mean she would be grumpy but on the other hand she’d also be busy with the boys and that would keep her distracted. OK, that was the plan. Tell her on the 27th, in the country. Maybe go for a walk and tell her. He’d be carrying Joshua in a papoose on his back, which would make it hard for her to yell at him. As always when he’d made a plan, Roger felt better.
He trotted up the stairs at the Tube station and came out into the dark of Christmas Eve. The high street was mayhem: half the people there doing last-minute Christmas shopping, the other half determined to start the first evening of the holiday pissed. The bars were heaving. Roger dodged drunks and shoppers. Church bells were ringing: for a moment Roger thought about rounding everybody up and dragging them to the service of lessons and carols. But that wasn’t really them, was it? Plus Josh would already be in bed. No: shower, change, glass of champagne. They might even have sex. When it was a holiday Arabella sometimes let him.
Roger was home. The front door bumped against Pilar’s bag – that’s right, she was off to whichever Latin country it was she was from, Colombia or something. At the other end of the open-plan ground floor the television was showing one of Conrad’s Japanese-looking cartoon series. He would be sitting in front of the screen with his thumb in his mouth.
Pilar materialised by the door. She seemed in something of a rush.
‘Mr Yount, thank you, I go now,’ she said. ‘Josh he upstairs. Already in bed.’
‘Great, fabulous, thank you so much.’
‘Happy Christmas,’ said Pilar. ‘Goodbye!’ And she was gone. That was, as Roger’s conversations with her went, on the long side: weeks went by without his seeing Pilar at all. Roger went through into the sitting room. Sure enough, Conrad was sucking his thumb and watching people fighting on rocket-power sky-cycles. Arabella wasn’t with him so she must be upstairs, perhaps settling Josh or on the phone making plans for New Year’s.
‘Daddy’s just going to have a quick shower,’ said Roger. His son made no sign of having heard him. From the noise and the general sense of dramatic urgency, Roger gathered that it was a crucial moment in the story. He went upstairs, undressed, ran the shower until it was hot and the room was half-full of steam, and then got in. He felt his muscles unknot and some of the horror of the bonus question melt away. It was Christmas: family time: quality time: the thing was to enjoy it. Yes. Roger always felt better when he was completely clean so he shampooed his hair and shaved, both for the second time that day, then dressed in his non-going-out slouchy trousers and went downstairs. Conrad was now watching a different but extremely similar mock-Japanese cartoon. Time for a glass of Bollinger.
There was an envelope on the table in Arabella’s large looping very feminine handwriting. Roger picked it up.
Dear Roger,
You stupid spoilt selfish shit, I have gone away for a few days. So that you get a glimpse of what it is like to be me, you spoilt lazy arrogant stuck-up typical male bastard. You have no idea at all what it’s like to look after the children, and you have no idea at all what the last couple of years have been like, so this is now your chance to try it and see. Pilar has gone and the nanny agencies will be shut for the next few days at least. Congratulations, you are looking after your two boys on your own. As for where I’ve gone that’s none of your fucking business but I will be back and when I am I’ll expect to see some changes in your attitude and in what you actually do. None of that coming home from work acting like you’re the one who has a difficult time of it. Welcome to my life, and if I ever get so much as a glimpse of competitive tiredness from you ever again I’ll be leaving permanently – or rather you will and I leave you to guess who will get the house and the children.
Fuck off,
Arabella
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