Things had been so different in England during their time at the business school. They had lived separately, allowing Lady Zhao to come and leave at will (she had quickly given up on manipulating him away from his zone of least effort that was his own flat). When he irritated her, she walked out the door. Now that he was sleeping on her sofa, she felt like her only escape was banishing herself outside, even after long days at work, to somewhere she couldn't relax.
Ander seemed also financially better-off in those days. He was hardly rich then, but there seemed to have been, during the period they had spent apart, an order of magnitude downgrade of his credit and willingness to spend. On the occasions they had gone out during the King Endowment era, he had at least tried to disguise his parsimoniousness as economic rationality. She could remember clearly a time when he had erred about buying individual soda drinks, suggesting they pool their resources and get a bigger, better value bottle to share. Lower price for more product, he had said. How the few interim years had worsened him. Now Ander seemed happy to simply say everything was too expensive. He simply avoided drinking anything (or paying for drinks, at least) on outings.
Lady Zhao wandered if his access to money had changed. His family home was a large one, located in one of the worst-value-for-money areas in the world, no less; Lady Zhao had seen pictures of it, and it had a lovely cacti garden and pueblo style walls. He always seemed to have a later generation of chip in his phone than she did. And Ander's mother worked full-time, more than full-time, apparently â at what exactly Ander had never been explicit about â but it vaguely sounded rewarding. Had the little discussed Ms. Lo cut him off? Had she maybe lost her job, and had Ander not told Lady Zhao about it? Had she spent or lost their family's wealth somehow?