Tilly’s children now refuse to tell her when another one bites the dust. Recently, they joke, they have been able to see the whites of her eyes when they say that Ludo or Verity has been pulled out of school because his or her parents have been hit by VAT on school fees. When Tilly quizzes them about the parents’ finances, they roll their eyes and tell her to stop being so nosy. 

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Standing on the steps of the children’s smart prep schools in Kensington, Tilly partakes in the faux-martyrdom of the other mothers about how they all have to tighten their belts now that school fees have rocketed, but she knows they’re not really suffering: they’ve all just come back from Verbier and are about to load their offspring into sleek black Range Rovers. She thinks about what she can do next to save money; she recently cancelled Serena’s saxophone lessons and she had to blink away the tears when she told Rufus that he couldn’t go on the cricket tour to Antigua. He took it very well, poor........

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