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comes easily, nothing is exciting any more, it’s just all about trying to keep my head above water – financially, emotionally, as a mother and as a wife. I didn’t know it would be this hard.
    She took a deep yoga breath and cleared her mind. A liberal spray of Bulgari momentarily cheered her. Distracting herself with a quick lippy fix and a few strokes of mascara, she then headed back to the welcome distraction of the bustling café.
    Her coffee, complete with fleur-de-lys swirled foam, enticed her as she checked the message on her mobile.
    The message was from her mother, Julia, via her preferred method of communication. A brief SMS was about as deep as Julia ever got. She was, after all, a very busy woman. Mim replied and a quick conversation ensued.
    How’s things?
    Gr8. U?
    Fab. Kids good?
    As always, Dad?
    At squash. Dinner?
    Love to. Will call.
    Must dash, meeting.
    No point worrying her mum about the tiff with James. Personal issues only made Julia feel uncomfortable, but Mim knew she could count on her if there was a real crisis.
    Julia Jones was a tough businesswoman who dealt better with facts than emotions – a lesson Mim had learned early in her childhood. Julia had efficiently produced the pidgeon pair: Mim’s brother Raymond and then, four years later, Mim. The junior school years had been a mild inconvenience until they were both tidily dispatched to boarding school.
    Mim constantly felt that she fell short of her mother’s expectations. Julia had been dux at school, whereas Mim, although she’d always worked very hard, had fallen just short of that honour. She remembered the first time she’d felt that she’d let her mother down. Mim had been very young, perhaps three or four, and had decided to surprise her mother by dressing herself. Her mother’s reaction had been extreme: ‘What AAAARE you wearing? For God’s sake, you look like a bag lady!’ and Julia had stripped her daughter off and laid coordinating pieces on the bed for Mim to right herself.
    Mim had been very careful to ask what exactly went with what from then on to avoid making such a dreadful mistake again.
    The instances continued. Julia never appeared thrilled or excited no matter how great Mim’s achievement. Once, when Mim excitedly brought home first prize in an art contest, Julia’s response was brief:
    ‘First? In the state?’ she’d enquired, looking up from her desk.
    ‘No,’ Mim had replied, ‘the district.’
    ‘Oh, the district.’ And Julia had turned back to the newspaper.
    Lost in her thoughts, Mim sipped her lukewarm latte, flicked through an Architectural Digest and glanced discreetly at her Omega as she waited at length for Ellie.
    Finally, Ellie breezed in, flicking her pashmina over her perennially tanned shoulders. Her mission in life was to find a pair of jeans small enough for her tiny size-six body, but long enough for her six-foot-one frame. It was, as she had sighed to Mim many times, ‘a hell I have to bear’.
    Ellie leaned over to envelop Mim in a cloud of air kisses and Chanel No. 5. A slave to fashion, she always looked as if she had just stepped out of Vogue . Today she was immaculate in flared-leg, faded denim Guess jeans, a white lycra capped-sleeve, Tommy Hilfiger tee over which she’d carelessly (well, painstakingly, actually) thrown a pink pashmina. Pastel pink strappy stilettos and frameless pink-tinted sunglasses completed the look.
    Ellie was never on time for anything, and considered tardiness her personal trademark. She thought it made her appear unpredictable and mysterious. But today after trying to look cool and content with her own company for twenty-five minutes, Mim was distinctly peeved.
    But, as usual, her best friend immediately unleashed anentertaining and highly caffeinated torrent of gossip and chatter that quickly washed away Mim’s annoyance.
    ‘I am soooo sorry, darling, I got caught up with that dreadful Jennifer Gowrie-Smith from tennis. I had to listen to her