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loathing it made her realise just how disliked she actually was in her family. It was a real shock for her because she had been under the impression that she was better than them somehow, and she had believed that they had thought that too. She glanced at her husband, and saw the triumph in his eyes, even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, and she knew then that, if she wasn’t careful, she would be sidelined by this sister of hers.
    She
was the elder sister,
she
was the one who had dragged herself out of this dump, and
she
was the one who had bettered herself. And she would carry on bettering herself, because there was no way she would settle for anything less than the best.

‘Oh, for crying out loud, James, are you stupid or what?’
    Jimmy looked at his wife and wondered, not for the first time, how he had ended up tied to a woman who he had nothing at all in common with. In fact, he knew somewhere in his heart that she had nothing in common with anyone else in the world. She was a one-off, a complete enigma. No one liked her. Once that had saddened him, he had thought she was misunderstood and seen her as someone he could protect. Now, though, he knew that if anyone needed protecting it was him – him and his children. He had married a bully, an emotional bully, and he could no longer pretend otherwise. The last few months had shown him what his life was really like, and it wasn’t pretty. He had finally admitted to himself that he
had
no real life, nothing even remotely resembling one. All he had was Cynthia and her wants and her moods. She had taken away everything from him: his dignity, his self-respect, his children.
    He was also not blind to Cynthia’s reaction to her sister’s husband-to-be. Cynthia was almost ill with jealousy at Celeste’s obvious happiness and, even though he hated his wife at times, hated her for her coldness and her complete disregard for everyone around her, there was still a part of him that longed for her to love him. Look at him in the way she looked at Jonny Parker. But he knew it would never happen.
    They lived in this expensive mausoleum, and the saddest thing of all was that this house, which he had bought becauseshe had loved it so much, was now her prison. They couldn’t sell it, couldn’t make their money back – she had spent so much on it that to try and sell it now would mean they would be thousands of pounds out of pocket. The expensive kitchen, which he had known at the time was too good for a semi-detached house in Ilford, had been paid for with what amounted to a second mortgage. When you added in to all that the carpets, curtains, the fitted wardrobes, the bathroom with its cast iron bath, and the new central-heating system, they were up to their eyebrows in hock.
    ‘No, Cynthia, I ain’t stupid. I
was
stupid, though, when I let you borrow money like it was going out of fashion. But I wanted
you
to be happy, and
you
were only happy when you were spending money. Well, we can’t sell this drum and make a profit on it because the designer kitchen and bathroom that cost the national debt hasn’t actually put a fucking bean on this place! It’s still just a semi in Ilford, in Essex.
And
we still have to pay it all off. So, thanks to you, and your fucking wanting, we’ll still be here when we’re fucking seventy.’
    Cynthia looked at her husband, and she felt the hatred rising up inside her. She looked at his weak features, his pale eyes, nondescript brown hair and his doughy body. She’d thought him handsome once. Now all she saw was that he was useless, useless and weak. She felt like her life was over. She had tied herself to a man who would never ever be even remotely important to her, or anyone else for that matter. She had two children, children who had half of this man inside them, children who, if she wasn’t careful, would grow up to be as useless and nondescript as he was.
    ‘We’re insured, aren’t we? I made sure of that much. Use your