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ultimatum. That would have been very unstylish.
    She realised the omens were good when he’d told her he’d booked a table at the Ivy. This was promising in view of his growing fondess for TV meals. It also reminded her that he was
someone who could get a same-day booking at the Ivy. Lydia had ordered champagne, as she always did, and when Rupert told the waiter to make it a bottle, she realised the deal was in the bag. He
usually preferred a Scotch before dinner.
    ‘I think I’ll have the lobster,’ Lydia had said.
    ‘Me too,’ Rupert had concurred, which Lydia had taken to mean – quite correctly – that she would soon be over the final hurdle.
    Jane really needed to get off the phone now, she was reading back over her last paragraph, making her corrections. ‘What was the other thing?’ she asked briskly. ‘You said you
were ringing about two things.’
    ‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ said Lydia. ‘Toni Vincent was there, do you remember her? Anyway, she’s now huge at Condé Nast, and she told me about a
school reunion on Sunday week, so I thought you and I should go along.’
    Jane sighed. It seemed Lydia was always trying to get her to do things she didn’t want to. ‘What for?’ she said, fiddling on her computer and changing the font size to make her
work look more substantial.
    ‘For laughs. Come on, Jane, let’s stand up and be counted as Essex girls. In an ironic spirit, though there’s no shame in it these days, look at Jamie Oliver.’
    ‘I’m going to have to let you go, Lydia,’ said Jane, ‘I really need to get on.’ ‘Course you do, I’ll see you next Sunday then.’
    ‘I’ll think about it.’
    ‘I’ll pick you up at five.’
    Lydia put her phone away and gazed out the window as the train sped past the suburban gardens backing onto the track, ugly patios with clothes hung out to dry on triangular washing lines. She
was glad she’d never have to live anywhere like that. Lydia Littlewood had homes in Chelsea and Gloucestershire. And the South of France, she musn’t forget that little bonus. Lydia
Littlewood Beauval-Tench divides her time between Chelsea, Gloucestershire and the South of France. Yes, that would do nicely for her bio at the front of the magazine; with three homes you
didn’t need to invent any wacky hobbies to make yourself sound interesting.
    It had been her idea to keep the engagement secret and to announce it at their Christmas drinks party, ft kept the excitement going for a while longer. She would tap on the side of her glass
with a silver spoon — very appropriate — and pray silence please, and Rupert would then say they had something else to celebrate this Christmas and would everyone please raise their
glasses to his bride-to-be.
    At this point Lydia would look at Jane to see her expression of surprise , mingled with a reassuring dose of envy.
    Because poor old Jane had fallen into the dreadful trap of ‘living together’. Lydia had seen so many of her friends taken in by that one. They didn’t realise it was
feminism’s BOG – Big Own Goal – saying you didn’t need to get married. Whereas from where Lydia was standing, marriage was always of financial benefit to a woman. Unless you
were very rich like Madonna, in which case you had a pre-nup. If you didn’t marry and made the fatal error of moving in together, that was it: you had played your trump card and completely
scuppered your chances of getting him up the aisle. Either he liked what he had, so saw no reason to change things, or he believed he could one day do slightly better, so might as well keep his
options open. Either way it was a no-win situation for the live-in girlfriend.
    Mindful of the need to avoid the BOG trap, Lydia’s tactics had been exemplary. Like Anne Boleyn and Catherine Zeta Jones — who had both held out for a ring on the finger — she
knew you needed to maintain a bit of distance to keep him interested. She always kept her own apartment, most