But Angelina’s need to keep up with the Joneses had become insatiable. David finally gave in on the car, buying her the four-wheel-drive she so desperately craved, and which she doted on like a second child. The pleasure it gave her driving each day into the school car park made David smile. He enjoyed making her happy, but the fact she was so obviously preoccupied with social status troubled him more and more.

David was a successful broker in the City, trading in foreign currency for a steady list of clients. He had a solid reputation as a safe pair of hands but wasn’t considered a high flyer. He didn’t take risks which could result in the kind of rewards that a small handful of City boys were famous for receiving, but he also avoided the equally publicised losses that came hand in hand with those risks. He was sensible with money, insisting they live on his salary, any bonuses being lodged safely in the bank for the future. Aware that his City career could not last forever, he was determined to make sure he had a comfortable amount of cash in reserve for any enforced early retirement.

Angelina had known the money was there, but she couldn’t understand why David refused to touch it.

‘Darling, we’re still young,’ she’d complained. ‘Surely this is the moment we should be shooting for the moon? Your career’s on the up and up; I can’t think why we have to keep saving for a rainy day that may never come. We don’t want to be seventy and sitting on a wad of cash! We’ll be too old to enjoy it. Think about it, we could have the house of our dreams!’

David remembered murmuring that he thought they already had the house of their dreams, but Angelina wouldn’t let up.

Eventually, against his better judgement, he’d given in and Angelina had immediately set off with a girlfriend to see a house on the edge of Foltesham. It was an impressive if unmodernised Georgian rectory set in five acres, far too big for a family of three, but as Angelina coyly said as she and David later wandered through the eight bedrooms, maybe that number was set to grow.

‘Darling’ – she had thrown her arms around his shoulders as they entered yet another bedroom with a sagging ceiling – ‘wouldn’t this make the most divine nursery?’

‘Angie, are you serious?’

She’d nodded, her eyes shining. ‘Absolutely. I think another child is just what we need to make this house feel like a home.’

That had been the clincher. David had always wanted a second child, but until now, Angie had been adamant that she couldn’t go through the horrors of pregnancy again.

‘Not to mention the havoc it played with my body,’ she’d said, one morning, smoothing her skirt over her hard-won, taut stomach. ‘It took me a year to get my figure back. Imagine how much longer it would take second time around!’