Just before that Sunday dinner, tidying the table, I picked up Cecilia’s phone and saw a message about Zach’s ‘rich new girlfriend’, from her mate, Portia – a girl who, despite the fancy name, had grown up in a sink estate near Westbourne Grove, now largely inhabited by media whores and those rich bohemian squatters who think they’re ‘radical’, until they reform to type: a Labrador, four kids in posh schools, at least one Volvo.

‘What’s that?’ I was immediately curious. ‘Has Zach got a girlfriend?’

‘No.’ Ceci grabbed the phone away, casting a quick look at her father, still immersed in the paper. ‘You shouldn’t read other people’s messages.’

‘You’re quite right, you shouldn’t.’ But smelling trouble was a sixth sense I’d honed as a small child. ‘You can tell me though, Ces!’

You could never be too careful when you weren’t sure where the next predator was coming from.

In the end, in exchange for the promise of a trip to H & M after school the next day, I got a garbled story after dinner about how Willow hadn’t wanted Cecilia to be her ‘buddy’ at school, to show her the ropes; how Willow had requested Zach and – worst of all – how Rex had allowed this to happen.

‘What does Zach think about all this?’ I asked.

Rex had gone outside to check his late chrysanthemums before it got dark. Flowers that I hated: cheap spiky globes that reminded me of recent limp apologies from the petrol station.

‘Dunno.’ Cecilia shrugged, looking desolate. ‘I haven’t talked to him about it.’

With a sinking heart, I ascertained they might have fallen out.

‘And is he still doing the buddy thing? With Willow.’

She hesitated.

‘Ces?’

‘No. She’s hanging out with some girls in 11F now.’

‘Who?’

‘Lola Vermaak, and her mates.’

‘I thought you and Lola were quite matey.’

‘She’s a retard,’ she snapped.

My heart sank further. I hadn’t talked to Lola’s mother Jan since the meeting at the vicarage, but I glimpsed her at the gym, sometimes with Lola: a girl with an eating disorder and an Insta following of 2,000 plus.

‘Oh well.’ I smiled at Ceci. ‘At least you might see more of Zach again now. Want me to paint your nails?’

‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m going to practise my magic.’ She trudged upstairs, where she stayed for the rest of the night.

You know, I could have told anyone who’d listen – without the use of Mystic Meg or my own Tarot cards – that Willow Jackson would quickly become a ‘thing’ at Northgate High, turning the heads of teenage boys. Though I gathered most of the mums, led by Jan Vermaak, agreed Willow was too aloof to be beautiful.

They were just jealous though, I reckoned. Nothing like a middle-aged woman losing her confidence to judge a younger female.

I should know.

And Willow’s indifference was easy enough to understand, in my opinion. Being uprooted into the nearest giant comprehensive after such a refined start to her education would never be easy, coming from a family like hers, but whether it would all be downhill from here remained to be seen.