With a flurry of activity and a hunt for sun hats and sandals, Angie grabbed Freddy by the hand and followed the rest of the family out of the house, locking their new front door behind her and making her way down the road, under the relentless gaze of the midday sun.

Sophie was doing the ironing when she heard sounds coming from the street outside. She glanced out of the window and saw the new neighbours walking past. The younger two children were holding their mother’s hands while the older girl was a short distance ahead, her headphones clamped over her ears. The older boy was in front, chatting to his dad. Crikey, there were a lot of kids. How anyone managed to raise four children and have a high-powered career was beyond her. As she watched them disappear, Sophie reflected on their meeting earlier that day.

Angie had seemed nice enough. She hadn’t been up for much of a chat but then she had a lot of unpacking to do, so Sophie could hardly blame her. There was something about her though, something that Sophie couldn’t quite put her finger on. She had come across as a bit reserved, not frosty but lukewarm perhaps. She was absolutely beautiful, though. How did she find the time to look like that with four kids and a job? And her husband looked like a cardboard cut-out of the perfect man.

The whole encounter had made Sophie feel a little intimidated and she had been struggling to shake off the feeling ever since she got home. She should make more of an effort to do some exercise, she thought to herself now, and stop stealing chocolate from the kids’ treat jar. And from Monday, she was definitely going to get back to work. Although the children would be breaking up for the summer holidays in less than two weeks, so perhaps she should wait until September now. Yes, she felt better already.

Sophie still told anyone who asked that she was a writer, but the truth was that she hadn’t had any work in months. When she first started out on her own, she pitched story ideas all the time and, because she knew lots of people in the industry, she quickly gathered a regular list of clients. This is easy, she thought. Why didn’t I do this sooner? In her first year she had made good money and she’d been so proud of herself.

But then the economy had dipped into a recession and the newspaper and magazine industry, already in a downhill spiral, had started making even more journalists redundant and slashing its budgets for freelancers. It got harder and harder to get jobs and the ones she did get paid a lot less, sometimes half what she’d earned before. At the same time Alan’s business was struggling as well because no one wanted loft conversions when they were worried about losing their own jobs, and he’d had to make some cuts.