He took a large bite of his bacon sandwich, chewed and swallowed. 'Even girls who look that good can do your head in after a while.'

'Yet another of Gavin's obsessions bites the dust.' Louise grinned.

'Why was the pretty girl so cross, Auntie Julie?' Jess asked me.

'Because Uncle Gavin lied to her. And men who lie are very, very naughty.'

After lunch, during which Jack didn't open his mouth and ate even less than I did, Louise and Dad took him aside to discuss his financial and legal affairs. Clara was having a nap. Gavin was playing with Jess in the garden. Sophie was curled up on the couch and Mum and I were clearing up.

My phone rang: Harry. I stepped into the hall.

'Hi, Julie, are you coming back soon?'

'No.'

'Oh. I thought you might be finishing up.'

'Well, I'm not.'

'Jesus, Julie, can you please stop snapping at me? I've apologized ten million times about forgetting your birthday. Can we not move on now?'

I still hadn't confronted Harry. I'd thought about doing it a million times, but I couldn't. I was terrified of saying it to him and him telling me that he was leaving because he was in love with a slim, sexy French girl. Once we'd had the conversation it would be over. I'd be on my own. Broke and alone at forty, with four kids. I was petrified of facing reality. I convinced myself that I was putting it off so I could gather more evidence before confronting him, but what more did I need? He was grumpy, distracted, forgetful, absent ... He didn't love me any more and I didn't have the courage to face it. So instead I was being horrible to him, pushing him even further away.

'I'm busy looking after my sister right now. She's homeless and she needs me. I'll be home when I'm ready.' I hung up.

'You don't need to stay, Julie,' Sophie called out to me. 'Honestly, you've been brilliant, but go home to the boys.'

'No. Harry can look after them for once.' I went in and sat down beside my emaciated sister. 'So, how bad is it?' I asked her.

'On a scale of one to ten? Fifty.'

'Had you no idea?'

'None. Even when my credit card got refused in Harvey Nicks I just thought it was a bank error. It never crossed my mind.'

'Can you get any of it back?'

Sophie bit a nail. 'According to Jack, no. He says he's going to try to get another job, but who'll hire him?'

'All those traders and hedge-fund guys seem to make and lose millions all the time. They always seem to bounce back. He did well for a long time, so I'm sure he's good at what he does.'

'That's what he keeps saying, that it was just one bad decision.'

I looked down at my hands. I knew all about bad decisions. Harry had made a huge one. I tried to concentrate on Sophie: it was better for me to be distracted from worrying about Harry's affair. 'Unfortunately for Jack and you, it was a big one.'

'Monumental,' Sophie said. 'You know, Julie, I actually kind of hate him right now. I know it's not really his fault and I know he gave me an amazing life for years, but every time I look at him, all I can think of is Jess having to leave the school she loves, give up all the activities she loves, her bedroom, our home. Everything is gone. We're homeless nobodies. What will become of us? Who am I now?'

I pushed her hair out of her face. 'Come on, Sophie, you're still you.'

'No, I'm not. Me is Mrs Jack Wells, a woman who has a fabulous jet-set lifestyle. Now that's all been stripped away, who am I really?' Tears ran down her cheeks.

'You listen to me, young lady.' Mum rushed into the room and crouched down in front of Sophie. She took my sister's raw, bitten hands in hers. 'You are Sophie Devlin, youngest daughter of Anne and George Devlin, a beautiful, kind and generous person. A wonderful mother to Jessica. A sister. A daughter. A friend. A modern woman, who will find that, at this very difficult time, she has a lot more courage than she believes. I want you to hold your head up high, Sophie. You have done nothing wrong, you've just fallen on hard times. This will pass. You'll find your feet again. The most important thing is that you don't let yourself get depressed. You must stay strong for Jessica and Jack. They need you right now.'

'What about me?' Sophie began to cry.

'You've got us,' Mum said, and hugged her.

I handed my sister a tissue.

She wiped her face. 'Thanks, Julie. God, I wish I was you.'

I stared at her. 'Why in God's name would you want to be me?'

'You've always been so content and happy with your life, never looking for more, never dissatisfied, never insecure about who you are. Your life is steady. It's not up and down like a bloody roller-coaster. No huge highs and terrible lows. Harry's so safe. He has a steady job with a monthly salary. He doesn't gamble for a living. You won't come home one day and find out that your entire life has been turned upside-down.'

I was unable to speak. If only she knew ...

32.

Louise.

Jack's situation was disastrous. Dad and I talked to him for three hours and looked through his contracts and finance agreements. I called a lawyer I knew in a top New York firm and she said there was carnage on Wall Street due to the Hartley Ponzi scheme. She said it hadn't hit the media yet, but it would all come out over the next few weeks and that really big names had been duped. She told me to forget about getting the money back: Terence Hartley had nothing; suing him was a waste of time.

The rest of Jack's savings had been invested in bank shares, which were now worth nothing. His pension was lock-tight, so he couldn't get any money out until he was fifty-five.

'It's not looking too good,' Dad said, blunt as always.

'Not right now, but I'll get back on my feet. I'll find a new job. I'll fix this,' Jack assured him.

'With this Ponzi fiasco reaching far and wide, there are going to be a lot of out-of-work hedge-fund managers looking for jobs. It could take a while,' I said, wanting him to be realistic.

'I'll find one,' he insisted.

'Well, in the meantime, you can't stay here indefinitely,' I said. 'I have an apartment in town. It's rented at the moment, but I only have to give the tenants two weeks' notice. I'll call them today. You can move in as soon as they're gone. It's nothing fancy, just a regular two-bedroom flat, but it's yours for as long as you need it, rent-free.'

Jack looked relieved. 'Thanks, Louise. That's very generous of you. I'll pay you as soon as I get back on my feet. I wouldn't dream of sponging off you.'

'It's not charity, Jack, it's just family helping each other out. You and Sophie would do the same for me.' And I meant it. They had always been really generous with their money. In recent years they had gone over the top with the gifts they had bought, but it was a nice quality.

'Well, it's really decent of you.' Jack stood up and paced the room nervously. 'Look, I know you both think I messed up. One minute I'm driving an Aston Martin, buying extravagant Christmas presents, the next my family's homeless. The Hartley deal brought in seven per cent returns for two years. Everyone on Wall Street was bailing in. I just can't believe it turned out to be such a disaster.'

'Lookit, Jack, I ran my own business for forty years,' Dad said. 'I survived through two recessions. Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you handle them, how you learn from them and how you move on from them that's important. Mistakes are part of life. You'll survive this.'

'George, that means a lot to me. I feel I've let you down badly. I promised to look after your daughter and now she's back living in your house. I got too cocky and too greedy. I won't make that mistake again, I can promise you.'

'I know some traders and fund managers in London,' I told him. 'Email me your CV and I'll pass it around you never know who might be looking to hire someone.'

'Thanks again, Louise. That would be great.'

'In the meantime, here's a few quid to tide you over.' Dad handed Jack a bulging envelope.

Jack blushed. 'I can't take it.'

'Jack, this is so you can take your family to the cinema and dinner and for petrol and whatever else you need. You can't be staying in every night while you're here.'

'I'll pay you back as soon as I'm working.'

'I know you will.' Dad patted his son-in-law's arm.

When Jack went to take a call, Dad sighed. 'What a mess.'

'Total disaster,' I agreed. 'But I see these guys in the City all the time. They make millions and then they lose millions, but if they're any good they never seem to be out of work. They just bounce around from firm to firm and fund to fund. Jack made a lot of money for years. He's only had one bad investment so he should be OK. He'll find something.'

'I hope you're right. I don't fancy having him living here long term. Thank God you offered him the apartment. I know he means well, but he'd drive me mad. I'll pay you for the rent.'

'Don't be silly. It's fine. I'll cover them for six months and then see where they are.'

'Can you afford that now you have a baby to look after?'

I smiled up at him. 'It's fine, Dad. Thankfully, I spread my investments wide like you always told me to.'

'I'm glad you listened to some of my advice at least. If only Sophie had been as sensible with the money I gave her. It's all gone now. Every penny.'

'Well, Julie's and Gavin's is safe and doing well.'

'How did you get to be so smart?' Dad asked fondly.

'Good DNA.' I winked at him.

When Jack came back, Dad left us alone. Jack sat down and fidgeted in the chair. 'I'll bounce back from this, you know.'

'I'm sure you will. You've been successful before. There's no reason you won't be again.'

'I'll make it all back, every penny.'

'Well, just be a bit more cautious the next time a deal comes up that seems to be too good to be true.'

He eyeballed me. 'Louise, traders gamble for a living. It's what we do. We don't always go for the safe option and that's how we make big bucks. Yes, it's also how we lose big too. But if you don't gamble, if you're not willing to take a chance, you can't be a trader. You're in the wrong job. What I do for a living is high risk. I can guarantee you that I will never again put so much of a fund's money into one deal, like I did on the Hartley scheme, but as I said, for two years it worked fantastically. Everyone in the company thought I was a genius. We were making huge returns while everyone else was dying out there.'

I leant forward across Dad's desk. 'Yes, Jack, but the whole point is that it was false success. I understand that you need to take chances, but you're going to have to be more careful in future.'

'I will, believe me. I've been bitten badly this time. My wife can't stand to be in the same room as me and my daughter keeps asking me why I don't work like the other daddies any more.'

I felt sorry for him. He was worn out, emotionally and physically. 'Jess will be fine. She's too young to be badly affected and she'll have a great time being lavished with attention living here with Mum and Dad. And Sophie will come around. She's still in shock.'

Jack twisted his wedding ring around his finger. 'I thought she'd be more supportive. I know she's furious, and ashamed of cheques bouncing, Jess having to move school and all that, but after a few weeks I thought she'd be on my side. I need her. What happened to the through-thick-and-thin part of the marriage vow?'

Thick and thin didn't mean total wipe-out, I thought. 'People react differently to things and she was keeping it all bottled up. Now that she's told us and she knows we're here for you guys, I'm sure she'll feel less overwhelmed and be able to see things more calmly and clearly.'

'I hope so, Louise, because it's been a horrendous few weeks for me and I don't have a supportive family like yours to lean on. I only have Sophie.'

'Have you not told your family yet?' I was surprised. I knew from Sophie that Jack's parents were intellectual snobs, but I'd presumed he would have called them. He hadn't fallen out with them, as far as I knew.

'No. I can't bring myself to talk to them. I'm the family dud, the black sheep who didn't study medicine. I've been a disappointment to them all my life. I was hopeless at music while my brother Roger was playing Chopin on the violin aged six. I never got the hang of chess and Roger was a junior champion. You get the picture. I know that my father would consider this as just another of my failures as a son, and I can do without that right now.'

'Well, this family is here to help you,' I said, getting up to go and rescue Clara, who was wailing in the kitchen.

Later on, I took Sophie into my old bedroom for a chat. I told her I was letting her and Jack have my apartment for as long as they needed it. She spent the next ten minutes bawling her eyes out. 'Thanks so much ... such a disaster ... I'm such a fool ... should have given money to you ... so reliable ... not a risk-taker ... life is over ... destitute ...'

'OK, Sophie. I need you to stop crying and listen to me.'

She wiped her eyes and looked up.

'It might take Jack a while to get another job. In the meantime you need to find work, even if it's just for a few months, until Jack gets sorted. You need an income to live on and it'll keep you sane. You can't both be sitting around the apartment all day. You'll end up killing each other.'

'But what can I do? I've been racking my brains for weeks, but I'm useless. I'm a thirty-eight-year-old ex-model. Who the hell is going to hire me?'

'What kind of contacts do you have?'

'From modelling?'

'Yes.'

'None. I mean, I met lots of people, but when I married Jack and had Jess I just hung around with other mums.'

'So you kept in touch with no one?'

'No.' She was crying again. 'I'm such an idiot. I dropped everyone and threw myself into my role as Jack's wife. I know you think I'm pathetic, that my life was empty and vacuous with my shopping and my yoga and my holidays and you were right, it was. But I was so immersed in it that I got sucked in. I never had a plan B. I never thought I'd need one. I just presumed Jack would keep earning big money and look after me and Jess.'

'Well, your life looked great to me,' Julie said, coming in and plonking herself on the bed. She looked even more exhausted than usual, but thinner. The weight loss made her face look older. 'You can't blame yourself for enjoying a nice lifestyle,' she said to Sophie.

'Can't I?'

'No. If I'd had your money, I probably would have done the same,' Julie told her.

'No, you wouldn't. You would have read every book ever written, you would have put money away for the boys' education and you would have found the talk at all the mums' coffee mornings boring and stupid.'

'Not necessarily. I only found your friends dull because I'd never been to Dubai and knew I'd never get there. I'd never owned a Range Rover and knew I'd never own one. My kids weren't in private school because we couldn't afford it. I just felt like the odd one out. I was the only chubby one, the only badly dressed one, the only one driving a shitty car and the only one who ate.'

Sophie was chewing her nails they were bitten down to the quick. 'Well, that life is over now. Oh, God, guys, what am I going to do? I'm useless.'

'You have to think, Sophie,' I told her. 'There must be some contact who might be useful, or some area you could work in. Could you train models, or do makeup or styling? Did you ever keep in touch with the guy who owned the model agency? Maybe he needs someone to help keep the models in check.'