'It'll sit there servicing a standing order in your name of two hundred and fifty pounds a week towards the accruing interest you owe-'

'Dad-' Jimmy tried once more to protest.

'That and the twenty thousand for the car shows an awful lot of willing,' Derek said firmly. 'The RLB pre-litigation team will be forced to take a favourable view, for a while at least. I've looked into it and talked to a couple of chaps I know and it seems that if you can just get through six months you should be eligible for the government mortgage relief scheme. Of course you owe so much that the bank may lose patience anyway. But it's worth a shot. It's a plan, Jim, and we need a plan. So unless you can come up with a better one it's what we're going to do.'

Just then Monica and Nora came out with the children.

'I've made some sandwiches,' Nora said, 'and we're going to have a picnic in the park.'

'I made the chocolate biscuit ones,' Toby said proudly.

'Chocolate biscuit sandwiches?' Jimmy enquired.

'Yeah, Dad. It's a pretty basic concept. You get two bits of bread and butter and stick a chocolate biscuit between them.'

'I have to say that sounds brilliant,' Jimmy replied.

'After he's had his cheese and tomato ones and eaten his apple,' Monica said.

As they all made their way to the park, Nora dropped back a little in order to whisper to Monica.

'You know,' she said, 'I never mentioned it before, but lovely though Jodie was, I'm glad she's gone . . . No, really, I don't want to sound mean, because she really was lovely and I know that Toby loved her so much, and Cressie. It's just that I always felt a bit surplus to requirements. You know, when we visited. Jodie was just so good at everything and always there, playing with them, doing interesting things. I didn't feel I could get involved. I didn't want to get in her way, you see.'

'Yes,' said Monica, 'I can understand how that might have felt. I certainly never had a nanny when I was little. I didn't know anyone who did. It just sort of happened with us and then I felt I couldn't do without it.'

'Of course, I know that all this has been terribly hard on you,' Nora went on, 'since Jimmy lost his job and everything. But I did want to tell you that. I hope you don't mind. But at least now I feel useful.'

When they had all arrived at the park and Toby and Cressie were on the swings, Jimmy spoke to his father.

'Thanks, Dad,' he said.

'Absolutely no need to thank me, Jim,' Derek said. 'As I told you, your mother and I want to help. It's what we've always wanted.'

'I wasn't talking about the money,' Jimmy said. 'I'm thanking you for not saying "I told you so". All those years you've said it couldn't last and it turned out you were right, it didn't.'

'I take no pleasure in having been right on that score, Jimmy. Lots of people were at the party. Lots of people are suffering the hangover. It's a bloody shame, that's all.'

'Well, thanks anyway.'

Ending in tears The MPs' expenses scandal when it broke shook the Mother of Parliaments to its foundations. It struck at the very core of the public's trust in their representatives and caused many to doubt that proper government could continue at all with its servants brought to such low repute. The scale and significance of the crisis were unprecedented and yet, as is often the case with public events of magnitude, the whole affair came to be identified with one or two specific images.

Just as a horrific terrorist attack can come to be remembered for a single photograph of a fireman emerging from the ashes with a bloodied baby in his arms, just so the great British parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, for all its deep constitutional significance, eventually boiled down to such ridiculous and inconsequential things as a dirty moat and a chocolate teddy. And, of course, a hairdryer.

These were the 'expenses' that came to embody the public's sense of disappointment and outrage. Some idiot Tory had claimed to have the moat around his castle cleaned at public expense. A Liberal had put in a chit for sweets bought at the House of Commons shop. And Henry Baker, rising figure of New Labour (and founder member of the Radish Club), apparently thought that the public should pay for his wife's hairdryer because he sometimes used it.

BLONDEL'S BOMBSHELL That was the headline that greeted Henry in the early hours of the morning that followed his parliamentary clash with Rupert over Rupert's RLB pension. Henry had waited up in terror and the early editions confirmed his worst fears.

Henry knew instantly that he would never, ever escape the ridicule of Blondel's Bombshell. That it would destroy his political career.

And he was right.

It is said that all political careers end in tears. Henry's ended in floods.

The fact that it was all so terribly, terribly unfair was of course beside the point. Henry was far from being the only MP who had made claims which in retrospect looked greedy and ridiculous. What was more, his hairdryer chit was not by any stretch of the imagination the most profligate of them. And there were many MPs guilty of the legal but morally dubious practice of 'flipping' their second homes, which was of course the real cause of the public's outrage. Many of those politicians had generated far greater profits in the process than Henry had done.

There was no particular reason why Henry should become one of the principal poster boys of the crisis. Except for the fact that making a claim upon the public purse for a percentage of the cost of your wife's hairdryer was just so bloody funny. And it didn't help either that he was identified with his luxuriant blond hair, hair about which he was clearly extremely vain.

Vanity is always an easy target. Particularly in a politician.

As the days of the scandal grew, Hairdryer Henry's position became more and more impossible. Every time anybody wrote about or spoke about the scandal they referred with mocking contempt to 'politicians who seem to think it's the public's job to pay to dry their wives' hair'. It wasn't long before the party moved to staunch the haemorrhage of credibility that Henry's claim had caused. He received a call from Andy Palmer in the Prime Minister's office, instructing him to fall on his sword.

The next day Henry resigned as an MP.

That same day, his wife Jane's publisher decided not to take up their option on her second novel. Her first, they explained, had not performed as well as they had hoped and the second did not seem to them to have quite the same emotional elan that had first attracted them to her.

Jane would always believe that the rejection was entirely down to the fact that she was no longer in their eyes (and in the eyes of her small public) a feisty female novelist, but instead the greedy, grasping hairdryer-claiming wife of yet another disgraced politician.

The curse of the Radish Club had claimed its final victims.

Downsizing Despite all the pressures, Monica and Jimmy were not entirely downhearted. Something in the challenges they were facing had given them both a new spirit. They felt almost as if they had been children before and were now learning to be grown-ups.

Shopping and cooking on a tiny budget were hard work but also rewarding. What's more, the rewards were real and tangible. The family discovered that food tasted better if you really had to make the most of it. Monica constantly looked back in amazement at the amount of food she had thrown away in the past.

'I swear I used to scrape half a week's worth of food into that bin every night,' she'd say. 'God, I'd let Toby chuck an apple away if it had a blemish on it.'

Toby's diet had actually improved, as they were now spared the endless bargaining with him about eating a pea or two in exchange for a guarantee of chocolate.

'Sorry, mate, there is no chocolate,' Jimmy would explain. 'No crisps either. No freezer full of mini Magnums and fun-size Cornettos. No dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. No Frubes or other tubes. No "ordering something else" at Pizza Express, in fact no Pizza Express. We can't afford any of them.'

It was very liberating, in a strange way. All those battles over treats were in the past now. And when there was a treat, it really was a treat, made special by its rareness.

'You know, the truth is,' Monica said, 'that Tobes is actually getting treats for the first time in his life. He got so many before that nothing was a treat at all, just his due, the norm. Do you remember how Easter used to be? He couldn't fit his egg stash in a bloody bin liner. Now when he gets something at least he appreciates it.'

Toby had got used to it all quite quickly. Just as he had adjusted to Jimmy hocking his Nintendo DS for nappies. And that was another relief. Nintendo had been a cause of friction in the past. Monica hadn't wanted to buy him one but Jimmy said his son (with his room full of PlayStations and Wii) would be a freak at school if he didn't have one. Jimmy promised that he would be restricted to two hours at weekends. From that point on, they had fought a constant battle to enforce this rule, which had been draining for the whole family.

'He used to like books,' Monica had lamented at the time, 'but now all he wants to do is get his thumbs on that bloody little box.'

Now the box was gone and since the pawn shop didn't want books, they remained, and in the absence of both Nintendo and cable TV cartoon channels, Toby rediscovered them. They also discovered the local library, in which books could be borrowed for free.

'I had no idea they still did that sort of thing,' Jimmy said in amazement. 'It's just so nineteenth century.'

'Well, we might as well read books we don't own,' Monica observed. 'After all, we don't own anything else.'

Gradually life took on a semblance of normality. The month or two of hell that had followed Jodie's departure had slowly morphed into a new family-based lifestyle. The pressures were still great but they had each other, and the challenges they faced gave them something to think about besides Jimmy's so far fruitless efforts to get a job as a shelf-stacker.

The greatest relief of all was that Toby had settled in at school. State education had not turned out to be quite the nightmare they had assumed it to be. Certainly it was a bit rougher than Abbey Hall.

'Although not so much rougher,' Monica observed at the end of Toby's first fortnight, 'as more rough and ready.'

'And the kids aren't so bad either,' Jimmy agreed. 'Bit pathetic of us to be surprised really. I mean why wouldn't they be? Kids are kids, aren't they?'

It was true that by the end of his first day Toby had finally lost his beautiful accent and started to speak as if he was in a Guy Ritchie movie, but he had not so far been beaten up. In fact it turned out that, contrary to beliefs that Jimmy and Monica had held for most of their adult lives, the kids in state schools were not uniformly hard cases, made angry, aggressive and slothful by bad parenting, sugar and food additives, but were just the same mixed bag of individuals as the kids had been at Abbey Hall. A bully or two certainly, a few victims, and then a wide middle ground of kids just trying to muddle through their schooldays without getting into the shit with either the hard nuts or authority.

'Much like any school really,' Jimmy said.

There were problem parents, a few sullen, angry ones at the school gate, but they were the exception, not the rule. Of course there were a few of the dreaded dysfunctional families so often reported in the press, where assorted half-siblings dealt with itinerant stepfathers and then brought the emotional trauma to school. But again that was not so different from Abbey Hall.

'When you think about it,' Monica said, 'a good percentage of the parents there were divorced, weren't they? Plenty of absentee dads, as I recall, and what's a nanny if not a step-parent? I know I never used to think that at the time, but now that I know what's actually involved in bringing up kids I realize that Jodie was more their bloody mum than I was. Certainly in terms of how hard it is.'

One other great and unexpected relief about ending up in the state system and in one of the less desirable schools was that they were finally free of the pressure of trying to get their kids into somewhere better. When they had been rich this had been one of the great woes of family life, particularly for Toby himself. He'd had the endless stress of going for interviews with headmasters in intimidating oak-lined studies and spending weekends with tutors, cramming for some archaic entrance exam that simply had to be passed or his whole future would be blown at the age of seven.

All that was over for Toby now. He was in a bog-standard local primary school and it was his absolute right to be there. No more pressure, no more selection. He just had to make of it what he could and when he was finished he would go to a local comprehensive. Again with no interviews, no entrance exams. It was his right.

Some of the teachers were brilliant too. And some weren't. Just like at Abbey Hall.

Toby found he actually liked his school. The fact that he wasn't the only new boy helped a lot. He and Korfa had stuck together from day one. Both refugees from another culture. Each with something to offer the other. Toby had the best vocabulary and the clearest speaking voice in the class and Korfa had fearlessness and a cheerfulness born of having seen things that made every breath he drew and every bite he ate a cause for celebration.

Not that fearlessness was particularly required in Toby's class. They were a good enough bunch in general, ruled over by a popular teacher. But Korfa's cheerful nature was a tonic for Toby from the first moment they met. Korfa laughed often and long in a pitch that was high even for an eight-year-old, particularly such a tall one. And whenever Korfa appreciated anything he made a point of saying so.

'OH this IS very NICE,' he would declare when presented with a blank sheet of paper on which to draw a picture, or a free school meal courtesy of the council. 'I like THIS very MUCH. Thank YOU so MUCH.'

Korfa made enthusiasm cool.

That was a new concept for Toby, who even at eight had begun to take on the attitude beloved of boys in any school, posh or state, that the cool thing to do was not to give a stuff about anything.

Korfa gave a stuff about everything and by his example invigorated the whole class.

And it wasn't just Toby's attitudes that were changing. Monica and Jimmy also found their eyes being opened and long-held prejudices challenged.

'You know, sometimes I used to listen to Rupert,' Monica said, 'going on and on about how state handouts were actually holding people back and creating a dependency culture and I used to kind of agree with him. But the truth is that handouts are the only thing that's keeping us up.'

'That's true,' Jimmy admitted.

'I mean without them,' Monica said, her eyes a little teary, 'we'd be on the streets. Our children would probably be taken away.'

'I know,' Jimmy agreed. 'Rupert always was an arsehole.'

'I think we all were.'

A major beneficiary of the parliamentary crisis Rupert Bennett emerged from the glass and marble headquarters of the Royal Lancashire Bank for the last time.

It was quiet. Deathly quiet.

For the first time in months, no cameras popped and no flashes flashed. Nor was he obliged to fight his way to his car, flanked by security men and lawyers, while journalists shouted impertinent questions at him from behind police barriers.

They were all gone. He had the steps to himself as he descended them one final time. Those steps which for so long he had bestrode like a colossus. For once he was not being called upon to explain how a man who had wreaked havoc on two banks and brought the Treasury to its knees could justify feathering his own pension nest with funds intended to shore up the tottering financial edifice that he had virtually destroyed.

Henry had saved him.

His old friend/enemy. How ironic was that? His old sparring partner had rescued Rupert from the storm.

Because Henry was the story now. The chair of the very parliamentary Select Committee that only the day before had been calling upon Rupert to hand back his pension in a spirit of contrition was now himself engulfed in such a tidal wave of moral criticism that Rupert was suddenly yesterday's news.

Blondel's Bombshell had saved him.

The nation had swapped its outrage over the cynical and deliberate asset-stripping of the institutions on which its prosperity depended for an absolutely brilliant story about a politician who'd claimed his wife's hairdryer on expenses, another who'd had his moat cleaned for free and a third who had a fancy for chocolate teddy bears.

Perhaps, it occurred to Rupert as he bounded down the steps of what was no longer his bank, the run of bad luck which he had recently endured might finally be ending.

But it was not to be.

'Lord Bennett?' a voice said.

Rupert turned and realized that he was not actually alone on the steps. A small, insignificant-looking man had clearly been waiting for him.

'Yes?' Rupert replied with suspicion.

'I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time. I'd like to ask you a few questions relating to your business transactions.'

So there was one left.

One little oik for whom the penny hadn't dropped that the story had moved on.

'If you wish to discuss business transactions,' Rupert said pompously, 'I suggest you go and see Members of Parliament like Henry Baker. A hypocrite who, while calling upon me to pay back an entirely legal pension negotiated in good faith after many years of service, sought at the same time to offload the cost of his and his wife's personal grooming on to the taxpayer. Put that in your damn paper and leave me alone.'

'I'm not a journalist, sir, and I'm not interested in your pension plan or in MPs' expenses. I'm a police officer. Detective Inspector Beaumont.' The man brought out a card. 'I deal in financial fraud.'

Rupert had been about to get into his car, but now he stopped and turned.

'Well?' he asked warily.

'I also knew you briefly at university,' Beaumont said.

'I'm afraid I don't recall,' Rupert replied.

'No. I didn't think you would.'

'Is that why you've come to see me?'

'No.'

'Then kindly tell me why you have come, Inspector.'

'I'd like to talk to you about your share trading in Caledonian Granite, Lord Bennett. About transactions you made while working as a financial adviser to the Prime Minister and hence with access to privileged information. It's called insider trading, Lord Bennett.'

Control-crying 'Tonight, Jimmy,' Monica said, her jaw firmly set, 'we're going to control-cry Lillie to sleep.'

The threat of bankruptcy had continued to bring Jimmy and Monica closer together. Closer to each other and closer to the children. Many marriages might have buckled under the strain of so many seismic jolts, but Jimmy and Monica's seemed to gain strength from them. And something in the new-found family solidarity gave Monica the courage she needed to tackle a challenge that they had been putting off ever since Jodie had left.