Amongst the dross of seasonal wishes, in her Inbox the next day she found an email from Paul, who wasn't due back in until the Wednesday. It was dated 1st of Jan around 3am and said 'Check out the Pravda!' Not that she'd have much of a choice: Win! was the default Intranet page at the office. You had to get past it first before you could get to Google. The front page today wished a Happy New Year to all at the bank and to their families, and showed pictures of the fireworks displays in Sydney, Tokyo and New York. In London, under the caption 'Fresh Snow at the Christmas Party', Paul had posted his picture of Toad snorting coke in the toilet.

This simply could not be happening. Elisabeth's headache, which had abated slightly after her first three consecutive hours' sleep this millennium, returned with a vengeance. She tried to ignore it and instead begun the painful process of deleting from her inbox every email she'd ever received from Tom, emptying her trash folder and then adding his address to her email filter, alongside Mike's.

'Check out Win!' Newbie shouted at 7:16am. 'Check this out!'

Soon he had the early shift of the back office around his desk.

'That one's definitely Toad!' Newbie said, 'But who's the other one?'

'Looks like that fat guy from marketing, what's his name?' said one not-exactly-slim-himself back office guy.

'I wouldn't know,' said another one with a pout, 'it's not as if they ever come around here.'

'He's gonna be in so much trouble!' Newbie laughed again. 'Have you seen this, Lizzie?'

'Yes I know, it's terrible,' she said, trying to sound shocked in a normal kind of way.

She was in shock alright: they were fried. Totally fried. And not just Toad, oh no no no. Teflon-man would probably manage to argue he'd been framed or it wasn't him or it was icing sugar or whatever. But Paul, definitely. And ergo his boss, i.e. her. With implacable logic her mind started to ponder how long it would be before IT came down from the fourth floor for her.

Around 7:35 Win! became unavailable, then reverted back to the pre-Christmas page. Elisabeth went up to the canteen, where the photo was all everyone was talking, or rather sniggering about.

'Wonder who posted it?'

'IT'll soon find out.'

Yep, thought Elisabeth. I'm fried. Raj will never forgive me, breaching IT security, and pissing them off when we're already treading such a fine line with them.

'Did you see how fast they pulled it back? How embarrassing!'

'Yeah, it's bad press for IT.'

'It's bad press for Toad, and therefore for the whole bank.'

'Ah who cares, it's just a bit of fun!'

'I hope he gets sacked. Deserves it a hundred times over.'

xxx

'Happy New Year, Elisabeth,' Will greeted her when she got back to the desk. They looked at each other with a puzzled frown for a minute. Elisabeth tried to figure what was different about him. He was late in by his own stringent standards, he looked tanned and glowing with health and, by his own stringent standards again, pretty relaxed. Hair different?

'You look well!' she said in the end, only to put an end to the awkwardness. 'Had a good break?'

'Great, thanks, you?'

'I've had better.'

'Matey's back from Estonia though, right?'

She looked down at her keyboard for a moment, and rubbed her aching temples. The traders would figure it out sooner or later so she might as well tell them now, take the inevitable ribbing, and be done with it. But then again, she'd probably be sacked before the day was over so… oh, what the hell. It was strangely liberating, no longer being able to afford to care what happened to her from here on:

'He is back, yes, but we are not...'

Sadly all her bravado evaporated the moment she faced Will, but she swallowed hard and made herself say:

'We are not concerning ourselves with Tom anymore.'

Will cocked one eyebrow. There, it was out and she hadn't blobbed, Charlotte would be proud.

'Really sorry, Lizzie,' said Neil behind her.

She turned to thank him. By the time she had done that Will was already busy typing.

'Good call,' she heard him say as she waited for tradePad to boot up.

Sorry, what was that? She hadn't been expecting anything like sympathy from him, but come to think of it she had sort of expected a double macchiato. And she certainly hadn't expected a raised eyebrow and a "Good call".

'Yeah thanks, I don't remember asking,' she spat back, and shook her head at her screens. Which, sadly, did nothing to ease the pain in her temples.

'Hey but look, don't worry,' Neil said from her other side. 'IT will be thrilled to know you're on the market again. Your little friend Khalil was here just now looking for you.'

Panic now mixed with pain and she winced: for Khalil to come by this early in the day they must be onto her.

Already.

In a way though, the only surprising thing about it, really, was that IT should come around rather than HR's Angel of Doom - and her brown filing box. Like all terror-struck creatures Elisabeth detached herself from her fate. She watched with interest as a strange woman called Elisabeth Bennet went through the motions of dismissal for gross misconduct, and rather than fight for survival her brain started picking out the inconsistencies in the scenario playing out in front of her.

'Khalil's not my little friend,' she thought, and Elisabeth Bennet spoke the words.

'He is when you need disk space,' Will pointed out, to his screens.

'What I meant is he's not that short,' Elisabeth Bennet shot back, also to her screens. She was pretty cool, that strange woman, considering.

Will seemed to agree: he turned back to her again and crossed his arms, smiling. His look was daring her to keep up the defiant front – which, sadly, she couldn't. All of a sudden it all became real again. It was happening. To her. Of course Will, Neil, everyone must know. They must have seen Paul's picture at the party. They knew and of course, right now they must delight in seeing her squirm, and look forward to her bitter end. For now Will contented himself with having made her look down and blush to her ears. He took his eyes off her and talked to Neil over the back of her head:

'Right, Neil: so it's no jokes about Estonians or Pakistanis, OK? You won't like her when she's angry.'

'Right on, boss,' Neil replied, and smiled at her.

Minutes later Khalil was back and she went pale at the sight of him, a fact which was lost on neither of her neighbours.

'Goth a minute?' Khalil asked in his languorous Eastern plosives.

'Sure!' she said, already wobbly at the knees.

'Is Paul in?'

'Back tomorrow why, do we need him?' she asked, trying with admirable success to sound innocent.

'Perhaps, vee'll see, maybe you'll be able to clarify.'

This was agonising. Couldn't they just shoot her and have done with it?

'Shall we go to the atrium?' she asked politely.

'Sure, yes.'

'Did you have a nice break?'

'Yes, you?'

'Fine,' she lied. However bad her Year 2000 had been so far, things were in all likelihood about to take a nosedive.

'So, what can I do for you?' she asked, hoping to sound half-way normal.

'I've just had a qwery from Mike Poynton about your Vy-too-Kay testing.'

'Y2K testing? Did I …'

"Did I hear this right?" was what she wanted to say, and sat there like a rabbit in headlights.

'Did I not fill everything in properly?'

'Vell, it's not that, but vee expected a testing plan for tradePad from Paul, and he hasn't rrreturned anything.'

'tradePad?'

She wanted to jump with joy. To run a victory lap around the atrium and then hug him. Her new bestest friend Khalil proceeded to explain that, despite tradePad being over a month away from going live, his boss twice removed, Mike 'Pointless' Poynton, demanded that they file a "development testing protocol" by close of play today.

Elisabeth now had her second out of body experience in a day. In a lifetime, come to think of it. She sat back, amazed at her own luck, while the woman sat across Khalil patiently discussed the intricacies of the protocol for filing development testing protocols, just as if irony or Kafka had never existed.

Central IT were pissed off with her, she knew that. Pointless Poynton had never swallowed tradePad not being his, out of sheer territoriality and because he felt personally insulted that Raj did not deem him or his team smart enough to see it through. But if protocols for filing protocols was the worst he could throw at her then hell, she was getting off lightly and she knew it:

'I'll check it out, Khalil, and we'll put something together for you today, I promise. Wouldn't want to upset internal audit,' the strange woman concluded as Elisabeth watched on, incredulous.

'Thanks.'

'No problem, I'll drop everything else, should just about manage it this afternoon, it's a good job you came by just now,' she added for extra earnestness.

Elisabeth was by now so impressed by the sang-froid of the woman seating across Khalil that she risked herself back into the conversation.

'I mean you guys must be all over the place with that Win! thing this morning, right?'

'Oh yes, Mike's qwite worked up,' Khalil nodded.

'Do you have any idea what happened?'

'Not yet, but vee're looking into it.'

'I see. Better get on with that testing protocol then!'

She got back to the desk, her head now not so much hurting as fizzing inside. Will asked whether everything was OK and she made suitably dismissive noises about tradePad and Y2K testing, and in Paul's absence she rummaged around the New York servers for the US testing protocol, and spent the rest of the day running "Replace all"s in Word, and posting her new document onto half a dozen obscure corners of the bank's computer network, two of which, she noticed, were write-only areas.

The absurdity of her situation did not escape her, of course, as she filed multiple copies of supposedly risk mitigating testing procedures two days after her only direct report had hacked into the company's intranet. But she'd be gone soon anyway, so for now she might as well do that, rather than anything useful. It would make a good story to tell the other burger-flippers at Mac Donald's, assuming they gave her a job.

No other bank ever would.

xxx

Next morning, after another sleepless night she was met with the same absurd pretence of normality around the office. Will brought her her morning double macchiato, Win! reported on the success of the Y2K test, Andy swore at the spreadsheet and she waited for Paul to show up, so she could give him the bollocking that he deserved before anyone else got a chance.

'Paul, 3.11 please.'

'Bonne Année, Elisabeth!'

'3.11, it's about tradePad's Y2K testing, I need to catch you up', she said as Neil walked in and wondered at her sharp tone.

'Sure, boss!' Paul replied in his effeminate sing-song. He pranced ahead into the meeting room.

'Right,' she said as soon as the door was shut, 'I suppose you're proud of yourself?'

'Did you like it?'

'No I didn't! I haven't slept a wink! It's only a matter of time before they find out you did it, and then we're both sacked, so thanks very much!'

'Was he in yesterday? Did he see it?'

'No he wasn't, I'm not sure if he was supposed to be, word was he was working from home.'

'Working from home!' Paul laughed, then carefully patted his blond hair back.

'Paul, what do you suppose you're going to say when HR come over for us in a minute?'

'Nothing! Zey won't!' he said with a childish smile.

'Look, I'm very impressed with you hacking into Win! and all that, but I'm sure it's traceable.'

'That's right, it is.'

'What the…?'

'I did it remotely under Toad's login, he left 'is Citrix access key in ze toilet after zey did ze coke.'

'What?!'

'And everyone knows he uses "password" as his password. His PA was telling me. She was a little tipsy, at the Christmas party, we got talking about her shoes... So anyway I logged in as him, and zen I used our US admin login to edit ze page.'

'We have a US admin login?'

'You know Abou, right?'

Of course she did, he was one of Raj's uber geeks over in New York. His Dad was from Cameroon hence he'd not only taught her everything she knew about making tradePad happen here, he'd done it en francais dans le texte.

'Abou used to work on the UNIX team before he joined Raj,' Paul was saying, 'and zey never disabled his admin rights. Zis way he looks after the tradePad servers in New York, and here out of hours, it's just easier for everyone.'

'I see,' she said, breathing as if she'd just finished a marathon, and shaking her head with disbelief. Disbelief at the large scale circumvention of IT security, of course, but mostly at the fact that they would, in all likelihood, get away with it.

'But hang on, won't they pin it on Abou then?'

'No worries, I also messed with ze log files on zee access record. I did it from a friend's place in Neuilly: zey won't be able to trace it at all, don't worry, only zat Toad logged in around zat time.'

'But Paul, you're dangerous! Do you realise what you've done?'

'What? I sought you 'ated ze guy?'

'Of course I do! Believe me, I do!' she repeated with a fond thought for Jane, and a terrified one for Justine from HR and her brown filing box of doom. 'But look: IT already hate us, Toad already hates us, if you've left so much as a shred of evidence out there that it's you, we are absolutely fried. Now and forever, here and everywhere in the City. And in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo, you name it. Blackballed. Unemployable. Guaranteed.'

'But I haven't,' he said haughtily: 'Zis access record system is a sieve. It's a joke - ridiculous.'

Despite the dramatic circumstances Elisabeth couldn't help wondering whether to explain to him how self-defeating the word "ridiculous" is, when spoken in London in a Monty-Pythonesque French accent.

'You forget one thing, Paul,' she said instead, 'how many people besides me know you took this picture?'

'Just a couple of ze guys, and zey were all drunk.'

'Will wasn't.'

'Zey won't talk, zey all 'ate him.'

'Of course they do! But it doesn't mean we want to give them one over us.'

'No big deal.'

'But it is, Paul! Of course it is! How can you not see that?'

'It was just a bit of fun!'

'Yes, the kind of fun that could leave us both unemployed because let me tell you: management, meaning Raj, will completely wash their hands of us if we're found out. So are you certain you're not traceable?'

'But of course!'

One half of her couldn't help smile at Paul's comedy Frenchness as he said this. The other half knew she should be smacking his ear. This must be what it felt like for Jane whenever Sophie was being naughty.

'OK in that case, Paul, I want you to deny this at all costs should it ever get raised by anyone. Anyone, you hear me? Trust no one one this. And I'll deny it too.'

He nodded.

'And I don't ever want you to go hacking around again without my permission. Understood?'

'All right!' he said sulkily, 'Jesus! Why d'you get so worked up?'

This time Elisabeth didn't let herself soften: she read him the riot act about staying whiter than white in all his dealings with central IT. She also updated him on the Y2K development test protocol she'd just filed. Strangely, about that Paul did look genuinely contrite:

'Sorry, boss, I should have done it.'

'It's fine,' she said. 'Let's just get back to it, OK?'

'Do you want a coffee?'

'Yes please! Oh and of course everyone thought it was very funny.'

Paul smiled and made to leave, but turned back with his hand already on the door handle.

'Oh and uh, thanks, boss, you know, for getting that job for Frank.'

Elisabeth frowned. It took her a while to remember that evening last year, before her whole world had come crashing down, when Charlotte had called to complain that her wedding florist had let her down for a subsequent but more glamorous engagement. Elisabeth had volunteered Paul's boyfriend for the job and Charlotte had been sceptical at first. But she'd warmed up to the idea when Elisabeth had explained that back in Paris Frank was go-to florist to both Catherine Deneuve and Vanessa Paradis. And that the latter was Johnny Depp's nearly-new squeeze. So now Charlotte had taken Frank on, which would give him a chance to make his floral mark on London, and might therefore make Paul happy to stick with his own job.

'Right, so Charlotte's hired him then?'

'It was really nice of you to recommend him, boss.'

'No problem at all: I can't wait to see his work. You know Charlotte buys a lot of corporate flowers, right?'

'Really?'

He smiled and off he went again, mincing towards the back staircase, while Elisabeth walked back to the desk and sat down with a sigh of relief. Neil was off, probably at the canteen too.

'Duly chastised?' Will asked without taking his eyes off his screen.

'Are you talking to me?'

'No, I'm chewing a brick, as Yoda would say.'

He turned to her, and gave her the same dark teasing look he'd given her earlier. But this time she looked him right back in the eye without so much as flinching.

'Did you give him a good bollocking then?' he asked again.

'Sorry, I really don't know what you're talking about. Unless it's that our Y2K testing protocol?'

She raised a didn't-think-so eyebrow and made to get back to work. He didn't budge but never mind, she kept her eyes on her screens.

'You know, I was in the lift with your little friend Khalil just now. Apparently they drew a blank on that Win! thing, something about some files missing and backups failing?'

'What are you talking about?' she lied again, grabbed her pencil and tucked her hair back.

'You're a terrible liar, Elisabeth. Look at you, you just tucked your hair back.'

'What?'

'OK, all right. So this is the official party line, then?'

'Absolutely! What?'

'We know nothing about this?'

'Correct. Who else do you think knows nothing about it?'

'Just me and Neil. We didn't actually see the picture, just overheard you two talking about it.'

'I see. Can we arrange for some collective amnesia?'

'Elisabeth, you're safe with us.'

She briefly turned to face him: he smiled, then it hit her. That's what was different: he hadn't used Lizzie yet. Better not mention anything and jinx it.

'Thanks!' she smiled, not sure what to be more relieved about. She turned back to her notepad. 'Not that I know what you're talking about.'

'Don't mention it.'

'Me? I wasn't.'

'Fuckin' spreadsheet's playin' up again. Where's the fairy?' Andy barked from across the screens.

'Watch it, Andy. He's called Paul,' Will said.

'Sure, boss.'

'Good, thanks.'

'Paul's upstairs getting the coffees, can I help you?' Elisabeth asked.

'It's fuckin' broken again!'

'OK sorry, I'll have a look.'

'Thanks, Elisabeth,' she heard as she got up to see to Andy's spreadsheet.

xxx

They never did get to have their Friday meeting with Toad but, unlike Wavy, he was spared the iniquity of having to pack up his own brown filing box. Unaware of her role in his demise, his PA of fifteen years cleared his desk with a tear in her eye, and had the box couriered over to his Harpenden mansion. Then the next day an email went out announcing that Christopher Appleby had decided to retire to further his involvement in industry-wide representation at the National Association of Pension Funds and on the FTSE committee, and to spend more time with his family and on the golf course. Sir Phillip, Chairman of the Board, wished him every success with these exciting new plans.

Elisabeth should have rejoiced, but she was still so busy kicking herself over Tom that she hardly even smiled when she read about it. For days after the announcement there was a definite sense of elation around the UK office, which she felt sadly unable to share into. She was too raw to cheer, and whilst exposed to all the risks of Paul's enterprise she didn't think she deserved any credit for its success. Besides, Toad's sacking, though revenge of a sort, was no retribution for his misdeeds. It came far too late to make any difference to Jane's fate, or to the countless others he's trodden over on his glorious way to the top.

xxx

As for Jane, she missed the email altogether, being stuck in hospital until further notice. Much like Toad, the bank's private health insurance viewed childbearing as self-inflicted, avoidable damage, but she'd managed to squeeze some pregnancy cover out of Vincent's. So now at least she was getting bored out of her wits in a sunny private en-suite room near St John's Wood, rather than on a ward at the Royal Free. Jane continued to bear her trials with incredible good humour, sporting the same quiet smile Elisabeth had seen on her at the spa. Her mum and sisters all shared Jane's penchant for logistics, and had the visiting and babysitting rota down to a fine art. Elisabeth's visiting slot was Thursday night, which was when she appraised Jane of the manner of Toad's dismissal:

'I'm not sure about Neil, but I do worry about Will,' Elisabeth concluded sombrely, 'I do know for a fact that he's onto us.'

She had only meant to try and cheer Jane up with the news, not to worry her with her lingering fears of being found out. Mrs Bingley had been very clear that her daughter was to be distracted, but not unduly worried. Elisabeth should therefore have known better than to explain her part in Toad's sacking. Thanks no doubt to the pregnancy hormones, Jane was uncharacteristically sanguine about it all.

'Will?' she asked lightly, 'What Will? The Will you go out for sneaky smokes with? I wouldn't worry about him.'

'Hey?'

'That's right, what with all this,' Jane said with a desultory wave at the silicone pipe-work she was plugged into, 'I never got to ask you: did you or did you not snog Fitzwilliam Kingsley-Darcy at the Christmas party?'

'What?!'

'Did you?'

'Seriously, Jane, are you insane? You've been reading too many silly mags in here, you know, you should be reading proper stuff.'

'Should I take this as a no then?'

'Please do, please take it as a very, very firm no.'

'Really? You know it's not just me who saw you coming back in wearing his jacket. The next day the girls in Compliance and in Market Data started an email hate-group with your name on it.'

'Oh so that's what they do all day!' Elisabeth joked, horrified.

'I hadn't thought about it on the spot but it's true, you know: you two looked kind of, I don't know, dreamy when you came back in.'

'We didn't look dreamy.'

'He did.'

Elisabeth frowned, but soon concluded that if Will had indeed been lost in thoughts, then it would have been about what a basket case the desk quant was turning into. And fair enough. But since she could hardly explain to Jane what had actually happened she tried her best to shrug it off.

'He was probably just freezing, it was a cold night.'

'True, but why did you look like you'd seen a ghost?' Jane insisted, pointing at her.

'I was pissed.'

'You?'

Bother. Of course Jane knew her far too well to buy that. But there was no way Elisabeth could tell her how she'd really ended up out there with Will -and now, as it turned out, at the centre of the most unlikely tale ever to feed the bank's great rumour mill. She stuck with her story to the last:

'Drinking games. I lost. Terrible. He just had to get me out before I got sick... God, I'm never doing that again!' she said, rolling her eyes.

Jane frowned at her, thinking hard whether to believe her.

'See this is why I shouldn't drink, I always seem to end up barfing in front of the wrong people,' she added for good measure.

To joke about that fateful night with Tom felt so excruciating that it almost broke her poor raw heart all over again. But she had calculated that by bringing up an association which Jane would know to be so painful, she might lend some veracity to her latest piece of fiction. Indeed Jane looked both convinced and amused:

'Well, if you barfed in front of Will you're probably quite safe from ever having to snog him.'

'Yeah, I think I was pretty safe from that already, but thanks. It's him ratting on me I'm more worried about.'

'He would have done that already, Elisabeth, if he was going to.'

'You're right,' she sighed. It was a good point, and her fears did abate. When Jane did not say anything she sighed again, this time about Tom, of course, who'd just crept into her thoughts as he did, still, whenever her brain was idle for even a second. How could she have been so stupid?

'Do you want to talk about him?' Jane asked very gently. She looked so kind and dignified despite the drip and the hospital gown: her stoicism almost brought tears to Elisabeth's eyes again. And it put her to shame too: here she was feeling sorry for herself over some stupid jerk when poor Jane was stuck between these four pink walls, fighting for her baby's life.

'No, let's not,' Elisabeth said, 'Let's talk about you. I was worried you'd be down but you're amazing, you know. I wish I knew how you keep it together.'

'The baby's alright,' Jane smiled, 'That's the main thing, what does it matter if I miss a launch or a promotion?'

Elisabeth's eyes widened, so she lowered them and hoped that Jane would not spot her awkwardness. Why should she bring up MD promotions now, of all times?

'Why should you miss your promotion?' Elisabeth asked, thinking that this would have been what she would have asked if she hadn't already known that Jane had indeed already missed her promotion. Her brain really was hurting now.

'Oh come on, Elisabeth. I'm going to be stuck here throughout the committee stage, Nigel will put his name on the press release I've already written - it's not going to happen,' Jane said with amazingly lightness.

'Has anyone said as much to you?'

'I don't need them to, and it really doesn't matter anyway.'

'You're right, you're right,' Elisabeth said, trying her best to emulate Jane's hormone-induced positivity. 'There's always next year; greater scheme of things you'll still be one of the youngest MDs, right?'

'I don't think I'll be there next year either,' Jane said, smiling on.

'Oh? Are you gonna take a full year off after all? I thought your boss wanted you back a.s.a.p.'

'I'm not sure I will go back at all,' Jane said, with an umpteenth pat on her bump, 'Not to this bank, not to any bank. Not until this one is at school anyway.'

Elisabeth sat gaping for a while, too shocked to say anything. This didn't make sense. OK, Jane was high on happy hormones right now but... and now Jane let out a peal of her delightful laughter.

'Oh, you were kidding, right. Phee-ew!' Elisabeth said, and forced a feeble laugh. Between this and the innuendos about Will she was beginning to think that Jane's sense of humour was getting a little warped. Who could blame her? She must be getting stir-crazy stuck in here.

'I'm not kidding, Elisabeth. I'm just laughing at your face,' Jane continued just as cheerfully.

'What?! Are you...'

"Mad" was going to be her next word, but she stopped herself in time and managed to finish with "sure" instead, then pretended to cough.

'Not yet, no. It's just a thought for the moment. Please don't tell anyone, of course.'

'Of course not, but why?'

'I've been thinking, I've really taken Dan and Sophie for granted until now, I've only just started realising how much I've missed out on since they were born.'

Yes like, in Elisabeth's humble experience as a mere auntie, wiping bottoms, liquidising food and then scraping it off kitchen walls, putting the lids back on abandoned felt tips and watching dreadful toddlers TV. This just wasn't rational – Elisabeth could only put it down to the hormones. Seriously, who would want to do an au-pair's job for no money, when they could do Jane's and get paid for it?

'Well as you said it's an idea, right? You just keep thinking about it.'

'I will. How's Charlotte's wedding coming along?'

Jane had signalled her desire to drop the subject and Elisabeth was only too glad to oblige her, but as the weeks passed and Jane stuck with her crazy plan it started to bug her more and more.

For a start, Jane couldn't convince Elisabeth that her choice wasn't motivated by guilt, rather than by true enthusiasm. Even taking motherly instincts into account, she just couldn't picture Jane having fun wiping poo and yogurt all day, and hanging out with the other yummy mummies after playgroup.

From the great height of her postgraduate degree, and with her own Mum having stuck to her teaching job with no adverse effects on either of her children, Elisabeth had always viewed stay-at-home-mums with not-so-benign contempt. She knew that probably made her snooty but come on: they must just be too dull or too lazy to come up with anything better to do with their time, right? In fact, in this age of hard-fought equal opportunities, were not stay at home mums an insult to the feminist cause? Did they not, in a way, deserve to be frustrated, desperate housewives? This fate was not one that Elisabeth had ever wished on her dear Jane, or ever would.

It was probably all Vincent, egging her on: he would love nothing more than for his wife's daylight hours to be dedicated to his family's happiness, rather than to that of some coke-snorting boss. But did he realise that if Jane left the bank then they would probably never send a young mother to an MD off-site? Jane Bennet-Bingley wasn't just his wife, for goodness' sake; within the bank she was an anomaly, and therefore an emblem. The only woman MD in London to date was a 45-year-old childless divorcee, whose figure hair and dress-sense made Ann Widdecombe look like a glamour-puss. With Jane gone who would ever prove that it was possible to have it all? And if Jane Bennet-Bingley couldn't have it all, with all her wit, poise, determination and hard work, then who on earth could?

Hang on, what if... what if nobody could?

No no no, that just couldn't be. It must be the hormones.

Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved