Poppy Dakin, reluctant nouveau riche: Life as we know it

No. 78

(Silje Eirin Aure)

Two years have passed since Poppy's dad struck lucky with the first ticket he had ever bought and won £3m on the National Lottery. Happily, Mr Dakin was not a man for the expansive gesture, and such adjustments as he made to his family's lifestyle were governed by prudence rather than a desire to show off.

Still, he gave up his job as a motor-trade auctioneer on the spot; there was a near-immediate removal from the cramped three-bedroom semi in Lewisham to a much larger house in Orpington; and, with a new school year in sight, 14-year-old Poppy and her sister Sam were taken from their comprehensive and sent, at considerable expense, to an all-girl establishment in nearby Petts Wood.

And how did Poppy adapt to this transformation in her fortunes? Naturally, she liked the foreign holidays on which the Dakins now triannually embarked. Neither were the £200 monthly allowance bestowed by Mr Dakin on his daughters or the range of state-of-the-art electronic gadgetry that filled the house to be sniffed at. But St Anastasia's, with its strictly regimented school uniform in severely patterned tweed, its vigorous (and compulsory) hockey games, and its legion of bold, confident girls with swept-back blonde hair and names such as Serafina and Annalise, seemed to her a step too far. “Nonsense, Pops,” Mr Dakin countered, when these anxieties were tearfully conveyed to him. “Get on like a house on fire, you will, a bright girl like you.”

This was all very well, but it did not help Poppy in her dealings with the Serafinas and the Annalises. It was not that they disliked or even patronised her, merely that they regarded her as a curiosity, a hoopoe tumbled by the wind on to a lawn full of starlings. And there was no point, Poppy soon realised, in inviting them back to a home whose front room contained Mr Dakin (“Call me Ron”) and his assurance that he could have the hot tub filled up in a jiffy.

But if one door has failed to open, then another is firmly shut. Poppy tried keeping up with her Lewisham friends but it was no good: they judged her “posh” and expected her to pay for things. Her weekends thus tend to be spent in her bedroom reading about Harry Potter and waiting for text messages that don't arrive. Mr Dakin, a fond though imperceptive parent, can't understand it at all.