I thought I was middle-class. Then my friends all got their socking great inheritances… and I’m soul-destroyingly envious

It’s 9am. I’m at my desk, coffee in hand and about to start a tedious Teams meeting, when my mobile pings to tell me I have a WhatsApp message.

‘Hello, darling! Fancy lunch today? There’s a cute new place on the High Street I’m dying to try!’ It’s from my friend Liz, who is texting from bed as usual, and who seems to have forgotten I have a job.

But then her life is so different to mine.

Although she’s only just 60, like me, she’s been gloriously retired for ten years, ever since she inherited the proceeds of a large house and a lucrative portfolio of shares from her late father. While I’m in meetings, fretting about how on earth I will be able to help my son with his university expenses and dreading my shabby car’s MOT, she likes to spend her days pottering around our prosperous suburb’s chi-chi shops, getting her hair and nails done, doing Pilates with her personal trainer or planning yet another holiday.

To add to my gloom, another message comes through on a group chat. Alison wants our opinion on a house in France she is considering as a second home – ‘so lovely to have a little bolthole’ – after inheriting a similarly large chunk of cash from her mother two years ago.

I love my friends. But, I admit it, I’m also gnawingly, soul-destroyingly envious of them. And I’m afraid it’s beginning to sour our friendships.

You see, until a few years ago, we were all pretty much in the same boat, financially. None of us were particular high-flyers, we’d gone to state schools, most of us had been to university, which is where I met Liz and Alison, and were lucky enough to find interesting, if not terribly lucrative, middle class jobs.

My friends variously worked in publishing, as a graphic designer and in charity fundraising. Ironically, out of all of us, I probably had the biggest career. I was working in advertising at a big agency when my daughter, my second child who is now in her late 20s, was born with additional needs. Deciding to go freelance made sense for my family, if not financially, and as well as the pay cheque, it also meant goodbye to my final-salary pension.

When we were younger my friends, like me, were living in modest homes and more likely to holiday in Wales in a damp cottage than in the Med. I felt as though we were more or less in the same boat.

What I hadn’t reckoned on was that they were born middle class, and I, frankly, wasn’t. I grew up poor on a council estate. My parents split in my teens and my dad moved in with his dad in his council house and my mum stayed in our flat, where she still lives.

My husband also grew up on a council estate, moving from Manchester to London to pursue a music career. When that didn’t take off, he lost all ambition and worked part time giving music lessons to children. This seemed fine when I was earning a good salary, and our friends thought he was marvellous. But it is just another factor in our dismal financial position today.

So, I’ll just soldier on, making excuses when I can’t afford things, trying to swallow my bile and hoping they don’t notice

As the years passed, more and more of us sadly lost our parents. I was one of the first. My father had a heart attack when I was 44. He limped on for a while, then succumbed to complications, leaving me with a houseful of two generations of hoarded tat and, touchingly, just enough savings to cover his funeral.

Liz’s widowed father then passed away, a year after her mother. We all rallied round, just as my friends had rallied round for me. But I confess to thinking that at least her bereavement had a silver lining. Liz’s father had worked in finance and now, as an only child, Liz was so wealthy she would never need to work again – so she didn’t.

Then my friend Alison’s divorced mother passed away, leaving her estate to Alison and her brother. She hadn’t seemed wealthy, but the value of her London house, bought on a teacher’s salary in the 1970s, was now worth a couple of million.

Even though inheritance tax took a bite out of the estate, Alison was still set for life. But what has stung even more is the way another friend, Helen, has been able to set her children up for life.

Helen’s father split from her mother when she was young, and we often commiserated about being the children of warring divorced parents. He set up home in the US with his younger mistress and barely ever saw his daughter, which is why I never realised quite how wealthy he was until he died.

Over tea in her perfectly ordinary kitchen a year ago, Helen mentioned that, even though he had left his money to be shared with his four children, there would still be enough, she said happily, to ensure her three adult sons could now buy flats of their own.

Don’t get me wrong, the boys are all intelligent, decent and successful, and I shouldn’t begrudge them a leg-up in this property market. But I couldn’t help comparing their good fortune with the position of my own children. My daughter, who still lives with us, will need lifelong care, meaning we can’t sell our house in Kent and downsize. And there’s no other way I could dream of setting up our son with property.

When Helen complained at length about how long it was taking to untangle her father’s affairs in America, my tea turned to ashes in my mouth. I made my excuses, left and haven’t returned her texts. I know it’s horribly unreasonable. She hasn’t done anything wrong, but I am struggling to deal with my resentment.

What’s been truly dispiriting is realising that my belief that I had ‘levelled up’ and become as middle class as my friends was only ever an illusion. Or should I say, a delusion. When we moaned together about our mortgages and bills, they always had a comforting buffer against being poor in their old age that I wouldn’t have. I realise that I was only ever middle class in the most superficial, precarious way. And frankly, it’s eating me alive.

I pretend to be cool with their new-found wealth and they don’t realise that keeping up with dinners and the odd trip to the races or the theatre has maxed out my credit card. But recently Alison said something that made me realise she and Liz discuss their investments together, which they never do in front of me. I suppose they are being sensitive, but again, it makes me feel as if I no longer belong in their gang.

I also wonder if they pity me. Alison is keen to tell me that I will be able to visit the house in France ‘whenever you like’, which is undeniably kind, but it makes me feel like a poor relation in a Jane Austen novel. And Liz increasingly announces ‘my treat!’ when suggesting we go out, which, again, is incredibly kind of her, but it just emphasises how different our lives are now.

Because I need to work while they are comfortably retired, they can meet up when I can’t. I am so terrified about my future that I try not to think about it. With the state pension being so pitiful, I need to work until my coffin lid is firmly nailed down. But I worry I’m missing out on jobs due to ageism and I know that will probably only get worse. Do I really want to be competing with bright young things in their 30s when I’m pushing 70?

I have started thinking that I might apply to work on the till at our local Waitrose in a couple of years. What’s holding me back is thinking about the awkwardness of scanning Helen’s champagne and Charlie Bingham dinners.

My other worry about how poor I will be when I can’t work anymore is that, if can’t keep up with their lifestyles, will the gap between us grow into a chasm?

I tell myself that they have paid a high price for their money, having lost one or both parents – while I still have my increasingly frail mother – that there are many people much worse off than I am, and that nobody is entitled to an inheritance. But it doesn’t really work. I sometimes think about being honest about my feelings, but I would hate to make them feel guilty or uncomfortable or, even think I’m after a handout, which would be utterly humiliating. So, I’ll just soldier on, making excuses when I can’t afford things, trying to swallow my bile and hoping they don’t notice.

Names have been changed