But those thoughts were all too pervasive, and during his lonely nighttime vigils, he constantly mulled over the effects that his new circumstances would have on the comfortable lifestyle that he and his family had enjoyed up until then. Due to his catastrophic investment in the dot.com market, he no longer had the financial resources to keep the family protected from the consequences of his unemployment; he had only been with the company for two months, so there was to be no substantial redundancy payment; he would have to freeze his pension contributions; the girls were just about to go back to Alleyn’s for the start of the autumn term, and he knew that if his unemployment was to be long term, there was no way that he could keep them at the school; it was the start of Millie’s sixth form year, so what would be least disruptive to her? Maybe it would be better to move them both to Clapham High School now, rather than halfway through Millie’s A-level course.

He couldn’t afford to lose the house, either. That was the bedrock of security for his family. At least he had made it a priority to pay off the mortgage, but he couldn’t allow the bank to treat it as part of his estate if he were to go completely broke. It would be better to put it immediately into Jackie’s name.

And what about Jackie? She was being supportive, but she had other things to think about now, especially with this new high-powered job with Rebecca Tal-worth. He knew that he disturbed her every time he got out of bed. She would make that aggravated clicking noise with her tongue and turn over to face away from him. They never used to bicker, but it had now become almost a daily occurrence. But he couldn’t blame her for that. After all, it was he who had blown away the family’s security on a bad investment, and it was he who had been like a bear with a sore head ever since he had lost his job, and everyone in the household had been affected by it.